This is the VOA Special English Education Report.
We answer some questions this week in our
series on getting into an American college or university.
The
first question has to do with our recent discussion of English language tests. Vo
Ngoc Toan from Vietnam
would like to know about the TOEIC-- the Test of English
for International Communication.
|
Graduating students and alumni at a job fair in New York |
This
test is designed to measure skills in English as spoken in the workplace. People
may be required to take it if they apply for jobs with companies or other
employers. But TOEIC scores are not used for college admission in the United States.
The Educational Testing Service administers the TOEIC. It
says the test measures the language skills of people working in an international
environment.
American
colleges and universities accept scores from the TOEFL and often the IELTS. If
you missed our report on these tests, you can find it at our Web site, voaspecialenglish.com.
Click on Foreign Student Series.
Tahir Mahmood from Pakistan asks how to
improve his English before taking these kinds of tests. Well, you can start by
looking for ways to use English as much as you can. Watch American movies and
TV shows and read books in English. Look for English speakers to talk to.
The Internet has a lot of free resources for English learners.
Visitors to voaspecialenglish.com, for example, can read, listen and watch
programs on many different subjects.
The
United States Department of Education recently launched a free Web site designed
to help immigrants learn English. The site is called USA Learns. The address is
u-s-a-l-e-a-r-n-s dot o-r-g.
Next,
a question from Turkey: Hasan Eker asks about getting a postdoctoral position
in the United States. This is work generally done by a person who recently
earned a PhD, or doctor of philosophy degree. The National Postdoctoral
Association in Washington, D.C., has information
about international postdocs on its Web site. That address is nationalpostdoc
-- all one word -- dot org.
And,
finally, we have questions from Iran, Afghanistan and Indonesia about how to
pay for an education through loans or jobs. There are rules that restrict the
kinds of jobs that foreign students can have while studying in the United
States. But stay tuned. In the next few weeks, we will discuss financial aid as
we talk about the costs of an American education.
And
that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach.
I'm Steve Ember.