This document discusses the benefits of the Trinity English language exams. It argues that Trinity exams: 1) Develop students' language skills while also encouraging 21st century skills like collaboration, communication, problem-solving and creativity through exam tasks. 2) Assess real communicative ability and encourage learning by rewarding excellence and effort. 3) Support individualized learning and development by basing exams on student-generated content and presentations. The document contends that Trinity exams prepare students for an uncertain future job market by focusing on soft skills that are more important for long-term success than technical knowledge alone.

1. Barry Lynam
National Consultant Spain & Portugal
Senior Consultant (Operations)
Europe, Middle East, Africa
Welcome

2. Trinity: not ‘just another English exam’.
Objectives:
• Help your students develop their language skills
• Encourage development of their 21C skills
• Make the language individually relevant and highly motivational
• Create positive washback in your classes
• Discover the wider educational value of an exam that bases itself
on the individual

3. What exam to choose? One which
• Assesses what it says it will assess
• Is a reliable measure of real communicative ability
• Encourages learning and supports teaching
• Is fair, but also practical to do
• Reports on the learning process so teachers can see
strengths and remedy/anticipate problem areas
• Follows the centre’s educational philosophy
• Rewards excellence – but also recognises the efforts of
the less able

4. …and also…
• Allows the student to develop as an individual
• Encourages the student as a person via active
development of social skills
• Permits the teacher to be an educator, not merely
a ‘data-inputter’
• Makes the student think a) what he wants to
communicate b) how best to do it, and c) learn
and practice how to do it in English
• Develops self-confidence to speak in public

5. 15
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32
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English language skills
Specific work related skills
Academic qualifications
Ability to work in a team
Training received in previous roles
An ability to learn and develop
Interpersonal skills
Relevant previous experience
Spoken communications skills
Professional business behaviour
Assertiveness
Cross-cultural understanding
Written communications skills
Hard working
Personality fit with colleagues and company
Integrity/honesty
Professional qualifications
Creativity/innovation
Negotiation skills
Staff management skills
Commitment to the role
Multi-tasking
Leadership skills
Employment: the most difficult
characteristics to find in recruitment
= examples of
21C skills

6. Stanford Research Institute +
Carnegie Mellon Foundation:
• 75% of long term professional
success depends on 21C
abilities
• 25% of long-term professional
success depends on technical
knowledge
Important or merely ‘pretty’?

7. 67% of Senior Executives say
that 21C abilities are the
principal characteristic that
most job candidates are
lacking
Important or merely ‘pretty’?

8. But let’s think a bit more
• Children starting school in 2013 can leave to work in
in 2023, and retire in…….2074!
• Traditional education CANNOT prepare them for this
– we don’t even know what life will be like in 2015!
• Most will work in jobs that do not yet exist!
• Experts like Sir Ken Robinson, Erin McKean, Dave
Eggers, Alan Kay et al, suggest we must change –
cf. www.ted.com

9. What do they tell us?
• Linear education from mini-universities to
university is no longer valid – a degree no longer
guarantees a job, you need a Master/PhD
• We need individualised learning based on multiple
intelligences
• Very difficult with the current system, but we can
overcome some deficiencies

10. A unique impact
We can help develop students as individuals, budding experts in
• Collaboration/cooperation
• Communication
• Problem-solving
• Self-confidence
• Self-discpline
• Critical thinking
• Creativity
The basic
‘soft’ skills
for the 21st
century

11. How? Through unique tasks eg the Topic
• Think of, and decide on, the topic (creativity)
• Consider your point of view (self-confidence)
• Consider the audience (critical thinking)
• Research and edit the necessary information to fit the time
available (problem-solving)
• Order the information (communication)
• Develop the topic before the exam (self-discipline)
• Learn to practice with classmates (collaboration/cooperation)

12. How else?
• Learning to analyse task(s) required
• Learning to ask and answer questions (CEFR!)
• Learning to evaluate and criticise (= improve) one’s own and
others’ work
• Learning to present and defend arguments/opinions (Bologna!)
• Learning to present to a total stranger, resident outside the
country
And all this because of an English exam!

13. Bloom’s taxonomy (Overbaugh 2009)

14. Bloom’s learning process
• Before you can understand a concept you must remember
it
• Before you can apply a concept you must understand it
• Before you can analyse it you must be able to apply it
• Before you can evaluate its impact you must have analysed
it
• Before being able to create you must have remembered,
understood, applied, analysed and evaluated

15. Is there anything else?
The topic is obligatory from A2.2, but there are other 21C skill tasks in
our oral (GESE) and multi-competence exams (ISE)
• General unscripted conversation (from pre-A1)
• Obligation to ask questions (from A2)
• Reading into writing = integrating skills since 2002 (from A2)
• Portfolio writing = writing as a process (from A2)
• The interactive task – led by the candidate (from B2)
• Uninterrupted presentation + follow-up discussion (from C1)

16. Not ‘just another exam’
Trinity: English exams that also encourage
non-linguistic abilities which
• Are timeless – for now and the future
• Are NOT mere mechanical exercises
• Create educated people: interested in what
surrounds them and interesting for others
• Add value to CVs
• Permit the teacher to teach AND educate

17. Without forgetting motivation
• What motivates us most as students (and parents)?
Achieving success
• Trinity results? Fantastic, thanks. Over 94% of
passes in grades 1 to 6, and over 75% at grade 12!
• It’s easy then? No – a ‘Pass’ requires the equivalent
of 65%
• Please explain more. There are 12 GESE grades and
5 ISE levels, so there is an exam as an achievable
challenge for each student – even twins!

18. Back to our objectives
• Help your students develop their language skills – as now 
• Encourage development of their 21C skills – via classroom and
exam tasks reflecting real life that require exactly these skills
• Make the language individually relevant and highly motivational
– via candidate-generated content
• Create positive washback in your classes – via candidate-centred
content
• This is the wider educational value of an exam that bases itself
on the individual

19. Thanks
www.trinitycollege.co.uk/esol