The new “Official Guide to the TOEFL iBT Test: Pocket ed” is now for sale. It costs $19 bucks and includes one practice test. Described as “time limited,” I suppose it is a stop-gap product that will be offered until the complete official guide is available in May. You can find it on the official TOEFL site, in the test prep section. I’ll buy a copy when I return home later this month.
One thing to keep in mind is that the guide can only be downloaded one time after purchase. This could create problems for individuals with unstable internet. The audio and practice test files for the current (now outdated) Official Guide can only be downloaded four times, but I’ve heard complaints from users who experienced connectivity issues while attempting to download those very large files.
Just in time for the retirement of my little TOEFL book, someone shared this picture of their well-loved copy on Facebook.
In a world where online courses cost two or three hundred dollars, my $15 paperback ($2.19 for the ebook) found a bit of a niche for itself over the past couple of years. You can still buy it on Amazon if you are preparing for the current TOEFL, but I will probably switch it to archival status early next week.
I spent quite a lot of time this month planning for my trip (next month) to Egypt and Jordan. My preparations included reading a handful of books about those countries. I especially enjoyed Kent R. Weeks’ “Illustrated Guide to Luxor.” I’ve been to Luxor, but I had forgotten the sheer volume of historic sites there. The book helped me narrow my itinerary down to something reasonable, given the three days I’ll spend in the area.
I also dug into my stack of unread issues of Jacobin and read the Summer 2024 issue. I liked “Welcome to Utopia, TX,” which explores the history of a curiously-named town in Texas.
Otherwise, I’ve mostly read fiction this month. I don’t usually write about fiction here, but I will mention that I enjoyed reading Colin Thubron’s first novel, “The God in the Mountain.” It tells the story of a Greek town where a copper miners are planning to dig into a sacred mountain. This one has been out of print since its original publication in the 1970s. I’ve always wondered why that is, as Thubron remains quite popular and the book is pretty decent. Sourcing a copy for myself wasn’t particularly easy.
Since this column is running short, I’ll paste in one more sample of “real world” English for you to mull over. This one comes from a travel guide to the state of West Virginia. As I indicated a few columns back, this could be a fun way to prepare for the new TOEFL. Some day, perhaps, I will put together a collection of these with TOEFLesque questions. The idea of using real materials for this sort of thing is quaint in the AI area… but it wasn’t so long ago that all English tests were cobbled together using real articles and audio snippets not specifically made for testing!
I attended ETS’s webinar about prep materials for the new TOEFL iBT. A few things are worth mentioning here:
It appears that TOEFL TestReady will be discontinued. Says ETS: “There are no plans yet to continue the TOEFL TestReady.” This after “a careful study of test-taker feedback.” That’s unfortunate, as TestReady is always my number one recommendation when someone at the beginning of their test taking journey asks me for advice. It’s also the number one recommendation of just about everyone on social media. The strength of this platform is that it provides free sample tests and free section tests that are all scored. It also provides a random “free question of the day” that is also scored. As far as I can tell, none of the free materials currently available for the new tests are scored.
There are no plans to update the free TOEFL course on edX. This is also unfortunate. While I know that edX is way past its heyday, the course was my number one recommendation for people wanting both free practice questions and free instructional content.
Additional free practice tests for the new TOEFL will apparently be added to the TOEFL website December 22 (today?) but it is unclear if they will be scored. None of the existing free practice tests are scored, as far as I can tell.
Sometime between January and March, ETS will begin selling “TOEFL Teacher Certification.” This will be a paid product offered to “teachers who have demonstrated strong competency in teaching TOEFL aligned with ETS standards and procedures.” Previously, certificates were offered to ETS workshop participants at no cost.
“Flex Practice” questions for the new TOEFL are now available to test takers who pay extra for a “genius” package during registration. These are questions focused on specific item types.
I guess ACRES and SERVAL are the replacements for SpeechRater and e-rater.
Much of the presentation was about the ability of partner institutions to integrate TOEFL practice materials and APIs into their own platforms. Traditionally this sort of thing has been a big deal in China, but has not had much of an impact outside of that country. It really does seem like ETS is seeking to replicate the New Oriental success story in new markets. We’ll see how it goes.
