Is there a Recognition of World Englishes and ELF in International Tests of English?
Is there a Recognition of World Englishes and ELF in International Tests of English?

Summary/Abstract: Thousands of non-native speakers have been taking international tests of English administered by long-established testing boards, such as ETC and PEARSON, for a wide range of purposes worldwide. These test takers represent various Englishes of the Outer and Expanding Circle countries. However, little information is available as to the degree to which their Englishes are recognized and represented in the major international tests of English. Thus, this study explores the websites and policy materials that belong to universally distributed international English tests and further scrutinizes what Englishes are imposed on test takers while measuring their proficiency through a documentary analysis approach. Informed by the content analysis of the textual data on the websites and the relevant documents and the multimodal study of the photographic data, the study indicates that there is not much recognition of the diversity of English speakers from non-Anglophone countries and their diverse ways of English use in the tests at the level of practice in particular, since they are rather standard English oriented for the desired practices. The findings suggest that the testing boards should adjust their rubrics and assessment criteria in line with the current sociolinguistic profile of their test takers whose ways of doing English are relatively different from NESs and standard English norms.

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