Yikes. Korea Ranks Bottom on English Proficiency
2 April 2009
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Korea has the world’s largest number of TOEFL test-takers, and after billions spent on private education, the average ranking is near the bottom at 136th place out of 161 nations.
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“Korea Ranked Bottom in English Proficiency Test,” comparing Korea’s international ranking in the internet-based Test of English as a Foreign Language (iBT) with other countries, is a farce. The article was perhaps meant as a joke. Though it appeared in the April 2nd Korea Times print edition, the online version was afterall posted on April Fools Day.
Averages are deceptive. Lower figures often, though not necessarily, indicate larger samples. Shin-Who Kang cites the Educational Testing Service (ETS) as claiming that Korea has the world’s largest number of TOEFL test takers. In this context, it becomes possible that the average score of just a fraction of the test takers in Korea may be higher than that of all test takers in another country. Kang, however, fails to include figures for the number of test takers in either Korea or any other country.
One might wonder what ‘bottom’ means to Kang after finishing the article. Korea’s overall average score for the iBT is reported to be 78. The average scores of Asian neighbors China, Taiwan, North Korea and Japan are listed as being 76, 73, 72 and 66, respectively. If the world average is indeed 79, as Kang writes, than there are certainly many other countries with lower averages than Korea.
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