IELTS Research Reports

Glenys Merrifield3.8 Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC)The TOEIC test was originally designed as an assessment of language skills for the workplace. It isrun by ETS, as is the TOEFL, and is internet-based. Originally a Listening and Reading test, it hasnow had Speaking and Writing skills added to make it more comprehensive.It is best recognised in the USA and Canada, where it has recently formed an new agreement withan associate, AMIDEAST, aimed at making it more competitive and extending its reach in the USA.AMIDEAST has formerly managed educational services including English language testing primarilyin the Middle East and North Africa.Three Canadian professional associations and one in the UK named the TOEIC as one of itsrecognised language assessment systems.4 PROFILES OF PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS: CANADA, THE UNITEDKINGDOM AND IRELAND4.1 Profiles of professional associations: CanadaCanada is unique in that it has a dual language policy, English and French, and also has an indigenouspopulation whose several languages are recognised in Canada. In such a multilanguage culture andenvironment, awareness of the significance of language competency for professionals is thereforedeeply entrenched in regulation and legislation.Professional organisations responsible for registration in Canada require evidence of an acceptablelanguage fluency level in at least one of the two official languages, either English or French.Historically, Canada’s political process has devolved control and monitoring of professional skills,training, standards and registration to the provinces. This means that for many occupations there is nostandard national policy on minimum English language skills for professional registration. Politically,however, Canadian government legislation is moving towards reducing barriers and increasingmobility throughout Canada by establishing common standards for professions such as health care andeducation, and it is to be expected that this will include language assessment.In this context, the larger provinces are collaborating so that standards become more uniformnationally. There are now organisations established in Canada which have a national mandatefor regulation and accreditation. The Canadian Council for Accreditation of Pharmacy Programs(CCAPP), for example, is the Canadian accrediting body for courses of study in pharmacy, and onlyaccredited courses with the CCAPP imprimatur or those accredited by the American equivalent(Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education) are acceptable to provincial regulatory bodies. ThePharmacy Examining Board of Canada (PEBC) has a dual role in that it is a national examining boardfor the pharmacy profession and it also assesses the validity of pharmacy qualifications.In the field of nursing, there has been a move in Canada to form a national organisation which willwork towards developing a national set of standards and criteria for practising nurses. To date this hasresulted in the CELBAN, which is outlined in 3.4 above.It has been pointed out above that one of the critical factors in deciding whether or not to use alanguage assessment tool is accessibility. In Canada, there is accessibility to IELTS testing in thesouthern provinces and in the main towns. However, the northern parts of Canada, which are lessdensely populated, tend to have far more limited access to English language testing and the IELTS test34 www.ielts.org