Five more reasons to hate ETS
I got a bit of a rise out of someone (probably) associated with ETS, the people responsible for the language teaching travesties that are TOEFL and TOEIC, last time I laid into them. So, let’s see if we can’t carry on annoying them until they actually decide to produce a decent test. And this time no effort at all is needed, because the boot has been totally put into them by someone writing for Humanizing Language Teaching, of all places. She is a non-native but super qualified English teacher who decided to give the test a try so she would better understand what her students were going through. And this is what she found:
“in the iBT if… one sneezes when a question is being asked, he/she will miss his/her chances of answering the question”
“The reason for giving such a short time for answering the speaking questions is unclear to me. Who would only talk for 45 seconds about a topic of general interest?”
“You are not allowed to eat or drink during the test; therefore, I was hungry, thirsty and very tired.”
“Some of the reading passages were really uninteresting and I was bored to death reading them.”
“I assume one of the intentions of the new version of TOEFL is to create a situation as close as possible to the real life of a university student, but I do not again see how it is achieved through such a long test. In no real situation that at least I can think of, is a student required to deal with so many different reading and listening passages on different subjects in one go.”
From here.
February 4th, 2009 at 8:52 pm
Would that be the ‘Evil Testing Service” and do they sell stock? One point the author left out was the price of these tests. It’s not only the TOEFL, but I believe that ETS has dented the wallets of just about every college bound student and teacher in America – what a rip off. Let’s see… I’ve paid them for a couple of PSATs, SATs, GREs, special subject guides and the National Teacher Exam — a small fortune!
Some related reading here:
Forget the North Korean nuclear crisis. What has many South Koreans in an uproar these days is the “Toefl crisis.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/17/world/asia/17korea.html?_r=1
February 7th, 2009 at 10:43 am
I do a lot of tutoring for TOEFL (speaking and writing in particular) and also make my own practice tests for students to use online in preparation for the test.
To be honest, it’s a bit of a wacky test. I wrote a fullish analysis of the different questions in the speaking section here, based around trying to determine how close they are to the “real deal” when it comes to speaking English in a college/university setting:
http://jasonrenshaw.typepad.com/ibt_speaking_writing/2007/03/ibt_speaking_an.html
See what you make of it…
Cheers,
~ Jason
February 12th, 2009 at 9:05 am
Don’t know anything about the fellows that sent me this press release, but as they are offering our students cash that they can pay our wages with and they seem to planning some competition to ETS, thought it might be worth a mention:
“ALTA Language Services is looking for intermediate to advanced learners of the English language to help launch reading and listening proficiency tests for a private organization.
The ideal candidates will be university students with current (within the last year) TOEFL scores starting at 200 for the computer-based TOEFL, 533 for the paper-based TOEFL, and 15 for the internet-based TOEFL.
ALTA will pay each test-taker a flat rate of $50 to complete both the reading and listening tests. After taking the tests, we will ask you to complete a short survey about your experience taking the test. All information will be kept confidential.
We expect each test to consist of approximately 80 multiple-choice questions. Test-takers may complete the examinations online, on any computer with an Internet connection. When the testing period begins in early February, the tests will be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Please note we are not looking for native speakers of the language, but rather speakers who have either been taking ESL courses or learning the language through self-study.
If this description fits a student or colleague of yours, please get them in touch with the project’s director Jocelyn Echevarria, jechevarria@altalang.com“
October 29th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
what are the weaknesses and the strengthnesses of TOEFL test