Dr. Philip Tabbiner, President of ETS Global

Seoul, Korea — To help students aged 12-15 (Korean age) who are studying English as a foreign language, Educational Testing Service (ETS) is launching TOEFL® Junior™, a global assessment of middle-school-level English language proficiency. It is being launched first in Korea under the management of Profile 21, an education learning company.

TOEFL Junior is a low-stakes assessment that measures the degree to which younger students have attained the language proficiency representative of English-medium instructional environments. Designed for students aged 12-15 for whom English is a foreign language, it measures listening and reading ability, as well as knowledge of language form and meaning. The first administration of the TOEFL Junior test will take place in Korea on October 24, 2010.

“English proficiency is an increasingly important skill for students worldwide,” explains Dr. Philip Tabbiner, President of ETS Global. “With instruction beginning at earlier ages, mastering English expands students’ access to a range of educational, personal and professional opportunities. And, because it is a global assessment, students, teachers, administrators and parents around the world can depend on TOEFL Junior for objective information about language skills. Students in 16 countries, including Korea, participated in TOEFL Junior pilot testing earlier this year. We are launching this in Korea first because it leads the world in English language learning. We will introduce this global assessment in other countries soon, including Japan, China, Vietnam, Brazil and others throughout Asia, Europe and the Middle East.”

“We are very pleased to represent ETS’s TOEFL Junior product in Korea,” says Ji Taek Lim, CEO of Profile 21. “As the company that will manage test administrations and business operations for this new learning resource, we believe there is a real need for such an exam to assist young Korean students studying English. We believe that TOEFL Junior eventually will be a significant contributor in guiding Korean juniors to develop their own academic career and English capability in line with a true global standard.”

The TOEFL Junior test is in a paper-based format (pBT) and contains three sections:

Listening Comprehension:
- Ability to listen for basic, interpersonal purposes

- Ability to listen for instructional purposes

- Ability to listen for academic purposes

Reading Comprehension:
- Ability to read and comprehend academic texts

- Ability to read and comprehend non-academic texts

Language Form and Meaning:
- Ability to demonstrate proficiency in key enabling skills, such as grammar and vocabulary, in context

“TOEFL Junior will support placement decisions after admission to public and private schools in English-dominant countries, international schools in non-English-dominant countries, or schools in any country using bilingual approaches to instruction,” Tabbiner adds.

While TOEFL Junior is a distinct product within the growing TOEFL family of English assessments, it is not designed to be a predictor of later performance on the TOEFL iBT™ test, Tabbiner explained. Rather, he said, it is geared to serve the language learning needs of students 12-15 years of age. The test has been built using ETS’s nearly half-century of expertise in developing international assessments of English language proficiency.

Plans call for a computer-based version of TOEFL Junior in the future that will include assessment of speaking and writing skills.

For further information on TOEFL Junior, contact Profile 21 at info@toefljunior.or.kr, or visit www.toefljunior.or.kr , www.ets.org/c/14950.

About ETS

At nonprofit ETS, we advance quality and equity in education for people worldwide by creating assessments based on rigorous research. ETS serves individuals, educational institutions and government agencies by providing customized solutions for teacher certification, English language learning, and elementary, secondary and post-secondary education, as well as conducting education research, analysis and policy studies. Founded in 1947, ETS develops, administers and scores more than 50 million tests annually — including the TOEFL® and TOEIC® tests, the GRE® test and The Praxis Series™ assessments — in more than 180 countries. www.ets.org.

About Profile 21

Profile 21 is a company established for management of test administrations and business related to the TOEFL Junior. Its motto is, “Help talented Korean juniors measure their global English competency and build their future profile.” The company is committed to expanding their scope of operations to include a variety of education and assessment fields for the purpose of contributing to talent development of Korean students. www.toefljunior.or.kr

ETS Contact:
Tom Ewing
Tel. +1 (609) 683-2899
mediacontacts@ets.org