The assessment is made up of
two sections. In the first section the applicant/employee is required to do two
recordings. The first step is to read a script that takes approximately 30
seconds to record. The script uses common English words, but contains a variety
of difficult English sounds and sound sequences. The script contains
practically all the vowel and consonant sounds of English. This enables our
voice analysts to do a quick and efficient analysis of the speaker’s
proficiency in English and the effect that their mother tongue has on their
English pronunciation. The speaker will be rated on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1
being unintelligible.
The second step is for the
applicant/employee to do a spontaneous recording for 30 seconds describing
themselves and their aspirations. This spontaneous connected speech recording
will allow our voice analysts to do a quick and efficient analysis of the
speaker’s unscripted expressive capability in English. The speaker will be
rated on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being unintelligible.
The second part of the
assessment comprises of a series of exercises which are designed to test the
applicant/employee’s ability to process the English words and sentences that
they are hearing and to accurately interpret them either by typing or selecting
the correct words and sentences. There are ten exercises plus an additional
data capture exercise which simulates a customer giving personal contact
information to an agent in a call centre environment. The results are expressed
as a percentage of the points achieved, then reduced to a 1 to 10 rating.