Rumours about TOEIC
This is just gossip, so perhaps you can tell me (by comment or email) which ones you have heard or think to be true:
- The TOEIC was originally set up by specific request of the Japanese government who wanted to promote communicative English in a population of salarymen that they were convinced only knew grammar (although to be honest they don’t seem to know that very well either). Someone balked at the cost and/ or complication of a really communicative test, i.e. one that included writing and speaking for all candidates, and so this is the test that we got. Same thing happened in 2006 with the “new” (aka “blink and you’ll miss the changes”) TOEIC. Have you ever met a student who improved their communicative English by studying for TOEIC? Have you ever met a student who didn’t suffer from the opposite effect due to studying for TOEIC? Me neither
- ETS was forced to change the test due to the number of complaints of people with perfect TOEIC scores who were employed and then found to be incapable of using the language in business communication. However, all the changes that really would have changed that disappeared due to bureaucracy within ETS and/ or companies who were unwilling to pay for what they said they wanted
- ETS lets local agents set the price of the institutional TOEIC (ones that are done in company etc), and they charge whatever they can get away with. The Koreans are lucky enough to have a government that has introduced the competing TEPS test, making TOEIC IP in Korea much cheaper than in Japan. Ditto in places like France, where this is the reason why the TOEIC IP is popular but individuals taking the TOEIC is very rare indeed
- Although the new test includes Australians and Brits, they aren’t allowed to say anything that isn’t also correct in American English
- The format of the TOEIC was actually decided by the CIA in order to stop the Japanese and Koreans getting too good at English and so totally beating the Americans in business
I have reasons to believe that one of the rumours above is false. Comments on which ones you don’t believe or know for a fact to be fiction below please
Tags: gossip
June 22nd, 2009 at 3:33 am
That last one has the ring of truth about it……
July 3rd, 2009 at 11:09 pm
That last one has the ring of fantasy about it….
July 7th, 2009 at 12:47 am
The first rumor is only half true.
The original request to ETS to create the TOEIC came from a Japanese company called International Communications Inc. (ICI). ETS turned them down because they wanted to work with a non profit that had govt support.
ICI got shot down by the Ministry of Education (who supported the STEP EIKEN) so ICI’s owner got help from a retired Ministry of Trade bureaucrat who convinced his ex-ministry to back the test.
After the test’s creation the ICI and about a half dozen subsidiaries ran the test for a time in the USA and Canada (until ETS set up their own for-profit company to run the TOEIC), got preferential contracts to run the TOEIC fan club, publish the TOEIC magazine, publish official TOEIC study guides, operate the TOEIC website, sell the TOEIC to universities and companies, etc etc. The web of private companies that make a living off the TOEIC is complex indeed.
Furthermore, the president of the non-profit running the TOEIC in Japan is a [EDITED] character and used TOEIC fees to run his girlfriend’s [EDITED] Association. He also appointed the girlfriend’s son to various posts connected to both profits and non-profits working with the TOEIC. The son is currently the [EDITED] TOEIC man in Japan and is being groomed to take over from the 92 year old president who has run the TOEIC in Japan since 1979.
Or so I’ve heard…
August 11th, 2009 at 6:33 am
More than rumour, as it is in the famously cautious Japan Times, but interesting nonetheless
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20090811zg.html
August 20th, 2009 at 2:38 am
And part two is even juicier!
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20090818zg.html