Test preparation pedagogy for international study: Relating teacher cognition, instructional models and academic writing skills

Abstract

There now exists an established body of work outlining the challenges international students can face as part of the acculturation process, including a range of academic and non-academic pressures to overcome. For many students, writing essays in academic English for the first time is problematic. This article considers pedagogical approaches for IELTS writing test preparation prior to university admission, and the potential for introducing academic writing skills at an earlier stage of students’ learning. Noting implications of test constructs, we investigate pedagogical support for candidates preparing for the writing section of IELTS. Conducted at a test preparation centre in China, observational data from courses across three proficiency levels provided the basis for inquiry, alongside interviews with teachers ( n = 2), students ( n = 20), and collating homework essays ( n = 50). Results indicate that teacher cognition highly influenced pedagogical practice for writing test preparation at the centre involved. It was also evident that (despite variations) overall test preparation objectives were broadly similar. Additionally, higher proficiency learners appeared to be more receptive to – and capable of – learning about early-stage academic writing skills. We suggest a series of tentative recommendations for instructors and areas for future research, including looking at other major university entrance tests, newer ‘digital first’ tests, and the implications of online test preparation.

The pedagogical remit of test preparation: the case of writing acquisition on an IELTS course

“…EAP courses teach academic writing skills preentry, but many students enter university courses directly if their IELTS score meets stipulated requirements, effectively bypassing a highly useful step in early academic writing acquisition (Clark 2018). This further highlights the importance of the test preparation stagefor these students test preparation's introduction to academic writing expectations may be all that they encounter before starting their course (Clark and Yu 2022).…”

“…Selection of test preparation approaches (such as those outlined above) rests on teacher cognition (Clark and Yu 2022); the pedagogical experiences and training that a teacher encounters necessarily shapes his or her classroom approach (Irvine-Niakaris and Kiely 2015). Irvine-Niakaris and Kiely's study investigated teacher use of strategies for reading test preparation, revealing that established approaches (e.g., pre-reading tasks) were beneficial to students even though teacher interpretation of the method varied.…”

Pragmatic strategies in teaching the Romanian language to international students

“…While role-playing activities and cultural immersion exercises garnered significant adoption, their slightly lower perceived effectiveness raises questions about the alignment between usage and impact (Brown, 2018). This incongruity could be attributed to variations in instructional approaches, highlighting the need for a nuanced exploration of how these strategies are implemented in different contexts (Clark, 2020).…”

Towards the Contributing Factors for the Inconsistency Between English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Teachers’ Equity-Oriented Cognition and Practices

“…Numerous empirical studies 57 , 60 , 61 have examined the complex interplay between teachers’ implicit cognition and explicit practices, suggesting the significant role cognition plays in shaping their instructional practices. However, more studies 62 , 63 have reported a distinctive discordance between teachers’ cognition and practices and identified a series of influential factors that mediate the cognition-practice relationship.…”