Radical Changes Afoot for TOEFL Takers?
Inside Scoop From TOEFL Pilot Site at Xavier
EDITORS NOTE: In an e-mail to ESL MiniConference
Online, April 10, 2005, Jane Conzett stated that "the new TOEFL has been altered quite a bit since that initial pilot [which she described below in this 2002 article]." Readers
of the article are advised that the information contained herein is
no longer current and is maintained on the ESL MiniConference
newsletter for historical purposes only. -Robb Scott, Editor
Jane Conzett, Director of the Intensive English Program at
Xavier University, in Cincinnati, Ohio, recently shared insights
about the new TOEFL on the TESLIE-L Listserver. Professor
Conzett contributed the following remarks, a minimally edited
version of her TESLIE-L posting, for the readers of the ESL
MiniConference. More information about changes in the new TOEFL
is available at www.toefl.org.
Our IEP participated in the pilot study of the new TOEFL test this spring.
We were able to observe the pilot test over our students' shoulders, and
got to hear their reactions to the test. It was very interesting.
First, the pilot test was long and rather exhausting for some of our
students. Part of this was the required tutorial (it didn't allow skipping)
and some of our students' lack of proficiency with keyboard and mouse. We
were told the process would be about 4 hours, but for many of our students,
it was closer to 5. There was no option to write by hand, as students have
with the current CBT, so students may want to sharpen their keyboarding skills.
Another interesting feature was the integration of all four skills,
including speaking. For example, you might read something, then need to
speak into your headset to orally answer a question. You might have to
orally answer questions about a lecture, or you might be just given a
prompt and told to speak about it. Our students' reactions were mixed for
this part. A student from Tanzania thought it was amusing ("Someone is
going to have to listen to me talking about my hometown! I wonder what
they'll think?!") Others felt intimidated by the microphone, and were very
quiet--I felt they were quieter than they would have been in an oral
interview in person, for example. One girl outright refused to speak. When
we questioned her about it, she said that she hadn't understood any of the
lecture, so why should she speak at all? She felt it was beneath her
dignity to "BS" (as we native speakers sometimes don't hesitate to do) so
this could potentially be a type of cultural interference--something we may
need to talk to our students about in prep classes.
Other examples of integrated skills were listening to a lecture and writing
about it, reading a passage and writing about it, etc. In the pilot test
the readings were challenging and very academic in nature.
For the pilot test, ETS
provided each student with 10 stapled pages of paper for the specific
purpose of notetaking and pre-writing, which they had to turn in to us when
exiting the test.
Our students all commented,"There isn't any grammar!" and they were right
that grammar was not discretely tested as it has been in the past. I would
imagine somehow it is scored holistically as part of everything, but I just
don't know. At TESOL in Salt Lake City I asked an ETS representative if the
grammar was actually analyzed by a computer (since the students were
required to type), but my question was not really answered.
Although our participants agreed that the test was very hard, many of the
fully matriculated undergraduates who took the pilot test seemed to think
that the skills tested were those they actually used in the classroom. Some
of our current IEP students who found it challenging felt they should hurry
up and take the CBT before it was replaced by the new version.
The Institutional TOEFL will still be around for a long time, we were told
by ETS at TESOL, and there is no longer talk of phasing it out. We can
still use it in our IEPs.
I caution all that our institution was only involved in the pilot study;
the final version of the new TOEFL may be different.
EDITORS NOTE: In an e-mail to ESL MiniConference
Online, April 10, 2005, Jane Conzett stated that "the new TOEFL has been altered quite a bit since that initial pilot [which she described above in this 2002 article]." Readers
of the article are advised that the information contained herein is
no longer current and is maintained on the ESL MiniConference
newsletter for historical purposes only. -Robb Scott, Editor
By Jane Conzett
2002 ESL MiniConference Online
Conzett@XAVIER.XU.EDU
Director, Intensive English Program
http://www.xu.edu/esl
Xavier University
Cincinnati, Ohio