A good English proficiency test used with non-native speaker

[Curious]

Hi all,

A good English proficiency test used with non-native speakers of English should, as a rule, be clear-cut for native speakers of the language. (This assumption is based on the fact that most native speakers taking the test receive a mediocre score.) And, how many native speakers of English would actually manage to write the TOEFL essay without a single underlining? This is almost a philosophical question, indeed, but should not be ignored.

I'd appreciate to hear what you think of my point: does it make any sense at all?

[Spencer]

Hi Curious,
I think you're right, but don't forget, that exam is not about speaking the language, but being a professional of that language.
Just because I speak my own language that doesn't mean I could pass even the easiest grammar exam without reading my basic-school books again.
You don't need any paper to prove you speak the language, they can hear it right away.
If they want to be sure you could talk about anything with a huge vocabulary,
THEN you need those papers.
Natives can talk about anything without knowing any grammar rules. (Most of them)
Spencer

[Yankee]

Hi Curious

I've read the same criticism about the TOEFL. But this statement seems to always be made without any further information. Do you know how the TOEFL people decided which or what sort of native speakers to test? For example, were these native speakers university students? Did the native speakers brush up on grammar, etc before taking the test? Did the native speakers actually take the test seriously and see their test scores as important?

As I see it, tests such as the TOEFL are a "necessary evil". Some sort of "proof" is needed that a non-native speaker has enough skill in English to succeed at a university in an English speaking country (for example). And the fact is, native speakers also usually practice for these types of tests.

But, even the tests designed for native speakers don't always reflect someone's ability and chances of success very well. I remember taking the SAT test in high school. I did very well, and my scores pretty much reflected my grades in school. In my particular case, the SAT was probably a fairly accurate reflection of ability.

This was not the case for one of my good friends in high school. She was was valedictorian of our class. Number One! So, you'd expect her SAT scores to have reflected this. But if you had judged her simply by her SAT scores, you'd have had to assume that she ranked in the the bottom half of the class and was not terribly intelligent. I think she was simply one of those people who is not a good test-taker.

Another one of my friends had only mediocre SAT scores. Guidance councellors not only cautioned her that college might be much too difficult for her, but also told her that her dream to become a lawyer was nothing more than a pipe dream. But, she didn't give up and today she is a successful lawyer.

The point is, these tests attempt to test and quantify something in black and white which is inherently anything but black and white. But what's the alternative?

Amy

[Jamie (K)]

There are many native speakers of English -- even some who have finished high school -- who are not able to use the grammatical forms necessary to function successfully at a university. This is especially true now that many American schools teach no grammar at all.

To function at a university, you need, for example, to form conditional sentences. However, unbelievably, I get high school graduates in my classes who are native speakers of English but can't form sentences like, "If I had seen you, I would have said hello." They especially can't form a sentence like, "If he had had enough time, he could have finished." Anything with "had had" is confusing to them, and many of them can't even use the past perfect tense, but use the simple past instead of it. When I was in college, a professor planned to spend two days teaching us the subjunctive in Italian, but after two weeks many of the students still didn't understand it. He tested the class and found out that most of them couldn't even use the subjunctive in English.

In my ESL classes, we often practice from vocabulary books that are aimed at the SAT and the TOEFL. It's very common for students to come back to me and say, "The people I work with don't know any of these words! Why are we studying them?" However, all the words in the book are necessary to function in university study and in a profession, so it's too bad for these Americans that they have never learned them.

So, many native speakers don't know English well, and they especially don't know it at the level necessary for university study.