Pakistan Speaks

 By Uzma Khan
I HAVE just returned from a “free IELTS demo” (a kind of orientation in which an introduction of the instructor, the course and the institute is given) by a very renowned teacher here in Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Karachi. The experience has been so moving … well it has been so moving that it has moved my drowsy writing muscles to write this piece.

This free demonstration class, the second that I have attended this week, has made me reflect over the IELTS preparation courses being offered in abundance all over Pakistan. For readers, who may not be familiar with the acronym IELTS, it is an abbreviation for International English Language Testing System.

According to www.britishcouncil.de/ e/english/ielts.htm, IELTS “is designed to assess the language ability of those who want to study or work where English is the language of communication. It conforms to the highest international standards of language assessment”. The test measures one’s competence in English language in listening, speaking, reading and writing skills. IELTS is recognised for course admissions by universities of UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, USA and increasingly in Germany and Europe too. It is also needed as a proof of one’s language abilities for immigration to Australia, New Zealand and Canada. But before sharing my views on the subject, I must mention that the objective of this article is not to criticise any individual IELTS instructor or institute for that matter. It’s just that I am thinking more and more about how commercialised our approach to impart education has grown.

Here I will talk specifically about the IELTS exam preparation institutes in Karachi, which are found in the area of Gulshan-e-Iqbal by the dozen. Let’s begin with their advertisements; which boldly claim that anyone can get good bands, language skills are evaluated on a scale from 0 bands (non-user) to 9 bands (expert user) in the IELTS Exams, without having a good command over the language. You also come across many ads claiming to have “top” Pakistani teachers. Then they also maintain that getting good bands is possible in a matter of few hours. Some even claim that no prior knowledge of English is necessary. Some boast that with their winning tips, students will obtain desired bands (scores) without really having to learn the language or attending tedious grammar or vocabulary classes. Three aspects are focused in almost all the ads, namely, “short duration”, “easy learning” and “higher bands”.

The common factor of the “free demos” that I attended was that both the teachers knew many tricks of the trade. One was more experienced than the other but both stressed that to get good bands in IELTS, one does not need to have a good command over the language. These instructors claim that even an illiterate person, having no base in English language, can earn higher bands in a matter of a few hours and one does not need to read or understand, say, the reading passage in order to give the correct answers.

Now without learning the language properly such a person might acquire from 1 to 4 bands according to IELTS Band Scores (see the IELTS band score key for the band scores and their corresponding language competence). And this is the point that has moved me to write this piece and this brings me to the crux of my write up too, because what we are hearing is that you can have good bands, let’s say anywhere from 7 to 9, but you may not need to posses equivalent good skills in English language. It’s like saying you can get a driving license without learning to drive. So the key to success is not hard work or mastering the language but the key is knowing some tricks! To prove their claims true, the IELTS instructors show the students photocopies of the result sheets (known as the “test report form” for the IELTS) having higher bands. How do they achieve this? Well, they teach you various strategies for all the four tests/sections of IELTS, i.e. listening, speaking, reading and writing. Using these tips and tricks maximises your chances of giving the right answer, be it a classification question or selecting the right option. Sounds interesting?

To me it was more than merely interesting as I had myself taken the exam a couple of years back while doing my master’s in ELT (English Language Teaching). Not being able to afford a preparation course, both in terms of time and money, I thought of sitting for the exams without enrolling in a preparation course. However, I did prepare for the exams and here I must also acknowledge a few hours’ counseling with some basic information about the exams offered by a senior student at our university. Other than this the most important thing I relied on was my existing language ability, which I thought was modestly reasonable.

My 7 bands in the IELTS exam may not be a score to be proud of or something to boast about. Nevertheless, I believe that my score was a true representation of my linguistic abilities in the English language or quite close to it. Comparing my situation with the IELTS preparation courses conducted in our area, the question that arises in my mind is twofold: would I have been able to score the bands that I did score without possessing equivalent language skills and would I have still been able to do well if I did not have the language competence that I think I had?

I suppose that if I had known these so called “tricks” which are taught in these IELTS prep courses, I might have been able to score better. However, if I did not already have some language competence, would I have been happy for getting good bands without acquiring adequate command over the language or improving my existing language competence? You know taking the driving analogy a little further it implies being allowed to drive on the road without being taught to drive. Wouldn’t the IELTS score sheet have just been a piece of paper for me that I can maybe use in running ads for an IELTS institute or for a job as an IELTS instructor? It might also fulfill my visa requirement, but is that all there is to it?

One wonders what happens when a student of these IELTS instructors reaches the university of his or her dreams (with the so called “good” bands in the IELTS exams) and is told that their language does not meet the requirement of the course they wish to pursue and in order to attend their major course of study they must first enroll in basic/foundation English courses.

Such a situation will of course mean more time and money being invested for acquiring the required language proficiency. This is so because in many universities abroad one has to give concrete proof of one’s linguistic abilities and merely a piece of paper (the IELTS result sheet, in this case) will not be enough. And even the candidates appearing for the general IELTS have to have enough communication skills in the language which their result sheet claims them to possess.

Those of you who are planning to take a preparatory course in IELTS, do ask yourself the following questions:

• Will I not be required to exhibit language abilities corresponding to what my score sheet says?

• Wouldn’t my inability of doing so make my score sheet seem dubious and unreliable?

Now consider this scenario; as evidence of the credentials of an IELTS’ instructor, many of these institutes show the score sheets of the instructors’ former students. This only shows part of the picture. We don’t know how many students were taught in all, what level of language skills the successful students already possessed, and if any of the students attempted the test more than once, how many times did they take the course or attempt the test?

If there are a 100 students in one class and only 10 per cent of them get bands from 7 to 9, it is not a very big achievement, is it? And the situation becomes more dismal if we keep in mind that those 10 per cent students may already have had intermediate to advanced English language skills. So what about the other 90 per cent students? What bands did they achieve? In other words, the data presented is subjective at best.

Think twice before opting for an IELTS institute. I wonder if there is an institute that claims to equip the students with real knowledge of the language as well as tips to successfully obtain the desired scores.

The first day “free demo” can turn out to be rather misleading in some cases. As sometimes the institutes are not consistent with the tall claims they or their teachers make on day one, as happened in one case where a teacher was not regular and showed a highly non-professional attitude although the institute charged quite heftily for the IELTS classes.

One institute actually claimed to have on its faculty the “top and the most experienced IELTS teachers” on the planet. Ever wonder who evaluated or rated their teachers? Is there a recognised evaluation criterion for evaluating IELTS teachers worldwide other than the number of their students who got higher bands?

If the current trend continues, in the near future authors and administrators of IELTS examinations and the institutions using its scores for admission suitability will have to think seriously about the reliability of the IELTS scores of students coming from our part of the world. Then, they must either develop new crack and hack-proof tests or require students to take the test again upon arrival in the university chosen or the destination country. Otherwise, the test results will lose their significance and credibility resulting in another reason for others to point fingers at us.

Plan to reap long-term and concrete benefits. Learn the actual driving and do not be satisfied with just a paper which claims that you know driving. Seek the real knowledge and avoid short cuts. ¦

The writer is an ESL teacher. This article is originally published at Dawn 06,July Page 23

photo credit: *0* PrincessCCCC

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