4 ms·

There are plenty of tests that achieve this. My university got a lot of international candidates whose first language wasn't English and who hadn't been educat

There are plenty of tests that achieve this. My university got a lot of international candidates whose first language wasn't English and who hadn't been educated in English up until that point. As a result, they established a process to assess your fluency so they could accommodate you with additional training on English to ensure you'd be successful. https://uwaterloo.ca/future-students/admissions/english-language-requirements https://uwaterloo.ca/future-students/admissions/english-lang... lists 6 standardized tests that prospective students could use to demonstrate proficiency.

foldr 8y ago
The issue is the term "native", not requiring fluency in a given language. None of those tests will certify you as having "native" fluency in English.
- cldellow 8y ago
  Yes, I should have been more detailed in my response. You're right that all of them give a quantative score, not a qualitative score like "native". There are qualitative scales where one of the labels is "native fluency". For example, the Interagency Language Roundtable has level 5 (native/bilingual fluency) which means the speaker has "complete fluency in the language, such that speech on all levels is fully accepted by educated native speakers in all of its features, including breadth of vocabulary and idiom, colloquialisms, and pertinent cultural references". Other people have devised concordances that map the quantitative scores from things like TOEFL onto the ILR labels. ILR level 5 is a very high bar, though, as you point out elsewhere. It is unlikely that Facet truly needs someone at that level, they'd most likely be fine with level 4 or level 3 speakers. But reaaaaaaaallllly, I suspect we're all ironically missing the point of the communication. On the one hand, we can construe it narrowly and it may be technically flawed. On the other hand, it's marketing copy and I suspect most readers treat it informally, especially since their audience is entrepreneurial people who want to do contract work -- a pool who is likely to ignore the strict letter of the requirement and apply anyway.
  - foldr 8y ago
    I don't think it's correct to refer to a job ad as "marketing copy". A job ad should be clear, especially with regard to potentially discriminatory requirements.

foldr 8y ago

The issue is the term "native", not requiring fluency in a given language. None of those tests will certify you as having "native" fluency in English.

cldellow 8y ago
Yes, I should have been more detailed in my response. You're right that all of them give a quantative score, not a qualitative score like "native". There are qualitative scales where one of the labels is "native fluency". For example, the Interagency Language Roundtable has level 5 (native/bilingual fluency) which means the speaker has "complete fluency in the language, such that speech on all levels is fully accepted by educated native speakers in all of its features, including breadth of vocabulary and idiom, colloquialisms, and pertinent cultural references". Other people have devised concordances that map the quantitative scores from things like TOEFL onto the ILR labels. ILR level 5 is a very high bar, though, as you point out elsewhere. It is unlikely that Facet truly needs someone at that level, they'd most likely be fine with level 4 or level 3 speakers. But reaaaaaaaallllly, I suspect we're all ironically missing the point of the communication. On the one hand, we can construe it narrowly and it may be technically flawed. On the other hand, it's marketing copy and I suspect most readers treat it informally, especially since their audience is entrepreneurial people who want to do contract work -- a pool who is likely to ignore the strict letter of the requirement and apply anyway.
- foldr 8y ago
  I don't think it's correct to refer to a job ad as "marketing copy". A job ad should be clear, especially with regard to potentially discriminatory requirements.