ESB Centre News, Spring/Summer 2019 edition

ESB News

www.esbuk.org

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Message fromour Chief Executive

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Meet our new teammembers

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Take a look at our new teacher guidance books

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We’ve improved how you book with us

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ESOL learner goes into labour during assessment

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ESB learner wins medal for Ireland in Special Olympics

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Training in Italy

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Boosting oracy skills with our Speech Pathways 14

Welcome home Alison!

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Young Speakers of the Year Showcase

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‘My ESB Experience’ in 1960s Paris 20

QualificationWithdrawal Notice

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COVER PHOTO ESB Assessor Diana Lim with learners at Dulwich College Shanghai Puxi

© 2019 English Speaking Board (International) Ltd.

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Tina Renshaw, Chief Executive

Welcome to this Spring/Summer edition of ESB News. Over the last few months, we’ve been working hard to make improvements to our service, so in this edition I’d like to tell you what we’ve been doing to ensure ESB remains accessible and beneficial for learners whilst meeting regulatory compliance and standards. Firstly, I’d like to thank all of our UK centres and assessors for embracing our new way of booking which I’m thrilled to say is now fully launched. This new system was designed with you in mind, and aims to improve the way you manage your assessments with us, making your life easier. We’ve listened to you every step of the way, and our team are continually using your feedback to make our service the best it can possibly be. Please go to p.8 to see some of your feedback following the launch of My ESB. I travelled to Naples to meet our centre in Italy, ESBinItaly, alongside our Chief and Senior Examiners to standardise their Oral Examiners and to update the centre organisers to our risk and compliance policies. This work is crucial to the reputation of ESB internationally, and helps us improve the knowledge and standard of the dedicated centres, assessors and invigilators who mark our exams in Italy. (p.13)

all learners, so we have improved our catalogue of Speech resources and I am delighted to launch our new digital teacher guides, which feature videos from our very own Speech specialists. (p.6) I am proud to report that our Speech Pathways Pilot has been a resounding success in the schools who trialed the qualification earlier this year. This new and improved qualification was developed so that it provides you and your learners with more choice (p.14). I would like to take this opportunity to announce that this year’s Young Speakers of the Year Award Showcase will be held in Aintree Racecourse, ‘the home of champions’. Last year’s event was a fantastic celebration of the achievements our learners have made in their oracy skills through their ESB qualifications, and I can’t wait to meet this year’s winners at our new venue. (p.18) Our work to continually improve ESB helps to ensure we are providing the best possible products and services to both our centres and assessors. Together, we can continue raise the achievement of our learners.

Best wishes, Tina

At ESB we are committed to supporting teachers, helping them to fulfil the potential of

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With IT at the core of everything we do, Iain is responsible for the operational management of IT Services, as well as developing technology systems to support the business.

Carolanne joined the team to support Tina and SMT, as well as playing a major role as Charity Secretary, liaising with Company Directors and members, and keeping on top of all Membership and Governance responsibilities.

Charly joins the ESB Writing Team from a background in resource development and ESOL teaching. Her role will be to produce assessment materials for ESOL Skills for Life qualifications.

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Anthea’s role in our Product Development Team is to use her wealth of specialist knowledge and experience to produce, develop and review educational products and services to appeal to our Language markets.

Ayrton joined the ESB team to provide finance support to the Finance Manager and to process the sales and purchase ledgers. Ayrton also shares the responsibility of looking after the ESB offices and supporting health and safety standards.

We are delighted to welcome the new members to the ESB family. We are sure they will enjoy working for ESB, and will share our ambition to make our service as outstanding as it can be.

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We are pleased to announce that with the release of your ‘My ESB’ Hub, you can now access our new teacher guides through the ‘Online Resources’ tab. These new resources are free and are available to current ESB centres. You can also access them here: https://esbuk.org/client-only-speech- resources/ Each of our new teacher guidance books are in a FlippingBook format, allowing you to easily access them online, or you can download them into PDFs to view the books online or in print.

