China will introduce the evaluation methods of the US-based Educational Testing Service (ETS) into a national college students English speaking contest to make it more authoritative.

An official from the organizing committee of the 13th National English Speaking Contest said on June 15 the contest will invite evaluation experts from ETS to be judges and use ETS evaluation methods, which are used for such tests as TOEIC, TOEFL and GRE, to judge competitors' performances.

Students can now submit their resumes online. Those who have a TOEIC score of over 860 will be the first to be invited to take an oral English test conducted by ETS experts via telephone. The final round will be held in Beijing from April 12 to 16 next year.

The organizer said emphasizing the role of TOEIC scores will help students recognize that practical communication skills are more important than book knowledge.

The TOEIC was introduced into China in 2002 by the Chinese Ministry of Labor and Social Security. Chinese test-takers who pass the exam can get certificates from both the ETS and the ministry.

Statistics show that more than 100,000 Chinese people have taken the TOEIC test over the past five years.

The National English Speaking Contest was initiated in 1996 by China Daily. So far, the contest has attracted more than one million Chinese students from some 800 universities.

TOEIC's major rival in the English-testing market in China is the IELTS which tested more than 140,000 candidates in 2006, a rise of nearly 40 percent on the previous year.

At present, Chinese primary school students start learning English in the second grade, at the age of eight. A total of 200 million Chinese people are learning foreign languages, with English the most popular choice.