Teachers who work with students in Japan will appreciate this new article in “Language Testing in Asia.” It uses results from the TOEFL (and other tests) to create profiles of language learners in that country. Not surprisingly, the profiles match what our experience tells us.
I like this section at the end:
“When the uneven profiles come from true skill imbalance, learners and teachers may need to decide whether to focus on weaker or stronger skills for further study based on their contexts and needs. While one direction is to improve a weaker skill, a stronger skill could be further improved to compensate for the weaker one.”
Note the last part.
About a third of the students I work with nowadays are from Japan. Most of them come to me for help with the writing section. After looking at their score history I usually offer to help with the speaking section as well. The response is often something like “It is impossible for a student from Japan to score more than 23 in the speaking section, so I’m not going to work on it any more.” Even though their target is 110 overall, they’d rather just max out the other sections than “waste time” on the speaking prep. It’s an interesting approach. It may be a correct one.