Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
Speaker 1: It's Friday, August eight, twenty twenty five. Donald Trump has
Speaker 1: slapped a fifty percent tariff on India. That's because he
Speaker 1: says they're buying oil from Russia and that's made it
Speaker 1: very tense around one of Australia's most important alliances, The
Speaker 1: CORD due to meet in India later this year, Anthony
Speaker 1: Albnezi says he won't discuss Palestinian statehood with Trump. The
Speaker 1: PM says the decision to recognize Palestine is one for
Speaker 1: the Australian government alone. Those stories alive right now at
Speaker 1: the Australian dot com dot au. The English language test
Speaker 1: for would be Australians is about to get easier. The
Speaker 1: opposition says the government has lost control of the migration
Speaker 1: system and that's helping drive up the cost of housing. Today,
Speaker 1: reporter Noah Yim and I take the test.
Speaker 2: I am doing the tofil practice speaking tests.
Speaker 1: Noah Yim is a journalist in the Australian's Canbra bureau.
Speaker 2: Some people enjoy taking risks and trying new things. Some
Speaker 2: people enjoy taking risks and trying new things. Others are
Speaker 2: not adventurous. Others are not adventurous.
Speaker 1: As you can hear, Noah has no problems with English.
Speaker 1: English is actually his second language. Noah migrated to Australia
Speaker 1: from Korea as a kid, but we asked him to
Speaker 1: take the English language test that migrants to Australia need
Speaker 1: to sit because the test is going through a big change.
Speaker 2: In paragraph one, each of the following is mentioned as
Speaker 2: a feature of the city of Teo Tua Khan between
Speaker 2: AD one point fifty and seven hundred except a regularly
Speaker 2: arranged streets. B. Several administrative centers spread across the city.
Speaker 2: C many manufacturing workshops.
Speaker 1: English language proficiency is big business in Australia.
Speaker 2: I think the answer is B. Several administrative centers spread
Speaker 2: across the city.
Speaker 1: We welcomed two hundred and ten thousand permanent migrants in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three twenty four, plus another two hundred and
Speaker 1: seven thousand international students who came in temporarily. Noah, we
Speaker 1: had you take this test. It seemed quite hard.
Speaker 2: It was quite hard, and honestly, I'm not sure that
Speaker 2: I did all that well.
Speaker 1: And many of them had to sit a test like this.
Speaker 1: I enjoyed hearing you learn all about Taya Tua Khan.
Speaker 2: I've never been to Tao TiO Khan, and I want
Speaker 2: to go home day now.
Speaker 1: Are you going to be at the pub tonight telling
Speaker 1: your friends all about it?
Speaker 2: Maybe now?
Speaker 1: The English langue which entry test for Australia is famously tough.
Speaker 1: A few years ago a friend of mine, a tertiary
Speaker 1: educated native English speaker from the United Kingdom, failed one
Speaker 1: of the tests twice, partly because she was asked to
Speaker 1: write an essay about nuclear power, something she had absolutely
Speaker 1: no idea about.
Speaker 2: That was on one of.
Speaker 1: The proficiency standards used by the Department of Immigration called
Speaker 1: the Pearson's English Test, which, despite its rather quaint name,
Speaker 1: strikes terror into the heart of would be Australians. There's
Speaker 1: a whole cottage industry of how tos and coaching clinics
Speaker 1: like this one on YouTube.
Speaker 3: Pay attention to the verb tenses I've used throughout the essay.
Speaker 3: There's a mix of present, simple present, continuous present, perfect future, simple,
Speaker 3: active and passive.
Speaker 1: In this sample test, the host asks me to analyze
Speaker 1: a three hundred word text.
Speaker 3: Your job is to summarize that tax down into a
Speaker 3: single sentence.
Speaker 1: The text starts, why has the Leaning Tower of Pisa
Speaker 1: in Italy survived the strong earthquakes that have hit the
Speaker 1: region since the Middle Ages. The answer, I think is
Speaker 1: that scientists have discovered that the very tall and stiff
Speaker 1: shape of the tower, combined with the very soft soil
Speaker 1: beneath it, means it is protected from earthquake vibrations. I
Speaker 1: feel like I really learned something there, Noah, but I
Speaker 1: had to really concentrate. And English is my first language.
Speaker 1: It feels like Australia has set the bar quite high.
Speaker 2: In some ways. It sounds like it has, but to
Speaker 2: be fair, there are about five different levels of English
Speaker 2: proficiency that we set as benchmarks to get other specific
Speaker 2: types of visas, and the lowest is called the functional
Speaker 2: English Language proficiency that's set quite low on various events.
