Экзамен BULATS использовался и используется целым рядом ведущих международных корпораций и организаций. Экзамен специально разработан для постоянно растуцщего числа организаций, для которых языковые навыки сотрудников жизненно важны для успешной и эффективной работы: фирмы, работающие на междлународном рынке; общенациональные и местные правительственные организации; люые организации, для которых полиязычная среда является повседневной действительностью.
Вот некоторые примеры организаций, использующих (или использовавших) экзамен BULATS. Данные приводятся с любезного позволения самих организаций.
Airbus
Airbus adopts a new testing service
European aviation giant Airbus is working with a consortium of leading providers of language assessment to introduce a computer-based language testing service.
The BULATS Business Language Testing Service is to be introduced at Airbus' sites in France, Germany, Spain and the UK and will help the company to assess the effectiveness of its training programmes as well as testing the language skills of employees and job applicants.
BULATS provides a rapid, accurate assessment of language skills in English, French, German and Spanish and is linked to the five-level scale for language assessment established by the Council of Europe. It involves a computer-based test (also available as a paper-and-pencil test), backed up by optional tests of writing and speaking skills in a business context. It is provided by four members of the Association of Language Testers in Europe - the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate, Alliance Francaise, Goethe-Institut and Universidad de Salamanca, and is already in use by businesses and training organisations in Europe, the Far East and Latin America.
As part of the structured language development programme, BULATS provides the ideal tool to establish an individual's starting level and track progress towards the target level. Ease of use, instantaneous results and the ability to cross reference ability in Airbus' four main languages are the key attributes that attracted the aircraft manufacturer to the BULATS system.
(With headquarters in Toulouse, France, Airbus is a joint EADS Company with BAE SYSTEMS.)
Hitachi
The BULATS Writing Test at Hitachi
Hitachi have adopted the BULATS Writing Test as the company's official personnel appraisal program. Here, Hitachi employee trainer Michihiro Hirai gives us some feedback on why they've chosen BULATS.
When I was still at the Hitachi Institute of Foreign Languages (HIFL), which is a residential intensive English training centre for Hitachi, Ltd. and its subsidiary companies, I evaluated a number of English qualification tests and recommended the BULATS Writing Test to the company's management. Now Hitachi, Ltd. has officially adopted it as part of its personnel appraisal system.
Through my experiences as Director of HIFL during the last four years of my service at Hitachi and also as a liaison between overseas customers and factory engineers during the preceding years, I have come to acutely realize not only that English is essential to our growth as a global enterprise but also that active skills (speaking and writing skills), rather than passive skills (reading and listening skills), are what our employees need to improve most. My recent research at HIFL has shown that, at least among Japanese businesspersons, active skills do not correlate strongly enough with passive skills and hence should be addressed with a specifically focused approach. This should include test and evaluation as well as training: different yardsticks should be employed to measure different skills. Before I took the office at HIFL, the company had already been using an off-the-shelf passive skill test and an in-house speaking test as measures for the employees' English abilities. What we needed was a reliable writing test relevant to our business environments.
As an avid English learner myself, I have taken a number of English proficiency tests available in Japan and thus have acquired a good grasp of them. In terms of validity (relevance to the company's business), reliability, and world-renowned authority (Cambridge University), I picked the BULATS Writing Test and conducted an evaluation run of it on our employees in cooperation with the British Council in 2001. Substantiated by actual data, my proposal went through this year (2002), resulting in the adoption of it as the company's official personnel appraisal program.
Национальный фонд подготовки кадров (НФПК)
Президентская программа переподготовки кадров
В конце 90-х годов более 4000 менеджеров среднего и высшего звена российских компаний, а также управленцев из правительственных организаций РФ, прошли языковое тестипрование в формате BULATS в рамках президентской программы переподготоки национальных кадров.
