The English Blog

English GCSE? It's just 2EZ

From the Mail on Sunday:

A new English exam that includes a section on the grammar of mobile-phone texting has been slammed as the ultimate dumbing down of the subject.

Next year pupils will be tested on text messaging as part of their English GCSEs.

They will have to write an essay on the etiquette and grammar of texting, using their own messages as examples – earning up to ten per cent of their overall English GCSE mark. The subject is being introduced by the Assessment Qualifications Alliance (AQA), the country's largest exam board. [ ...]

Last night Nick Seaton, chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, said it was a 'shameful betrayal of the subject'.

He said: 'Surely, with all the great literature that could be studied, it is a tragedy that pupils are being asked to do this as part of an English qualification. Full story >>

COMMENTS
Sounds like a good idea to me. Why not test students on things that are actually relevant to their everyday lives? The CRE needs to get with the times—their website looks as if it hasn't changed since it was formed in 1987.

GMAT Group Collaborates With Pearson on New Test of English

This press release should interest anyone involved in preparing students for IELTS or the TOEFL. 

Pearson Test of English Academic (PTE Academic), a new English language test owned by Pearson and developed in collaboration with the Graduate Management Admission Council, will debut on October 26, 2009.

The Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), which owns and administers the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT), began working with Pearson in 2006 to conceive and develop a test that would more accurately measure the English language skills of students than existing exams. The computer-based test includes speaking and voice recording capabilities; score reports sent to schools will include a 30 second audio clip of the test taker's speech. Full text >>

COMMENT
Do we really need yet another test of English? I thought the IBT was supposed to test academic speaking skills. And I wonder how much this new test is going to cost. A 3-hour exam with voice recording isn't going to be cheap. The French have a good expression: "c'est une usine à gaz" (literally "a gasworks", but meaning an unneccessarily complicated creation that functions poorly).

French Students Still Just As Bad At English (No, Really!)

From Spiegel Online:

The French may mockingly call English-speakers "roast beefs" or "yanks," but the latest results of an international language test show that the Brits, Americans, Australians and Co. may have a little more leverage to hurl their insults back at the "frogs."

In an article entitled "French Students Still Get a Zero for English", French daily Le Monde reports that an annual Europe-wide language test revealed just how bad French youngsters are at picking up what the journal describes as "the language of Shakespeare."

In total, 109 countries sat down for the English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) test, compulsory for foreign students wishing to study in an English-speaking country. France came in 69th in the ranking while Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium headed up the leaders' board.

The paper tried to recover some pride, stressing, "this does not, however, represent the entire student population. It only provides information for the 200,000 students wishing to study in an Anglo-Saxon country." Full story >>

COMMENTS
1. Spiegel Online wrongly describes the TOEFL as a "Europe-wide language test"—it is, of course, world-wide. 
2. The question (posed by Le Monde) is: "Why are the French so bad at English?". Is there something in the Gallic DNA (it wonders) that explains their inability to master "the language of Shakespeare"? Or is it something to do with the school system? Answers on a postcard, please.

READ MORE
• L’enseignement de l’anglais et l’inégalité en France (article by Laurel Zuckerman on LesEchos.fr)

VocabSushi: Online Vocabulary Program

 

VocabSushi is an online vocabulary learning program. Some highlights:

• Answer tons of sentence completion questions that use real sentences from real news articles
• Download MP3s of the words or subscribe to a personalized podcast and load them on your mp3 player
• Chart your progress and find out which words you need to focus on and which ones you're learning
• Read interesting articles using the VocabSushi Article Reader, which highlights your vocab words in context

For more information, watch this video: 

COMMENTS
Very impressive! Unlike many vocabulary programs, VocabSushi provides authentic contextual examples. Particularly useful for students preparing for standarized tests such as the GMAT, TOEFL or TOEIC. And it's free.

TOEIC: Test of English for Incompetent Communicators?

TEFLtastic has a thought-provoking guest piece on the TOEIC by Carmela Chateau of the University of Burgundy.

In France, we have moved into a parallel universe, or sixth dimension, where the ability to communicate in a language has been replaced by a certificate which attests only the ability to select correct answers to multiple choice questions. The reason could be that in France interviewers do not feel confident of their ability to speak English (perhaps because they too have a TOEIC score rather than the ability to “interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible” Level B2 Spoken Interaction CEFR). Full article >>

COMMENTS
I've mentioned before that all our students at the Ecole de Management de Normandie now have to get 750 on the TOEIC in order to graduate. I can think of 3 reasons why this condition was introduced. Firstly, other French business schools have already imposed a similar requirement (800 or 850 in some cases!) Secondly, like it or not, an increasing number of French recruiters are using the TOEIC as a means of filtering graduate job applicants. If you haven't got 750, forget it. And thirdly, setting a minimum TOEIC score is a means of forcing students with weak English, and whose English would otherwise remain weak, to improve either by intensive study or by spending a semester or year abroad. Of course, you can argue that the TOEIC does not test communicative skills, but if a student who would have previously graduated with a TOEIC score of, say, 550 now has 750, there must have been some improvement. Having said that, there could also be negative effects such as teachers teaching to the TOEIC or students only wanting to do TOEIC preparation. Rendez-vous dans un an, as they would say in France.

