ETS is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer.As part of its educational and social mission and in fulfilling the organization's non-profit Charter and Bylaws, ETS has and continues to learn from and also to lead research that furthers educational and measurement research to advance quality and equity in education and assessment for all users of the organization's products and services.Copyright © 2006 by ETS. All rights reserved.No part of this report may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Violators will be prosecuted in accordance with both U.S. and international copyright laws. ETS, the ETS logos, GRADUATE RECORD EXAMINATIONS, GRE, POWERPREP, TOEFL, the TOEFL logo, TSE, and TWE are registered trademarks of Educational Testing Service (ETS). The TEST OF ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE, TEST OF SPOKEN ENGLISH, and TEST OF WRITTEN ENGLISH are trademarks of ETS.College Board is a registered trademark of the College Entrance Examination Board. AbstractThe purpose of this report is to present the findings of the first phase in a longitudinal study of the impact of changes in the TOEFL® test on teaching and learning in test preparation classrooms. Observations were carried out and interviews conducted with teachers, students, and directors of studies at 10 institutions in six countries in Central and Eastern Europe. The findings constitute a baseline against which finding from future phases can be compared. The report includes an analysis of the types of impact originally envisaged by advisers to the new TOEFL and a discussion of factors in the educational context that may influence the types of impact that may appear once the new test is operational. ETS administers the TOEFL program under the general direction of a policy board that was established by, and is affiliated with, the sponsoring organizations. Members of the TOEFL Board (previously the Policy Council) represent the College Board, the GRE Board, and such institutions and agencies as graduate schools of business, two-year colleges and nonprofit educational exchange agencies.A continuing program of research related to the TOEFL test is carried out in consultation with the TOEFL Committee of Examiners. Its members include representatives of the TOEFL Board and distinguished English as a second language specialists from the academic community. The Committee advises the TOEFL program about research needs and, through the research subcommittee, reviews and approves proposals for funding and reports for publication. Members of the Committee of Examiners serve four-year terms at the invitation of the Board; the chair of the committee serves on the Board.Because the studies are specific to the TOEFL test and the testing program, most of the actual research is conducted by ETS staff rather than by outside researchers. Many projects require the cooperation of other institutions, ...
The aim of this report is to present the findings of the second phase in a longitudinal study of the impact of changes in the TOEFL® test on teaching and learning in test preparation classrooms. The focus of this phase was to monitor six teachers from five countries in Central and Eastern Europe as they received news about changes in the TOEFL and began thinking about how these might affect their teaching in the future. Data were gathered during the period of January to May 2005. The teachers responded to monthly tracking questions and tasks that explored their awareness of the old and new TOEFL tests, the features of their test preparation classes, their reactions to the most innovative parts of the new test, and their thoughts about the type of content and activities they would offer once the new TOEFL was operational in their countries. The report includes an analysis of the teachers' awareness, attitudes, and plans, and a discussion of the types of factors that could affect the shape and intensity of TOEFL washback in years to come.
The aim of this report is to present the findings of the 3rd and 4th phases of a longitudinal study into the impact of changes in the TOEFL® exam on teaching in test preparation classrooms. Phase 1 (2003–2004) described the type of teaching taking place in 12 TOEFL preparation classrooms before the introduction of the new TOEFL. Phase 2 (2004–2006) followed 6 of the Phase 1 teachers as they became aware of the requirements of the new test and faced the challenges of designing new courses to help students to prepare for it effectively. The objectives of the Phase 3 study (2006–2007) were to analyze the coursebooks that 4 of these teachers were using as they continued to prepare students for the TOEFL computer‐based test (CBT) and began to plan courses for the TOEFL iBT®, and to find out how the teachers were using the coursebooks as they developed their courses and planned individual classroom sessions. The coursebook analysis revealed that the TOEFL iBT coursebooks differed considerably from the TOEFL CBT coursebooks in terms of content, with the inclusion of integrated writing tasks and independent and integrated speaking tasks and the absence of attention to grammatical form on its own. They did not differ greatly in terms of their general methodological approach, however. Information about how the teachers used their coursebooks was gathered via tracking questions and tasks eliciting self‐report data. The coursebooks seemed to be playing an important role in shaping the teachers' understanding of the requirements of the new TOEFL, and the teachers depended on them heavily as they developed their courses and planned their lessons. The objectives of Phase 4 (2007–2008) were to interview and observe 3 of the same teachers, to find out what their preparation classes looked like 1 year after the introduction of the TOEFL iBT in their countries. While some aspects of teaching seemed not to have changed greatly, considerable changes occurred in the amount of attention the teachers paid to the development of speaking and to the integration of different skills. The teachers differed from each other in how much they had changed their methods to develop their students' language skills. The report concludes with a discussion of the role the new test, new coursebooks, and other factors in the educational context played in shaping current practices in these TOEFL preparation classrooms.
Two main groups of staff currently provide writing support to students in British universities. These staff typically enter their roles from a range of professional backgrounds and, consequently, may hold different professional identities and understandings of what academic writing is. Although there is a body of research on teacher identity and on lecturers’ conceptualisations of writing, few studies have compared the views and identities of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) teachers and learning developers. The current study set out to investigate whether these two groups perceive academic writing in similar or different ways, and why. We undertook a small-scale study, interviewing eight participants at two universities, half from a post-1992 institution and the others from a research-intensive, high-ranking university. While participants varied in their definitions of writing, common themes emerged, lying on a spectrum from an autonomous, text-based, to an academic literacies perspective on writing. To establish the influences on these perspectives, we investigated the participants’ sense of identity as an academic writer, how they learned writing themselves and any influences on them from theory. Neither the EAP teachers nor the learning developers identified strongly as academic writers, despite all holding postgraduate qualifications and some having published their writing. Most reported little to no training in how to write academically themselves, and few mentioned any theoretical stance in their approach to helping students. Although some clustering around particular conceptualisations of writing was observed, we did not find strong evidence that the participants belong to two different ‘tribes’.
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