IELTS Research Reports

Wayne Sawyer and Michael SinghDespite these problems, a number of students preferred what they perceived to be the greater focuson individuals of the Australian curriculum, recognising that the ‘teacher-centredness’ of their ‘home’curriculum did not necessarily ensure that pupils were learning. One student said he ‘couldn’t teach athome…it’s not actual teaching…I’d be happy to teach here’. They felt that the demands made of themin Australia made the standard of teaching very high because of the perceived need to make lessonsmore engaging. Though perhaps based on a romanticised view of students in their home countries asmore compliant, the students in this group were identifying issues that were broader than issues oflanguage alone and also had in common with local students the concern with behaviour management -a characteristic concern for all beginning teachers regardless of background (Arends, 2004, pp 29-31;Leask and Moorhouse, 2005, pp 22ff).5.5 Have your practicum schools identified English language proficiency asan issue for you? What about other issues (such as becoming familiar withAustralian school cultures)?Some students identified language competence as an issue for their schools in response to thisquestion, but just as many felt that their issues were identified by schools as no different from those oflocal students5.6 In the light of this, what do you think of the adequacy of your IELTS score forentry into teacher education and what do you think an adequate score would be?Students had strong personal views on the inconsistency of IELTS, telling stories of getting goodgrades in their course, but low grades on writing in IELTS, though ‘we do a lot of academic writing’and after two years in Australia, ‘we are proficient in English’. They strongly felt that IELTS wasnot a consistent measure of ability (or a good predictor of success, raising again an issue whichcannot be a function of such a test, but which is clearly perceived as important by these students).The inconsistency in IELTS scores with relation to what they perceived to be their actual languagefunctioningabilities in English was a big issue for these students. A strongly expressed opinionwas their belief that success in the Academic tests of speaking and writing depended on one’s priorknowledge of the topic one was given to write or speak about. ‘Topics’, they argued, ‘are crucial’-which in their view, made IELTS effectively a test of knowledge, not just language functioning.However, when asked to discuss the scores on or near those required for entry into their course, allagreed that a score of ‘6’would be too low for entry into a teacher education course, even with twoyears study in the language following it. ‘6.5’, on the other hand, was regarded as ‘not too low’, henceby default an overall score of 6.5 was regarded by these students as a baseline for entry into a teachereducation course.6 THE PERSPECTIVES OF REPRESENTATIVES OF ONE STATE TEACHERREGISTRATION AUTHORITYInterviews were conducted with the representatives of one state teacher registration authority.Questions asked were:1 What is your feedback from schools on the English language proficiency of newlygraduated teachers who have been subject to IELTS testing?2 Are other issues more important to schools than just language proficiency in the success ofsuch newly graduated teachers (e.g. becoming familiar with Australian school cultures)?102 www.ielts.org