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UPDATED: February 27, 2012 NO. 9 MARCH 1, 2012
The Test That Changed China
TOEFL has served as a three-decade long boost for China's foreign study boom
By Zhou Xiaoyan
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DREAM FULFILLER: Yu Minhong, Board Chairman and President of New Oriental (XINHUA)

Yu Minhong, Board Chairman and President of New Oriental, the largest provider of private educational services in China, began his groundbreaking career with TOEFL and may be the one who benefited the most from the test.

"TOEFL changed my life, as well as the lives of numerous Chinese students," said Yu. "I wanted to go abroad for further study so I took the TOEFL test. Although I scored well, I couldn't afford the trip because I couldn't get scholarship. Then, I founded New Oriental, with the original purpose of teaching people how to prepare for the TOEFL test."

New Oriental was founded in 1993 while Yu was an English-language teacher at Peking University. In 2006, the company was listed on the New York Stock Exchange as the first educational agency listed in the United States.

Since 1993, New Oriental has enrolled more than 15 million students. Today, the company has a network of 54 schools, 487 learning centers, and 29 bookstores. More than 11,700 teachers spread over 47 cities, and its online teaching programs have more than 6.7 million registered learners.

Room to develop

"Emphasizing communication and application ability is the main concept and orientation of TOEFL," said Lin Lin, Senior Program Executive of ETS China office. "In the next few years, there won't be major changes in terms of forms of the test. We will keep focusing on testing examinees' English language communication and application skills."

There are four parts in the test: listening, speaking, reading and writing, each accounting for 30 points of the total 120 points. Domestic English teachers raise some suggestions for the change of the test.

"For students studying abroad, the input process is much more important than output," said Chen Lei, President of Think Town, the largest training agency for TOEFL test in Zhejiang Province. Chen holds a master's degree in linguistics from Oxford University and has been teaching English for six years.

"Input means reading and listening and output means writing and speaking. So far as learning is concerned, it's more of a process of input than of output. Overseas students rely more on input, which means reading and listening. So I think the proportion of reading and listening of TOEFL should be increased."

"We always suggest students grasp all skills, reading, writing, listening and speaking," said Wen Qiufang, Director of the National Research Center for Foreign Language Education at the Beijing Foreign Studies University. "But I think, in the future, students should focus on one or two of these skills, because in practice, we find it hard for them to grasp the four skills as natives."

A new trend emerged as more students apply for their undergraduate or middle school study in foreign countries instead of graduate studies.

"Examinees of the test are becoming younger. Most of them are between 18 and 24 years old," said Yu. "ETS should pay more attention to this trend and develop products accordingly, such as the TOEFL Junior test."

Email us at: zhouxiaoyan@bjreview.com

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