The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.
Attributed to Mark Twain.
Abstract
It has been widely asserted that general English for Academic Purposes (EAP) in postsecondary education has a limited future, given both the benefits of discipline-specific EAP, and the widespread use by universities of international standardized assessments for proof of English language proficiency (such as IELTS, PTE, TOEFL, etc.). The extra time and expense required for completion of EAP courses is a less appealing admission route than it is to “IELTS-out” (bypassing an EAP program by obtaining a standardized test score that enabling direct admission into a university program). This article investigates capacity of nine widely-used measures of English language proficiency to predict post-secondary student achievement (n = 1918) across multiple academic programs at a Canadian university, over a seven-year admission period. All standardized tests measuring English language proficiency for admission readiness (including IELTS and TOEFL) were insignificant and/or problematically weak predictors of achievement, in both first and final semester of study. In contrast, completion of pre-enrolment EAP programming proved to be a significant predictor of academic achievement, with significant, moderate association. With general EAP the only measure of language proficiency a significant predictor of student achievement, the study’s findings question whether predictions about the demise of such programs are premature.
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Notes
The institutional setting in which this study takes place requires proof of ELP either through completion of a pre-enrollment general EAP program, or requisite scores on one of a number of prescribed standardized language tests.
For TOEFL® iBT/PBT (Test of English as a Foreign Language internet-Based Test/Paper-Based Test) see ETS (2018). For IELTS Academic (International English Language Testing System) see IELTS (2018). For CAEL (Canadian Academic English Language) test see Paragon Testing Enterprises (2018). For MELAB (Michigan English Language Assessment Battery) see Michigan Language Assessment (2018). For PTE (Pearson Test of English—Academic) see Pearson (2019). For CAE (Cambridge Advanced English; more recently C1 Advanced) see UCLES (2019).
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Johnson, R.C., Tweedie, M.G. “IELTS-out/TOEFL-out”: Is the End of General English for Academic Purposes Near? Tertiary Student Achievement Across Standardized Tests and General EAP. Interchange 52, 101–113 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10780-021-09416-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10780-021-09416-6