Do You Need To Do A CEFR Exam?

You will often hear language learners talking about needing to do a CEFR exam so that they show what skill level they are at.

They can make it seem like these types of qualifications are really important and something you need, but do you really need to do these exams?

The truth is that you probably don’t need to do an exam, but I will go through some of the reasons when it might be appropriate to do a CEFR exam or not.

Do You Need To Do The CEFR Exam?

Honestly, it depends.  Some people will need to do the exam, others will not. It all comes down to your end goal and really what you are trying to achieve with the language and how you end up using it, so everyone will be a little different.

I will go thought the reasons why you may need to do it and why you might not, then you can have a little more clarity on the situation and decide for yourself if you need to do the exam or not.

Reasons To Take The CEFR

The whole point of these exams is so that you can have your proficiency tested by an official recognised body. This means that you can then show your certificate to anyone and they will know that you have actually reached the level that you say you have.

This basically means that for most people, the whole point of this exam is so that they can prove to someone else that they have actually have reached a certain level in the language.

If you need to prove your language skills to someone …and I’m not talking about at the bar, or in online forums, then you probably have a good reason to take the test.

You Need It For Work

Probably one of the biggest reasons people do the CEFR exam is for their career. If you want to work with your language you will need to prove you can actually use it.

This can be for both jobs in your own country or abroad. Basically if you are using the language in anyway while at work, the company you are applying to work for will want to see that you can use the language to the level they require.

Any job you apply for will ask for your general qualifications, so of course it makes sense they will ask for a language qualification too. The CEFR is a trusted organisation so the employer can see that if you have achieved a certificate then you are actually proficient. It’s a lot more trustworthy than you just saying you are really good at the language, the certificate basically backs up what you are saying.

They don’t want to hire someone who has made a good impression, only to find out they were lying about their abilities and can barely speak a word of the language.

(You can read more about – Getting A Job With Your Second Language)

You Need It For University

Universities work in a similar way to jobs, they will want you to prove that you have the right level of qualifications to do the course you want to do.

It doesn’t matter what you are studying, they will want to see that you are proficient in the language on top of the usual requirements that they ask for, such that you have studied certain topics and reached certain grades at school.

The CEFR is usually only required for foreign students, so if you are planning to study abroad you will basically need to be able to prove that you are going to understand the classes.

Just to be clear, you will not need a CEFR if you are attending a uni in your own country, even if it’s to study a language. If you are from England, and are an English speaker, who goes to London to study French, You will not need a CEFR in French.

In this situation the university in general operates in English, it’s just that you would be studying French, so being from England they know you can speak English already and can operate in that environment as such.

However, the second you applied to do any course in Paris, even English literature, the university in Paris would want to make you can speak French and ask to see a CEFR certificate. They would then be satisfied you could function in Paris and understand what was going on in general.  

You Need It For Visa

Sometimes you will need to have a CEFR certificate to get a visa. Don’t worry, I’m not talking about holiday visas, it’s usually more for permanent residency or actual citizenship.

If you are planning to live abroad being able to speak the language may actually be a requirement to live or work there.

Really every countries rules are going to be different, so ideally you want to check for yourself. You just need to go to the government website of whatever country you are planning to move to and check out their entry requirements and different types of visas.

You will see that some of them will require you to have a language certificate and if that is the case you will need to do the test to get that visa. 

You Just Want To Do It

Anyone can sign up to do the CEFR exams and if you want to just do it, you can. While it usually makes more sense to do it for one of above reasons, if you just want to do it there is nothing stopping you.

A lot of people like to sign up for it, as it really gives them a goal to work towards. I guess it’s kind of like how people like to do a marathons and how signing up actually makes them do it as they would never run 26 miles on their own as such.   

It can be a nice thing to achieve and you can have it in writing that you have reached a certain level. You can prove to yourself and others that you have actually achieved something in the language.

Also it’s good to know that the CEFR certificates do not expire. This means you will always have it and if your situation changes and you want a new job or go back to uni, you have the certificate already. 

Reasons To Not Take A CEFR Exam

For a lot of you reading this, the above points probably do not apply, which basically means you don’t need to do the exam, but I will go through some reasons why you may not actually need to.

