Language Assessment
User Guide
Learn languages with Erasmus+ OLS
- Introduction
- Access and log into the Erasmus+ OLS Platform
- Complete your Erasmus+ OLS profile
- Complete your Erasmus+ OLS Mobility Profile
- Access the Erasmus+ OLS language assessment
- Take the Erasmus+ OLS language assessment
- Results of the Language Assessment
- Support
- Data Protection
Introduction
Welcome to the Erasmus+ OLS language assessment user guide. In this document, you will discover how to log in, take the language assessment, and receive your results on the Erasmus+ OLS platform. This guide will help to ensure that your language assessment result reflects your language level in the language you are going to work or study in during your mobility period.
Access and log into the Erasmus+ OLS Platform
Before you can access the Erasmus+ OLS language assessment, you will need to activate your user account. You should have received an automated invitation e-mail containing containing a link. Click on this link to activate your account. Just follow the link provided in the e-mail to activate your account, then connect via https://app.erasmusplusols.eu.
If you can’t remember your password, click on the “Forgot your password?” link.
Complete your Erasmus+ OLS profile
Once you’ve logged in, you will be asked to edit your profile and complete it with your personal information. Fields marked with a red asterisk * are mandatory.
If you would like to modify the password, complete the “New Password” field and then confirm it in the “New Password Confirmation” field.
Before clicking on "Save these modifications", please read the 'Legal Notice' on data protection. You must accept the terms on data protection and data privacy before saving your profile, otherwise you will be unable to proceed.
Once you have completed your profile, click on "Save these modifications" to continue.
Complete your Erasmus+ OLS Mobility Profile
Once you have completed your personal profile, you will be asked to further edit your profile by filling in some details about your Erasmus+ mobility. Fields marked with a red asterisk * are mandatory.
The language of the assessment you are going to take, indicated under the label “Language to test”, has been selected by your sending institution/organisation as the main language of instruction or work for your mobility period. You cannot modify this field. If you believe this language is incorrect, please stop completing your profile and contact your sending institution/organisation immediately.
The “Local Language” field may be displayed on your profile page. The “Local Language” may be selected by your sending institution/organisation. Your sending institution/organisation will have the possibility to select this option if the local language of your country of mobility is different to your main language of instruction/work, and provided that this language is available in the OLS.
Please note that the “Local Language” only concerns the language courses, not the language assessments. Therefore, the final language assessment is in the same language as the first language assessment since this is your main language of instruction/work.
Additionally, you need to update the dates of your mobility period. The estimated dates of mobility are important as they determine the date of your final language assessment. Please pay particular attention to the return date and note that your mobility cannot exceed 13 months.
Please also enter the time zone in which you will be studying or working during your mobility. Your time zone may become important at a later stage for the live coaching activities available on the platform (if you are selected by your sending institution/organisation to attend the OLS online language course).
Please note that you need to complete your personal profile as well as your mobility profile before starting the language assessment.
Access the Erasmus+ OLS language assessment
Once you have completed your profiles, an introductory text to the language assessment is displayed. If you need to modify your personal profile, click on "Edit my profile", in the top left corner of the screen.
You may find one or several mobility boxes on this page (depending on whether you have multiple mobilities). The mobility boxes are sorted chronologically from the most recent to the oldest. You can edit your mobility profile by clicking the edit icon 
to the upper right.
There are a number of different buttons on the welcome page:
- By clicking on “Start my first language assessment” inside your mobility box, you can start your first assessment.
- After taking your first language assessment, the results will be displayed on the left side of your mobility box. By clicking on “Results”, you will find a more detailed analysis on the results of your language assessment.
- On the right side of your mobility box, you will find a notification informing you of when your final language assessment will be available. Once it is available, you will be able to start it by clicking on the button labelled “Start my final language assessment”. You are required to complete this final language assessment at the end of your Erasmus+ mobility, in order to check the progress made in your language competence during your stay abroad. There is no difference between the first Erasmus+ OLS language assessment (prior to mobility) and the final Erasmus+ OLS language assessment (at the end of your mobility). The questions may be different as the assessment is adaptive. Since both assessments are based on the same principles, the improvement you made during your mobility period can be measured.
