good question,
a fuller answer will be posted in the content section of this website very soon!
but simply, the TOEFL used to be only for American Univerisities, and IELTS was for the UK, Australia and New Zealand. Before TOEFL had no speaking section, it does now! Ielts is currently the most popular english language exam in the world, taken by more students than any other. Ielts is also now accepted at some Universities in America ( which never happened before! ). Also TOEFL added the speaking section in January 2005, available in Cambodia for the next test date i believe!~ :wink:
In content, IELTS is speaking, writing, reading, listening
TOEFL is reading, sentence correction ( grammar), listening and optional TWE ( the writing part )
There will be more differences coming soon, but basically most students I have taught think IELTS is easier as it contains less grammar than TOEFL, but even TOEFL can be easy if you have a strategy for dealing with the grammar which appears in the sentence correction part. I can teach and have methods of teaching both. Another difference is that parts of TOEFL are done on computer, but all of IELTS is handwritten. The listening of TOEFL contains a lot of American idioms, which make it difficult. Ielts however contains less idioms and is based more on communication and understanding communication.
If you are good at grammar, most students prefer TOEFL, but if you are not most students prefer IELTS. There is no cross over of marks as yet, they are rival exam boards, so if i have an ielts 6, that had no equivacal mark in TOEFL, though some people can guess it is probably over 500.
That is all for now, have more later. :wink:
have fun,
Paul :wink:
