Assessing the language skills of legal English learners through internal and external testing: the experience of EFLIT candidates

In 2006 the Faculty of Law of the University of Parma (Italy) launched a postgraduate training project called EFLIT (English for Law and International Transactions) with the aim of offering professionals and graduates in the fields of Law and Economics a course combining a linguistic focus (i.e. English for Law, at B2 level of the Common European Framework of Reference) and a content focus (i.e. Law in English) in order to improve both their language and legal skills. Thanks to its unique format, EFLIT has since then developed from a local project to a national project and has obtained the official recognition of professional associations of both lawyers and chartered accountants for accreditation purposes in continuous education. This has called for a valid, reliable, standardised end-of-course test which assesses the level reached by participants and is “authentic”, i.e. reflects their real needs for English and translates their competence into actual performance. From the start participants have been encouraged to aim for the International Legal English Certificate (ILEC) by Cambridge English Language Assessment. However, only very few have attempted ILEC pre-testing and even fewer have actually taken the exam. The main reason is that the level required by ILEC (i.e. B2/C1 of the CEFR) is generally too high for the people on the EFLIT courses, giving rise to candidates’ frustration and discouragement. This study illustrates the content and format of both the in-house final exam and ILEC, compares the results obtained by candidates, and attempts to investigate the reasons underlying the mismatch also by taking into consideration less obvious factors such as candidates’ requirements, expectations, and previous exam experiences.