By Kang Shin-who
Staff Reporter

Korea ranked second bottom in the General Training Module (GTM) for the International English Language Testing System (IELTS), the British Council Korea said Thursday.

The number of Koreans taking the IELTS test increased to 27,000 last year from 23,000 in 2007 and 14,000 in 2006. Korean test takers gained an average score of 5.33 out of 9 in the GTM, up 0.12 from the previous year. They scored 5.28 in speaking, 5.08 in writing, 5.43 in listening and 5.27 in reading.

The results showed that Korean test takers made modest improvements. The Educational Testing Service (ETS), the TOEFL test organizer, and other experts claim that relatively low English test scores are partially because of the large number of Korean elementary and secondary school students who take the test, which lowers average scores.

The United Kingdom was ranked in first place with an average score of 8.1, followed by South Africa with 7.51, Singapore with 7.2, Zimbabwe with 7.03, Kenya with 6.98 and Malaysia with 6.88.

Korea was ahead of only the United Arab Emirates, which gained an average score of 4.55 and was just below Vietnam with 5.4. Both China and Japan ranked higher than Korea in 26th and 34th place, respectively.

In the case of Academic Module (AM), Korea gained a better achievement compared to that in the GTM, ranking 28th with an average score of 5.74. Japan was in 27th with 5.79, but China ranked 35th with 5.46.

IELTS tests are held in over 500 centers and some 1.2 million people take the exam around the world every year.

kswho@koreatimes.co.kr