Irish people fail English exam

Reiver

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/asia-pacific/english-test-derailing-irish-dream-of-australian-citizenship-1.2368668

"Mr Coates said 90 per cent of the Irish people who do the test fail it at least once."

Surely if this test is for foreigners a native speaker should pass with little difficulty? Or is Oz just trying to make a super utopian state with fantastic brain power?

endacl

Dey failed it cause nobody learned them to talk proper.

Incorrect use of tenses: I seen it. I done it. Etc.
Getting words mixed up. Synonyms.

Lots of reasons we might fail.

the groutch

Not surprised he failed, not easy to spell words like "strewth" and "flamin gallah".

AllGunsBlazing

Me fail English? That's unpossible!


Boom! Nailed it.

Reiver

AllGunsBlazing wrote: »

Me fail English? That's unpossible!


Boom! Nailed it.

In fairness its the trick questions like this that would get me.

mad muffin

Please repeat this sentence…

Three thirds and a third.

Irish guy…

Tree turds and a turd.

:pac:

Yeah… that's a fail.

riffmongous

mad muffin wrote: »

Please repeat this sentence…

Three thirds and a third.

Irish guy…

Tree turds and a turd.

:pac:

Yeah… that's a fail.

Turd? Bleedin' yanks

Jinonatron

You can find the test at the following link:
http://takeielts.britishcouncil.org/prepare-test/free-practice-tests

questionmark?

So the guy is a native English speaker, who came to the country legally, has a trade and wants to win an Olympic medal for his adopted country but yet the Australians are making life hard for him. Makes sense???

Conall Cernach

I've noticed on programmes like Neighbours and Home and Away that Australians say "I" in a lot of cases where they should be using "me" e.g. they will say "that belongs to you and I" instead of "that belongs to you and me". Maybe they have different grammar rules there that trip up Irish English speakers.

Reiver

questionmark? wrote: »

So the guy is a native English speaker, who came to the country legally, has a trade and wants to win an Olympic medal for his adopted country but yet the Australians are making life hard for him. Makes sense???

My dad's from Tipp as well, I'd say he learned English to a certain degree to function. It's easy to confuse them with speakers of some corrupted offshoot of English but I'd say it evolved in a much different fashion in that misty land.

osarusan

This is the IELTS test.

I don't know how it is used in this case, but normally, you don't 'fail' the test, you just take it and get a score out of 40, which is used to calculate a score between 1 and 9.

It's a proficiency test very commonly used for entrance to universities - for example, a person trying to get into a Master's Degree in Computer Engineering at UL would need a 7 overall, and no lower than 6.5 in any infividual skill score (listening, reading, writing, speaking).

i have taught IELTS classes and courses many times, and while the test is tricky at times, I am surprised that any native speaker would score so low. To score under 7, a person would need to be getting 29/40 or lower.

Jinonatron

To be honest some of these English tests can be quite hard. There is a similar requirement if you want German citizenship however the German Government set the bar a bit lower than IELTs because German is ****ing impossible

Reiver

Jinonatron wrote: »

To be honest some of these English tests can be quite hard. There is a similar requirement if you want German citizenship however the German Government set the bar a bit lower than IELTs because German is ****ing impossible

We're lucky not to have cases in English. Even Irish has less than German!

keith16

osarusan wrote: »

This ie the IELTS test.

I don't know how it is used in this case, but normally, you don't 'fail' the test, you just take it and get a score out of 40, which is used to calculate a score between 1 and 9.

It's a proficiency test very commonly used for entrance to universities - for example, a person trying to get into a Master's Degree in Computer Engineering at UL would need a 7 overall, and no lower than 6.5 in any infividual skill score (listening, reading, writing, speaking).

Seems very unfair for sure.

David Ingram, a linguist who is one of the designers of IELTS, agreed and said it was not meant to be used as an immigration test.
“It concerns me greatly,” he said. “And as a person who’s spent a lot of his life working in the area of testing, it seems to me that it is unethical to be using tests that have been developed for one purpose, for another.”

