Symbiotics Partner with Latitude

Latitude Aviation English Services, a provider of English language training and testing solutions, and Symbiotics, the provider of ADAPT psychological assessments for aviation, have partnered to provide a spoken English language assessment directly from the ADAPT platform.

The partnership will mean that Latitude will provide the test design, script, and media content to enable a candidate to undertake a spoken English assessment within ADAPT. Symbiotics have further developed ADAPT with new test delivery features including the ability for candidates to securely record their audio responses to questions and scenarios, which are then scored by a qualified language rater.

Testing in this way online and as part of an overall ADAPT assessment reduces the time and administration required by both the student and client and enables a much more scalable approach to spoken English assessment.

The assessment will take around 25 minutes for the candidate to compete and will capture around 10 minutes of audio for assessment by an experienced language rater.

The new assessment will be available from 1st December and existing clients will be able to include it within their ADAPT assessments for a smooth candidate experience and consolidated report.

Henry Emery, Managing Director of Latitude, said: “Flight training is demanding for any student, especially for those who don’t have English as a first language. While good language and communication skills open the door to successful selection and flight training, weaker language proficiency can prevent effective pilot aptitude assessment and can lead to a loss of training efficiency and costly disruption once flight training begins. Through our partnership with Symbiotics, we are delighted to help users of ADAPT manage the risks associated with language proficiency, and we look forward to supporting the Symbiotics team with robust measures of spoken English, adding value and enabling yet more confident selection and admissions decisions.”

Symbiotics’ Managing Director, Hannah Davies added: “We continue to listen to our clients and act to enhance their experience with ADAPT. Where students’ native language is not English, clients tell us that they can struggle through the assessment process - not because of ability or aptitude but because of their level of English. Relying purely on comprehension tests for English testing can mean some students struggle with higher order thinking skills such as using language to compare and contrast or evaluate. We want to be able to help our clients best support students and ensure those who are accepted to flight schools are ready and equipped to manage the demands of the required interaction conducted in English throughout training. We recognise that the spoken component is the most important indication for our clients to provide a measure of a student’s English ability and as such looked for a best in class solution which we could integrate into ADAPT to offer to clients, which we now can in partnership with Latitude.”