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Foundation English Test

Foundation English Test has been designed by the British Council with a special focus on improving peoples’ employment prospects.

Contact the Foundation English Test team

Foundation English Test: An easy way to assess entry-level English skills

Foundation English Test is tailored to measure English proficiency, specifically in vocational settings. It streamlines the assessment process, ensuring fair evaluation for job candidates with entry-level English. It is designed and developed by the British Council and gives employers accurate and reliable results they can trust in just 48 hours.

Why Foundation English Test?

Many high-stakes English assessments cover a wide spectrum of proficiency levels, making them less suitable for candidates with basic to intermediate English skills. 

Advanced English skills aren’t needed for all jobs. Foundation English Test focuses solely on lower levels of English proficiency (A1 to B1 on the Common European Framework of Reference), offering a more accessible assessment solution for organisations. 

The Foundation English Test features:

  • reading, writing, listening, and speaking components to fully assess communication skills
  • test content that is a mixture of everyday English and English for conversational and professional environments
  • a user-friendly delivery platform for a streamlined test experience.

What types of organisations benefit from an entry-level test?

Foundation English Test caters to a range of organisations that require accurately assessing and certifying candidates with entry-level English communication skills. It serves:

Recruitment agencies and companies

Whether sourcing talent for blue-collar positions or facilitating the recruitment processes, Foundation English Test equips organisations with a reliable tool to assess and match candidates with appropriate roles, ensuring they can communicate in English at the right level.

Vocational Schools, Government Bodies, and Educational Institutions

Technical colleges, polytechnics, universities along with governmental organisations play a pivotal role in preparing individuals for the workforce. By integrating Foundation English Test into programmes, students, graduates, and jobseekers can certify they have the foundational English skills necessary for success. 

Find out which organisations use Foundation English Test across the world

 

Elevating employment prospects  

In today's competitive job market, proficiency in English can significantly enhance work prospects. Foundation English Test offers a standardized, reliable assessment of English language skills, helping you identify and recruit top talent. 

Discover how Foundation English Test can help optimise the standard of English in your organisation.

 

Get in touch to use the Foundation English Test for employability

The test format

The content of the test is a mixture of everyday English and English used in a workplace environment.  

A key element of this test is the test length – we’ve purposefully cut the overall duration to make the test more manageable. It takes 80-90 minutes to complete the test and results are available in a quick turnaround.   

However, we still test the four key language skills in enough depth to give an accurate result.

Designed, developed and delivered by the British Council, the test is delivered on a computer and has four components – Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking. It measures English proficiency from A1 to B1 on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR).  


Find out more about the test format


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