Czech Republic Cracks Top 20 in English Proficiency

A new study of global English language proficiency also finds that Czech women speak better English than Czech men

Elizabeth Zahradnicek-Haas

Written by Elizabeth Zahradnicek-Haas Published on 24.11.2015 12:05:12 (updated on 24.11.2015) Reading time: 1 minute

Culture

The fifth annual edition of the English First English Proficiency Index (EF EPI), which rates the English skills of the world’s non-native English-speaking countries, was released earlier this month.

Among the twenty-seven European nations assessed, the Czech Republic ranked fifteenth, placing eighteenth out of 70 overall with an EF EPI score of 59.01.

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Sweden ranked first in the study, with an EPI of 70.94. Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, and Finland rounded out the top five. 

The Czech Republic was labelled a “high proficiency” region, which reflects an improvement from 2013-2014 when the country was deemed just “moderately” proficient.

Czech Republic Cracks Top 20 in English Proficiency

The report also found that in almost every country surveyed women spoke English better than men. The Czech Republic was no exception with female English speakers scoring higher on average than their male counterparts. The gender gap was absent in the high-proficiency Nordic countries which claimed a number of the top ten slots.

Research also showed that better English correlates with a higher Gross National Income per capita and better quality of life, and a connection between higher English levels and a countries’ high-technology exports and spending on R&D.

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The EF EPI compiles its data from 910,000 adults learners who took their standard English test, comparable to TOEFL or IELTS, in 2014. See the complete findings of the 2015 EF EPI here. Want to rate your own English? Take the test.

Source: PR Newswire

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