Korean Job Discussion Forums

[withnail]

What is your opinion of the TOEIC test?

When I worked for a private language school in London it was regarded as a bit of a joke. I remember we used to teach FCE to groups of young Swiss Bankers and we threw in the TOEIC test as an extra. We didn't offer any prep but just offered to invigilate it for them as we were an accredited TOEIC exam centre. It was an opportunity for them to gain another English Language certificate while they were with us.

To be honest, after the rigours of FCE prep, the Swiss teenagers laughed at the TOEIC test and indeed mocked it. They found the listening part absurdly easy, especially the initial questions where for example you see a photo of people in business suits sitting around a conference table and have to correctly identify the sentence "They are in a meeting" as opposed to 2 other patently false sentences.

The TOEIC test was designed to allow employers to predict how well a new employee would be able to cope in an English speaking workplace. It is therefore a predictive test and offers only a likelihood of language competence. The final score in the test (max 990) gets you a few sentences which offer an assessment of your ability to communicate well in the workplace.

It is a reading and listening test. There has long been talk of the much vaunted speaking and writing add-on, but to date I've yet to see it, or any great enthusiasm for it.

In Korea where the TOEIC test is still valued and indeed a high score in which is virtually mandatory for any serious job applicant, Korean TOEIC gurus are everywhere. These experts can get you the maximum score in the test if you follow their methods to the letter. It is possible to get the maximum score without being able to speak or write at all.

It's similar to TOEFL which is required for entrance to US and other universities.

When I worked for my first adult hagwon in Korea, the owner headhunted the local TOEFL guru from another school and he must have thought he'd won the lottery when the guru's devoted students all followed him to our school. I guess it was great business. The guru was given the hagwon's biggest room - a really huge affair with better equipment than any other room - and it became literally a school within a school!

It was amazing to watch him at work through the window as we passed along the corridor. He stood at a lectern and his whiteboard looked like that for a mathematics lesson - covered with formulae with only letters such as "v" or "n" or "adj" to offer any clue that this was related to English!

What I could never understand was that unlike TOEIC, TOEFL has sections on writing and speaking, yet as far as I can tell, our school's manager and the guru never seemed to be much interested in those parts - I still wonder why as those parts surely constituted half the test!

All the while, the native speaker teachers were slaving away on IELTS, which for those who don't know, really does help students prepare for university life abroad but there was never THE SAME interest in that.

IELTS is preferred by British universities but I think all the unis will accept a good TOEFL score too. I'm very surprised all the big unis from across the globe haven't banded together and shared their knowlege about the comparative English proficiency of IELTS versus TOEFL students. I'd hazard a guess that the difference in ability would be significant.

I sometimes pass by the entrance to my old hagwon when I go downtown. It was the first franchise branch of the famous old school I'd worked for in London for many years and the reason why I came to Korea - as it's Course Director.

Sadly now, the native speaker department - its raison d'etre back in the beginning - has been downsized and dumbed down. The staff now are mostly Korean and there are two life-sized smiling posters of the TOEIC and TOEFL gurus in the lobby...

Sad to think that at start up, this franchise hagwon at one point seemed well on the way to persuading Korean students of the need for the communicative approach to teaching/learning English. All our teachers were CELTA qualified as a minimum.

Unfortunately when the profits didn't flow in as expected, the Korean managers, after being initially impressed with our passion/commitment for best practice, decided to go where the real money was - TOEIC & TOEFL!

I guess from a purely business point of view - can't blame 'em...

[RacerX]

Thanks for your input on the TOEIC exam.

I have been "lurking" on the Korean forum because I am thinking about going to Korea. However, I feel compelled to chime in because for the last 2 years, I have been teaching TOEIC skills in Mexico. For some reason the test has really taken off in professional and business organizations here. I agree, the test has real limitations, and it is much, much easier than the iBT TOEFL currently required by US universities because no speaking or writing is required. (It is all multiple guess.) I think the TOEIC resembles older versions of the TOEFL - like the paper-based or institutional TOEFL, which are also still popular here in Mexico.

When I suddenly got hit with teaching TOEIC, I found a book published by Thompson publishing called "30 Days to the TOEIC." This book alone does a pretty good job of teaching to the test. Despite the easy format, many professionals here struggle with the test. The organization where I work bases promotions on how high its employees score on the test every 2 years.

While I appreciate the focus on business vocabulary and topics in the TOEIC, I think this test does a poor job of testing actual language proficiency.

[withnail]

No arguments there, mate.