Fr_Dougal

To be fair, we do export a lot of Full Time Mad Bastards.

Nodin

Reiver wrote: »

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/asia-pacific/english-test-derailing-irish-dream-of-australian-citizenship-1.2368668

"Mr Coates said 90 per cent of the Irish people who do the test fail it at least once."

Surely if this test is for foreigners a native speaker should pass with little difficulty? Or is Oz just trying to make a super utopian state with fantastic brain power?

It seems they're just using the wrong kind of test

"David Ingram, a linguist who is one of the designers of IELTS, agreed and said it was not meant to be used as an immigration test.
“It concerns me greatly,” he said. “And as a person who’s spent a lot of his life working in the area of testing, it seems to me that it is unethical to be using tests that have been developed for one purpose, for another.”
Mr Ingram feels so strongly about the issue he has written to an Australian government productivity inquiry warning of a skills shortage unless skilled migrants are able to choose between a wider range of tests."
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/asia-pacific/english-test-derailing-irish-dream-of-australian-citizenship-1.2368668

Nodin

Fr_Dougal wrote: »

To be fair, we do export a lot of Full Time Mad Bastards.

True, we are good at that sort of thing.

questionmark?

Fr_Dougal wrote: »

To be fair, we do export a lot of Full Time Mad Bastards.

Did you bother to read the article? He certainly doesn't seem like one of our treasured FTMB.

DanielODonnell

There are many people in Dublin who actually have English as their ancestral language if you know what I mean whereas in the actual United Kingdom there are thousands who have Irish/Welsh and Scots Gaelic as their ancestral language, an odd set up. You could say the same about the colonies regarding English.

theteal

Conall Cernach wrote: »

I've noticed on programmes like Neighbours and Home and Away that Australians say "I" in a lot of cases where they should be using "me" e.g. they will say "that belongs to you and I" instead of "that belongs to you and me". Maybe they have different grammar rules there that trip up Irish English speakers.

Cannot tell if taking the piss. . .

The King of Moo

I'm not surprised at all to hear something like this.

I've spent a lot of time teaching IELTS-preparation classes to non-native speakers.

First of all, it's designed as a test of Academic English for people wishing to enter English-language universities. The level of vocabulary is very high, about Masters level, and ranges across a lot of disciplines.
The reading section forces you to really parse complex ideas in academic texts in a short period of time.
The speaking section and Writing Task 2 require one to use formal, structured language only used in academic writing (even in Academia, no-one speaks like a student doing the speaking section).
Writing Task 1 requires you to write a report on a graph. You have to quickly decide what the most important features are and how to arrange the information, and then write your piece in 20 minutes.

It's also a very tricky exam, with lots of distractors to confuse people who aren't completely on the ball.

An average native speaker with little to no preparation would probably struggle to get more than 6.5 out of 9.0. The test is so hard and with a strict time limit that even as a very experienced EFL teacher I wouldn't expect to get a 9.0 without some luck.

It's ridiculous that Australia are using it for immigration purposes. I can't help thinking it's to deter would-be immigrants.

BrokenArrows

Conall Cernach wrote: »

I've noticed on programmes like Neighbours and Home and Away that Australians say "I" in a lot of cases where they should be using "me" e.g. they will say "that belongs to you and I" instead of "that belongs to you and me". Maybe they have different grammar rules there that trip up Irish English speakers.

I assume you're taking the piss but then I might be making an ass out of you and me.

Precious flower

theteal wrote: »

Cannot tell if taking the piss. . .

I think what he/she means is that in that sentence it should be "you and me" not "you and I". A little trick to know when to use it is to take out you and just leave the "I" or "me" in the sentence. You wouldn't say "that belongs to I" so you use "me". You don't use I all the time when referring to yourself and another person, it depends if it suits the sentence or not.

