The university language centre as an open-badge issuer: New directions in ESP assessment and accreditation

1.1 What is an open badge?

Open Badges are online records of achievement which document field-specific, soft and technical skills (see, for example, All4Ed and Mozilla Foundation 2013). They consist of a visual image and a set of embedded metadata which indicate the skill gained or objective reached, the learning process and method of assessment and provide information about the issuer. They are endorsed by the institution which issues them and are recognized on an international level. The information packaged within the badge image file is provided in an open source format and can be shared on social media platforms such as Linkedin, as part of an online e-portfolio, as a link on an electronic file of the candidate’s CV, and on the platform which hosts the Badge.

Open Badges were first introduced by the Mozilla Foundation with funding from the MacArthur Foundation in the wake of the publication of the 2010 seminal white paper “Open Badges for Lifelong Learning” prepared by Erin Knight and collaborators from the MacArthur Foundation, Peer2Peer University and following the fourth Digital Media and Learning Competition of 2011. In the following years, the Open Badges Technical Specification 1.1 was drawn up, standardising the technical features and the structure of the metadata for all Open Badges.^[1]

1.2 Open badges in Italian universities

In Italy, Open Badges are hosted on the Bestr platform (www.bestr.it) which was developed by Cineca, a non-profit consortium, made up of 70 Italian universities, four national research centres, and the Ministry of Universities and Research (MIUR) which aims to support the Italian scientific community through supercomputing and scientific visualization tools. Badges are displayed in an open-source format which is compatible with all platforms that issue and display Open Badges in accordance with Mozilla’s technical specifications. The Bestr platform defines itself as “the meeting point between learners, employers and trainers” – seeking to bridge the gap between formal and informal training, individual trainee and prospective employees. The electronic badge links the prospective employer back to the Bestr website and is therefore much more reliable than a simple scan or photocopy of the certification. Although Open Badges are relatively new, they are rapidly gaining ground within the Italian university system. In June 2018, the CRUI (Council of Italian University Rectors), as part of the “Digital University” initiative, declared Open Badges and the Bestr platform a national point of reference for skills certification.^[2] To date, 15% of Italian universities have issued Open Badges, accounting for 70% of the Badges on Bestr. These badges are gaining an ever-increasing level of institutional recognition, with 23% being eligible for university credits.^[3] Looking to the future, the universities of Padua and Milan Bicocca have already introduced fully digitalized degree certificates^[4] on the Bestr platform, using the Blockcerts standard.^[5]

We will now proceed to consider why this kind of certification is particularly suited to ESP training at a university level.

2.1 Accrediting previously uncertified skills and experiences

Among the “value propositions offered by Open Badges for Learners” that Devedzic and Jovanovic, list (2015: 606), we find “recognition of otherwise under- or non-recognised skills and prior learning”. With reference to employer advantages, they further add that badges supplement “traditional certification of skill and knowledge mastery”, facilitating a “more informed narrowing [of] the pool of job applicants” (610). In a similar vein, when listing the “potential uses” of badges in a formal education environment, hypothesizes the situation of a “nursing student” who

is required to learn particular clinical skills, but on completion of the course, it becomes difficult to extract the specific skills learned from the overall grade on the transcript. Open Badges would make it possible for the student to build a public profile to highlight the specific skills he acquired during the module.

The situation of the newly qualified nurse has many analogies with that of a student needing to document specialized ESP training and knowledge. As well as holding a First Certificate or similar, such a job candidate may well have acquired specific language skills for use in a clinical context by attending an ESP course at the university. If this newly qualified professional enters the job market (s)he will find it hard to exploit this latter experience, since it will not be documented in any form of official certificate and the description of such activities in university transcripts tends to be rather vague. For example, at the Turin University Language Centre we currently teach ESP courses for students in social work, agriculture, veterinary science and primary education. All four of these carefully-designed, field-specific courses appear on the students’ academic transcripts under the single heading of “Lingua inglese”. There is, therefore, no way for prospective employers to differentiate students who have been trained in the specific language skills required for the job from those who simply hold a certificate in general English at a given level.

