IMPORTANT: The TOEFL is going to change in 2005

[Erin]

The new TOEFL will have SPEAKING!!

 

Article from http://www.ets.org/news/04230201.html

 

ETS Launches Three-Phase Introduction of Next Generation TOEFL

 

Princeton, N.J. (April 10, 2002)

 

--Educational Testing Service (ETS) has begun a three-phase introduction of the next generation of the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) to English language instructors, students, and score users around the world.

 

The next generation of TOEFL will premier in 2004, TOEFL's 40th anniversary year. It will reflect a decade of research designed to identify the best way to build and assess the communicative English skills test takers need at the university level and in their professional careers. The exam will more closely reflect the speaking, listening, reading and writing skills needed for lifelong success.

 

Each year the TOEFL test is administered to approximately 800,000 candidates in more than 210 countries. More than 4,200 academic institutions, government agencies, scholarship programs, and licensing/certification agencies in more than 80 countries use TOEFL scores.

 

The first of the three-phase rollout begins September 2002, when the TOEFL program unveils LanguEdgeTM Courseware, a CD-ROM instructional tool that will give students a glimpse of the next generation of TOEFL. Instructors in English language classes can use LanguEdgeTM Courseware to help their students build and assess communicative English skills. TOEFL representatives are taking orders now for the new product at worldwide conferences for English teachers. (See the TOEFL Web site at www.toefl.org for a list of these conferences.

 

"LanguEdge Courseware will help teachers of English understand what the next generation of TOEFL will be assessing," explains Marilyn Rymniak, executive director of the TOEFL program. "It is also a professional development tool for teachers so they can develop their own skills, such as rating English assessments holistically and using new scales to rate performance on the speaking and writing activities in their classrooms. We want everyone - teachers, students, and score users to be familiar with the next generation of TOEFL."

 

The second phase will begin in 2003, when officials will introduce a new TOEFL speaking test. Then, in 2004, the next generation of TOEFL, TOEFL CBT2 with integrated skills, will be unveiled.

 

"The current style of English language tests served non-English speakers well for many years, but times have changed and communication needs dictate that we move to the next generation of TOEFL," Rymniak says. "Colleges and universities are demanding English language tests that match the dynamic and interactive nature of their campuses. They want tests that utilize real-life communication scenarios, not just vocabulary, reading, and speaking tests."

 

The new version of the TOEFL test will simulate real language experience at a university. “We want to have students perform tasks they typically would have to do in a classroom — such as engaging in a conversation that an academic advisor might have with fellow students — in order to test how they can actually communicate in an academic setting,” Rymniak says.

 

For the new test, ETS is using language, content and contexts from a spoken and written corpus of 1.65 million words gathered from various educational institutions in different regions of the United States. Language samples were collected at both undergraduate and graduate levels, through excerpts from textbooks as well as recorded lectures and labs, office hours, service encounters, and student interactions. The corpus has six major categories: business, education, humanities, engineering, natural sciences, and social studies — typically the disciplines that international students typically choose when they study in the United States.

 

ETS has published framework papers (TOEFL Monographs 16-20) that explain the underlying theory and research behind the new communicative TOEFL test. The monographs can be downloaded for free at www.toefl.org/research/rmonogph.html.

 

Educational Testing Service is the world's largest private educational testing and measurement organization, annually administering more than 11 million tests worldwide. ETS is dedicated to serving the needs of individuals, educational institutions, and government bodies in 181 countries. For more information, access the ETS Web site at www.ets.org.

[evak]

Hi everyone,

 

If you are preparing for the New Generation TOEFL, check www.esl-pro.com. They have all kinds of preparation materials for this new test, including practice tests + workbooks. I especially liked the tests.

 

Hope this helps.

Eva