English Language Assistants Assessments & Interviews

Lot 1: English Language Assistant Application Assessments The supplier, acting as an independent assessment body, is required to mark up to a maximum of 2,400 applications from prospective English Language Assistants (ELAs). The supplier will be given access to the British Council’s online Grant Mobility Tool on which all applications are made. The tool can be accessed remotely; therefore negating the need to work on British Council premises. Using the electronic application form the supplier will allocate marks on the tool for each of the following areas: • Tutor’s assessment of suitability • Teaching experience • Skills and interests • Motivation to be an assistant • Adaptability • Expression and presentation

Lot 2: To Conduct an Online Video Interview Assessment Process for English Language Assistant Applicants Each year up to 700 people apply to be English Language Assistants in the more challenging countries of Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Colombia, Mexico, Canada, China or Italy (applications for Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Spain and Switzerland will be allocated in line with the assessment process detailed above in Lot 1). The British Council will assess these applications and produce a short-list of up to 600 for further assessment. The supplier is required to design and/or run an online video interview assessment process to assess these short-listed candidates against the following criteria: • Motivation; • Resilience, particularly in unfamiliar challenging situations; • Demonstrable knowledge or research of the country applied for, including any potential challenges; • Presentation of a lesson plan on a topic of their choice in order to assess the extent to which they understand the challenges and opportunities in teaching; and • A question in the target language to assess their understanding of the spoken language and ability to speak it (Spanish for those going to Latin America, French for those going to Canada and Italian for those going to Italy). There is no language assessment for those going to China.

The interview questions will indicate what qualities we are looking for from the five skills or qualities listed above, and are to be agreed between the supplier and the British Council upon award of contract; we also anticipate that these pre-determined questions will NOT be supplied to the candidate in advance.

The supplier will be required to define a marking system, to be agreed with the British Council following award of contract, and mark candidates so that the British Council can assess the following: • Those who should be offered a place in their chosen country; • Those who applied for Latin America or Canada who could be offered a place in Spain or France; and • Those that should be rejected from the programme altogether.

Suppliers may bid for one or both lots.

Additional information: If you are interested in finding out more about this project, please click on the link https://in-tendhost.co.uk/britishcouncil