[EDLING:1874] TOEFL Trouble Hits American Students

[Francis M Hult]

Via lg-policy...

> >From the Chronicle of Higher Education,
> 
> Toefl Trouble Hits American Students,
> 
> Just as With European Peers European students and educators have been
> complaining since last year that the Educational Testing Services rollout
> of a new online version of the Test of English as a Foreign Language has
> been a mess, particularly since ETS planned to simultaneously stop
> offering a paper version. Now the same problems that the Europeans have
> experienced since last year are hitting American students whose native
> language is not English and who want to use the test to demonstrate their
> English proficiency on college applications, according to todays
> Washington Post.
> 
> The examination, which is a gateway to study at American colleges for
> thousands of foreigners, has been criticized by Europeans for technical
> glitches and limited chances to take the test that, they say, have robbed
> many would-be students of the opportunity to study in the United States
> (The Chronicle, December 16, 2005). The Europeans urged ETS to delay
> introducing the online-only test to other countries until the problems had
> been ironed out (The Chronicle, January 25). ETS has responded that it
> takes the complaints seriously and is fixing the problems.
> 
> But the identical problems are now cropping up in the United States, as
> ETS phases in the online-only test: technical snafus, limited test sites,
> and suddenly canceled tests that leave college applicants dangling. An ETS
> spokesman told the Post that problems have been rare so far.
> 
> http://chronicle.com/news/