The Toefl Test of Written English
Causes for Concern
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10819014 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ann Raimes (City University of New York, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1990 |
| Volume | 24 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 427 |
| Publication date | 1990-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | TESOL Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0039-8322 • E-ISSN: 1545-7249 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/3587228 |
| OpenAlex | W1964820033 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 14 |
| References cited | 4 |
Owned and administered by the Educational Testing Service (ETS), the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), taken by approximately 600,000 students a year, influences access to or exclusion from colleges and universities in North America. This article provides background information about the TOEFL and ETS; describes the development of ETS tests of composition for native speakers of English and of the most recent addition to the TOEFL testing program, the Test of Written English (TWE); and explores seven areas of concern with respect to the TWE: the comparability of topic types; the lack of topic choice; the lack of distinction between graduate and undergraduate students; the scoring system; the question of what the test measures; the question of whether both the TOEFL and the TWE are needed; and the backwash effect of the TWE, including the proliferation of coaching and test-specific instructional materials. The article urges careful scrutiny of new developments in ETS testing as they affect our students, and ends with seven recommendations for action
Language assessment · Linguistics · Mathematics education · Test (biology) · Test of English as a Foreign Language · Educational Technology and Assessment · Geology · Philosophy · Psychology · Second Language Learning and Teaching · Student Assessment and Feedback
Language testing and assessment (Part I)
Demystifying the Toefl® Reading Test
ESL, Ideology, and the Politics of Pragmatism
Differences in written discourse in independent and integrated prototype tasks for next generation Toefl
Toward Automated Multi-trait Scoring of Essays
Does the English Test in the Spanish University Entrance Examination Influence the Teaching of English
Convergent examinations and the divergent student
Ethical Test Preparation Practice
Development of an analytic rating scale for Japanese L1 writing
Do experience and text quality matter for raters’ decision-making behaviors
A teacher-verification study of speaking and writing prototype tasks for a new Toefl
Working for washback
Comparability of students’ writing performance on Toefl iBT and in required university writing courses
Nursing as ethnic capital
| Citations per year | 0.41 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 1992 - 2026 (35) |
| Highly cited | No |