A Report on the Implementation of Password Speaking and Writing Tests in an English as an Academic Purpose Program

五十嵐 優子
2018
In 2017, our college experimentally implemented newly developed standardized tests, Password Speaking and Writing, to measure students' English productive skills. Password tests were introduced in 2008 in the UK, which have been mainly used to measure international students' English ability for the admission of a university and a university's EAP programs worldwide (English Language Testing Ltd., 2017). The score of Password tests is comparable with that of TOEFL and IELTS, and is aligned to
more » ... CEFR. The demand of measuring English productive skills has increased in Japan, since MEXT (2002) has been encouraging the Japanese to acquire the sufficient level of English communicative skills, and many universities have been attempting to equip students with English competency which helps them work in international settings. At our college, 45 students who were in their first year and belonged to two classes, Advanced and Intermediate, in our English as an Academic Purpose (EAP) program took Password Speaking and Writing tests in May and December. In the interset of examining how they evaluate the tests, we conducted a questionnaire survey asking for their experience of taking the tests. From this survey, it was found that the students' overall impression about Password Speaking and Writing was positive, although some students mentioned that they had difficulty in typing for the writing test. There are some other issues revealed in the questionnaire survey that are valuable to mention. Moreover, in employing these tests, some issues were found; for example, there is no agent in Japan to provide the tests. These issues will be introduced in this paper.
doi:10.34382/00002202 fatcat:g3fwqy3dwng2dnhsnhc75ykawi