Category: celpip

New Australian Visa Requirements!

Posted on by TOEFL Resources

The Australian Department of Home Affairs has finally released new English test score requirements for visa applicants.  As most readers know already, CELPIP General, MET and LanguageCert have been added to the list of acceptable tests.

Additionally, many of the section score requirements have been adjusted.  I won’t list them all here, but a few examples might be useful.

For instance, “proficient English” was formerly achieved by earning 65 points in each of the four sections of the PTE test.  Now, that requires the following scores:  listening 58, reading 59, writing 69, speaking 76.

Indeed, applicants submitting PTE scores will need higher speaking results across the board (with one exception, see below).  Some have speculated that this might make the test less attractive moving forward.  As has been discussed in this space many times, perceived easiness is always at top of mind when students pick a test.

Applicants submitting TOEFL scores will also need better speaking results than before, though the increase isn’t as dramatic as for Pearson’s test.

Interestingly, requirements for subclass 485 visas (Temporary Graduate Visa) have been lowered slightly (but not for IELTS).  Also, TOEFl and PTE requirements for “functional” English have been lowered slightly.

Changes apply to tests taken on or after August 7.  I’m not sure how long old test results can be used.

I can’t find any word about what will become of TOEFL iBT when that test changes in January of next year.

Australia DHA Test Changes Soon?

Posted on by TOEFL Resources

It dawns on me that new requirements from the Australian Department of Home Affairs will probably kick off around August 7.  That’s the date that the big PTE changes will take effect… changes which were partially (largely?) mandated by the DHA.  It will be nice to finally stop checking the DHA website for updates after making my morning coffee.

A few things come to mind:

  1. LANGUAGECERT, CELPIP and MET have all been through the arduous DHA acceptance process. As part of that process, they have all published concordance studies linking their tests to IELTS.  I don’t see any reason why these three products won’t be added to the list of acceptable tests.  These tests currently have fairly small volumes, but they are backed by organizations with very deep pockets (PeopleCert, Prometric and Cambridge University Press & Assessment) and will grow over time.  They will draw customers away from PTE and IELTS.
  2. As I wrote yesterday, the DHA now has access to concordance tables for speaking, writing, reading and listening.  Accordingly, we might see adjustments to the required section scores for Australian visa applications.  Notably, we might see higher PTE speaking requirements, which could slow the use of the PTE for Australian visas.  As regular readers know, in recent years that test has become somewhat dominant among individuals going to Australia. That’s partly because the required PTE scores are perceived to be easier to meet than the required IELTS scores.
  3. Obviously the enhanced TOEFL (launching January 2026) has not been approved by the DHA.  Given the scope of the changes to that test it probably never will be.  One imagines that ETS will maintain a version of the classic TOEFL iBT solely for Australia-bound students (and for the handful of other use cases that will be unlikely to accept the new test) but it is sometimes hard to gauge what the folks in New Jersey are thinking these days.

That’s all I can think of now.  Lemme know your thoughts.

CELPIP/IELTS Concordance

Posted on by TOEFL Resources

Prometric and the IELTS partners have just published a concordance study comparing the CELPIP and IELTS-General tests.

It is a very nice study.  I just want to mention that of the 1089 participants, seemingly not a single one earned an IELTS writing score of 9.0.  Two participants earned a score of 8.5.  This is the fourth concordance study in a row involving IELTS in which not a single person reported a perfect writing score.  I don’t know if that’s meaningful,  but it amuses me.