A number of years ago Educational Testing Services (ETS), the
people responsible for the TOEFL test, brought the test into the
computer age by transitioning it from a paper-based test to a
computer-based test. This allowed them to stop the practice of
previewing questions and answers while listening to material,
and it allowed them to add some unique testing questions, such
as matching up items and placing a sentence within a paragraph.
It also allowed them to individualize the listening and grammar
sections of the test by catering items to the ability of the
student. A student’s score was no longer dependent on the number
of correct answer he or she gave but the degree of difficulty of
questions he or she was able to answer correctly. However, the
computer-based TOEFL was an assembly of separate skills -
reading, listening, grammar, and writing. In this format it was
possible for students to learn tricks to increase their
performance in each of these areas, a practice that did not
reflect their true ability to handle the language. Students
could demonstrate their reading skills separate from their
listening skills and writing skills, but true language is seldom
so fragmented. This weakness in the test was made worse by the
absence of a speaking component. If a student wanted to
demonstrate a competency in this skill, he or she had to take a
separate speaking test such as the TSE, the Test of Spoken
English, also produced by ETS. It became obvious that a change
in the TOEFL was necessary to reflect the true nature of English
to see whether a testtaker could handle the language in more
true-to-life situations. Enter the Internet, the ultimate medium.
With the Next Generation iBT TOEFL, students go on-line and take
the test directly from ETS at test centers throughout the world.
There are roughly forty-five sessions a year, all on Fridays or
Saturdays. Details can be found on the ETS web site at
http://www.ets.org. The iBT, Internet-based test, is an
integration of all four language skills – reading, listening,
speaking, and writing – in which grammar plays a more minor but
still a necessary component. In other words, there is no longer
a grammar section on the TOEFL, but grammar is taken into
consideration in the evaluation of both the speaking and writing
sections. Another change is in the scoring. Whereas the
computer-based TOEFL was scored out of 300, the iBT is scored
out of 120, 30 in each of the four skills. To succeed in this
new format, students need to be good note takers as they will be
required to read passages and then listen to lectures or long
conversations in order to respond either orally or by writing to
questions, usually about how the written material relates to the
listening material. The language skills of gist, details,
inferences, vocabulary, reference, and insertion are still
tested along with the new skills of paraphrasing and determining
overall organization and purpose. The addition of these new
skills, along with the integration of the sections, makes the
Next Generation iBT TOEFL a more valid evaluation of a student’s
real-life language skills and his or her ability to succeed in a
real academic setting.
Since preparing for the Next Generation iBT TOEFL is
challenging, a student is well advised to take a class or join a
study group to develop the necessary skills to pass. Also, it is
essential that a student get a good preparation textbook, but
there are only a few that have kept up with the changes in the
test, such as Longman Preparation Course for the TOEFL Test ,
Next Generation iBT and Delta’s Key to the Next Generation TOEFL
Test. Many private and community colleges offer one- or two-term
preparation courses, but there may be prerequisites a student
must satisfy before being admitted to these classes. There is an
alternative, however, for people who want to bypass
prerequisites or are unable to invest three to six months
preparation time. The TEST PREP Team offers a 45-hour intensive
TOEFL Preparation Course over ten Saturdays. This course is
available only in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia,
Canada. Information on this course, as well as a number of
learning tools to help students prepare by themselves, is
available at http://study4toefl.com, but hurry – the next class
starts on October 8th.
Ambien Malecot, BA, MA
Instructor / Program
Developer
The TEST PREP Team
TOEFL Course
#206 – 3280 West Broadway
Vancouver, British Columbia
V6K 2H4 CANADA
Telephone: 604-738-0077
Fax:
604-739-3777
E-mail: info@study4toefl.com
Web Address:
http://www.study4toefl.com
When one teaches, two
learn – Robert Half
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