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The
project entitled “Foreign Language
Examination Battery and
Certification System” (with the
Greek acronym SAPiG) organized
andcontributed to the initial
development of the KPG exam system.
It extends and builds on the
products and services produced as a
result of another funded project
(with the Greek acronym SAPiG),
which was completed in 2008.
The
SAPiG project, co-funded by the
European Social Fund and the Greek
state from early 2007 to the end of
2008, was implemented by the
University of Athens in
collaboration with the Aristotle
University of Thessaloniki and the
Special Office for Actions in
Education of the Ministry of
Education.
At the
University of Athens, SAPiG was
realized by the Research Centre for
English Language Teaching, Testing
and Assessment of the Faculty of
English Studies (http://rcel.enl.uoa.gr).
For the execution of the various
actions more than 150 experts,
scholars and research assistants
were employed and about 5.000
language teachers were trained as
examiners and script raters.
The aim of the project implemented by the
University of Athens was the development
of a national examination system for the five
most popular foreign languages in Greece,
i.e. English, French, German, Italian and
Spanish. The examination system uses the 6 level
scale of language competence of the Council
of Europe. Successful test-takers can end up
being certified for their language competence at
one of the following levels: Á1, Á2, Â1 Â2, C1 and
C2. The examination
system’s starting
point was the descriptors of the Common
European Framework of Reference for Languages, but
through the project level descriptors were
calibrated and benchmarked.
The different actions carried out resulted in
the development of services, tools, and
publications among which are the following:
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Detailed
specifications for the examination system
and for different levels of language
competence
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Exam banks with
texts, audio and visual material and tests
with validated and benchmarked test items
and tasks
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Test papers for
all levels of language competence
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Evaluation
criteria and scoring grids minimizing
subjective assessment of open ended tasks
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Search engine
with corpora of 10.000 test-taker scripts
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Linguistic
description of KPG test tasks and task
analysis engine
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A tool for KPG
item analysis
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Recommendations
for the adaptation of the KPG test papers to
candidates with special learning needs and
with different disabilities
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Script evaluator
materials
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Examiner
training materials
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Tester and test
preparation materials
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Publications on
English language testing and assessment
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Published
research results on issues such as KPG test-taking
strategies, KPG script raters’ inter-rater
reliability, KPG candidates’ attitudes to
the KPG exam in English (e.g. mediation) etc..
For information in Greek, click here.
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