10-513: The EF English Proficiency Index ( EF EPI ) attempts to rank countries by the equity of English language skills amongst those adults who took the EF test . It is the product of EF Education First , an international education company, and draws its conclusions from data collected via English tests available for free over the internet. The index is an online survey first published in 2011 based on test data from 1.7 million test takers. The most recent edition
20-403: A second language, but only on English proficiency, which is implicitly singled out as the only language that counts to know. English-speaking countries are therefore excluded from the ranking and implicitly designated as the 'gold standard' to be achieved. The EF English Proficiency Index thus gives a worldwide quantitative representation of the 'deficit model', whereby a country's level of progress
30-402: Is measured on the benchmark of a subset of countries. Moreover, the countries at the top of the rankings are often those whose official languages are gradually subject to 'domain loss' in favour of English, because they are being used less and less in scientific research, academic teaching and multinational corporations. EF test The EF Standard English Test is a standardized test of
40-539: The English language designed for non-native English speakers. It is the product of EF Education First , a global language training company, and a team of language assessment experts including Lyle Bachman, Mari Pearlman, and Ric Luecht. EF compares the EFSET's accuracy to the most widely used high stakes standardized English tests: TOEFL , IELTS , and Cambridge International Examinations . There are three versions of
50-489: The EFSET: a 15-minute test which is basically a quiz type test, a 50-minute test which assesses the reading and listening skills, and a 90-minute test which covers reading, writing, listening and speaking skills. The results are fully aligned with CEFR levels, i.e. the 6-level Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). Initially, the test used to evaluate the receptive skills (reading and listening) only, but later
60-417: The aim of attaining the same level of accuracy as those tests. Soon, the company realized it could gain branding benefits from releasing a robust, testing tool for any English learner to use. The initial public launch of the EFSET in 2014 was the result of a 3-year process, which included 15 months of formal trials involving 14,500 students. The EF SET English Certificate is scored on a scale of 0 to 100 with
70-523: The report and has analysis of English skills in many countries and territories. Below are the latest country scores, proficiency bands, and rankings as published in 2023. The European Commission performed a language survey, SurveyLang , which tested a representative sample of 15-year-old European students on their foreign language skills. The report and data sets were released for 13 European countries in June 2012. The EF English Proficiency Index has been
80-493: The subject of criticism in literature. From the point of view of methodology, it suffers from self-selection bias. Instead of testing the level of English proficiency in the population, it tests the level of English of those who self-select. On a political level, the EF English Proficiency Index can promote linguistic imperialism. EF does not create a ranking of countries on the basis of ability to speak
90-430: The test makers integrated writing and speaking section to the test. Unlike other standardized English tests, the EFSET uses computerized adaptive testing methods to adjust the difficulty of the test according to the examinee's ability level. The EFSET is not a proctored exam. EF Education First initially intended to build the EFSET for internal use as a low-cost alternative to third party standardized English tests, with
100-754: Was released in November 2023. The EF EPI 2023 edition was calculated using test data from 2.1 million test takers in 2022. The test takers were self-selected. 113 countries and territories appear in this edition of the index. In order to be included, a country was required to have at least 400 test takers. The report is composed of a country ranking table, several pages of analysis with graphs correlating other economic and social factors with English proficiency, and analysis of each region or continent. The 2023 report includes English proficiency levels by gender, age group, and region, within countries, and some English proficiency scores by city. The website displays portions of
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