Compendium Study The Case for a Comprehensive, Four-Skills Assessment of English Language Proficiency

Occasionally, because of time or financial constraints, test users — those who use scores to make decisions about test takers ’ qualifications for work or study — may be inclined to use a less-than-fully-comprehensive assessment of important skills or abilities. This is true especially when assessing English-language proficiency, where a key question is often, “Can a single measure (typically, a test of speaking ability, or sometimes reading) serve as a sufficient proxy for a test taker’s overall proficiency in all modes of communication in English, including listening, reading, writing, and speaking?” In some contexts, speaking ability seems to be the most important of the four skills; furthermore, test takers ’ performance in each of the four skill areas is usually very highly related, so this strategy may not be an entirely unreasonable one. However, if measuring only a single skill (or fewer than four skills) provides a less than adequate estimate of what a person can do in a real-life setting, test users may be dissatisfied, especially if expectations regarding examinees ’ on-the-job performance are not met. Such criticisms motivated revisions to two of ETS’s well-known English-language testing programs: The TOEFL ® test, which college and universities use to gauge the language skills of prospective international students, and the TOEIC ® test, which employers in a variety of industries use to determine employees ’ readiness to us