TOEFL, TOEIC, and jobs « Readable Blog

Shall we discuss how to effectively challenge the tyranny of ETS standardized exams? May I strongly recommend reading this earnest critique by Clarissa, a frustrated English teacher who has taught TOEIC and TOEFL and prominent ESL blogger for many years?

TOEFL, TOEIC, and jobs « Readable Blog

As somebody who has often criticized - even ranted against - the overuse and misuse of standardized exams, consider me quite sympathetic of your analysis. It's also worth noting that no outside study has even found a correlation between TOEFL scores and actual academic performance in either university or graduate school. Although I'm less familiar with the TOEIC, it seems to share many of the perceived advantages for large institutions (test consistency, convenience, cost) and the same disadvantages (artificial context, limited scoring, weak correlation with alleged goals, excessive test preparation).
Having said all that, it seems a tad unfair to attack the TOEIC as " still not perfect or very realistic." Not perfect? Isn't that asking for far too much? No standardized test - and very few human endeavors - are "perfect." Noting the TOEIC is not "very realistic" in the next phrase only adds some irony to the critique. May I suggest it "not realistic" to expect any exam to be "perfect"?

Further, I'm not sure that we can wish away either the TOEIC or TOEFL or just advise our students to disregard the results. As an experienced TOEIC and TOEFL teacher, you have seen - first hand - the power to open doors or defer dreams that these strange standardized exams continue to hold. Scores matter. ETS holds real power. Power must be recognized.

Let us, instead, speak truth to power as your fine article does - and prepare students to develop their authentic English skills. For instance, I would recommend students both study for the TOEIC with both a traditional test prep book and the multiskill Target Score (Cambridge University) that correlates authentic newspaper articles to TOEIC vocabulary. In other words, we need to both help our students raise their scores and authentic English communication skills in the short run. TOEFL and TOEIC scores matter. We must be realistic in our counseling to students.

Of course, we also need to find ways to reduce the influence of standardized exams in both international companies and educational institutions, but that is a very daunting, difficult challenge. I would prefer, for instance, that universities supplement the TOEFL with their own language tests - especially for speaking skills. Videotaping a 10-15 minute interview, for instance, can fairly accurately assess student speaking skills and conversational abilities.

I deeply appreciate the author's profound misgivings about both the TOEFL and TOEIC. Far too few English teachers seem willing to note that the ETS emperor has far too few clothes on!

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