The "TOEFL® Essentials"™ test is a new English language proficiency test in the "TOEFL"® family of assessments. It measures foundational language skills and communication abilities in academic and general (daily life) contexts. The test covers the four language skills of reading, listening, writing, and speaking and is intended…

This paper compares and analyzes a selection of popular multilevel tests used for quick accreditation of English as a foreign language worldwide. The paper begins by stating the current need of accreditation of English language competence for both academic and professional matters. It then looks at their defining features and differences. After,…

Cognitive diagnostic models (CDMs) have received much interest within the field of language testing over the last decade due to their great potential to provide diagnostic feedback to all stakeholders and ultimately improve language teaching and learning. A large number of studies have demonstrated the application of CDMs on advanced large-scale…

The TOEFL iBT test was introduced in 2005 to better reflect the language demands of real-life academic tasks than did previous versions of the test. The task-based design of the test was intended to support the interpretation of its scores as a trustworthy measure of international students' ability to use English in an academic environment. Until…

The elicited imitation task (EIT), in which language learners listen to a series of spoken sentences and repeat each one verbatim, is a commonly used measure of language proficiency in second language acquisition research. The "TOEFL® Essentials"™ test includes an EIT as a holistic measure of speaking proficiency, referred to as the…

This report describes the development of efficient second language (L2) writing assessment tasks designed specifically for low-proficiency learners of English to be included in the "TOEFL® Essentials"™ test. Based on the can-do descriptors of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages for the A1 through B1 levels of…

Various examinations are administered at universities across the US as a means of assessing bilingual/multilingual international teaching assistants' (ITAs') proficiency in spoken English before they are permitted to teach. While such exams are taken by students in a range of academic disciplines, recent research suggests that communicative…

This study examined whether reporting subscores for groups of items within a test section assessing a second-language modality (specifically reading or listening comprehension) added value from a measurement perspective to the information already provided by the section scores. We analyzed the responses of 116,489 test takers to reading and…

Admission in English-medium universities or institutions of higher education depends on the results obtained by candidates in large-scale proficiency tests including Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) internet-based test (iBT). The structure and administration procedure of the TOEFL iBT speaking test leaves no room for carrying out…

This project examined academic reading in two contrasting English as a medium of instruction (EMI) university settings in Nepal and Sweden and the unique challenges facing students who are studying in a language other than their primary language. The motivation for the project was to explore the role of high-stakes testing in EMI contexts and the…

The purpose of this study was to enhance the meaning of the scores of an English-language test by developing performance levels and descriptors for reporting overall test performance. The levels and descriptors were intended to accompany the total scale scores of TOEFL Junior® Standard, an international test of English as a second/foreign…

The rise of medical tourism and the increasing number of international patients from Asian countries have led Thai healthcare professionals to serve a lot of Asian patients and to encounter a complexity of language use in their workplace. There is a necessity for these professionals to strive for an understanding of Asian accents spoken by the…

The purpose of this article is to discuss the role of "baseline studies" in investigations of test impact and to illustrate the type of thinking underlying the design and implementation of such studies by reference to a recent study relating to a high-stakes test of English language proficiency. Baseline studies are used to describe an…

This column examines the Cambridge English Examinations and the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). The changes made to these tests are discussed. (SW)

Several exploratory analyses of the fifths data generated by Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) item analyses were developed in order to evaluate the effects of options on the discriminability of difficult items and to identify difficult items with low, unreliable biserials that had been rejected by test developers, but for which…