Whereas a selection of broadly recognized certifications of competence in general English is available, the range of specialized language accreditations currently on the market is very limited. Moreover, the existing specialized certifications are never quite specific enough. The Cambridge BEC (Business English Certificate) exams, for example, certify competence in business English at three levels (B1, B2 and C1).^[6] However, “business English” has arguably become too broad an umbrella term to cover the vast range of language needs emerging in the commercial private sector. The “business English” required by an administrative worker in a publishing company is very different from what might be needed by an IT expert or an accountant. Another issue of interest for the present study is the extent to which the language covered by these kinds of courses converges with and diverges from the English language needs of a public sector administrative worker. Again, while the “academic English” competences accredited through the IELTS Academic text might be sufficient for an undergraduate student preparing for a period of study in an English-speaking country, it would hardly meet the needs of a doctoral student preparing to speak at an international conference or to submit a paper to a peer-reviewed journal.

The detailed metadata provided through the Open Badge format makes it easier to document previously uncharted areas of language learning, providing detailed descriptions of highly specialized training experiences. This also means that Open Badges are able to document skills which are vital for effective ESP performance, but which are not always easy to demonstrate and record.

2.2 Recognising soft and paralinguistic skills

The metadata also provide a useful documentation of soft and paralinguistic skills, which are far harder to quantify through traditional forms of assessment and certification. This is another feature which renders Open Badges particularly suitable for ESP and EAP. Effective professional communication in English requires much more than the easily quantifiable language skills that can be documented in a conventional certificate or a CEFR level. For successful communication during a business meeting, academic conference or lecture, lexical, grammatical and phonological proficiency alone will not suffice. The speaker or professional will also require various “soft skills”: the intangible, non-technical, personality-specific skills that determine one’s strengths as a leader, facilitator, mediator, and negotiator (Robles 2012, 457). Kic-Drgas (2018: 28) presents a trichotomy of soft skill functions, dividing them into “behavioural, cognitive and motivational” categories, for which she provides the following definitions:

The behavioral aspect studies the patterns of behavior of individuals facing certain situations and the simultaneous reaction of the audience towards the communicative measures taken, especially when dealing with a given task. The cognitive dimension can be characterized as the ability to analyze a given situation and work out an accurate interpersonal strategy – frequently understood as emotional intelligence. The motivational aspect highlights the meaning of individual features (like the ability to raise an interpersonal challenge in a communicative situation) that determine flawless communication.

All three of these skill sets would be vitally important for a future professional preparing to teach, interview clients, give a presentation or participate in a meeting in English. For example, EMI lecturers will need to know how to respond spontaneously to questions and verbal or non-verbal feedback from students (behavioural aspect). They will require intercultural awareness^[7] and sensitivity to interpret this feedback correctly and to prepare suitable teaching materials (cognitive aspect) and the communicative panache (motivational aspect) necessary to transmit their knowledge effectively, engaging their students’ attention. Again, a social worker seeking to mediate between asylum seekers and service providers will need to be responsive (behavioural aspect), empathetic and culturally sensitive (cognitive aspect) and able to adopt an appropriate manner (motivational aspect).

2.3 Fostering a “learner-centered perspective”

Electronic micro-credentials have the further advantage of placing the learner at the centre of the learning process, inasmuch as they are able to reflect the precise professional needs of relatively small sub-sections of the working population and also allow for more ongoing assessment and a greater flexibility in the type of tasks being assessed. Because of their more descriptive nature, badges can document activities such as role-plays and drama, micro-teaching simulations and research projects. These activities enable students to foreground, share and benefit from their existing knowledge of the professional field, thus becoming active protagonists in the learning process. The language teacher is no longer the only expert in the room, since students also have invaluable knowledge to share with the class. Independent and group field-specific activities such as these empower the course participants and break down traditional classroom hierarchies that can cause resentment, especially among adult professional students.

This re-empowerment of the students is beneficial, since undergraduate and graduate students in non-language departments are often somewhat resentful of the compulsory language modules on their syllabi. Similarly, for university teaching and administrative staff, EMI or ESP training courses are often an unwelcome hurdle on their path to career advancement. For these students, then, these courses are often seen as an unwelcome external imposition placing them at a disadvantage. Some even go so far as to refer to their non-elective English modules/training courses as an example of cultural imperialism,^[8] resenting the fact that the cultural-political hegemony of Anglo Saxon culture resulted in their being forced to study in a language in which they were not at their ease – in a silencing of their own authentic voices.

In these kinds of ESP programmes, the students are no longer seen as passive receptacles for the teacher’s expertise but rather become agents – an invaluable resource for the successful functioning of the lesson with expertise of their own.

