Office Hours Recap

Last week’s “Office Hours” were a big success.  The turnout was pretty good, and I didn’t have to do much talking.  The group included a nice mix of test prep folks, test takers and a few testing firm insiders.

As a group, we chatted about a few stimulating topics, including:

1. What it means for a test to have a “multistage adaptive design” and how that might be implemented in the TOEFL reading and listening sections.  One participant seemed pretty sure that the TOEFL reading section could be enhanced with an IELTS style “table completion” task.  I’m not so certain about that will come to pass, even though I think it would be a pretty great change.
2. How the promise of tasks that “better reflect how students use English in real academic settings like group discussions and project work” might reflect a desire to widen the “target domain” of the test.  The test already includes items centered on campus interactions, but they are mostly simulations of service encounters and meetings with professors.
3. What’s going on in China.  A few test prep pros popped into the meeting and shared an update on the scene in that country.  This is always super valuable because even though China is the number one market for English tests, it is barely discussed on this particular platform.
4. How nice it would be to have more speaking tasks on the test.  The TOEFL currently includes just 3 minutes and 45 seconds of oral production, which must be the least of all the major tests (and the minor ones, too).
5. The sorts of test prep materials people favor nowadays.
6. How tests could be more personalized for specific test takers.

I recommended a couple of articles in “Research for Practice Issues and Solutions in Computerized Multistage Testing” by Yan, von Davier and Weiss for anyone who wants to dive into the theories behind multistage testing before January.

I’ll do my best to host another chat early next month.  A few possible areas of focus come to mind:

1. More TOEFL!
2. IELTS:  What’s up?
3. The Pearson English Express Test:  What is it?
4. DET:  What’s changing?  What’s going on?

I might need some assistance with topics 2 through 4.  Do let me know if you are an expert and would like to take part, and help generate some conversation. I don’t record the meetings, so everyone is able to speak frankly and casually.