StonyIron

It's not surprising as it's an exam aimed at second language speakers who've learnt English on a structured way.

It's very common that native speakers would miss technical grammar rules and various other things.

No doubt the Aussies will use this as one of their many Irish bashing exercises!

osarusan

UK visa process has used IELTS for quite a few years now.

StonyIron

osarusan wrote: »

UK visa process has used IELTS for quite a few years now.

That would be the IELTS Life Skills test.

You also absolutely have to do a course to score well in those exams. Native speakers cannot just rely on their native speaking skills.

DanielODonnell

osarusan wrote: »

UK visa process has used IELTS for quite a few years now.

for the exact same reason as the irish republic, places like wales, certain areas of scotland and northern ireland were not meant to be speaking english and so are poor at speaking it correctly.

BrokenArrows

I'd also say that a lot of irish English speakers don't speak gramatically correct english at all. Not even close, even if they tried.


I consider myself a well spoken person and my girlfriend is not a native English speaker. She often asks me grammatical questions as to why I say one thing vs another. Generally I haven't a clue. I say its because that's the way I was thought.

Edit: my Australian housemate also failed the English language test for a British passport.

StonyIron

osarusan wrote: »

UK visa process has used IELTS for quite a few years now.

That would be the IELTS Life Skills test.
It's purpose designed for that purpose.

You also absolutely have to do a course to score well in those exams. Native speakers cannot just rely on their native speaking skills.

Australia seems to be using the general IELTS and is expecting scores most Australians wouldn't be able to achieve.

It's more about being a crude tool to exclude low skilled immigrants than anything else.

Being a citizen of another English speaking country is no guarantee that you speak English either and also Ireland sometimes get dumped into non English speaking by some bureaucrats as we've officially declared Gaeilge as our first language for cultural reasons.

I had this problem in Belgium where someone argued that point with me and assumed that most Irish people must be second language English speakers based on how she'd read the official line from our government! It does read that way if you didn't understand the cultural nuances of Ireland's language laws.

Sheep Lover

How many scousers or geordies would pass it?

StonyIron

Sheep Lover wrote: »

How many scousers or geordies would pass it?

Same % as most English speaking places.

The majority of us never formally learn grammar.

Sheep Lover

StonyIron wrote: »

Same % as most English speaking places.

The majority of us never formally learn grammar.

Probably for the best, practical subjects like maths, science, coding etc should have precedence over learning the ins and outs of English.

PARlance

osarusan wrote: »

This is the IELTS test.

I don't know how it is used in this case, but normally, you don't 'fail' the test, you just take it and get a score out of 40, which is used to calculate a score between 1 and 9.

It's a proficiency test very commonly used for entrance to universities - for example, a person trying to get into a Master's Degree in Computer Engineering at UL would need a 7 overall, and no lower than 6.5 in any infividual skill score (listening, reading, writing, speaking).

i have taught IELTS classes and courses many times, and while the test is tricky at times, I am surprised that any native speaker would score so low. To score under 7, a person would need to be getting 29/40 or lower.

And that's a 6.

"infividual" = individual.
You should have started the final paragraph with a capital I.

StonyIron

Sheep Lover wrote: »

Probably for the best, practical subjects like maths, science, coding etc should have precedence over learning the ins and outs of English.

It's important that people be able to communicate in the language of the place they're emigrating to but, it doesn't necessarily mean much to get a score in IELTS.

In some respects you can also score highly in that exam by learning the format. I regularly encounter people who've had high scores on it but struggle with basic comprehension "in the real world".

Having grown up in an English speaking country and having been to school in English should be more than enough to get by.

It will also trip up dyslexics and even people who are just shy about expressing themselves in a chat. There's a lot of oral exam type structures that involve speaking at length about topics

Starting that conversation with "G'day!" would probably lose you points too!

starling

Precious flower wrote: »

I think what he/she means is that in that sentence it should be "you and me" not "you and I". A little trick to know when to use it is to take out you and just leave the "I" or "me" in the sentence. You wouldn't say "that belongs to I" so you use "me". You don't use I all the time when referring to yourself and another person, it depends if it suits the sentence or not.

