Ranking of Countries by English Level:

[Lyp14 [ctxa]]

So today I came across this entry in wikipedia, which ranks countries by their English level. However, I think it's bullshit. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EF_English_Proficiency_Index

 

33

Spain

540

Moderate Proficiency

49

China

513

Moderate Proficiency

100

Thailand

419

Very Low Proficiency

I am a Spaniard, I've lived in China (and I speak Chinese) and now I am in Thailand. And it's just not possible that the level of English is so bad in Thailand and so good in China and Spain!!! 100% impossible! 

For starters here in Thailand, you can get by just by speaking English without much of a hassle. Even the grab drivers will speak some English words! Forget about the same thing happening in China! 

Needless to say a lot of people here in Thailand can at least maintain a very basic conversation in broken English. Forget about that in China as well. 

As for Spain, I would say English level is on par with China, maybe a tiny bit better. But when compared to Thailand, there's no chance on earth Spain and China are ahead of TH!

 

Does anyone have any idea as to what may be going on with this ranking? 

 

 

Edited February 1, 2022 by ctxa

[Noble_Design]

That ranking is :

[Poolie]

12 hours ago, ctxa said:

So today I came across this entry in wikipedia, which ranks countries by their English level. However, I think it's bullshit. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EF_English_Proficiency_Index

33

Spain

540

Moderate Proficiency

49

China

513

Moderate Proficiency

100

Thailand

419

Very Low Proficiency

I am a Spaniard, I've lived in China (and I speak Chinese) and now I am in Thailand. And it's just not possible that the level of English is so bad in Thailand and so good in China and Spain!!! 100% impossible! 

For starters here in Thailand, you can get by just by speaking English without much of a hassle. Even the grab drivers will speak some English words! Forget about the same thing happening in China! 

Needless to say a lot of people here in Thailand can at least maintain a very basic conversation in broken English. Forget about that in China as well. 

As for Spain, I would say English level is on par with China, maybe a tiny bit better. But when compared to Thailand, there's no chance on earth Spain and China are ahead of TH!

Does anyone have any idea as to what may be going on with this ranking? 

Serves yourself right for trusting Wikiamerica. Biased isn't the word.

[Smithydog]

Interesting article but suggest two things.

The low respondent rate of "a country was required to have at least 400 test takers." and 2 million tests claimed in the entry, suggests very low data points for comparison. The company compiling the rankings may also have introduced a level of unconscious bias in the results, depending on how long they have had involvement in a country, and the size of that involvement.

I have often heard that Thailand feels they want to improve their English speaking skills. Up to them. If they do, I just hope that they want to do it for a better purpose than seeing their name higher on a ranking list.

 

[Chatogaster]

14 hours ago, ctxa said:

Does anyone have any idea as to what may be going on with this ranking? 

 

I wouldn't take that test & ranking overly serious. All test-takers are self-selected, so it's easy to imagine how sampling biases might occur. For example (entirely fictional!!):

• In China the test is actively promoted by teachers to their students.
• In Thailand it's mostly random people who stumble upon a link to the test.

Just to highlight that this is purely the result of my imagination, here's a different fictive example:

• In China cab-drivers can't be bothered to speak English to foreigners and they are even less interested in taking the test.
• In Thailand cab-drivers enjoy learning new words from tourists and they are curious enough to take their self-taught skills to the test.

The test collects almost no info about demographics (just age & city) and it doesn't investigate correlations with other, similar tests, making it near-impossible to detect biases let alone apply bias-corrections. Also, I noticed that the test quite heavily relies on implied meanings, idiomatic expressions and colloquialisms, so anyone who can converse in intelligible yet broken English is almost guaranteed to still get a (very) low score.