US vs. UK business English

[spearhead]

Here is another question:

In the same book I've found this sentence:

What was that loud noise I just heard?

Would it be correct to use the present perfect here? (What was that loud noise I've heard?) Is that British vs. American English thing?

Thank you,
Olaf

[Jamie (K)]

In standard English it would be correct to say, "What was that loud noice I've just heard?" and we would say it.

We Americans frequently use the simple past in quick, informal speech where standard English (both our standard English and theirs!) would call for the present perfect.

However, I'd be wary of always saying these things are differences between British and American English, because most of these "differences" can be traced to some form of British English that either never was standard, or just isn't standard anymore.

[spearhead]

Hello Jamie, that was quick. Thank you very much. So you are saying ... I just heard is informal language? This makes sense to me but I wonder why they would use such sentences in a TOEIC prep book, doesn't this add to the confusion of TOEIC candidates rather than clarifying things? Or do you think that those prep materials should be as authentic and natural as possible?
Regards
Olaf

[Jamie (K)]

Testing someone's true command of a language -- for the purpose of actual use -- should probably reflect the way people actually use the language. If those things confuse someone, then that shows something about their true level, right? It's a test.

At least in the US, this informal use of the simple past instead of the present perfect is covered in the early intermediate ESL books. I seem to remember it being mentioned in the British ones I used too. So at the TOEIC level it shouldn't be confusing anymore. Plus, if I'm not mistaken, TOEIC is an American test.

[spearhead]

Hi Jamie, I agree that a true English language test should include informal language as well. As for the TOEIC being an American exam, we have had a discussion about this controversial question here:

How international is toeic?
http://www.english-test.net/forum/ftopic4740.html

I think ETS will change the format of the TOEIC soon - from next year on it will include a writing section and a speaking test just like the TOEFL. Also, the TOEIC will have different speakers including British and Australian to underline the international character of the English language.
What do you think of this?
Olaf

[Jamie (K)]

I think that if the TOEIC includes British and Australian speakers, then it will be a better measure of the person's ability in English for international communication, which is what the test claims to measure anyway.

I am not a big fan of the kinds of voices ETS uses in its listening exercises. The voices are not just those of white Americans only, but they sound like upper-class white Americans from the northeast coast who went to Ivy League universities. It's supposed to be neutral speech, but it's not. Besides, comprehension of neutral speech wouldn't be an adequate measure of the person's mastery level anyway.

I am also not a big fan of the way American ESL textbook recordings use only clear, broadcast announcer speech with standard (i.e., Midwestern) pronunciation. They seem to think that adding more accents will "confuse" the students, but in actual practice it doesn't. Including only one accent isn't enough, because we hear different American accents daily. Some of the American books include the voices of non-native English speakers -- I guess to make the students feel "included" -- but this is a bit stupid, because generally non-native English speakers can already understand each other with no trouble.

[Alan]

Hi Olaf,

You asked:

[spearhead]

[Jamie (K)]

[toeic]

[Jamie (K)]

Another disadvantage to taking the TOEIC as a measure of your business English ability is that almost all of the business ESL textbooks are in extremely British English. The representatives from the textbook companies say they are in "international English", but the expressions used are very locally British. There will be a chapter about people being "made redundant", with no mention that very few Americans would understand what this means, and they don't mention the American term for it. When the books give sports idioms that are used in business, they are nearly all from soccer or other European games, but you can't understand the Wall Street Journal or many other international business papers without knowing baseball and American football idioms. I have never understood why the major textbook publishers ignore the fact that the US is the world's largest economy, followed by Japan and Germany, and put out such aggressively British textbooks. Even in the United States, there are almost no American business ESL texts (and the ones that exist aren't that good), and the bookstore shelves have these British ones.

I think it's good that the TOEIC will have a writing portion, but I have my reservations about a speaking test. I have been in sessions in which ESL teachers have listened to and scored an ETS speaking test, and it's something you never want to watch, in much the way you don't want to watch sausage being made.

One time I got into a very hot argument with some of the other teachers about what two students' scores should be. The speaking task on the test required the student to give directions to a certain room in a building. On one recording, we heard a man with a Polish accent, who told us very efficiently how to reach the correct room. His instructions were crystal clear, and if you followed them, you couldn't go wrong. I thought this was a complete success, so I gave him the highest mark possible. The ladies I had to work with failed him, because they said, "He didn't give any landmarks." I argued that it didn't matter, because his explanation didn't require them. They insisted, "But I would like to have heard some landmarks mentioned."

Then we heard another recording. Someone from a different country, whose accent was harder to understand, gave directions that included landmarks, but her instructions would never have gotten you to the requested room. In fact, she wasn't even able to finish her explanation before the time ran out. Therefore, she had completely failed at the task. I gave her a failing score. The ladies liked the fact that she had mentioned landmarks, and they gave her a high score, completely ignoring the fact that her directions were ineffective. So they failed the guy who succeeded, and they passed the woman who failed. I was so angry.

Another thing I noticed was that these ladies wanted the test-takers to speak with the same structure that you're supposed to construct an English paragraph with. So, if a student successfully accomplished the task, in clear, natural English, they might still fail him because he didn't unnaturally adhere to an English paragraph structure, which is not normal for speech anyway. We had fights about that too.

Now, I don't know if anything like this goes on at ETS, but it shows you the strange things that can happen when even trained people score those tests. Another ETS speaking test, the Test of Spoken English, is now given over the phone and graded by computer. I have no idea how this works. I have heard rumors from students that just talking louder can improve your score on that one. Maybe it's true, maybe not.

[Conchita]

[Jamie (K)]

Or how about this one? "He's just left now."

[Conchita]

Why is it that, this sentence, to me, sounds more like a reproach?:

I've hurt his feelings and he's just left now. Like:

Look what you've done now!

[toeic]