2.4 Scaffolding a personalised learning pathway

As micro-credentials documenting relatively short training periods in highly specific areas, badges are easy to mix-and-match in accordance with the individual learner’s educational and career path. Ultimately the individual’s collection of badges and their chronology provides a useful map of their educational and professional identity and its development. This quality is, once again, particularly suitable for developing ESP skills. The classic progression from beginner to intermediate to advanced language courses has no correlation with developments elsewhere in the learner’s career. In a university context, the passage from an ESP badge at undergraduate level to an EAP badge as a postgraduate and, perhaps, an EMI qualification upon undertaking an academic teaching career can, by contrast, be contextualized as an organic part of the individual’s overall development. Similarly, in combination with badges documenting training in specific clinical or IT skills as part of a job candidate’s e-portfolio, an ESP badge would constitute an integral part of the learner’s professional identity.

2.5 Blending the global with the “glocal”

An Open Badge is an internationally standardized credential awarded and designed by local providers, who tailor their badges to meet specific local needs. As such, it is a peculiarly “glocal” form of accreditation. We would argue that “glocality” of perspective is increasingly important in the field of ESP. While learners need to be able to display their learning experiences on international platforms, using a common language, it is important for them not to lose sight of the specific characteristics of professional activities at a local level.

Considering, for example, the training offered at Turin University in “English for the Social Services”, it is worth noting that these courses cater for students training to be “educatori professionali” – a profession which falls under the umbrella definition of “social work” but has no direct equivalent in the English-speaking world. A standardized, international course in English for social work would be of limited use to such students since it would lack the contrastive perspective necessary to allow course participants to locate their own professional world in relation to the working situations and profiles being described. It would not help them fine-tune their language in such a way as to be able to describe their own activities adequately.

For EMI, again, a “one-size-fits-all” globalized qualification would not constitute an adequate response to the needs of lecturers working in different national contexts. While intercultural transparency is an important facet of effective EMI practice and certain methodological approaches are appropriate for EMI in general, it would be a pity if the spread of EMI led to a bland McDonald’s-style standardization of the university experience for international students.

2.6 Creating a learning community

From the scouting movement onwards, badges have been signs not only of accomplishment but also of belonging.^[9] As we have already argued, Open Badges are uniquely suited to collaborative, learner-driven educational programmes. These forms of learning are commonly associated with the idea of the classroom or course as a “learning community”, where students and teachers share agency, are interdependent and pursue common goals as they construct knowledge together (Kemp 2010; Spencer 2019; Tinto 2003). Learning communities are by nature multidisciplinary, since they tie different areas of academic experience together. In Tinto’s words (2003: 1):

Despite recent innovations, it remains the case that most students experience universities as isolated learners whose learning is disconnected from that of others. They continue to engage in solo performance and demonstration in what remains a largely show-and-tell learning environment. The experience of learning in higher education is, for most students, still very much a “spectator sport” in which faculty talk dominates and where there are few active student participants. Just as importantly, students typically take courses as detached, individual units, one course separated from another in both content and peer group, one set of understandings unrelated in any intentional fashion to what is learned in other courses.

Learning communities seek to counter student disconnection on three fronts: between learners and teacher, learners and each other and between different disciplinary settings. They foster a sense of collegiate belonging and worth, which is valuable to the single course of studies and to the university as a whole and is also highly transferable to the world of work.

3.1 The “glocality” of the language centre

Thanks in part to the NULTE (Network of University Language Testers in Europe) programme, launched and supported by CercleS, certificates issued by university language centres are frequently recognized internationally by higher education institutions. For example, many host universities for outgoing Erasmus students or postgraduates engaging in international programmes such as the German DAAD will accept certifications from the university language centre as an alternative to international certificates such as Cambridge, TOEFL or IELTS. At the same time, the individual university is a local entity, situated in its own unique national and civic context and able to recognize the specific needs of its own student body and staff. As such it is the ideal issuer for such a “glocalised” qualification as the Open Badge.