Speaker 2: The sounds like they're pretty well passed the first and
Speaker 2: second stages of Duolingo for English, and to be fair,
Speaker 2: the pretty advanced level in terms of languages that you
Speaker 2: don't know. But I suspect we have a pretty hard
Speaker 2: time having conversations beyond superficial things with people who can
Speaker 2: only speak English to this level.
Speaker 1: And then tell me about the higher levels of tests
Speaker 1: that Australia asks people to take. Who takes them and
Speaker 1: what kinds of things do they have to demonstrate that
Speaker 1: they can do so at.
Speaker 2: The highest level, which is a superior level according to
Speaker 2: the legislation, we get to a pretty high level. So
Speaker 2: these people are who can read fully comprehend longer texts.
Speaker 2: This is conversational English. This is a level of English
Speaker 2: that we would use every day. This is a pretty
Speaker 2: advanced level of English. And they can start making complex arguments,
Speaker 2: complex subjects, complaints and structures. So you know, pretty well
Speaker 2: able to engage in a conversation at the pub or
Speaker 2: on a train, or you know, even perhaps in a
Speaker 2: lecture theater.
Speaker 1: Were you surprised, Noah, by the level of proficiency that
Speaker 1: you were required to demonstrate in this sample test that
Speaker 1: you've taken.
Speaker 2: Yes, I was English is my second language actually, and
Speaker 2: I felt like I've been tested again.
Speaker 1: Do you feel like that this is being adhered to,
Speaker 1: that everybody who's living here in Australia is actually meeting
Speaker 1: this functional level of English.
Speaker 2: I mean, as you said, even native English speakers sometimes
Speaker 2: have trouble with this. So I suspect that for some
Speaker 2: of the higher level this would be. This is the
Speaker 2: robust test from the looks of it. At the higher level,
Speaker 2: you need to be able to speak at a pretty
Speaker 2: advanced level. So no, this is probably a challenging test
Speaker 2: for most people to take. And whether every Australian can,
Speaker 2: hand on heart say they meet the highest threshold of
Speaker 2: this English test, I suspect most can't.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I noticed on Reddit quite a few conversations about people
Speaker 1: strategizing about how to pass these tests, and a lot
Speaker 1: of them were Americans or people from the United Kingdom,
Speaker 1: native English speakers who were very daunted about this prospect
Speaker 1: and very concerned about whether they'd actually be able to
Speaker 1: pass on What do you think about that, Noah, as
Speaker 1: a matter of policy, if we are making it so
Speaker 1: difficult for people to pass an English language test, even
Speaker 1: if they are native English speakers, is your sense that
Speaker 1: we might have said it a bit too high.
Speaker 2: Perhaps we do have specific clauses here about other ways
Speaker 2: that people can pass the English requirement for the leaders,
Speaker 2: So for example, if they did schooling in the US
Speaker 2: or in the UK or Canada or places like that,
Speaker 2: we do just let them in and we assume that
Speaker 2: they're sufficiently proficient at English. But if people in the
Speaker 2: US and UK who grew up with English, whom English
Speaker 2: are their only language, are really worried about these tests, well, yes,
Speaker 2: then these tests are far too hot.
Speaker 1: Coming up more of my chat with Noah Yim.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: The reason we're talking about this is that the tests
Speaker 1: are changing. Tell me about the changes.
Speaker 2: So the Australian government had released regulation this week that
Speaker 2: lowers the standard for the functional proficiency requirements for English
Speaker 2: on a whole bunch of tests, specifically on two tests,
Speaker 2: the Toffel and the PTE. So the minimum mark that
Speaker 2: you need to achieve in those tests to be able
Speaker 2: to be granted to be eligible for the visas that
Speaker 2: require that specific level that's been lowered.
Speaker 1: The visas where functional English is required include training visas
Speaker 1: where you're advancing your professional skills and work in holiday
Speaker 1: visas where people aged eighteen to thirty can come in
Speaker 1: for a year up to three times, having a holiday
Speaker 1: and spending some of the time working in specified sectors
Speaker 1: like fruit picking, avatoire work jobs in Northern Australia like
Speaker 1: hospitality in construction or disaster recovery in regional areas.