- If you have been invited to follow an OLS language course, you can access the course by clicking on the "Start my language course" button at the bottom of your mobility box.
- At the end of your mobility period (as indicated in your mobility box), you can access your record of participation by clicking on "My record of participation" for the OLS language course.
The system will test your audio configuration. Click on "Click to listen" to check if your loudspeakers or headphones play the audio sample correctly. (Please make sure your speakers are turned on).
You should click on "Yes" if the sound test worked. In the event that the audio test failed you should click on "No" and another message will appear with a list of actions to take to set up the audio.
After clicking on "Yes" and then on "continue", you can start your language assessment.
Take the Erasmus+ OLS language assessment
The average time taken to perform the assessment is approximately 30 to 35 minutes. However, there is no time limit and you may take as long as you wish to complete this assessment.
These different test sections aim to evaluate your communicative competence as well as your grammatical, lexical and spelling skills in an integrated manner.
If you have to quit the language assessment at any time, or if you experience a technical problem while taking the test, you will be able to re-start it from the beginning of the section you were at previously. Keep in mind that once you have selected your answer and clicked on "continue", you will not be able to go back to the previous question. If you don’t know the answer to a question, click on “continue” and carry on with your assessment without selecting an answer.
Grammar
The first section assesses your grammatical competence. This grammar section includes two types of exercises: multiple choice and open gap-fill questions, and contains 20 questions.
The example below shows a multiple choice question in which you have to choose the right option from a list of terms by clicking on the small circle beside each option. Then, you click on "continue" to move to the next question.
In the top right corner of the screen, you can view the difficulty level of each question: it will increase or decrease in complexity to suit your language level. The system starts, by default, with a question situated at level A2 (CEFR). At the bottom of the page, you can check the progress of your assessment. Each filled cell indicates the number of questions you have answered, while the progress bar shows the 4 sections you will have to complete to finish your assessment.
Vocabulary
The second section evaluates your lexical competence and consists of 15 questions. Like the previous section, you will have to answer multiple choice and open gap-fill questions, by choosing the right word/s (noun, adjective, verb, pronoun, or preposition), phrase, or expression in the given context.
Listening comprehension
The third section, consisting of 10 questions, assesses your listening comprehension skills. Each question is based on an audio extract. You can check the audio quality on your device by clicking on the speaker icon on the right-hand side of the introductory screen. To listen to the track, click on the speaker. You will be able to listen to each audio extract a maximum of 2 times.
We advise that you read the question and possible answers at least once before listening to the audio extract. Each question is a multiple-choice question based on a short dialogue or monologue. For example, the transcript for the question below is: "Speaker: Jim, how long do you spend on the computer every day? - Jim: usually 4 hours during the week but I don't work on it at the weekend":
Or you will simply have to identify a word or a phrase used in the dialogue as shown in the two screenshots below:
You might be asked to identify the communication context of a conversation, indicated by a series of elements (dial tone, the type of language used: "Charles speaking", etc.):
Reading comprehension
The final section, consisting of 10 questions, evaluates your ability to understand a written text. The type of text presented will depend on the level of difficulty of the question, and they can include: newspaper article excerpts, advertisements, letters, emails or literary passages.
Results of the Language Assessment
After you have completed all 4 sections of the assessment, you will receive a detailed analysis of your performance as shown in this result page here below:
On the upper left-hand part of the screen, your overall language level is indicated according to the CEFR, along with a brief description of the level obtained. The illustration on the right-hand side indicates where you currently are on your language learning journey.
In the centre of the page, you can see more detailed feedback for each language competence.
By clicking on "Save and print your evaluation report" you will be able to print out a screenshot of your assessment results.
You will also be able to download a PDF file of your results on your welcome page by clicking on the “My first language assessment results” button, situated at the top of the page. Please also keep in mind that you cannot repeat your language assessment once you have completed it and received your results.
This might be a good opportunity to make the most of your assessment. We recommend you update your CV with your recent language level.
Only you and the institution/organisation in charge of your selection or coordinating your EVS project will receive the results of your language assessment. For Higher Education students and trainees, results will not be communicated to the receiving institution/organisation. For EVS volunteers and VET learners, results will not be communicated automatically to other organisation(s) in the project.