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Regular readers will likely have noted a push to monetize the TOEFL in new and varied ways. This is not terribly surprising, of course. Overall test volumes will increase whenever the big receiving markets become more welcoming of international students… but the big slice of market share that has been lost to Duolingo and Pearson will never come back. Never, ever. Thus, there is a need to explore new revenue sources. The trick is to do so without being too blatant about it.
While visiting the Kyobo Books branch near Seoul City Hall, I snapped this photo of a new TOEFL book from 시원스쿨 (Siwonschool). The book matches the new TOEFL format, and as you can see it includes the ETS logo and a note that the book is from an official ETS partner.
As I wrote a few days ago, it seems like ETS is working hard to build up a new network of supportive teachers and tutors. You can spot ETS branding on a wealth of third party products nowadays.
I was going to purchase a copy of the book for my own personal library, but it looks like two of the three practice tests in the book are the same as (or very similar to) the free tests published on the ETS website. That’s an interesting choice.
There is now an Amazon listing for a new “Official Guide to the TOEFL.” It includes a publication date of May 29. Curiously, it promises only two practice tests (down from four in the current edition). One is left wondering if they will be the same two tests currently available on the ETS website.
A shorter book for a newer test isn’t without precedent, of course. Elderly readers will recall that the first official guide for the TOEFL iBT contained only a single practice test.
Note that ETS has elsewhere indicated that the guide would be available in January and (later) in February.
I took this photo at the Youngpoong Bookstore at Mario Outlet in Seoul! As you can see, Hackers Education Group is first out the door with updated TOEFL books in Korea, and they even scored a nice little table display at the front of the store’s test prep section. Basic editions of the books are also available, round back.
Despite its somewhat silly name, Hackers is the biggest publisher of prep books for English tests in Korea. They also publish some of the very best books in this category. They hire some of the very best test prep minds in the country as staff writers.
When ETS held a gathering to promote the revised TOEFL in Seoul a few weeks ago, representatives from Hackers were on the guest list. That’s noteworthy because according to prosecutors here in Korea, between 2007 and 2012 Hackers (allegedly) sent staff to (allegedly) copy questions from administrations of ETS tests using hidden cameras and microphones. The chairman of Hackers, allegedly surnamed Cho, received an 18 month prison sentence for his part in the alleged scheme. The sentence was later suspended.
Press coverage at the time indicated that ETS would be seeking compensatory payments to cover the cost of “Korea only” versions of tests it created in response to these alleged activities, but I don’t know if they ever went ahead with that.
Anyway. I don’t know if the Hackers invite is a sign that the chilly relationship between these two parties has thawed. Or if it is just a reflection of the alleged fact that institutional memory at these organizations isn’t what it used to be.
Some really great research this month fromAlina Reid in support of the new ISE Digital Test from Trinity College London. The research examines how the test’s new integrated reading/writing task connects to real-life academic writing.
This is important in a world where testing companies are quick to claim that their tests are “fit for purpose” without really supporting that claim. Indeed, the author references studies which seem to question the validity of both the IELTS and TOEFL independent writing tasks.
In the case of Trinity’s test, 64% of surveyed EAP instructors agreed that the task in question resembled the assignments they give in their classes. Which is good, but not great. A greater share – 86% of respondents – agreed that the task engages similar skills and strategies that are used in their classes. That’s a bit better.
Said one respondent:
“…if students are able to write reasonably well [at] this level, they could be equipped with many of the skills and strategies required to write lengthier assignments. You will have concrete evidence as a teacher of the capability of the student in terms of understanding texts, choosing relevant information from sources, synthesizing, and paraphrasing by answering a question like this.”
But another:
“This task does not reflect the real needs of university students. University students need to engage with extensive reading and evaluate the suitability of texts. They would never have to write something so short in forty minutes. Instead, they would have weeks to work on a more extensive research task which would result in a longer piece of academic writing. Shorter texts are more simple to organize and may not emphasize the importance of coherence.”
Personally, my perspective is similar to the latter comment. Tests can be great measures of one’s ability to use the English language. But I’m wary of claims that any two or three hour test can indicate the ability of a student to do meaningful academic work. Especially when a test maker just asks us to take their word for it.
I was happy to discover that Pearson has published updated print guides to the PTE Academic test (one for students, one for teachers). They cost $86 AUD a piece and only seem to be sold from Pearson’s Australian web store. But they do exist. Apparently.
