Continuing my interview series, here’s a chat with Martin Chan, who has been teaching TOEFL prep in China for about ten years. This interview went long (and is really inside-baseball at times) but it is a fun one because TOEFL is thriving in China and there is a lot of demand for his services.  Below is the video.  After the jump are a few highlights. 

1. From Martin’s perspective, the TOEFL Test is still the most popular English test in China, though the IELTS is at about the same level.

2. He doesn’t see a ton of demand for help with the Duolingo and Pearson tests, and from his perspective their popularity may have declined a bit since pandemic restrictions were lifted.

3. People love the recent changes to the TOEFL Test, but some people worry about how errors are now weighted in the reading section.

4. 1:1 classes seem to be the most common prep method in China.

5. We tried to explain the reasons for increases to the average TOEFL score in China. We speculated that it might be a result of technology, great prep resources, and changes to the demographics of test takers. Note that this conversation occurred before the release of 2022 test score data (which showed another significant increase).

6. More specifically, we talked about how much students in China benefit from greater access to retired TOEFL tests and to implementations of the SpeechRater and e-rater AI (all licensed from ETS).

7. It is still really hard to book seats at test centers in China (for all English tests). Many students resort to buying seats from resellers who charge an extra fee.

8. The NEEA. What’s up with that?

9. We discussed the ban on private tutoring (for regular school subjects) that went into effect back in 2021. This is still impacting the tutoring industry. But, interestingly, it has created new business for TOEFL and IELTS prep as it is something of a workaround for parents who want their kids to do well in their regular English classes.

10. Some parents in China continue to consider study abroad destinations other than the USA due to the dreadful state of relations between those two countries.

TOEFL score data for 2022 is now available!  Get the data over here.

The mean TOEFL score for all test takers in 2022 was 88, the same as 2021.

• The mean reading score was 22.8 (+.4)
• The mean listening score was 23.0 (+.4)
• The mean speaking score was 20.9 (-.2)
• The mean writing score was 21.6 (+.1)

Among the countries I track closely…

• The mean score in China was 90 (+3)
• The mean score in Korea was 86 (no change)
• The mean score in Japan was 73 (no change)
• The mean score in Brazil was 89 (-1)
• The mean score in India was 95 (-1)
• The mean score in the USA was 93 (no change)

That big jump in China comes as no surprise.  Scores in China have increased significantly since changes to the TOEFL in 2019 which shortened the test and introduced an at-home option.

Here are per-country changes since 2018 (the last full year of the old four-hour TOEFL, which was available only at test centers).

• China: +10
• Korea: +2
• Japan: +2
• Brazil: +2
• India: no change
• USA: +3

I noticed that a week ago ETS uploaded a job listing for “Executive Director, Test Security Integrity” to LinkedIn about a week ago.  Interested parties can apply on that platform.  This is a good thing.

“Rest of World” took a deep dive into the world of cheating on online standardized tests, including the PTE, IELTS, TOEFL, GRE and Duolingo English Test.

They note:

“A university student in the central Chinese province of Henan told Rest of World in November that she recently hired a company to help her with the Toefl test by sending answers to her phone during an at-home exam. The company initially asked for 18,000 yuan ($2,548), but she bargained it down to 15,000 ($2,124). The student said she felt bad for cheating, but she was eager to obtain a high score before the application deadlines for the fall 2023 master’s programs in the U.S. “I think everyone struggles [with ethics],” she said. “It’s not a good thing after all.” 

Helping others cheat on state exams is a criminal offense in China. But test-prep professionals say Chinese authorities have little interest in how they exploit the security lapses of international tests. On social platforms including WeChat, Xiaohongshu, and Douban, test-prep agencies openly advertise cheating services for other online-proctored exams such as GMAT, the PTE Academic exam, IELTS Indicator, and the Duolingo English Test. One company contacted by Rest of World offered cheating services for the LSAT, a rigorous exam required by most law schools in the U.S., charging 40,000 yuan ($5,662) to obtain a score of 160 out of 180, and 60,000 yuan ($8,494) to hit 170, good enough for a Harvard Law School applicant.”

