TOEFL iBT and IELTS Tests Compared

I recently found a very interesting PDF page link that compares the basics of TOEFL iBT and the IELTS test.

I was surprised to see that TOEFL has a bigger reach than IELTS - I'd heard in the past that IELTS had more test takers.

I also chuckled when I saw that the comparison claims that the iBT has integrated tasks where IELTS does not. To my mind, the first of the writing tasks on IELTS clearly requires integration of reading and writing skills, and the fact that their speaking tasks involve interacting with a face-to-face interviewer (and one task where test-takers have to interact with another test-taker on-site) should lead to the general assumption that integration of skills is intrinsic to these tasks.

We shouldn't lose sight of the fact here that IELTS scores have always had a stronger correlation to actual academic ability in English-speaking tertiary contexts, and the iBT speaking section in particular was added to make the iBT more competitive with IELTS, which has had a tried and true speaking section for decades.

Don't forget also that ETS has been staring down the barrel of IELTS starting to infringe on its home territory (the United States), with dozens of US universities starting to accept IELTS scores due to its stronger reputation as a genuine measure of academic English ability in all skill areas.

I wonder if iBT will become a sort of "The Empire Strikes Back" maneuver for ETS. Mmmm....