Migrants required to pass A Level Standard of English

No. They would be considered outliers.

Does it also include those with learning disabilities? I know several adults with profound disabilities who are unable to read or write or, for example, can just about write their own name. They will never improve but not for lack of effort.

If you'd moved to live in France soon after getting your GCSE, and had to speak and listen to French every day in your daily life, you would very quickly build up you French to the point where it came pretty easily; if you carried on, you would be close to fluent within a year. You learn a language best by living in the relevant country, not by sitting down and working towards an exam qualification.

Cambridge First is a B2 ELT exam and isn't I don't think what is taken by those requiring visas. This is a completely different exam called the SELT which has different levels from A2 to B2. It tests speaking, reading, listening and writing skills and is much simpler in format than the First. The First has a lot of grammar which I don't think the SELT specifically tests. It's more about functional communication.

Tbh, the issue is evident even in this thread.

Many people have read A level standard of English and interpreted that as simply A Level English or assumed it means the standard of English a native speaker would need to undertake A Level English. That people would come here and be expected to have attained an A Level English Literature, to write essays in English and be able to analyse DH Lawrence - the way an English A Level.English student might.

That isn't what It means at all. It means to be able.to communicate effectively at a basic level of English. To understand verb agreements, English syntax and be able to understand and make themselves understood enough to engage and access at a basic level. To have the fundamental understanding that they would be able to build upon once here.

It doesn't mean they will need to be fluent or anywhere near it.

I think importing people with good literacy makes sense. I think we should export people with poor literacy. Poland for example has been growing so fast it is starting to import labour maybe with should send ship the UK unemployed out to work in Polish care homes.

English language A-Level is interesting but designed for native speakers.

I have B2 level Spanish (passed the relevant DELE, I did it for fun) and I would say I am fairly fluent, to give you some idea of what that means in practical terms. C1 and C2 are full fluency and professional proficiency: what you would want for university studies, essay writing, and so on. I have no problem reading or watching the news in Spanish, but reading a novel would be more difficult.

It is a fairly high bar. The gap from B1 to B2 is bigger than you might think.

I think it would make sense for the government to focus on changing our incompetence culture. Too many people think it is cool to be not able to do basic maths for example rather than embarrassed.

Does that mean should import more people with poor literacy? A level equivalent may be a bit much but at least ability to converse and read/write without translator

Imagine if Spain demanded a high level of Spanish from all the British expats 😂

Alteratively the stat is bullshit. According to the literacy trust 16% of people have a reading age of less than an 11 year old, not 50%. That makes more sense. 50% of 11 years olds will have a reading a age of less than an 11 year old - that is how averages work.

I think you are conflating two separate issues - it's shocking that us Brits often have such low levels of literacy and we absolutely should correct this. However, it's madness to bring in more people who also have low literacy skills, just because they are at the same level as some of our own citizens. It just compounds our problem.

There is also an issue around some female immigrants never learning English and being trapped within their own communities, unable to communicate or integrate. Thats bad for them and it's bad for us economically, as it's more people using resources but not being economically active.

Sorry I know it's not really relevant to the thread. But my point is if average 11 year olds don't reach the reading age we are calling "a reading age of 11" then it's not really a reading age of 11, it's more "a reading age we would like 11 year olds to have", and then the stat about average adults being at that level is suddenly less shocking.

And is still not high enough if working in the MH sector or with vulnerable people.

Not an A Level in English Lit nor a PhD. Not the standard of English a native English speaking student would need to undertake A Levels.

But the level.of English that would be the equivalent of A level French, German, Spanish thar might be achieved by an native English speaking student.

Which is still a fairly basic level of English.

There's a few parts to this:

1. Many children won't reach an age 11 expectation at 11 - they'll only reach that much older.
2. Modern society makes it very easy to mask poor literacy. The popularity of the iPhone is predicated on the fact it's designed for very low literacy, relying on buttons and graphics to communicate.
3. A huge number of people missing out on lots of things because they don't have the literacy skills to engage.
4. That colleague who won't answer emails and who prefers to call to chat things over? They might just prefer that, or they MIGHT be only basically literate and masking.

I have a friend with a first class degree in music who always voice notes, who reads aloud painfully slowly, and who always gets mixed up when reading.

I also don't think it's as unreasonable for a higher qualification than is expected of a native - a native is able to mask in so many ways and immigrant couldn't.

In MH services and caring roles with vulnerable people “communication” English is simply not good enough.

When your vulnerable,autistic
and suicidal child is continuously treated and handled by staff whose English is simply not good enough you wouldn’t think calls for a high level of English silly.

We don’t urgent ‘need’ to fill any gaps. Stop lying.

We have millions of welfare dependent unemployed or underemployed adults. We don’t ’need’ to bring in people so these people can choose not to work.

It’s not a need, it’s a choice.

It's ridiculous because we urgently need to fill the gaps in health and social care and many other fields, and people who often are carers, hospitality workers, fruit pickers, construction workers etc are not as likely to have a PhD in English Lit. They are often still able to communicate very well in English, but won't necessarily have the 'standard' of A level students- and yet are not illiterate. The fact someone does not have this level of English does not ake them immediately illiterate, so you operarting with extremes is just silly.

It also doesnt mean what you said- it means that some people never ewach that stage (because they dont read at all or dont care about education), we have kids who hit secondary with reading ages of 6 year olds (!), and they progress to 11/12 year old reasoing stage by the time they leave secondary. But then they go off to do other stuff and reading age does not increase.

I have seen students regress too- I remember seeing some where their reading age in y7 and 8 was higher than when they took the test aged 15.

Yep its about the ability to integrate properly. Born and bred here don't have that to contend with.

What’s with the outrage on this topic?

And what kind pathetic argument is that because the local populations here in increase illiterate, that we should bring in more illiterate people to lower the quality further. Surely immigration should be designed to better the quality of overall population by bringing in people who raise the bar.

Why do people in this country have such low standards for everything. ‘I cant spell my own name, so we must make sure that we lower the bar for immigrants also so I don’t feel so stupid’.

This statistic probably includes people who live in England but weren’t born here and don’t know the language well.

Because it should be mandatory for some jobs.

My son is under MH services and is really ill. Do you have any idea how difficult and frankly appalling it is being treated by somebody who doesn’t understand a lot of what you say, misunderstands quite key nuances and meanings and who you struggle to understand back. These are people in crisis so it’s a massive safe guarding issue. He has Autism too so is already extremely vulnerable. It simply isn’t good enough and these difficulties are widely known.

I had no idea how bad it is in some sectors and frankly I’m amazing nothing has been done about it up until now.

i was at about B1 level of German when i started working there. Boy, i got to B2 in about a week of total immersion but it was stressful. But for everyday life: shopping, going for meals, buying the things you need for an apartment, B1 would be fine.

The problem that newspapers have in reporting this kind of thing is that unless you are either involved in TEFL or dealing with people who have to demonstrate language competcy - nobody in the UK knows what the CEFR scale is.

When i worked in a massive Asian corporation, in order to progress up the "ranks" all the candidates for promotion had to show a TOEIC test result, the higher the level they were applying for, the higher the number of points they needed. Coaching them was a lovely lucrative sideline for me.