Representatives from testing organizations counter that they are working hard to reduce cheating and provide secure platforms. 

This is a subject I have never felt comfortable writing about on the blog, but it matches what I’ve heard over the past couple of years.  Cheating is not limited just to China, of course.

Kathy Spratt recently sent me an M.A. thesis by Zhi (Stone) Chen of Iowa State University. The thesis investigates some of the TOEFL preparation behaviors of repeater test-takers in China, and is the best investigation of the TOEFL I’ve seen in recent years.  Everyone should check it out. Reading about test-takers in China is of particular importance as Chinese test-takers are kicking ass nowadays.  Their scores are going up and up.  In 2020, the mean score in China increased by six points. 

I want to highlight and comment on a few of Chen’s findings.

General Findings

• The literature review suggests that TOEFL coaching and preparation schools are ineffective. That comes as no surprise to me.
• Nowadays, online communities are more popular.  Again, this is no great surprise.  Self-directed learning is probably the best way to tackle the TOEFL.
• The most popular preparation method?  Using the TPOs.  It is unfortunate that the TPOs are only widely available within China.  I know that some are available for people outside China,  but the difference in availability is notable: 69 sets for free in China vs five sets that cost $40 each in the rest of the world.  I hope ETS acknowledges this disparity some day. The thesis includes quotes from test-takers who raved about the usefulness of the TPOs.  At the end of the day, I suspect that easy access to TPOs is the “secret” to score increases in China.  But that’s my conclusion, not the author’s.

New Preparation Techniques 

Chen mentions a few preparation techniques not discussed in existing literature:

• The article describes how many students use “speed listening” to prepare for the speaking section. Basically, they grab the audio from a sample lecture (TPOs, I guess) and listen to it at normal speed.  Then the listen at 1.2 speed.  Then they listen at 1.4 speed.  The goal is to be able to understand every word at 1.4 speed, so that on test day the lectures sound like they are in “slow motion.”  I suppose they repeat this process with dozens of lectures.  One student mentioned doing this with the “60 Second Science” podcast from Scientific American.
• The article also describes how a “new” preparation method is getting feedback regarding their practice essays.
• Dictation and shadow-speaking are also mentioned.

I do encourage you to check out the thesis for yourself to explore which preparation methods were deemed most effective overall, and in each section of the test.

I blogged last month about how TOEFL scores in China skyrocketed in 2020.  Part of that was due to the test changes in 2019, but of course that isn’t the whole explanation, as scores in the rest of the world didn’t increase quite as much.

To figure this out, I asked one of my contacts in China for comment.  This teacher owns a small TOEFL tutoring school in a major city.  He said:

That is a significant raise in average scores. Compared to when I started teaching TOEFL in 2013, parents are definitely expecting more of their kids and tutors nowadays. I remember at the time, the ‘target’ most students would aim for was +100. Now, everyone wants to reach +105, with some parents & counselors/advisors insisting on +108 for their children. I think this stems from increased competition, as the number of Chinese international students applying to the USA has increased quite a bit, so students need to strive harder to stand out. Even the average age of our students is much younger than before. We get quite a few middle school students now whose parents are younger, more international, and globally savvy as well.

Of course, how students are actually able to achieve better results, I have a hard time placing my finger on. In general, I think the reason might be that the international education industry is more developed than before. There are more international schools; STEAM programs and Project Based Learning is being heavily embraced by the industry; and test prep is now mostly comprised of small, independent centers rather than the monopoly New Oriental had on the market. From what I’ve heard, it was quite easy to get by at New Oriental before, as long as you could entertain large classes and could play politics in the company. Now, with all the smaller centers, more responsibility is placed on teachers as there is more direct contact with students and families. This is just a guess based off the changes I’ve seen recently though.

So there ya go.  An insider’s take on TOEFL prep in China.