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When Clarity and telc first conceptualised the Dynamic Placement Test, a key objective was to devise a democratic test — a computer-based level test available to schools whatever their digital setup. At the same time, we didn’t want to compromise on the technology: it needed to be a test that went well beyond multiple choice questions and gap fills. So within these constraints, the team prioritised three areas.

Can a test run on a student’s device ever be secure? What’s to stop a test taker looking up the answers on the Internet? What, in fact, does ‘secure’ mean in the context of a placement test?

Sean McDonald of telc catches up with Adrian Raper at the IATEFL Conference in Glasgow. He discusses his philosophy of testing, and the steady move from paper-based exams towards digital language assessment.

'We like your online placement test,' said the teacher at Taiwan’s Asia University, 'but with 1,000 freshers and only 20 computers, we’d be halfway through the first semester before we could even sort out our classes.' Placement tests are a chore. In most schools they...

The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) was originally developed for Europe, but the ‘can do’ statements have global application. After all, the ability to ‘understand simple technical information, such as operating instructions for everyday...