This package consists of five online teacher guidance books:

Pre-Entry: For ESB Early Steps 1, Early Steps 2 and the ESB Pre-Entry Level Award in Speech Entry: For ESB Entry Level Awards in Speech from Entry 1 to Entry 3 Foundation: For ESB Level 1 Awards in Speech from Grade 1 to Grade 3 Intermediate: For ESB Level 2 Certificates in in Speech from Grade 4 to Grade 5 Advanced: For ESB Level 3 Certificates in Speech from Grade 6 to Grade 8

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Each online teacher guidance book provides information about how to

prepare your learners for all aspects of the assessments. For example, the Entry book contains practical advice and suggestions about how to help learners plan and give a talk, present a short poem from memory, read aloud a chosen passage from a book and answer questions from the assessor. Similarly, the Intermediate book offers advice about encouraging learners to conduct research, construct an argument and perform poetry and drama with sensitivity. This book also advises how to actively contribute to discussions in a way that deepens the knowledge and understanding of a topic. The teacher guidance books include an extensive list of suggested level- appropriate choices for poetry, drama and prose for your learners to choose from.

Each teacher guidance book also contains a series of bite-sized videos which feature top tips and guidance from our very own Speech experts: Lulu Dale (Senior Examiner) and Alison Coates (Business Development Adviser, Speech), who talk you through some of the key criteria for each level. We are committed to supporting teachers and helping them to encourage and fulfil the potential of learners, and we hope you find these guidance books useful in your teaching.

Sample pages from the Intermediate guidance book

Sample bite-sized video from Speech specialist, Alison Coates

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‘My ESB’ has been successfully launched and we are delighted that many of you have experienced a smooth transition to the new system. There were teething troubles along the way, but we jumped to address them quickly. We’re really pleased that the hubs have delivered what we originally set out to do; to create an intuitive, simple system which is easy and quick to use. The improvements we made were built with you in mind, to ultimately make your life easier, freeing up your time for what matters most—your learners. However, our mission to make booking with us as fuss-free as possible is far from over. We are continuing to listen to your

constructive feedback, and we have been busy making further improvements to the system, and have some plans already underway for the next phase of development. Our ultimate aim continues to be to provide you, our valued customers and assessors, with the most efficient and user -friendly online booking system possible. So please keep sending us your comments and suggestions to our IT Team ( it@esbuk.org ) as they have proved invaluable to us in our quest for continual improvement.

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The new way of inputting information is much easier! Tettenhall College Prep School

The booking system seems straightforward, clear and a useful resource for looking up current progress and past results. St Mary’s School

I really like the new ESB Hub. It's so much more intuitive - well done! Jillian Evans (Assessor)

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When Hilay arrived at North London’s Stanmore College to begin her ESOL Skills for Life Entry 3 Award assessment, she gave no indication to Assessor Nicola Rose that she would be swept off to hospital to give birth as soon as her 29 minutes of assessment time were up. Said Nicola, “Hilay was a shining example of a dedicated ESB learner. She spoke clearly and accurately in her assessment, despite the fact of her baby’s imminent arrival! Her composure and tenacity were truly inspiring and I’m delighted to say that she also passed her assessment with full marks. A successful day all round!”

As soon as her assessment was over, Hilay and her husband Ibrahim rushed to Barnet Hospital to prepare for the birth of Abubakar Mohamed. Hilay says, “I was nervous doing my assessment because I knew that I did not have much time! I’m very happy that

Abubakar was born in excellent health and I passed my Entry 3 qualification!”

ESB sends its congratulations to both Hilay and Ibraham Mohamed on their new addition to the family.

