Creating an end-to-end assessment solution at The Hong Kong Institute of Education

Substantial funding is currently provided to HK Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) who are required to provide more and better language proficiency outcomes reports to a range of funding stakeholders. They also recruit unprecedented numbers of non-local students in an effort to develop Hong Kong as an ‘education hub’ in Asia. Added to these external contextual factors, the Centre for Language in Education at the Hong Kong Institute of Education has recently embarked on a curriculum renewal process for its undergraduate English language programmes that entail providing tailored proficiency pathways for the students. These major contextual changes have resulted in a need for the CLE to have an institutional ‘end-to-end’ English language assessment solution to provide: (1) Language screening and placement; (2) Language formative and summative assessment processes and tasks for the new curriculum; and (3) Language reporting at year end. Such an ‘end-to-end’ solution will provide a systematic approach to screening and placement assessment, formative and summative assessment and language assessment reporting for all English enhancement programmes. Hitherto, CLE (and other HEI language centres) has relied on ad hoc language assessment solutions to these institutional requirements and/or an over reliance on international certification that is expensive and limited as an end-to-end solution. The Tertiary English Language Test (TELT) being developed at HKIEd, has received seeding funding from the Institute, to develop assessment processes fort he range of purposes outlined above. This paper reports on the work achieved so far with particular reference to the screening and placement test. It will outline the TELT test specifications, stages of piloting, process of item analysis using Rasch Measurement Analysis, scales and descriptors for speaking and writing and calibration issues in speaking and writing. The paper will also report on senior managements’ response to the new tool and immediate challenges for TELT in further development. Copyright © 2008 International Language Testing Association & Zhejiang University.