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Language Certification Testing

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WHY DO YOU NEED IT?

To certify English or Spanish Language proficiency in terms of being able to understand it and speak it in order to successfully perform your duties on the job.

WHO NEEDS TO BE LANGUAGE-CERTIFIED?

Any employee working in a bilingual (English-Spanish) environment, including law enforcement and fire department personnel, emergency medical technicians, 911 emergency operators, health care professionals, customer service, real estate, and the local tourist industry to name a few, who need to perform duties in both languages, one of which is not the native language.

WHY BE LANGUAGE-CERTIFIED?

If an employee’s or job applicant’s native language is not Spanish or English, the employer needs to be assured and have the confidence that the individual has acquired the language to the point where he or she can fully meet the job requirements using the target language.

WHY DO YOU NEED LANGUAGE CERTIFICATION TESTING?

To objectively and independently verify the Spanish or English language comprehension and speaking skills of your employees and your job applicants.

WHY THIS TEST?

It is the only test of its kind in the world that accurately measures a person’s natural linguistic competence. Our tests do not measure the conscious knowledge of the Spanish or English grammar, vocabulary for a particular job, nor reading or writing skills; they measure only the acquisition of listening comprehension and verbal fluency skills necessary to successfully perform one’s job-related duties.

WHAT IS MEASURED?

We measure an individual’s natural language acquisition of SPANISH or ENGLISH to determine if that person can fully function on the job in terms of understanding and speaking the language. We test a person’s ability to systematically associate the sounds of Spanish or English with the images they represent at the moment they are heard without translating, and without reading or writing. With a minimum score of 75% on each of the two tests, we can certify that he or she is fully capable of performing duties in Spanish or English in terms of understanding and speaking it.

The Perception-Language Acquisition Test

Perception-Language Acquisition Test evaluates an individual’s comprehension of spoken Spanish or spoken English by accurately measuring the person’s ability to correctly map the sounds of that language to the images they represent, which represents the person’s acquisition of the language.

No one can speak more than he or she can understand, so it is reasonable to measure listening comprehension ability as an indicator of a person’s speaking ability. This is the only listening comprehension assessment of its kind anywhere.

No Reading or Writing

No reading or writing

The participants do not do any reading or writing or speaking during the tests. All of the questions and possible answers are given orally by the instructor, who is a native speaker, and relate to the image created in the classroom. There are two general classes of images: those in which a situation is performed in the classroom, and those which must be created in the student’s mind from the spoken language without the benefit of actually seeing the situation performed. Each situation has a question that is related to it followed by four possible answers read aloud by the test giver; a fifth choice is available in order to avoid guessing.

Listen Carefully

The question and the possible answers are said only once, so the participant must be able to listen very carefully to what is said in order to process the spoken words into meaning at the moment they are heard, and to be able to think and analyze directly in Spanish or English without translating. There is no need to “study” for these tests because the participant either knows the language or not. They accurately measure a person’s acquisition of Spanish  or English at that point in time.

All questions and answers are directly related to the perceptions and situations created in the classroom.

All answers are quantifiable, so there is no subjective input into the final calculation.

80%

We have found that the only people who score 80% or higher on the Perception-Language Acquisition Test [PLAT] prior to taking our Natural Language Training program for Spanish or English are either native speakers or near-native speakers of the language.

75%

Our data have consistently shown that a person who scores 75% or higher does indeed speak with a reasonable degree of fluency. This means that he or she can function on the job using the Spanish or English language.

14,000

This test has been given to over 14,000 people since 1984 in English and Spanish. No one has ever scored 100% on any PLAT, including native speakers with Ph.D.s in the language.

Location

Contact Perciba International to set up a date and time for testing your personnel. Testing is done in person at your location; there is no online version.

Time

Please allow two and one-half hours total for both tests, which will be given one after the other and includes a 15-minute break in-between: Perception-Language Acquisition Test [PLAT], 40 questions, score of 75% required to pass. Advanced Perception-Language Acquisition Test, 25 questions, score of 75% required to pass

Minimum Group

Minimum group: 8 participants; maximum: 20. Up to four groups can be tested in one day. Personnel who attend can be from different organizations.

Cost

Cost is $95 per person for both tests. There are no additional charges within South Florida. For personnel outside of South Florida, please contact us for more specific pricing.

Results

Results and analyses will be sent electronically to the administration the next business day; certification documents will be sent via regular mail.

Room Setup

Testing room setup: A separate room free from outside interference is needed, approximately 15 feet by 22 feet as a minimum for 15 to 20 participants. Chairs should be comfortable, preferably with armrests, and arranged in a horseshoe configuration with a table at the open end. Table size should be at least eight feet long. If available, we could use a small whiteboard or paper flip-chart; if not, we can bring one.

Our testing program is fast, accurate and guaranteed.

Since 2004, law enforcement agencies and municipalities in Washington State rely on our testing to certify that their personnel can carry out their duties in the Spanish language.

Assessing a person’s foreign language ability cannot follow traditional expectations of what a language test should be:

A written translation test that consists of translating a document from English to Spanish, for example, does not measure how well a person can perform on the job in the spoken language. Just because a person can understand and speak Spanish does not mean he or she can accurately translate a written document to or from that language.

A speaking test in which the participants are tested orally cannot be adequately quantified, and any successful outcome depends upon the subjective mercy of the test giver who may or not be a native speaker. Dialect, “street” language, and accent would all play an important role in determining whether or not a participant passes.

A grammar test measures how well a person knows the grammar of the target language by writing sentences in a certain way, which in no way reflects how well a person can actually understand and speak Spanish or English in order to perform duties. Not all native speakers have a conscious grasp of their native grammar, although they can speak and understand it just fine.

Online testing and distance-learning testing fall into the same categories above, and are totally inadequate measures of an individual’s language competence.

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