 

How (not) to improve your TOEIC score

JoongAng Daily reports that police in Seoul, South Korea, have detained two suspects on charges of raking in some 50 million won ($38,750) from 28 university students and job seekers in exchange for using electronic devices to send test takers answers to questions on the Test of English for International Communication, or Toeic. Full story >>

COMMENTS

All of our new students now have to get 750 on the TOEIC before they can graduate. I hope this story doesn't give them ideas!

TOEFL TV - The Official TOEFL YouTube Channel

The TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) is the world's most widely accepted academic English test, used by more than 6,000 universities in 130 countries.

TOEFL TV has tips from real teachers and real students to help improve learners' English skills. You can hear what leading colleges and universities think about the value of students who can communicate well in English in an academic setting. And you can be a part of the conversation by making your own video.

Wijng: A New English Learning Site

Mathias Müller wrote to tell me about an English learning project he's involved in called Wijng. The site consists of four areas: Read, Listen, Learn and Enjoy, and is available in English or German. In Read you will find recent articles at three levels of difficulty. Grammar notes are provided for selected words and phrases and key vocabulary is defined. Each text is followed by a series of multiple-choice questions. Listening has a selection of YouTube videos with transcripts and vocabulary along with gap-fill/multiple-choice exercises. Learn has grammar notes and accompanying exercises.

WHAT I THINK
Wijng is still in beta, so some of the features are not operational yet. The activities seem interesting, if not particularly original. A couple of negative points: some of the English is not very English ('Do you like to start a further exercise?'), and there are a few spelling mistakes ('perfekt', 'to practice'). And why have hints in German? Non-German speakers will find this offputting. Still, these are minor criticisms, and as more resources are added, Wijng should become a useful addition to the ever-expanding list of ELL websites.

FOOTNOTE

I asked Mathias how to pronounce 'Wijng' and this is what he replied:

Wijng has no real origin, we like the short and very unique spelling. In the logo you might imagine the "i" and "j" like two people looking at each other, we thought about making this a more prominent feature in future. A lot ask us, how to pronounce the word, we like to pronounce it like "wing" but with more emphasis on the "i".

Free Online TOEIC Classes

Simon Bourn from englishonthe.net is giving a series of free online TOEIC classes on WiZiQ. Session #2 is scheduled for Tuesday 10th February from 1pm to 1.45pm CET (GMT +1). You can watch a recording of Session #1 here. Four sessions are planned in all.

Tools for TOEIC Success by Simon Bourn

Get your own Virtual Classroom

Comments
I watched the recording of the Session #1. Besides giving a useful overview of the TOEIC, Simon had some great tips on building vocabulary. If you follow the class live, you can chat with Simon in real time. I'll be recommending these classes to my students, who have to get 750 on the TOEIC as a condition of graduation.

The 25 best exam blunders

A new book, F in exams: the best test paper blunders gives some great examples of exam answers from the most clueless - and inventive - of students. Some are very nearly right ("What happens to your body when taking a breath? Your chest gets bigger"), but some are very wrong indeed (Is the moon or the sun more important? The moon gives us sight at night when we need it. The sun only provides light in the day when we don't. Therefore the moon is more important). Laugh...and weep for the state of education!

The TimesOnline School Gate blog has a list of the 25 Best Exam Blunders (a.k.a. howlers):

1) Classical Studies 
Question: Name one of the early Romans' greatest achievements.
Answer: Learning to speak Latin 

2) Biology
Question: What is a fibula?
Answer: A little lie 

3) General Studies
Question: Jeff has been asked to collect data about the amount of television his friends watch. Think of an appropriate question he could ask them.
Answer: How much TV do you watch? 

4) Classical Studies
Question: What were the circumstances of Julius Caesar's death? 
Answer: Suspicious ones

See the complete list >>

Commentary: In a recent reading comprehenion test I asked my students the following question: "What percentage of Americans plan to celebrate Halloween?" The text stated that "two out of three Americans plan to celebrate Halloween". An easy mark, I thought. However, nothing could have been further from the truth. Here are some of the answers I got: 

• About 60 per cent 
• Between 70 and 80% 
• Two out of three Americans plan to celebrate Holloween (sic), that is to say 75% of the Americans. 
• 2/3 means 33,3%.
• Two out of three (a genius!)

And these are students who study maths up to the baccalaureate (school-leaving certificate) and beyond! I think the politically correct term is 'mathematically-challenged'.

• For more examples of exam blunders/howlers/bloomers, see here and here. 

• Do you have any examples of exam blunders? If so, please leave a comment.

