How international is TOEIC®?

[Nicole]

Hi, I've been following this discussion with great interest because it raises the question how objective an English test can be. I also wonder what impact a person's accent or dialect has. I mean, you make a first impression by your appearance in a face to face meeting but when you are on the phone all the other person gets to know about you, is your voice. It follows, your pronunciation is important but is there any scientific data available on the question how your pronunciation can determine the impact you make in a conversation, especially in business negotiations?
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Life is for living.

[Hipster]

I think pronunciation does matter. Not that you have to speak like a native speaker. Why should you? Not all native speakers have a perfect pronunciation. What you should try doing is raise your awareness of how English is spoken and how sounds are produced. This way you can express your respect and interest for the language and their speakers.

[Toeic]

[in japan]

I have a different theory about why they use an american accent for the test. I found on a different toeic-related site statistical information on the percentage of test takers from each country and the data was amazing. According to the site, SEVEINTY PERCENT of all test takers are japanese. Seven out of every ten people that take the toeic are japanese. That is amazing. Therefore, japan is the biggest, most important customer. I say customer because the test costs money. And in the japanese school system they teach only american english. Therefore, the toeic uses american accent because american accent is what their biggest customer studies. I truly think this is the reason.

[Guest]

Here is the link. http://www.ets.org/Media/Research/pdf/TOEICTT03.pdf

[Torsten]

Hi InJapan,

You are raising some interesting points here. It might be true that Japan is the biggest single TOEIC market currently, as a matter of fact, Japan has been the largest TOEIC country ever since it was created in 1979. As you know the TOEIC test was developed by ETS because the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Trade wanted a standardized business English test for their companies.

However, things change. The TOEIC is becoming more and popular in European countries too. France is probably the European TOEIC pioneer and through companies like Renault-Nissan, T-com, Coca-Cola, etc. the popularity of the TOEIC is spreading pretty fast. I think ETS is going to introduce other accents in addition to the standard US accent.

Early 2007 the new version of the TOEIC will be launched and as far as I know the listening comprehension section will contain voice samples from speaker of various origins (British, Australian, Canadian, Irish, Scottish etc.).

Anyway, what is your relation to the TOEIC?
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Test Of English for International Communication
TOEIC Preparation & TOEIC Vocabulary

[in japan]

What's my relation to the TOEIC? I'm part-time English teacher in Japan (and a full time college student) busily helping my students raise their TOEIC scores. ...............The TOEIC is definitely big business here.

[HamburgEnglish]

Interesting opinions from all people, but I must admit, when reading such information I wonder in which direction the language market is going?

People seem to forget the whole point of learning a language, why? Maybe marketing, you must admit, to a prospective (money paying) customer ...

"Learn English in 500 different dialects and accents in 5 days"

sounds far better than ..

"Learn how to communicate using the English language"

ALSO ... we have the battle between language learning suppliers "our English lessons, concepts and ideas for learning English are better than yours because" ..... blah blah blah

Then ... we have the academic perfectionists, that in total blindness to the facts, preach that "everyone should speak English to-the-book or not at all!"

So what is all this activity doing to the marketplace? The answer is that it is covering up the actual ESL marketplace and hiding the real objective being "COMMUNICATION"

It is not a matter of "how good is your English", moreso a matter of "how well can you communicate in English to meet the needs"

BUT ... one must accept that even this has differences because the reason behind, and the need to learn the English language must also be considered.

For instance; a salesman that needs to communicate with customers may not be under the same public/professional scrutiny as that of an advertising person writing articles for a company.

Or, A purchasing manager needing to communicate with international suppliers in English to order components and arrange deliveries, negotiate prices... etc may not be under the same "restraints of correctness and articulation" as an engineer needing to write user and maintenance manuals for English customers.

As you can see, the application makes a very big difference ...

On the point of accents, it may be interesting to know that born in London and raised mainly in Wales, I only had contact with two English accents until I was 20 years old however, in my following life and contact with practically every accent of English, both of native English and ESL origin, I have never really had a problem with communicating! And in most cases, I had never heard that accent before.

The above in varying degrees is a fact for every native English speaker. So in reality, one may now ask how important is learning an accent? The truth is that its importance is very small and only becomes a larger factor in very specific and narrow applications (here we go back to application and need again!)

Then we have the idea of dialect. Well in this case the only difficulty is the use of different words for items and maybe getting used to things like; In the north of the UK some areas drop the "the" article and pronounce just "t" or in Scotland you will hear the word "wee" instead of the word "small" In other areas speech may be faster, or pauses between words in sentences a little smaller therefore making the actual words less defined.

But looking at the above points, the question is whether this is something that should be learnt by an ESL speaker? Again we move back to application and need!

So to sum it all up. Forget the crap going around about the correct way to learn English, there is no correct way just different ways! Rather examine your need and then choose a suitable English course to fulfill that need.

If you need to primarily communicate with Americans, learn American English for immediate communication ability, but always keep in mind that even learning British English will also suffice and during communication, if your English level is strong enough, the specific differences of an area will very quickly be assimilated.

If you need to communicate with Scottish, learn English in Scotland, but remember that learning American or British English will also suffice and during communication, if your English level is strong enough, the specific differences of an area will very quickly be assimilated.

If you need to work as an engineer communicating complicated information, learn how to articulate and explain (talents not specifically fixed to just the language)

If you need to write public or professional advertising material, concentrate carefully on grammar and the correct use of English (academic English) otherwise for sure, your publication will be criticized and may not give the public preception desired.

See what I mean? Sometimes it is important to see through the rubbish going around the industry and widen your thoughts a little.

Oh yes and to those academic perfectionists that are so quick to raise their guns, please learn that there is also English called Advertising English and that in many cases, this is a matter of visual impact and wordplay and not a matter of grammatical correctness.

AND IN SAYING ALL THAT ...

Yes there is also a very valid position and many of them, for academically correct English and also a responsibility for us all to make sure that in teaching English we do not inadvertently degrade the English language on an overall or general basis.

Oh Yes! and finally, the TOEIC test's inclusion of accents in my mind is a good move as it expands the usefulness of the test, which itself is supposed to be an international test. Also, the points made here are very valid, but there must be limitations. ETS have seemingly decided that on a "practical basis" the limitation of the test to the accents "generally" of the main English speaking countries will be suitable. One may wonder however on the point of the inclusion of British English which seems to me to be a mixture of a Surrey/mid London accent.

As an international test maybe one can think that the TOEIC situation is not optimal, but certainly it is more practical and useful on a worldwide basis for the application of English in the workplace, and, on a general basis than other tests. I DID NOT say better, only seemingly more practical.

Above all, like all tests, it does the job it is designed to do !!!!!!! Whether suitably for all, I don't expect so!

My humble respects to all …. He that is just one in a world where perception rules and not the truth.... But sometimes it is nice to come out of the fog <smile>

Rob
Official TOEIC administrator

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