Bard College Places Hundreds of Students Prior to Arriving on Campus with Cloud-Based Language Testing
Bard College is a private liberal arts college in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. Their long-time partnership with Emmersion has been especially helpful for remote language placement and program progress tracking—while simultaneously assisting Emmersion with the development of new languages.
Highlights of Bard's Results with Emmersion
- Bard recruits and places foreign students in the right courses prior to arriving for the semester with instant results from automated, remote, and secure testing
- Supplementing their in-person language interviews with Emmersion’s assessments has helped Bard to improve their language curriculums by assessing language ability at different times throughout their programs
- Bard has implemented Emmersion’s solution in several language programs at their university
- Through collaborating, gathering feedback, and responding to requests, Emmersion and Bard have had a great opportunity to help each other improve and reach their objectives
Origin
Started with Emmersion in 2012
Usage
1,000+ students placed using Emmersion
Locations
United States, study abroad program with European colleges
Languages
Spanish, German, French, Italian, Mandarin
“The most exciting thing [about Emmersion], and the thing everyone is the most excited about is…the short-term memory research, and what it means to assess somebody. Everyone is so intrigued by that, and that’s why they love it. It goes beyond the technical idea of testing where you are, and combines neurology, memory research, and foreign languages. It’s very exciting to everybody.”
– Stephanie Kufner, Academic Director of the Center for Foreign Languages and Cultures, Bard College
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Challenge
Evaluations are an important part of Bard’s language programs; helping with student placement, course improvement, and new learning developments for the future. Bard prides itself on an individualized learning experience and recognizes the need to streamline parts of their evaluation process—especially for placing foreign students in the correct programs before they arrive on campus.
Bard needs a supplementary testing solution that:
- Accurately and reliably determines student language ability for course placement
- Allows foreign students to take assessments remotely and on their own time
- Has fraud prevention in place to authenticate testers and keep assessments fair and secure
- Responds to Bard’s feedback and helps them continue to develop their language programs
Solution
Emmersion’s language assessments were a natural fit for Bard College. The language faculty has been very impressed with Emmersion’s innovative assessment methods and sees their effectiveness in quickly and accurately assessing language ability.
Here are some of the ways Bard uses Emmersion:
- Secure, remote course placement for foreign students taking English as a Second Language courses
- Preliminary and post-teaching evaluations for intensive and study abroad language programs
- Supplementary testing to provide an understanding of language proficiency before in-person interviews
Results
Emmersion’s partnership with Bard College has led to a productive, collaborative relationship. Here are some of the results Bard College has seen from using Emmersion assessments:
- Achieved department-wide consistency in language placement by using Emmersion across multiple language programs
- Placed hundreds of students into the proper courses before even starting the semester—or arriving on campus
- Utilized more accurate language testing to improve a focus on the purpose of language learning in student success, future course developments, etc.
- Continued their impact in language testing when in-person interviews were virtually impossible during the pandemic
- Partnered with Emmersion for development and assessment improvement efforts for multiple languages