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Abubakar Mohamed

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As part of her ‘Oral Communication in the Community’ qualification, Emma delivered a superb presentation to ESB Assessor, Joan Blackham, on her swimming training schedule in preparation for the big event, this year held in Abu Dhabi. Joan had quite a job keeping note of all the details of Emma’s intensive training, and was impressed by her enthusiasm which shone throughout her talk. Said Joan, “Emma delivered her talk on swimming with such passion, it really was no surprise to us all that she came out a winner!” Emma’s classmates at Belfast Metropolitan College followed the press coverage of her swimming successes, including bronze medals for back stroke and freestyle and

ultimately gold for four-length freestyle!

Fellow student, Joshua McKinnell recalls, “I was very impressed by the hard work Emma had put into preparing for her Olympic challenge. It was great to see her sporting the ‘Team Ireland’ t-shirt!” Emma was greeted with cakes and high- fives from her fellow ESB learners when she returned to Northern Ireland an Olympic champion. We recommend the mini BBC documentary ‘ The Kennedy Who Changed the World ‘ on iPlayer to find out how the Special Olympics began, and how sport can change the lives of people with learning difficulties.

Emma (middle) with her proud parents at the 2019 Special Olympics

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Emma Esposito, Director, ESBinItaly (left) and Tina Renshaw, Chief Executive, ESB International (right) (right)

Tina Renshaw (Chief Executive), Elaine Rudduck (Chief Examiner) and Christine Vasey (Senior Examiner) flew out to Naples to use their expert ESB knowledge to standardise all Oral Assessors for our centre in Italy, ESBinItaly, who promote ESOL International assessments across Italy. Together, the ESB team led 10 training sessions over five days to re-standardise all our current Oral Assessors and to train and standardise new Oral Assessors in Italy. Meanwhile, Tina spoke to the centre organisers to give an overview on how to mitigate risk and compliance in assessments. Said Elaine, “It’s a privilege to come to Italy to contribute to the professional development of our Oral Assessors who facilitate our assessments in schools throughout the country.”

Emma Esposito (Director, ESBinItaly) coordinated the training sessions, and commented, “At ESBinItaly, it is always a pleasure to catch up with our partners from ESB International, and to be reminded of the policies and standards which make the organisation so respected here in Italy.” The training of Oral Assessors is absolutely crucial to the reputation and standard set by ESB International, and we are proud of the work ESBinItaly carries out to promote our ethos in their schools.

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We have redesigned the ESB Level 2 Certificate in Speech (Grade 4). This new innovative qualification now offers four exciting ‘Pathways’ for you to choose from: Traditional - This option follows the traditional ESB format, in which learners are encouraged to give a presentation on a topic which interests them, speak a chosen poem or drama piece by heart, introduce a chosen reading and give and respond to questions from their peers. Speech to Inform – Learners who choose this option can explore a Key Stage 3 curriculum topic in a wide range of subjects. They are encouraged to review a newspaper item and give a persuasive speech about a current affairs topic. Speech to Perform – This option suits learners who are passionate about the arts, and who want to build their confidence in performing. Learners will get a chance to write and perform their own self-composition. Speech for Employability – This option supports learners who want to deepen their understanding of a particular career and prepare for themselves for the job market. This option will also provide learners with a mock job interview. To see how learners respond to our new Pathways, we piloted the qualification across 10 schools with around 310

learners. One of the centres included RECLAIM, a youth leadership and social change group in Manchester which works with youngsters in the North West. To measure the value of the Pathways, we carried out learner and teacher questionnaires and baseline tests in each school. The results were staggering; not only did the learners thoroughly enjoy their ESB assessments, but for each Pathway, learners improved their oracy skills in almost every category. In the ‘Speech to Inform’ Pathway, the number of learners who felt they possessed ‘bad’ communication skills dropped by 50% after completing the assessment. Teachers were amazed to find that after the pilot, over 20% of learners had improved from ‘not competent’ to ‘competent’ in Key Stage 3 (KS3) Spoken English requirements. These findings show how beneficial ESB is, particularly for supporting the least confident or lower- achieving learners. The ‘Speech to Perform’ Pathway saw a 14% increase in the number of learners who felt their communication skills had boosted after achieving the qualification. Following the assessment, teachers reported that a percentage of learners improved in the following KS3 criteria: discussing language and meaning, expressing own ideas and high competency in using Standard English confidently.

