The Education Testing Service or ETS was founded in 1947 by the President of Harvard University, scholars from Princeton University and some other prestigious schools. ETS is the leading institution that focuses on research and education development to benefit people all over the world – not only in the United States. One of the most distinguished branches of ETS is the developing of the world’s largest standardized assessment tests such as the TOEFL, TOEIC, GRE, SAT and other tests.

With more than 65 years of experience, ETS is well-known for providing countless schools, institutions as well as government offices and educational administrators with tools to evaluate and measure the ability of students, applicants, and also to assess the training quality of institutions. Annually, ETS develops, administers and grades more than 50 million tests.  Every single test was researched and developed by a group of professionals and specialists with doctorate degrees, on a basis of a vast and constantly updated data base on world situations. One of the most acclaimed and widely-used testing tools of ETS is the TOEFL test with more than 27 million test-takers every year. TOEFL iBT certificate itself is accepted in more than 130 countries, by 9000 different organizations and is preferred to be used more than any other English proficiency certificate for scholarship application or school admission in the United States.

Together with TOEFL Junior (which was launched in Vietnam at the end of 2012), TOEFL Primary is the newest member of the “TOEFL family of Assessments”. TOEFL Primary is the test which was researched and designed specifically for primary school students to evaluate their English proficiency and also to develop thinking skills of young learners. Besides the available TOEFL tests including TOEFL Junior for middle school students, TOEFL iBT aiming at high school students seeking to pursue higher education abroad and TOEFL iTP devised for both undergraduate and graduate students residing in non-

English speaking countries; TOEFL Primary is introduced to complete the proficiency assessment test system of English learners from low to high levels with consistent and homogenous evaluation criteria. TOEFL Primary score can also be converted to the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR).

To primary school students, TOEFL Primary is an efficient and valuable tool to assess and appraise English level of the students both academically and socially. TOEFL Primary test reflects accurately each skill of the student through a detailed score report; which then can be served to evaluate the progress and improvement of thinking skill of the students throughout the time.  TOEFL Primary is also a necessary transition for the development of  language skills for higher education program such as TOEFL Junior, TOEFL iBT…

To institutions and training centers, TOEFL Primary is used as a productive mechanism to arrange and organize students into relevant English training programs of all levels. Based on the score report given, the institutions and teachers can have an overall idea of the efficiency of the teaching program, so as to carry out appropriate adjustments to the program and to give students a better indication of their education tendency.

During the launching of TOEFL Primary, with the participation of Departments of Education and Training from different cities/provinces and representatives from different primary schools and local training institutions, ETS and IIG Vietnam has hold the seminar: “TOEFL Primary – The English Proficiency Benchmark for Primary School Students”. The seminar was an opportunity for IIG Vietnam specialists to share more detailed and official information about TOEFL Primary. This seminar also includes representatives from Primary Education Bureaus – Departments of Education and Training with lectures on combining TOEFL Primary test in curriculum of primary schools. Coming to this seminar, participants from the schools can also find responses to their questions of how to develop TOEFL Primary in their institutions and how to adapt it to Vietnamese education system in reality. 

The Education Testing Service has spent 5 years to research and develop TOEFL Primary and TOEFL Primary Pilot has been carried out in 25 countries all over the world. Through the pilot, ETS has continuously modified TOEFL Primary for the test appropriately reflects growth, knowledge, psychology, living conditions and so on of primary school students all over the globe.  During the third quarter of 2013, TOEFL Primary test has been officially launched around the world; Vietnam and South Korea are the very first countries to have TOEFL Primary Test being introduced

Hanoi:

Ho Chi Minh: