From: Andrew Mills To: Mark Upman Cc:


Karl Russell Dear Mark,


I am writing to you regarding a recent decision which has been agreed by the Faculty Board. In addition to the standard assessment which forms part of your existing EAP module, it has been decided that this year’s EAP students will also be required to complete a separate EAP test which will need to use the same grading system as one of the commercial tests which the university already accepts. I recall that some of your people are familiar with these external measures, so hopefully you’ll be able to rise to the challenge. We haven’t referred to the need for this test in students’ offer letters for the follow-on courses next year, but the university still feels that it is essential for us to use these new tests from now on. If necessary, we’ll write some new offer letters. I realize that the end of year is approaching quickly. The deadline for this new assessment is only two weeks away, but I need you and your team to work with me on this so that the expectations of the Senior Management Team are met.


Although we pushed for you to accept a number of students who didn’t technically meet the University’s standard requirements at the beginning of the session, we badly need to maintain our international student numbers, so I’m hoping that the results of your new test will not result in a smaller number of students progressing onto their degrees in the next academic year. However, if some students don’t get through, who might have been accepted last year, then so be it. We can’t afford to have students with poor English at this university.


Thanks in advance for your cooperation. All the best,


Andy Faculty Director of Academic Standards


Figure 1: An email from Andrew Mills Errors associated with the uses to which tests are put can be linked directly with damaging sociological implications and harmful repercussions. The work of Shohamy (1998, 2001) and McNamara & Roever (2006) are particularly relevant in this respect, as they warn of the power of tests and the potential harm which can be incurred. In addition,


these risks also resonate with Chapter 5: Preventing problems in EAP testing before they arise 55


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