In order to strengthen the scientific basis of the Certificate of Language skills in French Higher Education, the CLES National Coordination is launching a call for applications with the aim of renewing its scientific committee. This call for applications is aimed at academics or assessment professionals who would like to be part of the committee and bring their expertise to the CLES certification.
The Scientific Committee, led by a university professor, will be composed of at least ten members, specialised in the fields of assessment, linguistics or foreign language acquisition. The members of the CLES Strategic Orientation Committee will be permanent guests. Representatives of the Steering Committee - and in particular the deputy directors - may also be invited as appropriate.
The CLES Scientific Committee will meet once a year, either in a French city or by videoconference. The mission expenses of its members will be covered by the CLES National Coordination. The two working languages of the Scientific Committee will be English and French.

Skills and knowledge required
Members of the scientific committee are expected to bring expertise in one or more of the areas listed below:
the Common European Framework,of References for Languages (CEFR) and the task-based approaches
formative assessment and assessment of language skills ;
distance learning and a reflexion on the uses of pedagogical engineering ;
language testing and certification in foreign languages ;
general and applied linguistics: this field of expertise will enable an exchange of views between applied linguistics and language acquisition, on the one hand, and a reflection on the language system and language in use in general (morpho-syntax, verbal interaction, etc.), on the other hand.

Missions
To be a source of proposals for concrete improvements to the test formats and the test taking methods at the three levels of CLES certification: CLES B1, CLES B2 and CLES C1;
to work in a comparative perspective in order to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the different certifications and to suggest improvements for the CLES certification;
to provide a scientific perspective to guarantee the adequacy between the CEFR level targeted by the CLES certification and the language skills of the test takers;
to evaluate the best ways of implementing a computer-assisted version of the CLES tests;
to make proposals concerning the correlation of CLES tests to the CEFR levels;
to study the possibility of assessing several CEFR levels with the same test, for example the possibility of awarding the B2 level with a test aimed at the C1 level. The Scientific Committee will highlight possible changes that this new perspective implies for the current test format;
to provide advice and proposals on the integration of an A2 level assessment.

Conditions of application:
Please send a CV and a short motivation letter to the following two email addresses before January 27th
[email protected]
[email protected]

Individual answers to all applicants will be sent by the end of February 2023 at the latest.
The CLES Scientific Committee meets once a year, in person or by videoconference. The mission expenses of the members of the Scientific Committee are covered by the CLES National Coordination. The two working languages of the Scientific Committee are English and French.

Linguistic Field(s): Applied Linguistics