I am still a big believer in print books because they can be stocked by libraries around the world. Libraries remain a major source of free test prep – the long reservation queues for prep books at many libraries speak to that.
I really like this article from Cambridge about “Ethical AI for language learning and assessment.” If I were trying to position the IELTS to thrive in today’s brave new world, this is the sort of message I would use. I would express that the test is keeping up with the times, but that the makers of the test take a more cautious and thoughtful approach than its competitors. Sounds easy, right? Perhaps not. Monday I’ll write about some not-helpful articles out of Cambridge that will get in front of many more sets of eyeballs in the days ahead.
This month I read the March 21, 2024 issue of the London Review of books. A few articles caught my attention
“I Adjure You Egg” is a short history of magical amulets and charms in medieval Europe. A really fun exploration of a corner of European history we don’t often hear about. People believed in such charms with a lot of sincerity, for a very long time. It was interesting to know that charms were often scraps of written words rather than some object with more physicality, which is what we often picture when we think of charms.
“Llamas, Pizzas, Mandolins” is a long look at AI and its implications. Yeah, you are probably sick of this topic, but it is one that many still want to read about. And I bet it will be asked about on the TOEFL for some time to come.
After that, I read “Assessing Academic English for Higher Education” by John M. Norris and Xiaoming Xi of ETS. As I think I mentioned in an earlier column I am working my way through all of the books on my shelf (about tests or otherwise) that I have actually paid for with my own money. This one has been on my shelf for a couple of years at least. This was the perfect time to read it, as it serves as a sort of coda for the “old ETS” before the TOEFL gets blown up into something unrecognizable and mostly unconnected from what came before. The book is almost sorrowful, as it describes page after page of good research and good ideas about assessing English for academic purposes that never made it into the TOEFL iBT. Instead of using these ideas, ETS just sort of left the test in its original form, basically unchanged for two decades. It is no wonder that so many bright minds left to build the Duolingo English Test.
Finally, I read Richard Sennett’s “The Corrosion of Character,” a short book (really an essay) about work at the turn of this century. There is some stuff in here that ETSers might appreciate too, especially about the futility of companies trying to reform into something new by “reengineering” themselves. I was going to quote a relevant part of the book, but it was too long. So here’s a dramatic reading:
This part may hit home:
“…institutions become dysfunctional during the people-squeezing process: business plans are discarded and revised, expected benefits turn out to be ephemeral; the organization loses direction. Institutional changes, instead of following the path of a guided arrow, head in different and often conflicting directions: a profitable operating unit is suddently sold, for example, yet a few years later the parent company tries to get back into the business in which it knew how to make money before it sought to reinvent itself.”
The cost of taking the TOEFL was adjusted in some countries this week. As was announced earlier, test takers in Japan now pay $195 to take the test (a $50 decrease). Meanwhile, their neighbors in nearby Korea must now pay $228 (an $8 increase). The price hike in Korea is the only increase I’ve been able to spot so far.
Prices have been adjusted downward in some (but not all) EU countries so that changes related to VAT collection no longer make the TOEFL wildly more expensive than other tests. I complained quite a lot about that when ETS first started collecting VAT in Europe some months ago, so I am happy to see this course correction.
While I was traveling around at the beginning of the month, I read another issue of the London Review of Books. I can’t remember which issue, ’cause I threw it away when I finished with it. But a couple of fun articles stood out:
“Even the Eyelashes” is about the role of mummies in Inca society. It’s a shorter than usual LRB article, which probably makes it better as a study resource. This topic could make a fun TOEFL reading passage.
“When Paris Sneezed” explores the reasons why people were so pissed off in Paris between 1748 and 1789.
Meanwhile, continuing my journey through the Norton Library Podcast, I read Charles Chesnutt’s “The Marrow of Tradition.” Chesnutt’s book is a work of fiction set before and during the Wilmington Massacre of 1898. I strongly recommend this book; for a 127 year-old novel, it is surprisingly accessible. For some listening practice, you can check out the two-part podcast episode starting here.
For a little more listening practice, you might enjoy this Paul Wells podcast from a few days ago about the topic of book burning – mostly in Canada, but also elsewhere. It also touches on the value of reading “the classics,” which matches one of the ongoing themes of this column.
