World Englishes in international proficiency tests

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe demographic dominance of ‘non‐native’ speakers of English and the growing recognition of world Englishes (WE) call for critical examinations of varieties of English underpinning international proficiency tests. Expectedly, there has been an ongoing debate between those who argue for British and American norms and those who argue for all English norms including WE in international tests. While this welcome debate may develop awareness of WE issues among stakeholders, there has been little research on test‐takers and their perspectives on the relevance of WE to high‐stakes tests. This paper reports on data from an International English Language Testing System (IELTS) study to explore two questions: (1) How do IELTS test‐takers perceive the relevance of WE to the test and why? (2) What are the implications of their perceptions for WE research? Analyses of quantitative and qualitative data show test‐takers’ mixed views and attitudes: While the majority of them supported WE in an abstract, ideological sense, they were against the inclusion of WE in the test for reasons related to maintaining standards, fairness, equality and test‐taker interests. A critical discussion of the findings is undertaken to draw out implications for WE and WE researchers in the context of the dominance of English tests and their hegemonic discourses.