The results of the Erasmus+ OLS language assessments do not prevent anyone from taking part in the Erasmus+ mobility programme. Results may be used by the sending institution/coordinating organisation to identify the participants most in need of linguistic support.
At the end of your Erasmus+ mobility period, you are required to complete another language assessment to check the progress made in your language competence during your stay abroad. On your welcome page, you will find a notification informing you of when your final language assessment will be available.
Once it is available, you will be able to start it by clicking on the “Start my final language assessment” button at the top of your home page. There is no difference between the first Erasmus+ OLS language assessment (prior to mobility) and the final Erasmus+ OLS language assessment (at the end of your mobility), however the questions may be different as the assessment is adaptive. Since both assessments are based on the same methodology, the improvement you made during your mobility period can be measured.
You will be able to download the PDF file of your final language assessment results by clicking on the “My final language assessment results” button, located on your welcome page.
There are no negative repercussions if your language level has not changed during your Erasmus+ mobility programme.
The European Commission may use aggregated data of language assessment results for statistical purposes.
Support
If you encounter problems while you are taking the language assessment, contact our technical support team by clicking on “Report a problem” in the upper right-hand corner at any time during the language assessment. If you encounter any problems while you are taking the language assessment on the OLS app, please quit the assessment and contact our technical support team by clicking on “Report a problem”.
Data Protection
Disclaimer
The Erasmus+ Online Linguistic Support (OLS) is a service financed by the European Commission in the framework of the Erasmus+ programme.
The Consortium (Centre de Langues, Université Catholique de Louvain and Altissia International S.A.) maintains this website to promote its initiatives to the public. The material on this website is for information and learning purposes only.
The goal of the Consortium UCL - ALTISSIA – CLL is to keep this information timely and accurate. If errors are brought to our attention, we will try to correct them.
The contents of the language assessments, courses and all related areas accessible to Erasmus+ mobility participants are the sole responsibility of the Consortium UCL - ALTISSIA – CLL and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the European Commission and the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA).
The restricted area of the licence management system concerning National Agencies and Erasmus+ sending institutions/organisations is fed with data extracted from the European Commission IT tools and is subject to modifications by them. This data is covered by the legal basis of Directive 95/46 and Regulation 45/2001.
This information is:
- of a general nature only and is not intended to address the specific circumstances of any particular individual or entity;
- not necessarily comprehensive, accurate, complete or up to date;
- sometimes linked to external sites over which the Consortium UCL - ALTISSIA – CLL has no control and for which the Consortium UCL - ALTISSIA – CLL assumes no responsibility;
- not professional or legal advice (if you need specific advice, you should always consult a suitably qualified professional).
The Consortium UCL - ALTISSIA – CLL reserves the right, under direct instruction by EACEA, to suspend, change, modify, add or remove portions of the website at any time.
This disclaimer is not intended to limit the liability of the Consortium UCL - ALTISSIA – CLL in contravention of any requirements laid down in applicable national law nor to exclude its liability for matters which may not be excluded under that law.
Liability for content
Although the webmaster is very careful in creating and updating this website, it cannot guarantee the accuracy of the information. The information contained in this site may be subject to change without notice. The webmaster is not liable for any omission or error in its pages and for the consequences arising from the use of the provided information and instruction.
The European Commission, EACEA and the Consortium UCL - ALTISSIA – CLL are not liable for any information or documents uploaded by third parties.
Incoming and outgoing hyperlinks
The implementation of hyperlinks within the site to other sites and generally towards all existing resources on the internet is not the responsibility of the author of https://app.erasmusplusols.eu/en. Similarly, other websites with a hyperlink to this site are not the authors' responsibility; therefore they decline any liability for their content.
If you would like to link to the site http://erasmusplusols.eu, you must contact the author of the site in advance.
Copyright
Copyright Notice
The http://erasmusplusols.eu site is protected by copyright. Text, images and other elements of the site are protected by copyright. Any copy, adaptation, translation, agreement, public communication, rental and other utilisation of all or part of this site in any form and by any means, electronic, mechanical or otherwise, conducted for profit or in a private setting, is strictly prohibited without prior approval of the Consortium UCL - ALTISSIA - CLL. Any copyright infringement will result in civil or criminal prosecution.
