A teacher-verification study of speaking and writing prototype tasks for a new TOEFL

Abstract

)test development efforts. As part of the foundation for the development of the next generation TOEFL test, papers and research reports were commissioned from experts within the fields of measurement, language teaching, and testing through the TOEFL 2000 project. The resulting critical reviews, expert opinions, and research results have helped to inform TOEFL program development efforts with respect to test construct, test user needs, and test delivery. Opinions expressed in these papers are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or intentions of the TOEFL program.These monographs are also of general scholarly interest, and the TOEFL program is pleased to make them available to colleagues in the fields of language teaching and testing and international student admissions in higher education.The TOEFL 2000 project was a broad effort under which language testing at Educational Testing Service ® (ETS ® ) would evolve into the 21st century. As a first step, the TOEFL program revised the Test of Spoken English™ (TSE ® ) and introduced a computer-based version of the TOEFL test. The revised TSE test, introduced in July 1995, is based on an underlying construct of communicative language ability and represents a process approach to test validation. The computer-based TOEFL test, introduced in 1998, took advantage of new forms of assessment and improved services made possible by computer-based testing, while also moving the program toward its longer-range goals, which included:• the development of a conceptual framework that takes into account models of communicative competence a research program that informs and supports this emerging framework a better understanding of the kinds of information test users need and want from the TOEFL test a better understanding of the technological capabilities for delivery of TOEFL tests into the next century Monographs 16 through 20 were the working papers that laid out the TOEFL 2000 conceptual frameworks with their accompanying research agendas. The initial framework document, Monograph 16, described the process by which the project was to move from identifying the test domain to building an empirically based interpretation of test scores. The subsequent framework documents, Monographs 17-20, extended the conceptual frameworks to the domains of reading, writing, listening, and speaking (both as independent and interdependent domains). These conceptual frameworks guided the research and prototyping studies described in subsequent monographs that resulted in the final test model. The culmination of the TOEFL 2000 project is the next generation TOEFL test that will be released in September 2005.As TOEFL 2000 projects are completed, monographs and research reports will continue to be released and public review of project work invited. TOEFL Program Educational Testing Service iii AbstractThis study was undertaken, in conjunction with other studies field-testing prototype tasks for a new Test of English as a Foreign Language™ (TOEFL ® ), to evaluate the content val...

The Role of Lexical Properties and Cohesive Devices in Text Integration and Their Effect on Human Ratings of Speaking Proficiency

“…Thus, integrating content from reading and listening samples (i.e., source text) are primary components of spoken academic success. Such integrated tasks authentically resemble the type of tasks that are integral to academic contexts and best represent the interdependent relationship between input and output in academic situations (Cumming, Kantor, Powers, Santos, & Taylor, 2000;Cumming, Grant, Mulcahy-Ernt, & Powers, 2005;Cumming, Kantor, Baba, Eouanzoui, Erdosy, & James, 2006;Lewkowicz, 1997). …”

Developing rubrics to assess the reading-into-writing skills: A case study

“…This integrated reading-into-writing task type has the potential to satisfy the need for greater validity in the assessment of test takers" writing ability as such a task type represents more closely how people write in real life than independent writing tasks (e.g. Cumming, Grant, Mulcahy-Ernt, & Powers, 2004;Cumming, Kantor, & Power, 2001;Weigle, 2004).…”

A Historical Survey of Research Regarding Constructed-Response Formats

“…In the case of speaking, these requirements meant that ultimately complex multimodal tasks were needed where students would read or listen to a stimulus and provide a spoken response. The construct of communicative competence was unpacked in frameworks corresponding to the four skills thought to compose it: reading (Enright et al 2000), listening (Bejar et al 2000), writing (Cumming et al 2000), and speaking (Butler et al 2000). The frameworks served as the basis for experimentation, after which the blueprint for the test was set (Pearlman 2008a).…”