The ECL Consortium

The Creator of the ECL Tests

After many years of professional preparatory work, several Member States of the European Union established a consortium in 1992, with London as its centre. This consortium, later known as ECL (European Consortium for the Certificate of Attainment in Modern Languages), was supported by the ERASMUS and subsequently the LINGUA programmes. Its primary objective was to develop a unified language examination system for the languages of the EU Member States. In line with the EU's policy of harmonisation, the founding members aimed to ensure the equivalence and mutual recognition of language certificates across countries, without the need for separate national validation.

The academic and professional oversight of the ECL language examinations is carried out by leading universities and language institutes in the respective countries of each language. These institutions are responsible for test development and assessment in their own languages.

Languages and Levels

Based on the uniform criteria established during the initial phase of standardisation, ECL examinations are currently available in Bulgarian, Czech, Croatian, English, French, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak and Spanish.

The ECL examinations are aligned with the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) and are offered at four levels: A2, B1, B2 and C1.

Features of the Test

The content and overall validity of the examinations are based on extensive research and pilot testing with specific target groups. ECL exams assess both oral and written language skills in everyday situations and measure general language proficiency at varying levels of complexity.

Candidates may choose to take a comprehensive examination covering all four skills (Reading, Writing, Listening and Speaking), or opt for a modular format, in which individual skills can be taken separately in any combination.

Objectives

The ECL Consortium is an association of institutions representing European languages. Its main objectives are:

1. To promote the teaching and learning of European languages – particularly those that are less widely taught – both within and beyond formal education, through the development and dissemination of a standardised language examination system.
2. To provide unified, reliable and valid standards for assessing language proficiency through the ECL examination system, adapted to the languages of EU Member States and candidate countries.
3. To ensure the comparability and recognition of certificates and examination results across languages, for both candidates and users (such as employers), in line with the harmonisation goals of the European Union.

Projects on Languages for Special Purposes