I was quoted a few times in this PIE News article about TOEFL Essentials being approved by IRCC. I have a few thoughts:
- Like most things in Canada, English tests are terribly expensive. As is often the case, this is partially due to a lack of competition. In introducing a whole new product to the market, ETS has the opportunity to really shake things up in terms of pricing.
- Some readers may already know that Canada is a fairly large country. The introduction of a new test with a pre-existing network of test centers could mean the difference between some poor bastard taking a test close to home versus having to drive three hours to do so. Remember that ETS can offer the iBT and Essentials tests in the same test centers (and at the same time). That’s what Pearson does with the PTE-A and the PTE-Core tests.
- ETS currently has a 0% share of this market, so the introduction of the TOEFL Essentials test is a huge win for the testing giant. This is notable because ETS doesn’t get a lot of wins nowadays. Kudos to the team that put this together.
- Keep an eye on the specifications once the test is officially available for this purpose. It wouldn’t surprise me to see a few minor modifications get made. For instance, the test probably doesn’t need three adaptive levels, nor an adaptive writing section, nor an unscored video statement. The final version could more closely resemble the 2026 version of the TOEFL iBT.