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November 6, 2024 | 08:40 pm
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - English is the most widely spoken language worldwide, with a staggering 1.5 billion speakers, either as their native or second language. Nowadays, fluency in English unlocks a multitude of benefits, from facilitating business growth to increasing educational opportunities to boosting local tourism.
Even more people are showing their utmost interests in learning English and signing up for language classes, as demonstrated on the annual EF English Proficiency Index (EPI).
In determining English proficiency by country, EF Education First involved about 2.2 million adults whose first language isn’t English across 113 countries.
English Proficiency by Country
1. Netherlands: 647
2. Singapore: 631
3. Austria, 616
4. Denmark: 615
5. Norway (614)
6. Sweden, 609
7. Belgium: 608
8. Portugal, 607
9. South Africa: 605
10. Germany - 604
The Netherlands is ranked first as the country that shows the highest English proficiency, with an average score reaching 647, indicating a very high proficiency in English.
In the previous year’s data, the Netherlands' capital city, Amsterdam, particularly exemplified very high proficiency in English based on the test result that earned a score of 683.
Lagging by 16 points behind is Singapore, the only Asian’s country in the list, supporting a score of 631 that is globally considered as a very high proficiency in English.
English Proficiency Age Trends
There has been a decline in the average English test score within the age range of 18 to 20 years for the last six years. The data suggests that the average score of this group age fell every year since 2015. In 2023, people aged between 18 and 20 only managed to earn an average EF score of 450.
On the other hand, a group of people ranging from 26 to 40 years old have maintained their English proficiency level above an average score of 510.
English Proficiency Gender Trends
According to the EF EPI research, there has been an ongoing rank battle between males and females for the past nine years in terms of English proficiency.
While females prevailed over males for years since 2014, the latter were seen to profusely catch up with the score in recent times. The 2023 data showed that males had a higher average EF score than females, leading in 502 points.
On a better look at the EF EPI test, Singapore and South Africa show up as the only non-European countries in the very high proficiency category. This data on English proficiency by country might need the latest update of 2024 findings.
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