My conversations with other English teachers generally turn to assessment once they find out that I have worked as a test developer. At that point, they immediately bemoan the overwhelming presence of tests in their o...My conversations with other English teachers generally turn to assessment once they find out that I have worked as a test developer. At that point, they immediately bemoan the overwhelming presence of tests in their own lives and their studentslives, and they sigh in resignation at having to teach test preparation classes for high -stakes standardized assessments of academic English such as the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) or the International English Language Testing System (IELTS). They feel these classes do not truly improve their studentsability to communicate in English, yet both students and teachers accept that spending time learning strategies or“tricks”that will lead to higher scores is a necessary evil in an environment that relies so heavily on testing.展开更多
文摘My conversations with other English teachers generally turn to assessment once they find out that I have worked as a test developer. At that point, they immediately bemoan the overwhelming presence of tests in their own lives and their studentslives, and they sigh in resignation at having to teach test preparation classes for high -stakes standardized assessments of academic English such as the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) or the International English Language Testing System (IELTS). They feel these classes do not truly improve their studentsability to communicate in English, yet both students and teachers accept that spending time learning strategies or“tricks”that will lead to higher scores is a necessary evil in an environment that relies so heavily on testing.