국가별 TOEFL iBT 성적에 미치는 언어적 요인 및 비언어적 요인 분석

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate, at cross-country level, the linguistic and nonlinguistic factors influencing the variation of proficiency in the use of English as a second language. As a proxy for English proficiency, we use the average scores of TOEFL iBT achieved by residents of a total of 65 countries. The regression results show that linguistic factors showing ‘linguistic distance to English(LDE)', such as historic affinity, similarity in word order, and the use of Latin alphabet, have a statistically significant influence on the proficiency in English achieved by people whose native language is not English. Among the nonlinguistic factors, it is shown that the degree of globalization has the most significant effect on the average TOEFL scores of a given country.

These results suggest that as Korean bears little resemblance to English linguistically, Korean learners need more time and efforts to achieve English proficiency than learners whose language is closer to English. It is also suggested that raising students' awareness about the differences between English and Korean is helpful in the process of developing language proficiency. It is also suggested that globalization goes hand in hand with proficiency in English, which will, in turn, increase economic, social, and political interactions with other countries. Finally, it is suggested that there should be more improvement in the listening and speaking sections.