The TOEFL Monograph Series features commissioned papers and reports for TOEFL 2000 and other Test of English as a Foreign Language program development efforts. As part of the foundation for the TOEFL 2000 project, a number of papers and reports were commissioned from experts within the fields of measurement and language teaching and testing. The resulting critical reviews and expert opinions were invited to inform TOEFL program development efforts with respect to test construct, test user needs, and test delivery. Opinions expressed in these papers are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or intentions of the TOEFL program.
These monographs are also of general scholarly interest, and the TOEFL program is pleased to make them available to colleagues in the fields of language teaching and testing and international student admissions in higher education.
The TOEFL 2000 project is a broad effort under which language testing at ETS will evolve into the 21st century. As a first step in the evolution of TOEFL language testing, the TOEFL program recently revised the Test of Spoken English (TSE®) and announced plans to introduce a TOEFL computer-based test (TOEFL CBT) in 1998. The revised TSE test, introduced in July 1995, is based on an underlying construct of communicative language ability and represents a process approach to test validation. The TOEFL CBT will take advantage of the new forms of assessments and improved services made possible by computer-based testing while also moving the program toward its longer-range goals, which include
• the development of a conceptual framework that takes into account models of communicative competence
• a research agenda that informs and supports this emerging framework
• a better understanding of the kinds of information test users need and want from the TOEFL test
• a better understanding of the technological capabilities for delivery of TOEFL tests into the next century
It is expected that the TOEFL 2000 efforts will continue to produce a set of improved language tests that recognize the dynamic, evolutionary nature of assessment practices and that promote responsiveness to test user needs. As future papers and projects are completed, monographs will continue to be released to the public in this new TOEFL research publication series.