BEST Test of English Proficiency - website

Test Introduction

The Ministry of Education (MOE) launched The Program on Bilingual Education for Students in College, referred to as the BEST program, with the goals of building a bilingual teaching and learning environment in colleges and universities, strengthening the English proficiency of college- and university-level students, and promoting EMI courses to enhance the overall international competitiveness of higher education in Taiwan. The MOE also seeks to foster positive interactions between English teaching, learning, and assessment programs at colleges and universities. This entails aligning these programs with specific language standards, tracking students' learning progress, and providing an understanding of how a learning institution's courses affect performance on assessments. To address these needs, the MOE has provided funding for the Language Training & Testing Center (LTTC) to develop and administer the BEST Test of English Proficiency, referred to in short as BESTEP.

The BESTEP speaking and writing tests were officially launched in September 2023, with the listening and reading tests launched in November of the same year. Together, these four elements of BESTEP offer a comprehensive assessment of English proficiency.

Test Purposes

• To cultivate good English communication skills among college and university students so that they can meet the demands of the workplace or international environments.
• To evaluate students' English learning outcomes during their school years to enable educational institutions to continuously improve their teaching quality and provide more effective language instruction.
• To assess students' English proficiency before they enter English-medium instruction (EMI) courses and to assist them in adapting to the challenges of attending academic courses in English.
• To serve as an important indicator of applicants’ English language proficiency for corporations when recruiting and selecting employees.
• To assess applicants' English performance in a work environment to ensure their ability to communicate effectively with people from different countries.

Test Features

• The BESTEP is an academic-oriented English proficiency test developed specifically for domestic college students, so it is a completely new and more suitable assessment tool.
• The BESTEP focuses on assessing general academic English and English communication skills in international academic and workplace situations. It tests all four skills—speaking, writing, listening and reading—in modules.
• The BESTEP can be linked to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR).
• The BESTEP covers CEFR levels A to C, thereby effectively measuring a wide range of English proficiency levels.

Test Takers

• The test is intended for students enrolled at colleges and universities.

Test Format

Descriptors and Test focuses

¹ The MOE adopts the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment) as a reference for institutions, schools, and the public to assess language proficiency and test requirements.