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Canada plans to receive , and likely more than that number annually in the coming years. In 2018, there were in the country — evidence of the .

Most people coming to Canada for various purposes are coming from non-English-speaking countries: in 2016, .

Aspiring immigrants need to take various English tests, such as the (IELTS) or (TOEFL), to demonstrate their English abilities.

While excelling on such tests might increase someone’s confidence, there are global studies that suggest a prevailing and students’ .

The fact that this can be a problem becomes apparent when students are admitted to universities , .

This situation could imaginably have dire psychological or financial consequences for students and their families. And what is the impact on professors or departments if increasing numbers of students lack the language skills to meet the curricular standards?

Immigrants with English-language skills significantly lower than what their test scores may indicate could find their .

Intense preparation

Standardized tests, . It’s perhaps no surprise that a language test, focused on formal qualities of written and spoken language, won’t necessarily assess the way someone functions in a specific academic or linguistic local setting.

The particularities of technically correct language means that in some cases even a native English speaker .

Evidence suggests that when people prepare for these English-language tests, , so they approach this with . After all, for people seeking to immigrate, these language tests are gatekeepers to their futures.

Students , “drilling” answers over and over to learn the question patterns.

I took an IELTS test as a requirement to submit my applications to Canadian universities. When I started preparing for the test, because I was unfamiliar with the question patterns, I prepared intensively to answer the questions quickly. To practise how to answer the listening part of the test, I used previous tests to get a sense of the questions that might appear. Before the listening started, I looked at the questions to guess the expected answers. I also memorized high-frequency words for the writing section.

I scored high, with a perfect score in the speaking section. As a student, teacher and researcher, I know that my score reflected my intense test preparation, however, not my actual proficiency in English. Now, in my PhD studies, I am exploring how test-takers perceive the influence of testing on their learning.

Integrate assessment with learning

If it’s common to see gaps between what standardized language tests show and a person’s actual level of proficiency, does it have to be this way?

How particular . And, assessment and testing theory itself is changing with the rise in .

Assessment is , but something that .

Ideally there could be more continuity between English-language proficiency testing and English-language learning .

Hoping for a test-free world is not going to help any of us. Instead, we all need to improve tests so they have positive effects on teaching and learning languages.

Nasreen Sultana is a PhD candidate at �������ϲʿ����ֳ�'s Faculty of Education.

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