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The final Pathway, ’Speech for Employability’ proved a huge hit with the participating schools, with 75% of learners left feeling their communication skills were good or very good—an incredible improvement from only 25% before the assessment took place. Similarly, the percentage of learners who felt their communication skills were poor dropped from 24% to just 6%. The teachers also a dramatic increase in learners achieving KS3 Spoken English requirements. An overwhelming 50% of learners could use Standard English confidently after their assessment, and 44% became competent in giving short speeches and presentations, both of which are crucial skills to prepare young people for the world of work. The success of the Pathways continued to flourish, as we discovered that RECLAIM’s youngsters passed their Level 2 Certificate in ‘Speech to Inform’, with 13 Passes, 8 Merits and 4 Distinctions, which is outstanding considering this was the

“Employer after employer will tell you that at the heart of every business, they

need people who can communicate and demonstrate teamwork, and oracy is key for unlocking those skills” says Tina. “I’m so excited to launch our Pathways qualification, because as the pilot has demonstrated, it boosts learners’ confidence, as well as those all-important oracy skills.” We believe the development of these new pathways will open up new avenues for our learners, and help them to thrive in both the classroom and the workplace. We are delighted to announce that we will launch the new qualification in September 2019. If you would like to find out more about our new Pathways, please contact our Product Development Team .

learners’ first time sitting an ESB assessment. Tina Renshaw (Chief

Executive, ESB International) will meet the learners in Manchester to present them with their certificates and congratulate them on their impressive achievements.

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Having previously assessed for ESB International in Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia, I thought I knew what to expect when I was chosen to deliver some training and assess for ESB International in Shanghai – I was mistaken! Shanghai has a very different vibe and was full of (pleasant) surprises. Quite by coincidence, shortly before my trip, I assessed a candidate who spoke about the People’s Republic of China, so I had a little insight (you learn so much as an ESB assessor!). However, one of my favourite things to do when visiting new climes is to board a hop-on-hop-off tourist bus to really get a feel for the place. On doing this, I discovered a number of interesting things about Shanghai, which was founded during the Yuan dynasty (1279-1368). Today, Shanghai is the most populous city in

China and the sixth largest city in the world – its port is one of the busiest on the planet. I certainly got a sense of this bustling hive of activity during my visit. The first part of my visit to Shanghai involved assessing candidates at Shanghai Concord Bilingual School. A relatively new school, it is located in the heart of Huangpu District which is a regional, cultural and international centre, giving the school the opportunity to develop an internationalised education catering for the different needs and demands of students in the region. SCBS offers a bilingual curriculum combining the very best of the compulsory Chinese curriculum with access to IGCSE and A- levels, making ESB an ideal platform for their students. ESB has had a long association with their English counterpart school in Shropshire.

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I was thrilled to discover that the organiser at Concord, Abbi Ford, was an ESB alumna herself, having taken numerous assessments under the tutelage of Sue Turford who received the prestigious Burniston Bell teaching award from ESB prior to her retirement. Abbi’s keen understanding of the requirements of ESB ensured that candidates were thoroughly prepared and excelled in their assessments. Concord has a second, larger cohort that will be taking assessments in May 2019 and we look forward to continuing our association with them. The second part of my ESB International duties in Shanghai took me to ENREACH, whose educational mission is to provide Chinese students aged between 9 and 18

with a high quality and interdisciplinary international education. Here, I delivered a number of oracy training sessions

for teachers of infants, juniors and seniors, covering all of our Graded Assessments (suitable from age 4-18+). These were very enjoyable sessions and delegates received a certificate from ESB International and The Culture Bridge for their attendance.

