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Imagine you’re the head of school, principal, or teacher of non-English speaking middle school students learning English. You need to assess progress but don’t want to use a high-stakes test that offers scores but not feedback. And, you want something that assesses both academic and social English-language proficiency to support instruction and placement. Is this a tall order or an impossible task? Not according to Educational Testing Service (ETS), creator of the TOEFL® Junior ™ test, a new product within the growing TOEFL® family of English-language assessments.
As the pace of globalization continues to accelerate, English has become the language of opportunity. More and more, English as a foreign language instruction is beginning at earlier ages and in many cases it is becoming more intensive. With the ability to communicate in English now considered a basic skill to be learned along with other 21st-century skills, researchers and test developers at ETS felt it was time to bring their expertise to the challenge.
The result is the TOEFL Junior test, a global assessment of middle school-level English language proficiency. It is designed for middle school students learning English in communities in which English is not the dominant language. And, it is a low-stakes assessment used to measure progress over time and to help support the placement of students once they’re admitted into English-speaking instructional environments. The first administration took place in October 2010 in South Korea. Brazil and Vietnam have also adopted the assessment, and other countries around the globe will follow suit.
“With instruction beginning at earlier ages, mastering English expands students’ access to a range of educational, personal and professional opportunities,” explains Philip Tabbiner, senior vice president of ETS Global & Partnerships. “This is especially true for non-English speaking students who wish to attend public and private schools in English-dominant countries like the U.S., Canada and the U.K., as well as international schools in non English-dominant countries.
“Because the TOEFL Junior test is a global assessment, students, teachers, administrators and parents around the world can depend on it for objective information about English-language skills. It can be used to support placement decisions after admission to these schools or in any country using bilingual approaches to instruction,” Tabbiner adds.
The TOEFL Junior paper-based test (PBT) contains three sections:
Listening Comprehension:
Language Form and Meaning:
Reading Comprehension:
“The TOEFL Junior test is a general proficiency global assessment,” Tabbiner adds. It is not based on any specific curriculum. And, scores should always be complemented with appropriate information about student speaking and writing proficiency. There is also no direct link between TOEFL Junior scores and TOEFL iBT™ scores, and the TOEFL Junior test is not intended to predict future performance on the college admissions test.
To further assist younger English-language learners, ETS has joined with MetaMetrics®, creator of The Lexile® Framework for Reading, to link reading section scores from the TOEFL Junior test with Lexile measures, which assess both an individual’s reading ability and the difficulty of text on the same developmental scale. Each TOEFL Junior score report will come with the student’s reading section score matched with a Lexile measure and a link to the new multilingual website www.lexile.com/toefljunior. Students, parents and teachers can use this website to access more information on Lexile measures and search for books and build custom reading lists based on the student’s ability and interests. The website is available in English and Korean, with more language options to be added.
“Linking a TOEFL Junior Reading section score with a Lexile measure helps students practice reading more effectively to improve their skills and better prepare them for advanced learning,” says Malbert Smith III, president and co-founder of MetaMetrics. “Finding the right books that provide the right level of challenge for practice can be difficult. With Lexile measures and our new book search on the TOEFL Junior site, we are simplifying the process of matching students with books that can help them strengthen their English reading skills and achieve their goals.”
ETS recognizes that students may not have the time or energy to search for books that can help improve their English-reading skills.
“Having access to books matched to their TOEFL Junior Reading score/Lexile measure is like having an electronic library at their fingertips,” says Tony Ostrander, director of TOEFL product management for ETS.
Plans call for a four-skill, computer-based version of the TOEFL Junior test in the future that will include listening, reading, speaking and writing measures.
For further information on the TOEFL Junior test, contact ETS at toefljunior@ets.org, or visit www.ets.org/toefljunior.
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This article was written by Educational Testing Service (ETS), makers of the TOEFL Junior Test, a low-stakes assessment that measures the degree to which younger students have attained language proficiency representative of English-medium instructional environments. You can learn more about ETS at www.ets.org or contact them at 1-609-921-9000 or toefljunior@ets.org
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