Assessment tests, language courses, web layout graphics are property of the Consortium UCL – ALTISSIA – CLL.
Copyright on system data concerning National Agencies, Erasmus+ sending institutions/organisations, mobility participants and aggregated statistics rests on the Union.
Any dispute relating to the site http://erasmusplusols.eu will be governed exclusively by Belgian law. The Courts of Brussels will have sole jurisdiction in any dispute.
Trademarks and trade name
Erasmus+ is a registered trademark of the European Union. The logos, web banners and graphics used on this site are legally protected. Any use of these or similar names is strictly prohibited without prior written consent.
Contact
You can contact the site owner by email via the contact form on the website or at its head office via the following address:
CLL, Place de l’Université 25 – 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve – Belgium
You can contact the web provider at their headquarters:
OVH, 2 rue Kellermann – 59100 Roubaix – France
OLS Code of Conduct
By registering on the OLS you agree on the basic principle that the OLS is a community of mobility participants based on trust and cooperation.
The OLS team advises you to:
- Ensure that the pictures you upload (to your profile area) do not infringe any copyright.
- When posting a comment in the forum, ensure that your comment is relevant to the original post. Inappropriate comments are not permitted and are subject to reporting.
- Be sure that messages you post in forums are consistent with the topic of the forum.
- Refrain from using abusive language and be respectful of each other.
It is strictly prohibited to use the OLS for commercial purposes. Any company, initiative, event of software with a commercial intent will be removed.
The OLS team cares about the mobility participants and will make sure that any abuse of the above code of conduct is not tolerated.
Privacy Statement
The following statement explains our policy regarding the processing of your personal data.
Overview
The Erasmus+ Online Linguistic Support (hereinafter "OLS") is an initiative of the European Union. It is part of Erasmus+, the EU programme for Education, Training, Youth and Sport. It is steered by the European Commission and implemented by its Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (hereinafter "EACEA").
The OLS is dedicated to respecting the privacy of its users. It provides a secured and safe environment for mobility participants to learn foreign languages. The following statement outlines the policies by which the OLS collects, manages and uses the data provided by its users.
As the OLS – which encompasses the licence management tool, the language assessment, as well as the language courses – collects and further processes personal data, it is subject to Regulation (EC) no 45/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 December 2000 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data by the European Community institutions and bodies and on the free movement of such data [OJ L8 of 12.1.2001, p. 1.].
The various tools present on the OLS allow users to submit information in order to participate to OLS activities. When registering online and submitting other information, the data is collected and further processed for the purposes detailed hereafter under point 1. The relevant processing operations thereof are under the responsibility of the Data Controller, who is the Head of Unit A1 - Erasmus+: Schools, Prospective Initiatives, Programme Coordination at EACEA (see point 6 below for contact information).
What personal information do we collect, and for what purpose?
(a) Information relating to mobility participants:
The National Agencies, beneficiary institutions and the European Commission's DG EAC transmits some personal data to the EACEA, such as your e-mail address. The following information may then be collected directly from you by the EACEA through the OLS tool.
Mandatory registrant data: last name, first name, gender, contact e-mail, nationality, year of birth, mother tongue, type of mobility, language to test, country of destination, estimated start of the mobility, sending institution, mobility period, time zone, estimated end of the mobility.
Results of language assessment and courses
Other optional data submitted by mobility participants on the OLS (e.g., messages in forums, online discussions and threads, files and pictures). Not providing these optional data will not put the participants in a disadvantaged position.
(b) Information relative to staff of National Agencies and Erasmus+ sending institutions/organisations are provided by these institutions and DG EAC to EACEA:
Institutional data: Project number, PIC number, project name, project start date, project end date, project contact person, project contact telephone number, project contact e-mail, number of licences for language assessments and number of licences for language courses.
(c) Purpose of the processing:
The OLS purpose is to provide a scheme for measuring progress in language competences through mobility. The other objective relates to the support of language learning prior to and during the mobility period, to the level which is useful for participant's purpose.
More specifically, the data processing is necessary to:
- enable OLS to function;
- allow OLS registrants to communicate and collaborate in the spirit of mutual trust and respect; and,
- extract aggregate data for statistical purposes.
