My thoughts about the TOEIC and students

xillamale

I think all students should be required to take English test preparation classes
because today's Media only highlight the students with highest scores and
the number of participants. It seems to encourage us that nothing is more
important than getting high score in order to beat others.

Advantages:  - It is easy to communicate with others.
                   - No need for translation and thus can avoid miscommunication.

Disadvantages:  - Even it is easier to communicate when a group of people
                          all speak English, but there are still some understanding problems
                          due to different accents and pronunciations if there are people
                          from India or Italy, for example.
                       - Not all people like USA.
                         Some people from the Middle East hate Americans.
                         they will resist if there is only English that can be spoken.
                 
                                                                                                          written by xillamale

cutterline

Not really true in all condition.
I've seen many people 'unscored' has very good language fluency.
Reading, writing, listening has a lot resources on the internet, books, and media. It's not a necessity to take classes for them as long you have the will to do it.
On the otherside, speaking is something that gets better, the more you speak it. You just need a community for it, well class is also one though :D

These arguments are invalid if you are a genius like some people who can speak fluently in 20+ languages. (Writing is in a different matter altogether)

xxx_burner

yup, i myself learn english from tv.

睡裤菊

I thought you were talking about TOEFL when I first saw the topic orz....

bluewind

Standardized tests such as TOEIC test how well people can perform in controlled conditions. Very often, the conditions are not natural, and thus high grades in standardized tests do not automatically translate to English fluency. It is no secret that Chinese tend to do extremely well in standardized tests while lacking in the communications department. Having said that, language is just a communication tool, and one does not need to be fluent in order to communicate, so mandatory language classes help.