At the signing ceremony, from the left, are: Prof. Driekie Hay (Vice-Rector: Teaching and Learning), Prof. Albert Weideman (Head: Department of English) and Prof. Lucius Botes (Dean: Faculty of the Humanities). Photo: Supplied

The development of academic literacy tests recently took a step into the future with the formal establishment of the Inter-institutional Centre for Language Development and Assessment (ICELDA).

ICELDA, under its first executive head, Prof. Albert Weideman, Head of the Department of English at the University of the Free State (UFS), is a cooperative venture between the multilingual Universities of Pretoria, North-West, Stellenbosch and the Free State.

It is dedicated to the development of reliable state-of-the-art academic literacy tests and currently makes 32 000 tests available to partnering universities annually.

Most notably, it has produced three of the most reliable academic literacy tests in the country. These include an Academic Listening Test and the Test of Academic Literacy Levels (TALL) for undergraduate students, with reliability levels that are more than 20% above international benchmarks.

“We are even more excited about our Test of Academic Literacy for Postgraduate Students (TALPS), which is already a crucial instrument in determining the literacy levels of postgraduate students at the Universities of the Free State, Pretoria and North-West,” said Prof. Weideman.

In addition, ICELDA is currently piloting studies for language tests for financial advisors, nurses, students of disaster management, as well as police studies at Unisa.

ICELDA will also collaborate with the Centre for English Language Communication (CELC) at the National University of Singapore.

“One of the undertakings I made on my visit to Singapore a year ago was that I would assist in every way I could with the building of joint expertise with CELC in language testing,” said Prof. Weideman.

“However, our focus will remain firmly on research.”

He said his goal was to employ the surpluses generated by selling tests to provide promising students with bursaries to stimulate further study and design of academic literacy and other language tests.

By drawing more researchers into the field, Weideman said, ICELDA could provide the capacity for developing reliable language tests that South Africa had always lacked.

Media Release
Issued by: Mangaliso Radebe
Assistant Director: Media Liaison
Tel: 051 401 2828
Cell: 078 460 3320
E-mail: radebemt@ufs.ac.za  
19 March 2010