Speaker 2: So, according to Pearson, who's one of the organizations that
Speaker 2: administers one of these tests. The previous mark would have
Speaker 2: meant that someone can understand sentences and use frequently use expressions,
Speaker 2: and they can also communicate in simple and routine tasks
Speaker 2: requiring a simple and direct exchange of information on familiar
Speaker 2: or routine matters. But the new requirement by the Australian
Speaker 2: government for MARX means that this person now only needs
Speaker 2: to meet the criteria of someone who can understand and
Speaker 2: use familiar everyday expressions and very basic phrases and can
Speaker 2: interact in a simple way, provided the other person talks
Speaker 2: slowly and clearly and as prepared to help. So that's
Speaker 2: really going from someone who sounds like they can get
Speaker 2: through daily life reasonably, well maybe with a little bit
Speaker 2: of frection. Now the standard's going down, according to Pearson,
Speaker 2: to at least someone who might need a little bit
Speaker 2: of help in assistance from the public. So it's not
Speaker 2: an insignificant dropped out according to person standards. The Coalition
Speaker 2: has certainly hit out hard at this opposition. Home a
Speaker 2: Fair spokesman Andrew Hasty told us that the current level
Speaker 2: of migration to Australia is unsustainable and that the labor
Speaker 2: government instead of moderating immigration quote the minister is lowering
Speaker 2: minimum English proficiency standards end quote, and that the migration
Speaker 2: system is going to get out of control and it
Speaker 2: is only going to get worse. He says that Australians
Speaker 2: are worse off under Labour's immigration policy. Our infrastructure is
Speaker 2: under pressure, essential services are stretched thin, and young Australians
Speaker 2: are locked out of the housing market. Social cohesion is freeing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this was a line that the Opposition worked really
Speaker 1: hard during the election campaign, that they were going to
Speaker 1: get migration under control, that migration was one of the
Speaker 1: reasons why young people in Australia were struggling to buy
Speaker 1: a house. It looks from what Andrew Hasty is saying
Speaker 1: as though they think that's a message that's working for them.
Speaker 2: After the resounding election defeat, we've seen the Opposition undertake
Speaker 2: an entire policy review, but there are some parts of
Speaker 2: their agenda which they really wanted to drive the states
Speaker 2: into the ground and say, but this is what the
Speaker 2: Liberal Party, even despite the election loss, stands for. And
Speaker 2: it looks like what Andrew Hasty is doing here is
Speaker 2: repeating that line that Peter Dunnant often deployed during the
Speaker 2: election about immigration.
Speaker 1: So Noah, why is the government making these changes?
Speaker 2: Then when I talked to immigration expert Abil Ruci, what
Speaker 2: he told me is that this must be the outcome
Speaker 2: of a long term review where they're trying to align
Speaker 2: the relative performance in each various English language tests to
Speaker 2: each other. So the IELTS is the benchmark, That's what
Speaker 2: he told me. IOLT stands for International English Language Testing System,
Speaker 2: and the other two big tests, the Test of English
Speaker 2: as a Foreign Language or TOEFL test and the Pearsons
Speaker 2: Test they had their minimum standards lowered in the last
Speaker 2: regulation change.
Speaker 1: How do you think we've ended up in a situation
Speaker 1: where we've got multiple tests and this what seems like
Speaker 1: a very complex system to administer.
Speaker 2: It is a very complex system. There's a whole bunch
Speaker 2: of other tests as well, or with various acronyms, all
Speaker 2: with various testing regimes, and I've read reports that there
Speaker 2: are other tests and other organizations trying to get onto
Speaker 2: this list as well. All of these are private providers,
Speaker 2: you know, Pearson's very famous educational publisher. I think a
Speaker 2: whole bunch of the associated with the university that part
Speaker 2: as well. Either all private tests not administered by government.
Speaker 2: You sit down and take their test, and then you
Speaker 2: submit those scores to various government agencies. It seems like
Speaker 2: a pre elucrative market.
Speaker 1: It's classic, isn't it. When you, as an English speaker,
Speaker 1: dip your toe into trying to understand something like the
Speaker 1: Department of Immigration, you just get a sense of how
Speaker 1: impenetrable it must be to people who aren't very confident
Speaker 1: with English.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, and how expensive it is as well
Speaker 2: to apply for some of these visas. You can understand
Speaker 2: why migration agents are such a big industry. Prospective migrants
Speaker 2: into Australia often take retake these tests multiple times, spending
Speaker 2: one hundreds, even thousands in the process, and then on
Speaker 2: top of that, they may just have to relent and
Speaker 2: go to a migration agent instead of going through the
Speaker 2: process themselves, which also costs a lot of money. Just
Speaker 2: because Australia's migration system is so complex, there are so
Speaker 2: many visa classes costs attached to most of those visas
Speaker 2: as well, so it's a really impenetrable process.
Speaker 1: Noah Yim is a journalist in the Australian's Federal Parliamentary
Speaker 1: Press Gallery Bureau. You can read his journalism and all
Speaker 1: the rest of our coverage of politics anytime at the
Speaker 1: Australian dot com dot au