Why City & Guilds

ESOL/IESOL QUALIFICATIONS

• City & Guilds examinations are on-demand and exam-dates are decided by the centre
• City & Guilds IEQs ensure the integrity of external assessment of a candidate’s language performance at a standard level accepted internationally and across Europe
• The language examinations are taken on the premises of the language teaching institution (e.g. university) after it becomes a quality assured City & Guilds approved centre with a right to offer the qualifications
• Learners can sit for the examination with their own teachers, trained to be interlocutors by City & Guilds support materials (thereby facilitating maximum knowledge performance of learners)
• The language examinations, both written and spoken, are assessed in the UK, by professional markers who focus on meaning transfer rather than on specific knowledge of underlying grammar
• City & Guilds International English Qualifications have been developed on the basis of genuine needs of employment contexts and real-life situations with true emphasis on learners’ communicative skills
• The written exam lasts for about 2.5 hours, the spoken exam takes usually 15 minutes, so it is very user friendly
• Written and spoken examinations can be taken independently of each other at the candidates’ and/or the centre’s convenience (once both certificates are obtained, the International ESOL Diploma can automatically be issued free of charge)
• City & Guilds provides feedback about each candidate’s performance on an individual basis
• City & Guilds IEQs are an internationally recognised standard of measuring communicative competencies in the ability to use English language fro communication
• Candidates sitting for the examination are allowed to use monolingual dictionaries during the test