Gao Chuning, 15, didn't take the recent new year break as a holiday. Instead, the teen was busy preparing for her face-to-face high school admission interview scheduled for later this month. Gao is applying for entry into a high school in the US, and while English is not her first language, she has already got a trump card - a decent score on her Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) Junior tests.
"I scored 810 in the TOEFL Junior, making me a competitive candidate for the school," said Gao, a high school student in Beijing who plans to further her study in the U.S. in August.
Gao is among the growing number of young Chinese students who are enrolling in middle schools in the U.S. in a bid to get a leg up on their compatriots. Apart from TOEFL and SAT (Scholastic Assessment Test), a prerequisite for admission to many elite schools and colleges in North America, TOEFL Junior, a requirement for some private schools, has also become popular among Chinese students.
According to an ifeng.com report published in November last year, TOEFL Junior, which is aimed at leveling the English language skills of students aged 11 to 17, entered the Chinese market around 2012 and is already attracting more than 30,000 registered students per year.
Even younger Chinese students are following the trend. In 2015, TOEFL Primary, which targets children aged 8 years and older, entered the Chinese market and is already gaining a foothold among parents anxious to give their young children a head start.
About 5,000 students took the TOEFL Primary Tests last year, and the number of students expected to sit the examination in 2016 will reach around 20,000 nationwide, according to a report from China.com.cn.
China's TOEFL wave
The statistics indicate a sharp increase in the number of Chinese students studying at middle schools in the U.S. over the past few years. The total number of Chinese students registered at American private schools was 4,503 in 2009, and rose to 23,795 in 2013, according to a report on ifeng.com.
"A lot of my classmates are preparing for TOEFL or TOEFL Junior tests," Gao said. "Some of them will use the scores to apply to schools in the U.S. while others will apply to international schools [in China]."
Natalie Zhang, a TOEFL and TOEFL Junior teacher at a local language training company, said there is a demand for pre-TOEFL test training and practice in Beijing. Zhang said the training school has designed specific lessons that include one-to-one tutoring and group learning for the students.
"Some of the students need a TOEFL Junior test score to apply for school. Others will take the TOEFL Junior tests in preparation for taking TOEFL in the future," Zhang said.
"The vocabulary requirement for TOEFL Junior is around 3,500 words, which is equivalent to the English language level of a high school graduate in China," said Zhang.
"It can be difficult for the middle school students in China."
English language tests organized by overseas institutions, such as the Graded Examinations in Spoken English (GESE) and Cambridge Young Learners English, have been well-received and much utilized by Chinese students over the years.
However, China's education department, in a bid to relieve the mounting academic burdens of students, banned children under the age of 12 from sitting GESE tests. In 2014, the Beijing Education Examinations Authority cancelled its operation in organizing Cambridge Young Learners English tests in Beijing. The absence of an authoritative standard to measure the English proficiency of young people created a gap in the industry.
The gap was quickly filled by the TOEFL brand in 2015 when Educational Testing Service (ETS) officially launched the TOEFL Primary program in China. TOEFL Primary offers three tests, reading, listening and speaking.
"While in recent years Chinese families' enthusiasm for GESE and Cambridge Young Learners English has begun to fade, schools, parents, and students often find it confusing to measure the English proficiency of young people due to a lack of authoritative standards.
However, the situation might be changed with the entrance of TOFEL Primary to China this year," an article posted on the public WeChat account of the Beijing Education Circle said.
Despite the fact that TOEFL Primary is not considered a requirement for admission to schools overseas, many Chinese students are drawn to the new tests.
According to the Beijing Morning Post, some 30 students studying at a local English training school in Beijing became one of the first batches of Chinese children to get a TOEFL Primary certificate in 2015.
Wang Mengyan, the director of the TOEFL Junior Chinese Center in charge of promoting and organizing TOEFL Junior and Primary tests in China, was quoted in a November report on China.com.cn as saying that the test is expected to become the standard for English language proficiency in primary and junior high schools in North America in the future.
Taking exams too early?
Adele Bai, executive vice president of EF Kids and Teens at Education First, an English language training company, said that if parents decide to send their children to study abroad at an earlier age, a key part of preparation should be encouraging their children to get familiar with academic English early.
However, in Bai's opinion, letting children sit exams too soon is not necessary because poor examination results might destroy the confidence of the child and lead them to become sluggish in learning the English language.
"Children should start taking practice tests when their English level has reached a certain standard," said Bai.
EF also provides TOEFL classes to young people. Apart from pre-exam training, its lessons are designed based on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) standard, which is suitable as a learning reference for Chinese students who will study overseas, said Bai.
"First, children should get into the mindset of preparing for academic English tests, by doing things such as acquiring the vocabulary related to science topics rather than merely everyday English words," said Bai. "Then they will be led to the preparation of TOEFL or TOEFL Junior, which can be very complicated and challenging."
Gao said she only spent one month preparing for the TOEFL Junior tests. After that, she went on to take the TOEFL tests. She said the results were "fairly well," and she will use her TOEFL scores to apply to some other schools in the U.S.
In Gao's opinion, she could get a high score because she is interested in reading science-related articles in Chinese, which helps her better understand the articles in the TOEFL exams. One of the benefits of preparing for TOEFL, she said, is that her knowledge is broadened when reading TOEFL's academic articles.
"For example, as a middle school student, I know that AIDs is horrible, but it was from reading an article in TOEFL that I understood the 'why' and 'how' AIDs is horrible," said Gao.