Who has access to your information and to whom is it disclosed?
Personal data will never be used for marketing purposes.
For the purposes detailed above, access to data is strictly limited to:
- Other registered OLS users may have access to optional data that you submit, e.g., messages in forums, online discussions and threads, files and pictures.
- European Commission, EACEA and National Agencies: aggregate data only.
- Service provider Altissia who acts on behalf and under the instructions of EACEA: full set of data.
- Data related to individual mobility participants is accessible to their sending institution/organisation having an access to the backend licence management system OLS which can then decide on its use.
- For EVS volunteers, the results will not be communicated to the other organisation(s) in the project.
Whenever possible, data will be processed in an anonymous manner, especially if transferred to third-parties for research purposes.
How do we protect and safeguard your information?
The collected personal data and all related information are stored on secured servers of the service provider (Altissia) for the duration of the contract with the Consortium UCL – ALTISSIA – CLL .
The operations of the service provider's computer centres contractually abide to the European Commission's security directives and provisions established by the Directorate of Security for these kinds of servers and services. The standard security measures exist for the site hosting the Altissia servers, i.e. most recently patched and updated operating system and software, antivirus protection, firewall, regular security auditing and network security scans, applied IT security policy, vulnerability testing and intrusion detection system.
How can you verify and rectify your information?
To exercise your rights, such as the right of access and rectification of inaccurate or incomplete personal data, you may do this yourself online. You may also contact the Controller (see below under 6.).
How long do we keep your data?
3 years after her/his last login, his/her profile will be deactivated permanently. All personal information is then made anonymous.
Data related to statistics and research purposes is kept for the entire duration of OLS. At the end of the contract, the Consortium UCL – ALTISSIA – CLL will hand over all information and data to the EACEA and not keep a copy of confidential information, documents and personal data in whatever format.
The data remain solely for research and monitoring purposes at the disposal of the EACEA, the European Commission, NAs and Erasmus+ sending institutions/organisations, Altissia, on behalf of the Consortium UCL – ALTISSIA – CLL and other third-parties under the authorisation of the Data Controller in an aggregated format.
Contact information
The data processing operations are under the responsibility of the Data Controller:
Head of Unit A1 - Erasmus+: Support for Policy Reform and Online Linguistic Support
Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency
Office: J-59 06/33
BE-1049 Brussels/Belgium
For any questions on your rights and the exercise of your rights related to the processing of personal data (like access and rectification of your personal data), please feel free to contact the Controller of the OLS at this address: EACEA-EPLUS-OLS@ec.europa.eu
Recourse
In case of conflict on any Personal Data Protection issue you can address yourself to the Controller at the above mentioned address and functional mailbox. You can also contact EACEA's Data Protection Officer at the following email address: eacea-data-protection@ec.europa.eu.
Should the conflict not be resolved by the Controller or the Data Protection Officer you may lodge a complaint with the European Data Protection Supervisor at any time:
Website – http://www.edps.europa.eu;
Email – edps@edps.europa.eu.
Legal basis
The main legal basis for the processing of personal data is:
- COMMISSION IMPLEMENTING DECISION of 18 December 2013 establishing the ‘Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency’ and repealing Decision 2009/336/EC (2013/776/EU): Article 3 (a).
- 'Erasmus+': the Union programme for education, training, youth and sport established by Regulation (EU) No 1288/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 December 2013 and repealing Decisions No 1719/2006/EC, No 1720/2006/EC and No 1298/2008/EC (OJ L 347 of 20.12.2013, p. 50–73):
- Article 5 (e) foresees that "[the Programme shall pursue the following specific objectives] to improve the teaching and learning of languages and to promote the Union's broad linguistic diversity and intercultural awareness." In addition, Annex I foresees "The Programme will be monitored closely on the basis of a set of indicators intended to measure the extent to which the general and specific objectives of the Programme have been achieved and with a view to minimising administrative burdens and costs. To that end, data will be collected as regards the following set of key indicators". The indicator under "Education and training" specifies "The percentage of participants in long-term mobility declaring that they have increased their language skills".
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Good luck with your Erasmus+ OLS language assessment!