Theory Paper Essay

Evaluation Paper: IELTS Test
Qiang Li
Department of TESOL
Oklahoma City University

Dr. Dan Rueckert
9/18/2011

Evaluation Paper: IELTS Test
In this paper, I will choose IELTS (International English Language Testing System) as the test for evaluation, and limit the discussion to the Academic format of IELTS only.
1. The purpose of Academic module of IELTS (hereafter to be referred as IELTS) is to test a person’s ability to study in English at undergraduate or postgraduate level.
2. What has IELTS done in achieving its objective
IELTS assesses students’ English skills in four linguistic domains: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. In this part, I will briefly survey contents of the test and the corresponding language skills required to fulfill the task in each section smoothly.
(1) Listening test
There are four sections in the test, each with ten questions. The first two sections deal with situations set in everyday social contexts, while the final two sections deal with situations set in academic or training contexts. The distribution of types of the listening text in each section is as follows:
Section 1 – conversation;                       Section 3 – conversation;                
Section 2 – monologue;                         Section 4 – monologue.
From my point, by using totally six varieties of tasks (e.g., multiple-choice, matching, etc.), IELTS assesses candidates’ listening ability to draw the key information from the listening text in the following three aspects, in both everyday-life and academic or training settings:
· Factual information (e.g., places, prices, time, etc.)
· Connections and relationships of specific facts (e.g., spatial, functional, etc.)
· Main idea of the monologue or conversation
(2) Speaking test
There are three parts to the test and each part fulfills a specific function in terms of interaction pattern, task input and candidate output:
· Introduction and interview assesses the candidate’s...