TOEFL VERSUS ELTS
TOEFL is the standard English competency exam that tests the
reading, writing, speaking and listening skills required by a foreign student
to enter an American post-secondary institution or for foreign workers to
fulfill a language requirement to be employable. The TOEFL is an American based language test
and as a result has an American bias in terms of content. The TOEFL acronym stands for Teaching
Overseas English as a Foreign Language.
ELTS is the British based English competency exam developed
by Cambridge University that tests the
reading, writing , speaking and listening skills required by foreign students
to enter post-secondary English institutions situated in Commonwealth
countries. Quite often TOEFL is not an accepted language test by an
institution so one must check the admission requirements to see what English
competency exam is acceptable.
I needed to take an English competency exam to qualify to
write the ICCR government immigration exam even though I possess an Honors
Degree in English and I am a native born Canadian. The registration form stated I needed a
recognized language competency exam. I
took the TOEFL only to find out that I had to take the IELTS to qualify to
write the Immigration exam.
Comparison and
Contrast between TOEFL and IELTS
TOEFL IELTS
Similarities
Both test Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking
Types of listening questions : examples and illustrations,
formal definition, cause/effect, classification/differentiation
Listen to a passage:
Conversation between two people or a
short lecture on a specific topic. Passage is played only once.
Types of Reading question: Vocabulary (synonyms), inference
(inductive reasoning), main idea and
topic sentences, Example Not
included, factual recall, compare/contrast,
exposition
The reading questions consist of multiple choice
questions, true /false, Not given/
Choose correct response from a list of several choices, main idea/topic
sentences
Writing questions
Comparison/contrast essay by analyzing a chart or graph
Personal response/ argumentative essay—agree/disagree, for/against, cause/effect
Evaluation of writing based on content, organization,
grammar and style
Speaking Questions
Develop a point of view—for or against, agree or disagree,
cause/effect
Differences
The TOEFL content is American based with an American
bias. Reading topics include: American
history. The IELTS content would include: British topics or topics from the
Commonwealth.
The listening exercises have an American pronunciation in
the TOEFL while the IELTS has the British Queen’s English clipped accent. British accents may prove a little confusing
for foreign students . The British pronounce the endings of their words while
Americans tend to drop their endings. For example the word “running” would have
the final “g” sound pronounced by the British speaker while the American would
drop the “g” and would sound like
“runnin” .
The TOEFL is now computer based so one has to have
keyboarding skills. One does have the option of writing out the essay by hand
. However, the reading, listening and
speaking are done on the computer. For the speaking exam, one has to record
your response from a question proposed online.
The IELTS speaking exam is performed live in front of an interviewer who
poses the question and may even interrupt your response to pose a secondary
question that is recorded on a digital recorder. The face to face speaking portion allows one
to use facial expressions and a more personal interaction with your examiner
while the recorded TOEFL response is more impersonal and one tends to speak in
a monotone voice. The TOEFL speaking requires one to respond to
a written passage, a listening passage and a question posed so it requires a
synthesis to reading, and listening to your spoken response.
The IELTS exam is all handwritten. There are two written booklets---one booklet
is a short answer/ multiple choice booklet and the other is an essay booklet
with two essay assignments---
one essay requires a comparison/contrast response while the
second essay is an argumentative essay that requires the development of a point
of view.
The scoring or
evaluation for TOEFL is scored out of 120 and broken down into the four
categories of reading (30) , writing (30), listening (30) and speaking (30).
Reading skills: High = 22-30
Intermediate 15-21 Low 0-14
Listening skills: High = 22-30 Intermediate 14-21 Low 0-13
Speaking skills: Good = 26-30 Fair 18-25 Limited 10-17 Weak 0-9
Writing skills: Good = 24-30
Fair 17-23 Limited 1-16
The scoring or
evaluation for IELTS is scored on bands.
Band 9 = expert user
Band 8 = very good user Band 7 =
good user Band 6 = Competent user Band
5= modest user Band 4 = limited user
Band 3= extremely limited user Band 2 = Intermittent user Band 1=
non-user. It is possible to score .5
between bands such as 8.5, 7.5, 6.5 5.5, 4.5.
The format for both the TOEFL and the IELTS can be confusing and cause the
person writing the exam to panic. I
found the IELTS exam to be much more difficult to write than the TOEFL. On the TOEFL , I had an overall score of 105
out of 120 and scored in highest category in every level. In the IELTS exam , I
had an overall band score of 7.5 with a high band score of 9.0 in speaking and
a Good user 7.00 band in writing and a 6.5 in Reading and a 7.0 Band in
listening. I found the multiple choice
questions in the Reading section of the IELTS exam to be the most
confusing.
For a person who is not a native born English speaking
person the TOEFL and IELTS exam is difficult to pass with a high TOEFL score or
a High IELTS band score. Simply taking
the exam over and over again does not guarantee improvement. For foreigners
needing to improve their score they need to buy a good TOEFL or IELTS study
guide and do the practice exercises and practice tests and read the exam
writing strategies. Moreover, use the audio CD’s that simulate the speaking,
reading and listening exercises. Taking
the exam is expensive and it costs $300 to take the exam each time.
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