Reading around KoLL: Blackledge, 2009

P9: "debates about language are often debates about immigration". This is crucial, if the sub-text of saying "'They' must all speak English" is, "We don't want them", then you bring the text and sub-text together by limiting resources to English language lessons. This is especially so if the test (GESE 5) is framed with regard to classroom English, (ie not the sort of English people can learn in their own communities and by their own efforts). It's analogous to (say) limiting the franchise to those with university degrees, or high school certificates, thereby disenfranchising those outside the imposed criterion, for whatever reasons. 

P11 gives an historical account of KoLL. But it's got me thinking: there's a book to go with the "Life" section of the test. I could like at the criterion validity of the test as regards the content of the book. Quantitative data. Could a person with limited or NO knowledge of "Life in the UK" pass that test if they were able to absorb and process the book's content? How would that correlate with data from born-UK citizens who take the test. In fact, I keep hearing anecdotal evidence about born-UK people taking the test, so get some quantitative data. 

NB per p12, see speech by Blair, Dec 2, 2006 “The Duty to Integrate: Shared British Values.” 

http://tna.europarchive.org/20070305112605/http:/www.pm.gov.uk/output/Page10563.asp

NB cf recent (18 Jan 2016) Cameron speech: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03fthb7 

Also: https://youtu.be/Ukz7s_eGQK8


REFERENCES

Blackledge, A. (2009). : The Further Extension of Language Testing Regimes in the United Kingdom. Language Assessment Quarterly, 6(1), 6–16. http://doi.org/10.1080/15434300802606465

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