3.2 Open badges at the Turin University Language Centre

3.3 Certificate of competence in academic writing and presentation skills (B2 and C1)

Turin University Language Centre teaches courses in “Academic Writing and Presentation Skills” to two distinct types of group. Firstly, there are mono-disciplinary groups of doctoral students from the various doctoral schools of the university. Secondly, there are multidisciplinary groups of individuals at all stages of their academic career, from doctoral student to full professor, who sign up to attend the courses made available on the centre’s regular course schedule. In general, these courses, which include a great deal of group-work, peer correction and self-assessment, encourage teamwork as well as intercultural and interlinguistic sensitivity. The latter set of groups, are also particularly exemplary of the university language centre as a learning community, since they encourage participants to pursue shared goals, breaking down traditional professional and disciplinary boundaries.

One of the course activities provides us with an especially pertinent example. After studying paragraphing and the use and positioning of topic sentences, course participants are asked to work in groups that are as multidisciplinary as possible (mixing humanities and sciences) and to carry out a comparative structural analysis of academic papers of particular relevance to their individual research projects. Their brief is as follows:

Select an article, written by a native speaker of English and published in an international peer-reviewed journal, which particularly pertinent to your own research. Form multidisciplinary groups of three or four with your colleagues then compare your articles, considering the following points:

Sections

Are they the same in all the articles (consider the differences between sciences and humanities and different scientific disciplines)? Are there sub-sections with sub-titles? How long are the sections? Why? How is information distributed between the sections? Is this clear (abstract, introduction, results, discussion)?

Paragraphs

How many per section? Long/short. Where is the topic sentence? (introductory/concluding sentence/sandwich). Is this the same throughout the paper? Can topic sentences always be clearly recognised? Is there a clear, logical division between paragraphs?

Footnotes and endnotes

Content. Are they necessary? Are they a sign of poor structure?

Appendices, Tables, Figures, Images

Where are they located? Is their function clear? (Spencer 2018: 31).

Here, course participants are encouraged to approach authoritative texts from a new critical perspective, considering the relation of structure to content. They are also required to consider how disciplinary differences affect the structure of academic discourse. Finally, working together with other academics with whom they would very probably not otherwise come into contact, they are asked to pursue a shared learning goal, structuring their own presentation on the basis of their findings.

Full details of the Badge are available below (Appendix 5.1). We would stress that the two particularly salient features of the course of study here are the extent to which the content of the final assessment is centred on the participant’s own research interests and the focus on intercultural and interlinguistic concerns. The presentation and example of academic writing, which are presented as the “end product” of all the course activities, are on topics of the candidate’s choice. This means that the course as a whole is driven by the participants’ own professional and academic goals. Secondly, the course focuses a great deal on L1 interference – a factor that EAP textbooks written for an international audience seldom take into account. The course incorporates exercises on the translation of sentences taken from academic and scientific texts which illustrate specific lexical, grammatical and syntactical areas of potential language interference. The modules on pronunciation and word stress also have a contrastive emphasis. Although the use of translation in the EFL classroom fell from favour for a long period following the decline of the Grammar-Translation method in the mid-twentieth century, there is a growing body of research which suggests that translation does indeed have a legitimate place in modern language learning.^[10] Indeed, Atkinson (1993: 53) stresses that “Translation forces learners to think carefully about meaning, not just to manipulate forms in a way that many ‘mechanical’ grammar exercises do”. It allows learners to think comparatively. When students do translation activities they have to compare their L1 with English. This can help them become more aware of the differences between the two languages and avoid making all sorts of “typical” mistakes common to their L1 group.

Translation, then, improves students’ verbal and cognitive agility and adaptability in forcing them to adapt the structures of one language in order to express meanings found in another. It also helps to resolve linguistic errors and stylistic inadequacies resulting from L1 interference. It encourages sensitivity to linguistic differences and, often, to the cultural differences which lie behind them. The combination of hard and soft skills acquired through this kind of learning process are particularly able to equip these learners to bring their own scientific and academic culture into dialogue with those of other scholars in an international context. Being issued by a local institution but recognized on an international level, the Open Badge naturally lends itself to the accreditation of this kind of learning process.

3.4 Certificate of competence in EMI (B2 and C1)

EMI courses at Turin University Language Centre again fall into two distinct categories: firstly, there are courses arranged on demand for mono-disciplinary groups of lecturers from a single department; secondly, there are courses which form part of our regular programme of courses and which are attended by members of teaching staff from across the university. Moreover, these latter courses represent a further example of the university language centre functioning as a learning community, where they bring together scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds.

