Certificate of English Communicative Ability

I walked past the secretary earlier and she was busy typing names for the “Certificate of English Communicative Ability”. I personally helped Romanize the names, and I had to do it for all the students who got 120 and over out of 200. It seems these students are classified in the “Top Qualification” bracket.

120 is part of the top bracket? I hope I was mistaken. I know these students. In the middle school third grade there are about 10 students, max who can actually get their point across. I include the broken English in this. There are about 25 more who can, with single words, gestures and a lot of guessing on my part, tell me something that makes no sense. Even the work that they study in my class normally does in one ear and out the other. My favourite example is when I ask many students “What is most important to you?” in a test nogal, they answer with “YES!” Sure, those students didn’t get in to that top bracket, but I didn’t see any 0 or 10, or even 20 point scores.

I know we don’t want the students to be discouraged from learning English, but do we really want them to live under the delusion that they can actually speak the language? Even worse, do we want to give them the ammunition to give potential employees and schools the impression that they can communicate in English?

I didn’t say anything when I saw it. I went to my desk, opened my little fruit juice and finished watching more P&T.