Because my comment for this post is related to this, I believe it is fair that other people are noticing it as well. English proficiency can be measured in so many ways, not to mention that language proficiency doesn’t always show on the surface, there is potential to fluency as well. For example, I have met people who can speak English but they are not “up to standard” for the US education system which made them get a test score or a certification, despite the fact that they can speak English and come from a country where English is one of the languages recognized as a lingua franca.

Dear Ingrid, It’s a million-dollar question!

Good point about deteriorating test scores indicating a mismatch between what is being tested and actual communicative ability. The problem is what the alternative to English language proficiency testing in university admission would be?

Good on you! 🙂 the relationship between IELTS score and teaching ability is highly questionable, of course, as your example shows.

Thanks, Hao! In our research we’ve found that people arriving in Australia with a high test score often struggled a lot with simple everyday communication. So, the relationship between tested proficiency and actual ability to communicate is in no way straightforward. The relationship becomes even more tenuous with the increasing use of AI in test preparation (e.g., studying only vocabs associated with a particular IELTS level)

Language ability tests always confuse me. At the old English centre I used to work at, HR said that only 5% of applicants are selected to become their teachers. I applied and took the test at this centre. To add more, at that time, I only knew my English ability was about 6.0 IELTS (I had an IELTS 6.0 certificate that expired 4-5 years ago), and when I was convinced that I had failed, I passed not only the test but also the demo teaching. Meanwhile, I heard that some teachers with higher IELTS scores (7.5 or higher) failed that language test. That doesn’t make sense to me at all.

🙁

Hi Ingrid! It was a teaching job. IELTS was their main qualification, however, I did not pass the minimum requirement.

Thanks, Sha! It’s great you can look at the bright side of an experience that feels like a career setback and waste of money. What kind of job did you apply for and was IELTS directly relevant to the role?

After all the preparation and effort, unfortunately, they didn’t hire me. What added to the frustration was the realization that IELTS certificate had a two – year expiration. Not only did this feel like setback in my career, but also felt like a waste of money, given the cost of the test.

At the end of the day, I can say I tried my best and it was such a valuable experience!

You are so right, Nurunnahar! Language testing is such an imperfect pseudo-objective gatekeeping mechanism. Many of the participants in our research about Life in a new language sat IELTS multiple times to get the score they needed for visa purposes, spent a lot of money on test preparation and the test itself, and then still found that they could not actually communicate on arrival … what would you suggest how language proficiency should be assessed for university admission? Or should it be assessed at all?