Teaching development grants final and financial report: Further TELT development for recruitment and placement assessment (TELT Phase 2)

Last year the Centre for Language in Education (CLE) was granted over HKD300k to expand its battery of items for the CLE Tertiary English Language Test (TELT). The specific purpose to date has been on the screening and recruitment of non-JUPAS/non-local students and placement into appropriate proficiency levels within CLE English courses. The placement test currently comprises a reading, listening and vocabulary test for Non-English major students with an additional speaking and writing test for English major students. Over the last 12 months, this first test has been trialled and validated using Rasch analysis. The test was then used extensively in the placement of both JUPAS and NON-JUPAS students into the 3 levels of CLE English enhancement courses, namely Foundation, Bridge and Access. The success of the placement tool this year (07/08) is evidenced in the results, where the test helped to 'sort' the students effectively across the three levels of proficiency with specific reference to sorting the Bridge and Foundations levels. We now know we have a good spread of results. Although the placement test is secure, we aim to expand the number of texts and test items (reading, listening, vocabulary, and grammar) in the TELT placement databank from 200 to 300, and develop the speaking and writing component of the test. This enables us to vary the test from time to time and thereby improve the security of the test. Furthermore, we anticipate a heavier usage of the placement test as HKIEd continues to recruit from the mainland and internationally and we require a reliable indicator of English language proficiency level. As well, and in line with the new language policy, monitoring and exit benchmarks become increasingly important to determine proficiency levels on graduation with validity and reliability. CLE would like to be able to provide mid degree and exit level data for students on graduation by expanding this test. Having completed Phase 1 we are now moving onto Phase 2 (below) and then will submit Phase 3 for further item development. In Phase 2. we will be switching our focus to the refinement of the speaking and writing tasks for TELT as well as to test the reliability of the markers. This will be done by training up our key assessors on FACETs and by piloting the new tasks. This phase of the project will also look at the issue of correlating the speaking and writing tasks with the receptive skills in the MC test developed in Phase 1. In Phase 3 we hope to select more texts for reading, listening and grammar, and more vocabulary items and write enough MCQ items to increase the databank by 50%, i.e. about 100 new items. We will also focus on determining 'cut off' points with a smaller standard error of measurement ¡V this will mean that we can implement a conservative 'multiple cut-point' strategy which will inform CLE final placement in class levels. This will further assist CLE teachers to be clearer about the language proficiency articulation of the curriculum from one level to the next. Phase 2 and 3 will possibly run concurrently if we are successful in both rounds of funding proposals.