Alison Coates

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2018 YSY VIDEO WILL BE PLACED HERE

It was smiles all round at ESB’s annual Young Speakers of the Year Showcase in November. Winners travelled from around the country to Liverpool to attend the celebration and receive their awards. Out of 14,000 learners who took ESB Speech assessments in 2017-18, twelve were selected as winners in recognition of their outstanding oracy skills. The celebration featured three additional categories alongside the Young Speaker Awards. The ‘Spirit of ESB’ Awards recognise and encourage the potential of all learners, rewarding individuals who showed great promise in their assessments. The Burniston Bell Award recognises teachers who demonstrate exceptional commitment to teaching ESB in their centre. Finally, the prestigious Richard Ellis Award was introduced this year in honour of ESB’s former Trustee, Richard, to reward

an individual who has shown outstanding dedication to ESB.

Each learner performed to an audience of family, friends and teachers, impressing everyone with their skills and abilities, and their charisma and confidence. In recognition of her role as a student, teacher, examiner, International Director, Trustee, and Honorary Vice-President, Merriel Halsall-Williams was presented with the Richard Ellis Award for promoting ESB’s values. Worthy winner, Karris Holm summed up the excitement of the day “I’d always been intimidated by public speaking, but this weekend has been really enjoyable – the lovely atmosphere at the event made the whole day a really positive experience!”

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On the back of the Grand National, we are excited to hold our 2019 Showcase in the Princess Royal Suite at the world-famous Aintree Racecourse on Saturday, 16th November. A selection of outstanding Speech learners from schools all around the UK will be chosen from a pool of nominations from our assessors. They will be invited to perform their winning section of their assessment to an audience of teachers, assessors, family and friends following a drinks reception and lunch. Each of the winners will be presented with a trophy and certificate to take home. Remember that our second category, the ‘Spirit of ESB’ Awards are nominated by centres as well as assessors. The criteria for this award is as follows:

memorable assessment

 a candidate who has raised awareness of an issue with significant understanding and compassion a candidate who has made exceptional progress as a result of participating in this assessment If you feel one of your learners meets at least one of the above criteria, please email liam.morton@esbuk.org who will send you instructions on how to enter. With nominations already coming in thick and fast from assessors, we are excited to hear what our new Young Speakers will present at this year’s Showcase. So keep an eye out—one of your learners could be invited to attend the Showcase, where ‘the world is watching’! 

a candidate who has overcome obstacles to give an inspiring and/or

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On the day of my exam, I remember feeling tense as I really wanted to perform well, but I

soon relaxed when I realised my assessor simply wanted me to express myself the best I could. Also, I will never forget the teachers who had the real talent in making us kids enjoy expressing ourselves in proper English. After passing my ESB exam, I felt confident speaking freely in English, which went on to help me in my career later in life. I worked for a top company in Cologne, Germany, in which English was the standard language, so here my ESB qualification gave me a great advantage. I felt so confident in my speaking that I even went on to live in the US for ten years. All this goes to show the endless possibilities and benefits ESB can have, so I think I have to thank my Dad for entering me into that exam back in ‘64! I am so delighted to see the organisation still going strong.

Christian’s ESB certificate from 1964

I was reunited with ESB by stumbling across the new website, which immediately brought me back to the best memories of my teen years. I was a fifteen-year-old boy when my father entered me for an ESB qualification through the Franco- British School Organisation in Paris, where I remember thoroughly enjoying the classes preparing me for my exam. In the classes we were given opportunity to practice with

English literature, which really brought the language to life.

Christian Ferri Paris, France

“I will never forget the teachers who had the real talent inmaking us kids enjoy expressing ourselves”

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Last year, we reviewed our suite of products, and some of them were removed as part of our validity process. To make things easier for you, we’ve put a list together of all the qualifications we’ve withdrawn over the last two years.

Please contact our Product Development Team if you have any queries, they will be happy to help.

English Speaking Board (International) Ltd.® 9 Hattersley Court, Burscough Road, Ormskirk L39 2AY

T. +44 1695 573 439 | E. customer@esbuk.org | www.esbuk.org | twitter.com/esbuk

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