Faculty of Arts of Comenius University > Departments and Research Centres > Department of British and American Studies > UNIcert®

UNIcert®

UNIcert® - International programme of language education for learners with an academic background

The UNIcert® is an international system of certification and accreditation for various languages studied in a university context. The system was set up by the German Association of Language Centres, Language Teaching Institutes and Institutes of Foreign Languages (Arbeitskreis der Sprachenzentren, Sprachlehrinstitute und Fremdspracheninstitute) in 1991.

The main goals are:

  1. to support language education at universities and to provide an accepted certificate that proves language knowledge outside universities,
  2. to help students undertake a work or study placement abroad,
  3. to gain standardization, comparability and transparency of specialized language instruction for non-philological students,
  4. to provide potential employers with an indicator of communicative competence of an employee,
  5. to raise the value of university graduates at the labour-market.

The UNIcert® Programme at the Department of Language

The Department of Languages acquired the accreditation for teaching in international certification programme UNIcert® in English and German languages in the academic year 2006/2007. The syllabus of the instruction, testing and certifying was designed by the department and it reflects the specific requirements and needs of the Faculty of Arts as well as the demands set by the LUCE (Language Accreditation Unit for Universities in Central Europe).

The programme is accredited at two levels – as the UNIcert® III oriented towards level C1 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEF) and as the UNIcert® II oriented towards level B2 of the CEF. It implies four semesters of Specialized Language Instruction assigned by the Faculty’s Schedule and the supplementary fifth semester, preparing students for final examination. The cost of teaching, examining and certifying in the fifth semester is paid by students.

The UNIcert® programme can be run only by those educational institutions, whose teachers are the members of CercleS (www.cercles.org) through the medium of CASAJC/ CASALC (www.euba.sk, www.casalc.ff.cuni.cz), and which respect the conditions of running the UNIcert® courses.