Rethinking English Language Certification - 2 Certifying English to Access Higher Education

Oct 1, 2026

Uploaded by Angel

The chapter outlines major English language certification tests used for academic admission, focusing on TOEFL, IELTS, and Pearson Academic. It describes each test’s structure and task scope, and analyzes how test boards portray their exams as tools that support mobility and employment success. The discussion argues that traditional designs often emphasize interaction in native-speaker contexts, while European higher education requires assessment of real non-native academic interaction needs.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryExam

FormatPDF

Pages14

Reading Time35 min

AccessFree to download

2 Certifying English to Access Higher Education

2.1 Overview

2.2 Test Structure and Test Taking Pr

Rethinking English Language Certification New Approaches to the Assessment of English as an Academic Lingua Franca David Newbold 2 Certifying English to Access Higher Education Abstract The need for English language certification is nowhere more apparent than in higher education in Europe today. This chapter provides an overview of the three best known tests for academic purposes: TOEFL, IELTS, and the more recently developed Pearson Academic. It examines the structure and scope of the tests, and includes an analysis of the image which the boards project of them, as promoting mobility and guaranteeing success in the workplace. However, the tests are designed primarily to predict the abilities of test takers to interact in a native-speaker environment, in particular in the US, the UK and Australia. Today, we argue, there is an urgent need for examining boards to engage with the reality of non-native interaction, to reflect the real language needs which have emerged in academic contexts in Europe and beyond. 2.1 Overview In this chapter we shall look more closely at three certifications which are used as tests of academic English, two of which (TOEFL and IELTS) are well established in Europe, the third (PTA, Pearson Academic) being a more recent addition. In particular, we shall compare their structures and task types, and see how they reflect the current testing orthodoxies of the period in which they were first developed. We shall also compare scoring systems, and (not least importantly for potential users) the self image promoted by the boards. In the next chapter we shall look more closely at the tests themselves by examining some of the sample material each board makes available on its website. All of these tests might be used for a range of career-significant purposes, including professional and vocational purposes – IELTS has a ‘general training’ version which has different reading and writing components from the academic version – but they are particularly chosen by students wishing to enrol for university courses, either in English speaking countries, or, increasingly, for higher educational institutions elsewhere in the world delivering courses through the medium of English (EMI) . Although, as we noted in chapter 1, these tests are not set at a specific level of the CEFR, but report numerical results (TOEFL, PTA) or bands (IELTS), the examining boards publish equivalence tables which suggest a relationship between the results on the test and a level on the CEFR; and, as a consequence, these tests will also be accepted by a wide range of institutions in Europe as evidence of a level on the CEFR, in place of other certifications which are set at specific levels. The quite different formats and approaches of the three certifications reflect the historical circumstances of the exam boards themselves, and the current testing orthodoxies in which the certifications were created, developed, and (for TOEFL and IELTS) revised. The oldest exam is TOEFL, owned by Educational Testing Services, the US based not-for-profit organization which was set up in 1947 with the aim of fostering research into the measurement of educational achievement. The TOEFL was first administered in 1964, at the height of the psychometric period in language testing (Carroll 1983, Fulcher 2015) . Since then, it has gone through major transformations, from paper based,1 to computer based, to Internet based, but the original concern for an objective, reliable test can still be seen, for example in the use of machine marking for writing, alongside human raters; not to mention the extensive research that ETS has itself published on the exam, all of which is downloadable from over 9,000 reports which can be accessed through the ETS website.2 IELTS first appeared in 1980, an offshoot of UCLES (University of Cambridge Local Exams Syndicate), on the crest of a communicative wave. The‘communicative revolution’ in language teaching had begun in B

FAQs

Which three academic English tests does the chapter discuss?

The chapter covers TOEFL, IELTS, and Pearson Academic as the three best-known academic-purpose tests.

How does the chapter characterize the original design focus of these tests?

It argues the tests are primarily designed to predict abilities to interact in native-speaker environments, especially in the US, UK, and Australia.

What does the chapter say about assessment needs in Europe today?

It calls for examining boards to engage with the reality of non-native interaction and reflect the real language needs that have emerged in European academic contexts.

Oct 1, 2026

Uploaded by Angel