Yeah obviously, but how the fúck is that related to being Australian? Americans do that all the time too. So do we. Some people are not good at grammar, but it's bizarre to claim that's something to do with being Autralian. That's why s/he sounds like s/he's joking, because it's such a weird thing to say.

Edit: I think you mean "it depends on whether or not it suits the sentence."

starling

BrokenArrows wrote: »

I'd also say that a lot of irish English speakers don't speak gramatically correct english at all. Not even close, even if they tried.


I consider myself a well spoken person and my girlfriend is not a native English speaker. She often asks me grammatical questions as to why I say one thing vs another. Generally I haven't a clue. I say its because that's the way I was thought.

Edit: my Australian housemate also failed the English language test for a British passport.

It's true. In spoken English, particularly in informal settings, hardly anyone uses perfect grammar. If they do, it often sounds awkward; that's partly due to its being uncommon and partly down to the natural rhythms of speech. For example the way some Americans say "I could care less" when they mean "I couldn't care less." Spoken aloud, the former is just easier to say.

Can't help but echo Iron's suggestion above that it might have something to do with making it more difficult for certain people to immigrate to Australia. They are quite strict about it, after all.

starling

DanielODonnell wrote: »

for the exact same reason as the irish republic, places like wales, certain areas of scotland and northern ireland were not meant to be speaking english and so are poor at speaking it correctly.

Or they just speak it differently, nothing wrong with that

StonyIron

DanielODonnell wrote: »

for the exact same reason as the irish republic, places like wales, certain areas of scotland and northern ireland were not meant to be speaking english and so are poor at speaking it correctly.

I'll just tell uncle Arfur to get ou'f the barfroom in perfek London English! Init?

mikhail

starling wrote: »

For example the way some Americans say "I could care less" when they mean "I couldn't care less." Spoken aloud, the former is just easier to say.

It's not ungrammatical, just wrong.

I'm not a prescriptivist, but if you allow the word "not" to become meaningless your language is regressing towards incoherent bellowing.

sbsquarepants

Now class - try translate the following into any language whatsoever

"You won't believe what this gobshíte's after been doing" - as said by every irish father in history.

Conall Cernach

starling wrote: »

Yeah obviously, but how the fúck is that related to being Australian? Americans do that all the time too. So do we. Some people are not good at grammar, but it's bizarre to claim that's something to do with being Autralian. That's why s/he sounds like s/he's joking, because it's such a weird thing to say.

Edit: I think you mean "it depends on whether or not it suits the sentence."

I related it to being Australian because I have noticed that Australians on TV do this a lot. On Irish or English TV you would only see this if the person was speaking in dialect and even then you would normally get the opposite happening, they would use You and Me incorrectly e.g. "you and me should stick together".

In Australia it seems that they will always use "You and I" even if it is sometimes incorrect. You will see characters who are supposed to be English teachers doing this too. Between the actor, the scriptwriter and the director you'd think that someone would realise that the line is wrong. This is what leads me to suspect that Australians, like Americans, have their own English language grammar rules that we don't use and if they do then that would explain why an Irish person might have difficulty passing their test.

The number of people who don't know the difference between there, their and they're is staggering not to mention lose and loose. Such basic errors would result in failures. Makes you wonder what level of schooling they got.

starling

mikhail wrote: »

It's not ungrammatical, just wrong.

I'm not a prescriptivist, but if you allow the word "not" to become meaningless your language is regressing towards incoherent bellowing.

