Level of English increases amongst UAB students
The English level exams the UAB offers to its new students show that in the past four years the percentage of students with level B2 English has risen from 8% to 28%. Level B2 is the level of English the Government of Catalonia considers students must have when graduating from university.
There is nevertheless a high percentage of students who enter university without the necessary level of English.
The English level exams the UAB offers to its new students show that in the past four years the percentage of students with level B2 English has risen from 8% to 28%. Level B2 is the level of English the Government of Catalonia considers students must have when graduating from university. There is nevertheless a high percentage of students who enter university without the necessary level of English.
According to a new law passed in January of this year, “Students beginning university in or after the 2014/15 academic year must, upon completing their studies, certify their knowledge of a foreign language with a level equivalent to the level B2 of the Council of Europe's Common European Framework of Reference for Modern Languages (CEFR)”.
INSUFFICIENT LANGUAGE LEVELS
Albeit the improvement in language level amongst students entering the university, there is still much room for improvement since 35.39% of students do not have the level of a foreign language considered to be adequate when they begin university (level B1 of CEFR). In the case of the UAB, for the large majority of students this foreign language is English. In reality, a large majority (71.95%) does not have a level B2.2 knowledge of the language, which is the level needed when graduating from university.
That is why the UAB Languages Service, which created this report after analysing the results, advises students to become aware of the need to improve their knowledge of English, and recommends fostering the use of more than one language in the classroom and on campus with the aim of helping students recognise and learn other languages, in accordance with the directives of the UAB Plan for Languages.
Almost two-thirds of students who have taken the English level exam (64.6%) have a level B1 or higher knowledge of English. By levels, the largest percentage has a B2.2 level (21.39%), while four years ago (2010/11 academic year), the percentage was only of 7.12%.
COMPARISON WITH LAST YEAR'S RESULTS
When these years results are compared with those of the 2012/13 academic year, the percentages indicate that there has been a 5 percentage point rise in comparison to last year amongst students who had a minimum level of B2.2 in English. The tendency in these past four years shows a noticeable increase in the percentage of persons with a minimum level of B2 (from 8.38% in 2010/11 to 28.05% in 2013/14).
STUDENT PARTICIPATION IN THE TESTS
This year 24.07% of newly-arrived students took the level test in English. When compared to last year one can see that participation grew considerably, almost 7 percentage points. Although participation was not equal in all centres, worth highlighting are the Faculty of Education (86.97% participation) and the Faculty of Political Science and Sociology (81.91%).
THE UAB EXAM
The level test offered to new students is optional and free: this year 1,608 people, 24% of newly-arrived students to the UAB, took the exam. The exam consists of a computer test created by the UAB Languages Service and is divided into two parts:
1- Assessment of reading abilities, vocabulary, grammar, spelling and the ability to use the language in a specific context, with four texts in which 25 words are missing in each and must be filled in.
2- Multiple choice questions: these can be about grammatical issues, vocabulary, word associations, language functions or uses. The report which analysed the results recommends students to become aware of the need to improve their knowledge of English.