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[desert_traveller]

IELTS Test taker performance 2011

Mean band score for the most frequent countries or regions of origin (Academic):

41 countries on the list, bottom five: Oman, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar

Mean band score for the most frequent countries or regions of origin (General Training):

39 countries on the list, bottom two: Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates

Mean band scores for the most common first languages (Academic):

40 languages on the list, bottom one: Arabic

Mean band scores for the most common first languages (General Training):

42 languages on the list, bottom one: Arabic

source:

http://www.ielts.org/researchers/analysis_of_test_data/test_taker_performance_2011.aspx

(Data at source not sorted by overall score, I did the sorting by myself.)

It seems IELTS is really not for Arabs, and particularly not for Gulf Arabs.

Or, Arabs, and particularly Gulf Arabs, are really not for IELTS.

However you put it, the fact remains: there is a pattern there, and if there is a pattern, there must be an explanation as well.

Any conjectures?

[veiledsentiments]

Yes, but not conjecture... experience.

Their English language skills are low. (reflects what I have seen from the 1980s.) I would expect that you would see the same results from the TOEFL.

VS

[Zara461]

[Dedicated]

desert_traveller,

As an IELTS examiner for both the speaking and writing components of the IELTS exam, these statistics do not surprise me.

Usually, Arab students score quite well on the speaking and listening sections of the exam, but poorly on the reading and writing. As regards reading, Arab students have generally only been exposed to the traditional bottom-up approach or grammar translation method when taught reading. This is "word forward reading" leading to slow, often aloud, subvocalization as they would do when reading the Holy Quran. This slows them down dreadfully in the IELTS reading, which has about 2,700 words in 3 passages and 40 questions in one hour.

As for writing, Arabs write from right to left and have a very different grammar to English. Arabic has a 3 consonant root at its base so students are often confused by the lack of patterns in English that would allow them to distinguish nouns from verbs and consequently make many errors in word forms. Short vowels are unimportant in Arabic and do not appear in writing, leading to frequent spelling mistakes in English. They have no verb "to be" in the present tense and no auxiliary "do" and no modal verbs.

Arab students on average continue to be an oral culture - they write and read little in Arabic, let alone in English. They are often entered unprepared (by institutions such as HCT) into the IELTS exam so see how they will "get on". This probably accounts for these statistics.

[johnslat]

Dear Dedicated,

Nice analysis

Regards,
John

[scot47]

There are certainly differences between Gulf Arabs and other Arabs in English levels. I too was an IELTS Examiner for some time and it made me very aware of the low leavel of many candidates from KSA and the Gulf.

[Zara461]

[johnslat]

Dear Zara461,

"I think English teachers in the ME or elsewhere, should take into account the culture of Arab students when developing English language programs. The recognition of cultural transfer will lead to Arab students to succeed in their English writing."

This is also obvious - or, at least, one hopes it would be

Regards,
John

[veiledsentiments]

[Rena58]

Dear veiledsentiments

You�ve nailed it

[crewmeal1]

"But, until the the administrations understand that process, teachers will continue to be blamed for not being able to bring students up to required level in a couple semesters... even if you make them sit in EFL classes for 5 hours a day. (which is not uncommon)"

I wonder how many administrators have a reasonable IELTS score. In my experience many wouldn't get off the bottom rung!

[D. Merit]

Another factor is that gulf Arab students repeatedly take the tests as a 'practice run'.
It is not uncommon for students to take the test five or six times when in other countries students work on improving their skills and then take the test, gulf Arabs take the test in the hope that the test itself will improve their ability.
This is also a factor in, for example, SE Asia, where students from Laos tend to get better scores than students from comparatively wealthy Thailand. In Laos the students concentrate more on getting their skills up to scratch before the test because it's such an expensive test to take.
In contrast, in the UAE my students reported knowing one candidate who had taken the test seventeen times.

[abayababy]

[Zara461]

[abayababy]

I am familiar with Ansari's work. I tried to read the article once while I was doing research. It was painful to read stuff like this: