Ilonggos’ English proficiency index only ‘moderate’ — report

By Rjay Zuriaga Castor

People in Western Visayas only have “moderate” English reading and listening skills, the English Proficiency Index (EPI) of the international education company EF Education First revealed in its latest report.

The region scored 536, placing it in the last third of the ranking.

Western Visayas is just ahead of the Ilocos and Northern Mindanao regions, which scored 529 and 514, both receiving a moderate remark, respectively.

The report also showed that Bacolod City in Negros Occidental has a ‘very high’ English proficiency, logging a score of 605.

Meanwhile, Iloilo City trailed behind with a moderate proficiency after receiving a score of 502.

Iloilo City is just one rank ahead of the City of Calamba in Calamba, which was categorized in the ‘low bracket’ for registering a score of 484.

The EF EPI places the surveyed countries, regions, and cities into five proficiency bands: very high, high, moderate, low, and very low.

A moderate proficiency falls between a score of 500 to 549. Tasks that individuals can accomplish at this proficiency level include participating in meetings in one’s area of expertise, understanding song lyrics, and writing professional emails on familiar subjects.

Notably, Iloilo City is just one rank ahead of the City of Calamba, which was categorized in the “low bracket” for registering a score of 484.

The Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) topped the regional list in the country with a score of 616.

The city of Baguio, also located in the CAR, led the national rankings with a score of 619.

According to its website, this year’s edition of the EF EPI is based on test data from more than 2,100,000 test takers around the world who took the EF Standard English Test (EF SET) or one of its English placement tests in 2021.

The EF stated that this year’s index covered 2.2 million English proficiency test takers, aged 18 to 60, with 55 percent being female and 45 percent being male.”

The EF SET is an online standardized test objectively designed to classify test takers’ language abilities into one of the six levels established by the Common European Framework of Reference.