Language assessment is increasingly computermediated. This development presents opportunities with new task formats and equally a need for renewed scrutiny of established conventions. Recent recommendations to increase integrated skills assessment in lecture comprehension tests is premised on empirical research that demonstrates enhanced construct…

This study explores the effectiveness of using ChatGPT, an Artificial Intelligence (AI) language model, as an Automated Essay Scoring (AES) tool for grading English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners' essays. The corpus consists of 50 essays representing various types including analysis, compare and contrast, descriptive, narrative, and opinion…

This study investigates washback effects of IELTS test on university teachers' adoption of teaching materials in the classroom in China and see how a high-stake language exam affects their teaching practices and how they and their students perceive the effectiveness of the pedagogic adjustments. To this end, individual interview to five teacher…

Understanding the IELTS washback on learning in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in higher education contexts remains limited. To fill in this research gap, this study investigated washback effects of the International English Language Testing System (hereafter called IELTS) as an English language proficiency exit test for final-year English…

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the university admissions and proficiency testing landscape. One change has been the meteoric rise in use of the fully automated Duolingo English Test (DET) for university entrance purposes, offering test-takers a cheaper, shorter, accessible alternative. This rapid response study is the first to investigate the…

As a result of the Japanese Ministry of Education's recent edict that students' written and spoken English should be assessed in university entrance exams, there is an urgent need for tools to help teachers and students prepare for these exams. Although some commercial tools already exist, they are generally expensive and inflexible. To address…

The premise of this research is that analytical and extensive reading in a digital environment might be used to facilitate second language acquisition at the tertiary education level. Despite the general orientation toward communicative methods in modern second language acquisition, reading methods and techniques have seen an unexpected yet very…

John Read is about to retire as Professor in Applied Language Studies at the University of Auckland. He previously taught applied linguistics, Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) and English for Academic Purposes (EAP) at Victoria University of Wellington, the SEAMEO Regional Language Centre, the University of Texas El Paso,…

The aim of this study was to investigate how test methods affect listening test takers' performance and cognitive load. Test methods were defined and operationalized as while-listening performance (WLP) and post-listening performance (PLP) formats. To achieve the goal of the study, we examined test takers' (N = 80) brain activity patterns…

Although most international students arrive with required language qualifications, many struggle with the linguistic demands of their programmes. This study explored whether the test-preparation industry undermines the qualifications with which students arrive. English proficiency of 153 Chinese student in the UK was tested on the Duolingo English…

IELTS is used as a screening gatekeeper and plays a crucial role in Omani students to meet job requirements. This paper reports on Omani English-major undergraduate students' reflections on their experience of the reading section of Academic IELTS. The main aim of the study was to elucidate their difficulties and coping strategies to inform…

This mixed-methods study investigates writers' task representation and the factors affecting it in test-like and non-test-like conditions. Five advanced-level L2 writers wrote two argumentative essays each, one in test-like conditions and the other in non-test-like conditions where the participants were allowed to use all the time and online…

This study investigated the cognitive processes underlying pauses at different textual locations (e.g., within/between words) and various levels of revision (e.g., below word/clause). We used stimulated recall, keystroke logging, and eye-tracking methodology in combination to examine pausing and revision behaviors. Thirty advanced Chinese L2 users…

Research shows that test method can exert a significant impact on test takers' performance and thereby contaminate test scores. We argue that common test method can exert the same effect as common stimuli and violate the conditional independence assumption of item response theory models because, in general, subsets of items which have a shared…

At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), the English Placement Test (EPT) is the institutional placement test that is used to place students into appropriate English as a second language (ESL) writing and/or pronunciation service courses. The EPT is used to assess the English ability of newly admitted international undergraduate…