The embedded description for the “Certificate of Competence in EMI” is included in the Appendix below (Section 5.2). In this course, once again, the themes of intercultural communication and language awareness are key. For example, the methodological presentations on teaching core terminology are prepared as a follow-up to language modules focusing on language interference and pronunciation. Throughout the course, the lecturers are encouraged to reflect on the extent to which successful achievement of academic goals related to their discipline can be differentiated from the achievement of specific language goals. Although EMI hypothetically differs from CLIL inasmuch as it has no specific language learning objectives, these activities demonstrate how language interference can obstruct effective scientific communication in both directions. They are ultimately encouraged to consider whether and to what extent they should be practising what Moncada-Comas and Block (2019) refer to as a “CLIL-ised EMI.”

When considering issues such as course structure and organisation and, more generally, intercultural communication, the course participants are encouraged to consider the extent to which their academic content can or should be made to fit into the rhetorical and compositional structures characteristic of British or American teaching practice (see Kaplan 1966). For some subjects, where most of the literature is published in English, such a passage is straightforward. For others, such as constitutional law or many branches of philosophy, it is not. Once more, this Open Badge programme asks course participants to approach communication in a globalised world from the perspective of localised needs and values.

3.5 Certificate of competence in English for administrative purposes (A2, B1 and B2)

Considering the ever-growing number of international students and partnerships, there is an increasing need for the administrative staff at all levels and in all areas of Italian universities to be competent in English. Yet the language needs of university administrative staff are not really met by any existing ESP material. The language required for the university administration falls somewhere between the categories of business and legal English. Course materials in English for educational purposes tend to focus on a student or a teacher perspective and are more likely to focus on primary and secondary education than on the university.

3.6 Certificate of competence in English for the social services (B1 and B2)

The Turin University Language Centre has run the three credit English language programme for the degree course in “Educazione professionale” since 2004 and a coursebook entitled English for the Social Services(Damascelli and Spencer 2005) was published. As mentioned above, the Italian profession of “educatore professionale” has no direct equivalent in the English-speaking world, although it would fall under the broad field of social work. In general, and in contrast to the other more purely medical professions, social work is a field for which very little ESP material has been published. At the Turin University Language Centre a significant commitment has been made to developing the syllabus and keeping it up to date.

The inclusion of the Open Badge certification has proved a useful extra motivator for the students for a number of reasons. Firstly, the certification is tiered by CEFR levels, with students being awarded a B1 or B2 level of the badge. This is useful for the more advanced students as the university examination, with its B1 pass threshold, did not afford sufficient recognition to students with a higher language level. Since the introduction of the Badge, students have been divided into more or less homogeneous groups on the basis of the certification which they might be expected to obtain. This makes for a more stimulating course for more advanced students without putting undue pressure on weaker candidates.

Secondly, as already mentioned, the Badge provides detailed documentation which is not provided by university transcripts, where we simply find the generic heading “Lingua inglese” and the relatively low number of credits. This adds value to the course, which might otherwise be considered little more than a dull formality by students. The badge attests to a specifically professional form of linguistic and communicative competence and, as part of an e-portfolio or on social media sites such as Linkedin, may well prove a useful asset upon entry into the job market.

Furthermore, the capacity of electronic micro credentials to document and value practical interactive activities and to empower students, making them protagonists in their own learning process, is particularly important in a non-elective module designed for students who have chosen a very practical, hands-on profession centred on human relationships and communication. The course work activity focusing on the use of drama in peer education, already discussed above, is always a high spot of the course.^[11] In the case of these students, not only the English module, but also the university degree programme as a whole is at risk of feeling like an imposition since until 2002 it was possible to practise this profession with a high-school diploma. To date, a certain proportion of course participants continue to be rather unwilling mature students, who have been forced to attend the university course in order to continue practising a profession in which they already have considerable experience and expertise.

For this most recent addition to our collection of badges, we have chosen to add a particularly detailed description in order to foreground the unique character of the training undertaken (See Appendix 5.4). The various course modules cover all the main areas of social work in which the Italian “educatori professionali” are likely to practise. Although the “Badge” title is designed for an international audience, referring to the “social services” in general, the various research and drama components of the course enable students to give voice to their own specific field of social work – “educazione professionale.” These activities allow students to approach the various themes in the textbook from the perspective of their own future career, honing in on specific pedagogical-rehabilitative initiatives. The use of digital credentials means that it is also possible for students to attach links to examples of their coursework, which is preserved online on the Language Centre’s Moodle platform, to their online CV or digital portfolio.