{"id":1403,"date":"2010-02-12T07:18:08","date_gmt":"2010-02-12T07:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/?p=1403"},"modified":"2010-02-12T07:18:08","modified_gmt":"2010-02-12T07:18:08","slug":"english-language-tests-for-aspiring-barristers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/?p=1403","title":{"rendered":"English language tests for aspiring barristers"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"img alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-1119\" style=\"width:150px;\">\r\n\t<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/lsn142.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/lsn142-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a>\r\n\t<div>Barristers to demonstrate language skills<\/div>\r\n<\/div>Students hoping to become barristers will have to prove they are fluent in English before they are accepted into Bar school.<\/p>\n<p>The pilot exams &#8211; aimed at preventing applicants with mediocre linguistic abilities from winning a place &#8211; will be introduced this month.<\/p>\n<p>They have been launched following complaints that many students on the respected \u00a315,000 course are unable to express themselves coherently, a major handicap in a profession so reliant on public speaking.<\/p>\n<p>Dr Valerie Shrimplin, from the Bar Standards Board, said it wanted to encourage a diverse range of students but they needed to be proficient in English.<\/p>\n<p>She said much of the course revolved around role-play to re-create a court room scene which meant those who struggled with the language hampered others.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cLanguage has been a problem,\u201d she said. \u201cLanguage is a key skill, it is not as if students are on a computer course \u2013 for this course it is crucial.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe like to think that everybody should look at the Bar of England and Wales as the gold standard.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The pilot exams follow a 2008 survey in which many trainee barristers claimed that a number of their fellow students would never succeed in the courtroom because of their poor language skills.<\/p>\n<p>All candidates, enrolling on the BVC since 2009, for whom English or Welsh is not their first language must demonstrate that they have attained a minimum 7.5 IELTS standard in all sections of the test.<\/p>\n<p>Reported in FT <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ft.com\/cms\/s\/0\/9f3141b4-0e90-11df-bd79-00144feabdc0.html\">here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Barristers to demonstrate language skills Students hoping to become barristers will have to prove they are fluent in English before they are accepted into Bar school. The pilot exams &#8211; aimed at preventing applicants with mediocre linguistic abilities from winning a place &#8211; will be introduced this month. They have been launched following complaints that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1403"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1403\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1408,"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1403\/revisions\/1408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}