Oxford University brain-teasers

Last week I posted an article about the bizarre questions students get asked at admissions interviews to Oxford and Cambridge Universities. Now CNN has a report on the same subject:

Transcript 

ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN REPORTER: Always dreamed of going to Britain's prestigious Oxford or Cambridge Universities? Well, then try answering these brain teasers that we took to the street.
INTERVIEWER: Would you rather be a novel or a poem?
PERSON ON THE STREET: A poem.
INTERVIEWER: How many monkeys would you use in an experiment?
PERSON ON THE STREET: Seven.
PERSON ON THE STREET: Two, I would say.
INTERVIEWER: Do you think you're clever?
PERSON ON THE STREET: Can be.
INTERVIEWER: Should we have laws for the use of light bulbs?
PERSON ON THE STREET: No.
INTERVIEWER: If I were a grapefruit, would I rather be seedless or non-seedless?
PERSON ON THE STREET: With seeds.
PERSON ON THE STREET: Seedless.
PERSON ON THE STREET: The use of light bulbs?
PERSON ON THE STREET: Yea.
PERSON ON THE STREET: I can't. It's my birthday today; I can't think.
SHUBERT: All strange but actual questions asked at admission interviews to "Oxbridge", as the two universities are collectively known. But what's the logic behind the questions?
PERSON ON THE STREET: I'd imagine that they're trying to profile you, to see which side of your brain works quickest: your left or your right side.
PERSON ON THE STREET: I mean are they on drugs, these people at Cambridge? I don't know, maybe.
PERSON ON THE STREET: Because if they just ask them academic questions, then everyone can just be a robot.
SHUBERT: University admissions say that last answer is exactly right.
MIKE NICHOLSON, OXFORD: What we're trying to do is move students out of their comfort zone. Many students will have a body of knowledge and they may be expected to be trusted on that in the interview. What we want to do is take them beyond that point and get them to start thinking for themselves.
SHUBERT: Questions that stretch your thinking. Maybe they should have asked this question:
INTERVIEWER: How would you organize a successful revolution?
PERSON ON THE STREET: By making me the president of the United States of America.
SHUBERT: Some questions, it seems, are easier to answer than others. Atika Shubert, CNN, Oxford.

Read the CNN article

English Education System Resources

• Education in England - Wikipedia article
• British Council USA - UK Further and Higher Education

Would you rather be a novel or a poem? Oxbridge interview questions and how to answer them

Interviews for admission to Oxford and Cambridge Universities will soon be taking place and 6th formers across the country are panicking. Everyone has heard about the strange questions which are sometimes thrown at prospective Oxbridge applicants. However, help is at hand - TimesOnline has some real Oxbridge interview questions and tips on how to answer them. For example...

Would you rather be a novel or a poem? (English, Oxford) 

The question is asking you to consider the differences between the two literary genres. Traditionally the novel is a lengthy prose work, often rooted in reality, while the poem is usually shorter, focusing overtly on style and form, and often based on fantasy. Having made this distinction, you could go on to qualify it with the observation that these definitions are difficult to maintain when considering epic poems such as The Song of Roland, which narrates historical events; or perhaps the prose Arthurian romances - identified as novels because of their length, despite their magical content. A possible conclusion would be to see it as simplistic to divide literary works into rigid categories, or indeed to describe a person with a one-word epithet. As an individual, you would rather combine the novel’s pragmatism with the poem’s idealism.

That's exactly what I would have said! For more questions and suggested answers, visit, TimesOnline.

New TOEFL Site

ETS have launched a new TOEFL site where you can find out about the exam and register. I learnt about this from an ad on TimesOnline which links to an 'advertisement feature' cunningly disguised as an article.

• For more online TOEFL resources, visit EMNEnglish.com.

Elements of Language

Elements of Language is a publisher's site designed to improve writing and media literacy skills. The site is aimed at native speakers but two of the three areas of the site will also be very useful for ESL learners:

• The Model Bank provides full-length model papers (essays, letters, descriptive writing) with interactive notes. An excellent resource for students preparing for the IELTS or TOEFL exams.
• The Language Center has a collection of links to internet resources for writing and a really neat vocabulary expansion tool called Word Watch (see screen shot below - click to enlarge).

New Challenge to TOEFL

A number of our students at the Ecole de Management de Normandie take the TOEFL every year but they have to go to Paris to do so. So I was interested to read that Pearson are developing an alternative.

The publishing giant Pearson is entering an important and lucrative part of the educational testing field — English proficiency for foreign students — by offering an exam that will be significantly different from current models. Most significantly, the Pearson Test of English will provide institutions not only with scores of applicants, but with a digital recording that will allow institutions to determine whether they are comfortable with the proficiency of the test taker. While existing tests include speaking, the results are scored and admissions offices don’t actually hear the applicant.

For many years, the dominant test of English used by non-native speakers to gain admission to colleges in the United States has been the Test of English as a Foreign Language, which is run by the Educational Testing Service. TOEFL already has growing competition in the United States from the International English Language Testing System, known as IELTS. Both tests are administered about 1 million times annually. Although IELTS is most popular in the countries of the British Commonwealth, it is also accepted by an increasing number of American colleges and universities. Full article >>