Imagine assessing a teacher’s readiness for the classroom by asking them to listen to a university lecture, answer multiple-choice questions, and write an argumentative essay.

These tasks may tell us something useful about academic English. But do they show whether a teacher can calm a distressed child, explain a difficult concept, manage behavioural issues, or raise a sensitive concern with a parent?

For many applicants seeking teacher registration in Australia, this is a high-stakes question. Under the nationally consistent registration framework, applicants who have not completed at least four years of higher education in specified English-speaking countries must demonstrate their English-language proficiency through an approved test, such as IELTS Academic, which is widely used for university admission.

For IELTS Academic, the national framework specifies an overall score of 7.5, with no band score below 7.0 and scores of at least 8.0 in speaking and listening.

Strong English proficiency is essential for teaching in Australia. The issue is not whether teachers should meet a high standard, but whether the test used for decision-making adequately reflects the kinds of communication valued in the profession.

This question matters as Australia continues to address long-term teacher workforce shortages.

How well does IELTS Academic reflect teachers’ work?

In my doctoral research, more than 160 early childhood, primary, and secondary teachers shared their views on the language and communication demands of their work through focus groups, a national survey, and individual interviews.

In 12 focus groups, 37 teachers reviewed sample test tasks from all four sections of IELTS Academic – speaking, listening, reading, and writing – and discussed how relevant the tasks were to their everyday work.

Teachers saw some areas of overlap. Reading unfamiliar material, organising written information, and expressing ideas clearly all have a place in teaching. Some tasks, such as describing a chart or a graph, were also considered directly relevant to particular areas of secondary teaching, including mathematics, science, business, and economics.

However, a task can resemble one small part of teachers’ work without adequately accounting for the communication they value most or rely on most frequently.

The clearest gaps emerged in speaking and listening.

IELTS Academic listening uses recordings of adult English speakers in social, educational, and academic contexts. Teachers in my study, however, described workplace listening that frequently involves children and young people. Their speech may be incomplete, unclear, and shaped by their age, development, and emotional state.

Teachers also listen to people from diverse linguistic backgrounds, often in environments with considerable background noise. For example, they may be navigating a difficult conversation with a family during morning drop-off time. In situations like this, teachers do not simply listen and answer written test questions. They ask for clarification, request repetition, and respond to the speakers, drawing on tone, facial expressions, gestures, and contextual information as the interaction unfolds.

A similar issue arises in IELTS Academic speaking. Although the test is conducted face-to-face, the examiner largely controls the interaction: the examiner asks the questions and the test-taker responds. Teachers in the focus groups described parts of this format as resembling a job interview rather than the reciprocal conversations they engage in at work.

The two-minute monologue in the IELTS Academic speaking test was seen as somewhat similar to whole-class instruction in primary and secondary schools. However, teachers also noted that contemporary classroom communication is increasingly dialogic and interactive. At the same time, the monologue format was considered much less relevant to early childhood teaching.

Differences also emerged across other test sections. Describing graphs or charts may be highly relevant to a secondary mathematics or science teacher while having little connection to the everyday work of many early childhood teachers. Likewise, writing an argumentative essay may demonstrate useful skills in some secondary school subjects, but early childhood teachers’ workplace writing is more likely to include learning stories and observations about children, written for families and other professionals.

These findings suggest that the relationship between IELTS Academic and teachers’ work is not simply one of relevance or irrelevance. Some test tasks reflect certain aspects of teaching, but their relevance varies considerably across different education settings.

More importantly, many highly valued communication skills, including interacting with children, adapting language in the moment, and using nonverbal communication, are not adequately represented.

The question is fitness for purpose

These findings are not an argument for lowering or removing the English-language standards for teacher registration. Teachers’ communication directly affects student learning, wellbeing and safety, as well as relationships with families, colleagues, and the wider community.

Instead, these findings point to the need for stronger evidence that the assessment being used is fit for its intended purpose.

A test used for professional registration cannot reproduce every workplace situation; however, it should sample the communication skills that are most important in the profession.

For teachers, this might include:

  • explaining educational concepts in child-friendly language;
  • responding appropriately to behavioural incidents and students in emotional distress;
  • understanding authentic student speech alongside non-verbal information such as facial expressions and gestures; and
  • communicating concerns to families clearly and sensitively.

It may also require closer consideration of communicative differences between early childhood, primary, and secondary teaching, rather than assuming that one test represents all three settings equally well.

Australia needs English-language requirements that protect educational quality while supporting fair and defensible decisions about who is ready to teach. The starting point should be the realities of teachers’ work and the voices of teachers themselves.

Funding and disclosure

This research was supported by the Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship, a British Council Assessment Research Award (2024), and a TIRF Doctoral Dissertation Grant (2024). The British Council is one of the joint owners of IELTS. The funders had no role in the study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation of the findings, or preparation of this article. The author has no other financial or commercial interests in IELTS or the other products and services discussed in this article.

Dr Xiaoxiao Kong is an applied linguist, early childhood teacher, and teacher educator. Her doctoral research at the University of Melbourne examined the language and communication demands of early childhood, primary school, and secondary school teachers across Australia and their alignment with English-language tests used for teacher registration. She is currently a research assistant at the University of Melbourne, a lecturer in Early Childhood Education at CIHE Australia, and an associate editor of TESOL in Context.