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1) The standards for being considered ‘proficient’ are very low according to this study.
2) The samples are skewed towards more educated people / middle and upper classes, what furthermore help developing countries get better results and make the overall comparison useless due to the lack of homogeneous statistical representativeness.
1) The standards for being considered ‘proficient’ are very low according to this study.
2) The samples are skewed towards more educated people / middle and upper classes, what furthermore help developing countries get better results and make the overall comparison useless due to the lack of homogeneous statistical representativeness.
1) This might be true, but the main purpose of the study seems to be to observe trends relative to previous years. Their test is very similar to TOEFL and the like and I believe their scoring is tiered similarly.
2) Yes, quite possibly. The study is conducted entirely online which, in certain regions, could skew away from poor/uneducated.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Turnerbro
Why is South Africa included and Israel isn't?
It's entirely based on whomever chooses to participate. The test is available online for anyone...however the researchers only included geographic areas with a minimum of 400 participants, so we can assume Israel had 399 or fewer participants.
1) This might be true, but the main purpose of the study seems to be to observe trends relative to previous years. Their test is very similar to TOEFL and the like and I believe their scoring is tiered similarly.
2) Yes, quite possibly. The study is conducted entirely online which, in certain regions, could skew away from poor/uneducated.
It's entirely based on whomever chooses to participate. The test is available online for anyone...however the researchers only included geographic areas with a minimum of 400 participants, so we can assume Israel had 399 or fewer participants.
In terms of "speaking" English, there is no way Chinese are close to Indians or beat Russians. However it is very possible for reading and writing English.
I get a kick out of the colors in the chart - it looks like U.S., Canada, and Australia english speaking is low. Maybe it's the color setting on my monitor (or maybe they are right).
From my world travel experience the most difficult time I had with English was visiting Brazil. Another comment - Chinese are learning English like crazy. No problem with English in the big cities at all.
This report is lame because no one takes this test.
It is true that Japanese ppl speak **** English, though, and they are not even trying.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OyCrumbler
I’m surprised that Singapore and South Africa are included as non-native English speakers while many other countries are not.
I can see South Africa being included since many there don't speak English as their native language, but including Singapore is a joke. No one even speaks Chinese there anymore.
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