Oh believe me, I share your feelings about it, it always grates on me when I hear it. I wasn't using it as an example of a grammatical error, rather I was trying to describe how sometimes the act of speaking influences how people phrase things, if that makes sense. At the time that was the only thing I could think of because I was off my face

osarusan

starling wrote: »

Yeah obviously, but how the fúck is that related to being Australian? Americans do that all the time too. So do we. Some people are not good at grammar, but it's bizarre to claim that's something to do with being Australian.

It's a (crude) way to help determine whether somebody is the kind of immigrant they want in Australia, rather than having anything to do with being Australian.

starling

Conall Cernach wrote: »

I related it to being Australian because I have noticed that Australians on TV do this a lot. On Irish or English TV you would only see this if the person was speaking in dialect and even then you would normally get the opposite happening, they would use You and Me incorrectly e.g. "you and me should stick together".

Yes, but Americans do it a lot too, it's not specific to Australia. I actually don't watch much Irish television at all so I'll take your word for it there.

Conall Cernach wrote: »

In Australia it seems that they will always use "You and I" even if it is sometimes incorrect. You will see characters who are supposed to be English teachers doing this too. Between the actor, the scriptwriter and the director you'd think that someone would realise that the line is wrong. This is what leads me to suspect that Australians, like Americans, have their own English language grammar rules that we don't use and if they do then that would explain why an Irish person might have difficulty passing their test.

Well yes, Australians speak English in their own way, just like we do, but the test would not be using that as a standard. The formal rules of grammar wouldn't be different because it's the same language just as the rules of grammar in Ireland are the same even though informally we might speak English in our own way.

starling

Conall Cernach wrote: »

I've noticed on programmes like Neighbours and Home and Away that Australians say "I" in a lot of cases where they should be using "me" e.g. they will say "that belongs to you and I" instead of "that belongs to you and me". Maybe they have different grammar rules there that trip up Irish English speakers.

starling wrote: »

Yeah obviously, but how the fúck is that related to being Australian? Americans do that all the time too. So do we. Some people are not good at grammar, but it's bizarre to claim that's something to do with being Autralian. That's why s/he sounds like s/he's joking, because it's such a weird thing to say.

Edit: I think you mean "it depends on whether or not it suits the sentence."

osarusan wrote: »

It's a (crude) way to help determine whether somebody is the kind of immigrant they want in Australia, rather than having anything to do with being Australian.

I don't disagree with you at all, just wondering why you were quoting me there...sorry, I'm really stoned

osarusan

starling wrote: »

I don't disagree with you at all, just wondering why you were quoting me there...sorry, I'm really stoned

Maybe I misunderstood your post.

Conall Cernach

starling wrote: »

Well yes, Australians speak English in their own way, just like we do, but the test would not be using that as a standard. The formal rules of grammar wouldn't be different because it's the same language just as the rules of grammar in Ireland are the same even though informally we might speak English in our own way.

Maybe whoever set or marked the test was Australian and perhaps they are failing people for not using the Australian version of the language. Just like if you did an English test in America and you spelled the word "centre" correctly they would expect you to spell it "center".

asherbassad

endacl wrote: »

Dey failed it cause nobody learned them to talk proper.

Incorrect use of tenses: I seen it. I done it. Etc.
Getting words mixed up. Synonyms.

Lots of reasons we might fail.

How could you POSSIBLY fail an English test when you've passed at least Junior Cert English?

Did the 90% who failed not go to school at all or dropped out in 5th class at age 11?

R.D. aka MR.D

There are many problems with the test. A major issue is the fact that that those who are in charge of making the test are heavily biased to the kind of English they use in a certain part of England.

They try to add things with different speakers and try to include different Englishs but it is all very superficial. At the end of the day if you don't speak a specific kind of English, you are not going to pass the test.

The IELTs is a test of taking a test. There are strategies to taking it. I haven't taught much IELTs but I have taught TOEFL (the American version) and it's extremely difficult. I'm a well educated ESL teacher and it's difficult for me, I can't imagine my brother or his friends trying to tackle it.

It's not that they don't speak English, it's the test that is flawed.