Despite the importance of having a reliable and valid measure of Second Language (L2) proficiency, L2 researchers of less commonly taught languages rarely have such a tool. Existing proficiency measures (e.g., DLPT, OPI) are often costly, labor-intensive, time-consuming, or unavailable to the public. With the intent to provide a practical and reliable measure of Korean L2 proficiency, this study attempted to develop and validate a 30-minute C-Test (Klein-Braley, 1981). This Korean C-Test was developed with the specifics of Korean language structure in mind, and Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR) skill-level descriptions were utilized in passage selection in order to test a wide range of participant proficiency levels. The resulting test and a self-assessment questionnaire (Kondo-Brown, 2005) were administered to 37 learners of Korean. Rasch analysis (Bond & Fox, 2007) was used to examine the reliability and concurrent validity of the measure, and Rasch measurement statistics such as separation reliability, difficulty measures, and model fit statistics were used to suggest further improvement to the C-Test. The developed test demonstrated excellent reliability and validity indices, and the results reveal the potential of this C-Test as a quick proficiency indicator.
This study was undertaken, in conjunction with other studies eld-testing prototype tasks for a new TOEFL, to evaluate the content validity, perceived authenticity and educational appropriateness of these prototype tasks. We interviewed seven highly experienced instructors of English as a Second Language (ESL) at three universities, asking them to rate their students’ abilities in English and to review samples of their students’ performance to determine whether they thought seven prototype speaking and writing tasks being eld-tested for a new version of the TOEFL® test:
• represented the domain of academic English required for studies at English-medium universities or colleges in North America;
• elicited performance from their adult ESL students that corresponded to their usual performance in ESL classes and course assignments; and
• realized the evidence claims on which the tasks had been designed.
The instructors thought that most of their students’ performances on the prototype test tasks were equivalent to or better than their usual performance in classes. The instructors viewed positively the new prototype tasks that required students to write or to speak in reference to reading or listening source texts, but they observed certain problems with these novel tasks and suggested ways that their content and presentation might be improved for the formative development of these tasks.