Register  Login  Active Topics  Maps  

English proficiency index 54 countries

 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages Post Reply
15 messages over 2 pages: 1 2  Next >>
Ogrim
Heptaglot
Senior Member
France
Joined 4478 days ago

991 posts - 1896 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian
Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian

 
 Message 1 of 15
08 February 2013 at 9:45am | IP Logged 
The private educational company Education First (EF) has published an English Proficiency Index, which is intersting reading. It benchmarks English proficiency in 54 countries and rank them from very high to very low proficiency.

It is maybe not surprising that the top five are four Nordic countries and the Netherlands, with Sweden in the number one spot. However, I found it more surprising that Spain ranks above Portugal and France, or that India, where English is an official language, only ranks as number 14, below countries like Belgium, Austria and Hungary. In the category "very low proficiency" you basically find Latin American and Arab countries.

Admittedly the results must be taken with a grain of salt. As the report itself states:

"We recognize that the test-taking population represented in this index is self-selected and not guaranteed to be representative of the country as a whole. Only those people either wanting to learn English or curious about their English skills will participate in one of these tests. This would tend to skew scores lower than for the general population,since those who are confident in English are unlikely to pursue English lessons."

2 persons have voted this message useful



beano
Diglot
Senior Member
United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4461 days ago

1049 posts - 2152 votes 
Speaks: English*, German
Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian

 
 Message 2 of 15
08 February 2013 at 9:53am | IP Logged 
I'm surprised to see Hungary described as having high proficiency.

Outside of Budapest, English speakers are thin on the ground. There are some areas of the country where German is a far better bet.
1 person has voted this message useful





Iversen
Super Polyglot
Moderator
Denmark
berejst.dk
Joined 6542 days ago

9078 posts - 16473 votes 
Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan
Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 3 of 15
08 February 2013 at 10:37am | IP Logged 
The report also states that its test are taken at a computer. OK, who has access to a computer in a poor country? Probably the one who is likely to know some English already because English is so pervasive on the internet, and because children of rich people are more likely to get both a computer and a good education which includes English. I can't see exactly how the report authors deal with this problem, but it would tend to favor rich countries.
6 persons have voted this message useful



Ogrim
Heptaglot
Senior Member
France
Joined 4478 days ago

991 posts - 1896 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian
Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian

 
 Message 4 of 15
08 February 2013 at 10:51am | IP Logged 
Iversen, that is a point. However, one could also interpret it differently. If, as you say, mostly rich people who already know some English are more likely to take the test in poor countries, then the scores for those countries would probably be better than the actual level of English for the whole population.
5 persons have voted this message useful



Марк
Senior Member
Russian Federation
Joined 4895 days ago

2096 posts - 2972 votes 
Speaks: Russian*

 
 Message 5 of 15
08 February 2013 at 11:05am | IP Logged 
How can they estimate this level of proficiency becides self-reporting?
1 person has voted this message useful



Majka
Triglot
Senior Member
Czech Republic
kofoholici.wordpress
Joined 4496 days ago

307 posts - 755 votes 
Speaks: Czech*, German, English
Studies: French
Studies: Russian

 
 Message 6 of 15
08 February 2013 at 11:20am | IP Logged 
Quote:

"We recognize that the test-taking population represented in this index is self-selected and not guaranteed to be representative of the country as a whole. Only those people either wanting to learn English or curious about their English skills will participate in one of these tests. This would tend to skew scores lower than for the general population,since those who are confident in English are unlikely to pursue English lessons."

I find the logic of this statement wrong.

It doesn't say anything about general population. The error margin goes in both directions - the people confident about their English won't take the test but at the same time, the people lacking English skills won't take the test either.
The minimum number of test takers was 400 per country. I haven't found any information about the real number. How this could be representative? You cannot choose 400 English learners in Prague, preferably at higher advanced level, give them the test and say that people in Czech republic are very proficient in English based on their results. There are even big towns here in South Bohemia, where you would have problems with English beyond basics. The most used second language here is still German, with few exceptions.
1 person has voted this message useful



Arekkusu
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Canada
bit.ly/qc_10_lec
Joined 5220 days ago

3971 posts - 7747 votes 
Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto
Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian

 
 Message 7 of 15
08 February 2013 at 3:05pm | IP Logged 
Iversen wrote:
The report also states that its test are taken at a computer. OK, who has access to a computer in a poor country? Probably the one who is likely to know some English already because English is so pervasive on the internet, and because children of rich people are more likely to get both a computer and a good education which includes English. I can't see exactly how the report authors deal with this problem, but it would tend to favor rich countries.

Actually, it should be the opposite -- if people of poor countries who have access to computers should also have access to a better education, then they should be doing better, on average, than people in richer countries where even the relatively poor would have access to computers. Yet, the poorer countries (ie. the rich people who could afford to take the test) didn't do too well compared to the less rich test-takers in richer countries.

[I now see Ogrim has made the same point.]

Edited by Arekkusu on 08 February 2013 at 3:06pm

2 persons have voted this message useful





newyorkeric
Diglot
Moderator
Singapore
Joined 6218 days ago

1598 posts - 2174 votes 
Speaks: English*, Italian
Studies: Mandarin, Malay
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 8 of 15
08 February 2013 at 3:28pm | IP Logged 
I lost patience trying to figure out what methodology they used so I don't understand how Singapore can be ranked so low. It makes no sense.

EDIT: OK, I found a discussion of the test on page 37. Regarding why Singapore and Malaysia do so poorly it seems that they are measuring non-native speakers. Why they decided to do this I have no idea. It doesn't make sense to rank English ability in these countries ignoring that most speakers are perfectly functionally fluent in English.

Edited by newyorkeric on 08 February 2013 at 3:41pm



1 person has voted this message useful



This discussion contains 15 messages over 2 pages: 2  Next >>


Post ReplyPost New Topic Printable version Printable version

You cannot post new topics in this forum - You cannot reply to topics in this forum - You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum - You cannot create polls in this forum - You cannot vote in polls in this forum


This page was generated in 0.7344 seconds.


DHTML Menu By Milonic JavaScript
Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved
No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization.