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ESL MiniConference Online!

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 Readers of the article are advised that the information contained herein is no longer current and is maintained on the ESL MiniConference newsletter for historical purposes only.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
Conzett@XAVIER.XU.EDU
Director, Intensive English Program
http://www.xu.edu/esl
Xavier University
Cincinnati, Ohio

2002 ESL MiniConference Online