Just remember that you can still learn a language to a very high level and never be tested on it. An exam doesn’t dictate how good you are at a language, only your hard work and study can. 

You Might Need Another Exam Certificate

Probably the biggest reason not to do a CEFR is because you actually need another qualification.

While CEFR is an official and well respected organisation, it is not the only one. There are other similar organisations and sometimes the job or university you are applying to may want that certificate instead.

It is a bit silly, as the certificates are all probably very similar in standard, but if a university wants to see a IELTS certificate, then they don’t care about how good your CEFR level is …No IELTS, No Entry (International English Language Testing System).

Basically if you are planning to get a certificate to show an organisation, such a uni or a company, try and find out what they actually want to see before doing any tests. You don’t want to do a CEFR only to find out they only accept IELTs.

While it’s not a problem to do both, you will have to pay and go through the stress of doing the exams, so it’s better to just find out what one you need to do before doing anything.    

Language Learning Is Just A Hobby

For a large number of people, myself included, language learning is for fun and is really just a hobby. The reality is that I don’t even need to learn a language, let alone get a certificate proving I have achieved a certain level.

I use my language skills to watch movies and make friends, and I don’t need an official certificate to do this.

If you are just learning for fun and you never intend to use your skills for work or education, then you don’t need to stress yourself with exams.  Enjoy your studies and use the language for all the fun stuff you like doing.

If that changes in the future then you can go and do the exam, but for now, just don’t worry about it. 

You Can Still Work Out Your Skill Level Without An Exam

Often people want to do the exam to see what level they are at, however, you don’t actually need to do the exam to find this out, and in fact you shouldn’t be.

When you do the real exam you have to already know roughly where you are at, then you take the test to confirm that and get a certificate. 

You can generally get a feel of where your skill naturally is. You can tell if you are a beginner, intermediate or advanced. You can also look at the levels of the CEFR and work out roughly what level you at based on what they exact to see at each level.

This is all quite subjective and a rough guideline of where you might be, but that’s more than enough if you are just doing this all for fun.

You can also usually find free practice tests online, which can help you see a little more clearly where exactly on the scale you land. Of course you won’t get an official certificate, but you will have a good idea of what you could achieve if you needed to.

The CERF Doesn’t Test Everything

You need to remember that this exam is just a general test of proficiency; it’s not a definitive guide on how much of the language you actually know. 

This means that they are set up to test certain things in certain ways and a lot of the process is just about knowing how to take the test, rather than testing your fluency levels.

I know people who can speak extremely well, I would argue fluently, but have failed the CEFR exams. A lot of this came down to the structure of the exams and the weird way the questions had to be answered.

You could argue that if they knew the language better, then they could just read the instructions and have no issues …but the thing is, they showed me example questions and I was confused …and it was an English exam.

So basically, I would have failed too and I am native speaker, so it goes to show a lot of the exam is around how to do the exam, more than how to use the language.

You Might Be A Higher Level

You also have the issue that you need to pick what level you want to be tested at, and you might be higher than you realise.

Basically the exam tests you at a certain level so at the end they can say if you reached that level or not. They do not test you in a way that shows your actual ability, it’s just that you have the ability to reach that particular level.

So for example you could take the B1 exam, which would be an intermediate level, if you pass that, you get a certificate that says you are B1 …even if you actually at an extremely advanced level that is far beyond B1, it doesn’t matter, they are not testing for that, they are just testing that you can reach B1.

I think this is fine for a business or uni, they will know you have reached a minimum standard, if you are actually higher than this, then that is a bonus for them. However, if you are doing it just for yourself, well you are only proving to yourself that you can reach a certain level, you will have no idea if you are actually far surpassed that or not. 

Conclusion

The CEFR can be an important and useful qualification to have, but only if you want to get any sort of job or study overseas, for anything else it’s maybe not as important.

If you are just learning a language for fun you don’t need to worry about it. You can still work out what level your language skills are at without having to go through all the fuss of doing an exam.

If you need the exam, do it, if not just sit back and enjoy studying you language and using it for fun.

(You can read more about – Should You Worry About Mistakes In Your New Language?)