By Kang Shin-who
Staff Reporter
Korea has the world's largest number of TOEFL test takers annually. The English test market is expected to expand further here on growing demand from younger students, according to the Educational Testing Service (ETS), the organizer of major English tests such as TOEFL, TOEIC and GRE.
``Korea has been so important to ETS. We believe it is very important to continue to show our support,'' said Will Jarred, Global Brand Marketing Director for TOEFL.
``I can't share with you very specific numbers because they are the company's confidential information. But I can say that we are seeing consistent year over year growth in terms of the number of test takers from Korea. Korea is very important to the TOEFL program,'' he said in an interview with The Korea Times at the new ETS office last Friday.
Against this backdrop, the company implemented last year a scholarship program only in Korea. ``The one and only scholarship program which ETS is conducting in the whole world means how much we care about Korea and how much we want to make a commitment toward Korea. This year, we are going to better implement the scholarship program,'' he said.
Jarred came to Korea last week to visit the new ETS Korea office in southern Seoul and to meet some of the newer partners of the international test organizer. He is in charge of strategic marketing of TOEFL and the TOEFL family of products, and developing marketing programs to support test takers and score users at colleges and universities around the world in their use of the test.
Asked why so many Koreans take the TOEFL test compared to other countries, the American director said ``Korean students are very motivated to be successful academically and to achieve great levels of education in order to advance their professional and carrier options and success.''
``I believe that TOEFL is perceived as being a key step for them to be able to demonstrate that they have English proficiency necessarily to get into the best schools in the world to pursue their education,'' he added.
Regarding technical errors and difficulties that many Korean test takers have experienced since TOEFL iBT was launched, Jarred expressed regrets saying ETS will continue to upgrade its test system and provide better service based on feedback from Korean test takers.
``We appreciate their active responses. However, we learned again that providing a better customer service is one of our crucial roles in the last few years. With the learning points, we are now trying to provide better customer services throughout the world,'' he said.
TOEFL is accepted for academic English-language assessment at more than 6,000 universities and colleges in more than 130 countries. ETS has more than 4,500 test centers in 180 countries around the world.
ETS last month started another program for Korean test takers, called ``TOEFL Star Performer'' certificates. This recognizes test takers who have achieved outstanding levels of proficiency in all four communication skills: reading, listening, speaking and writing.
``It is hard to balance abilities in all four sections. We want to encourage good performers to keep working and to guarantee their ability is applicable for the real world, and the academic and business worlds,'' Jarred said.
The certificates will be made available at three levels ― gold, silver and bronze. Test takers achieving a minimum TOEFL iBT total score of 110 and a minimum section score of 25 in all four skills will be designated gold-level star performers.
Those with a total score of 100 and minimum section scores of 22 will be designated silver-level star performers, while students with a total score of 90 and minimum section scores of 21 will be recognized as bronze-level star performers.
Elegant certificates will be available for a modest fee and can be purchased after test takers receive their scores. To celebrate, ETS will reimburse the fee for the first ten Korean test takers who purchase gold-level certificates.
``This is a pilot program. If it is working in Korea, China, India and Indonesia, we will expand the program into other countries where we run our tests step by step. The demand for TOEFL and TOEIC is the most in Asian countries and we think these countries including Korea are very important. That's why we are implementing the pilot program in them,'' Jarred said.
Although the marketing director is not well aware of the English certificate test that the Korean government is developing to replace TOEFL and other tests, he was pessimistic about success of the state-run test, pointing out that Japan's state-administrated ``Eiken Test in Practical English Proficiency'' is not working well in the U.S.
``There are some colleges and universities that accept the Eiken test, but it doesn't have the level of penetration that TOEFL has. Most prestigious universities widely accept TOEFL,'' he said. The Korean education ministry is now preparing the test benchmarking Eikent test.
Lastly, he showed confidence that TOEFL scores can precisely reflect actual level of ability that students have. Jarred has more than 20 years experience in brand development, strategic marketing, communications, internet marketing, sales and business development across several industry sectors including education, consumer, publishing, high-tech B-to-B, and associations. For the past 15 years, he has focused exclusively on the education market. He's been working with ETS since January 2003.