2015
ELL Summer Institute Section
TOEFL Primary
Requirements for Saving and Submitting Documents
1. File name: Save your document with your first and last name plus the ELL Summer Institute section and the year “2015”.· Example: Jane Doe TOEFL Primary 2015.doc
2. Identifying information: Your name should not appear anywhere inside the document. It should appear only in the file name.
3. Submission format: After you complete the tasks, delete all of the instructional material. Your document should contain only your responses to the tasks.
Overview
The purpose of the TOEFL® Primary™ tests is to provide reliable information about the English‐language skills and abilities of young learners in non‐English‐speaking countries. Information gained from the tests helps teachers and parents make decisions regarding students’ English‐language instruction, progression, and course placement.
TheTOEFL Primary tests are designed for students ages 8+ and measure the English communication skills that provide a foundation for students’ future success. The TOEFL Primary tests are used by English-language programs and local schools that teach English as part of the curriculum. More information about theTOEFL Primary tests can be found at http://www.ets.org/toefl_primary.
During the ELL Summer Institute, TOEFL Primary interns will write material that assesses reading and listening skills. As time permits, interns may also develop material to assess writing and speaking skills, or they may develop other assessment-related products for the TOEFL Primary tests, such as rubrics, teacher workshop content, and online learning content.
For this work sample, you will write reading and listening stimuli and items and complete an editing task. While some parts of the work sample are meant to evaluate your general writing skill, other parts require you to write to an accurate level of difficulty for the testing population, determine the depth of knowledge required to respond successfully to test items, and create engaging material for the target age range. Some useful terminology for the work sample is listed below.
Useful Terminology
Set / · A reading or listening stimulus plus the items that go with itItem / · A test question, including the question itself and the answer choices
Stimulus / · A written or spoken text, such as a reading passage or a lecture, that sets up an item or group of items
Stem / · The part of an item that asks a question or presents an incomplete statement
Key / · The correct answer
Options / · All the answer choices in a multiple-choice item
Distracters / · The incorrect options (answers) in an item. Distracters should be attractive; that is, they should have some appeal as potential answers
Example: / Stem
Key
Distracters / Because the equipment is very delicate, it must be handled with ______.
(A) care
(B) caring
(C) careful Options
(D) carefully
General Guidelines for Writing Good Work Sample Items
· Each item should have only one key.· Distracters must be written so that they cannot be reasonably interpreted as correct answers.
· Distracters should be plausible answers in some context—and grammatically correct—but not true based on the existing stimulus.
· Avoid inflammatory, controversial, or unpleasant topics.
· Test material should not have a suggestive subtext. Language should be free of racist, sexist, or otherwise potentially offensive, upsetting, or inappropriate content.
Work Sample Tasks
On the following pages, you will be asked to provide work samples made up of several item-writing tasks and an editing task. Each task is preceded by an example and specific directions.
PART I—Reading
Directions: Part I is composed of two tasks.
Task 1: Using the provided source material as a reference, write an academic reading set (stimulus and items) aimed at the TOEFL Primary testing population. This stimulus should represent a passage that would be found in a class for 10-year-old students.
Task 2: Write either an academic reading stimulus or a fictional reading stimulus aimed at university-level students. There is no item-writing component for Task 2.
Task 1: Write an Academic Reading Set
A sample reading set is provided below. Please note the following.
· For the stimulus
o The level of language and grammar in the stimulus and items is generally accessible to nonnative English speakers of late elementary school age.
o Vocabulary and ideas that may be unfamiliar to nonnative English speakers are defined, and the meanings are reinforced throughout the stimulus.
· For the items
o There are two items testing different aspects of comprehension.
o The key to the main-idea item captures the overall gist of the stimulus.
o The key to the detail item tests a salient point from the stimulus.
Sample Reading SetThere are many ways to communicate. People communicate with other people not only by speaking and writing but also by making faces and moving their arms and heads. Animals communicate too. For example, blackbirds make loud noises to communicate danger. Bees use a special dance to explain where to find food. Elephants move their ears up and down when they are excited.
Main Idea Item (This item tests the main idea presented in the passage.)
What is the reading about?
Key: How animals and people communicate
Detail Item (This item tests an important detail from the passage.)
Why do bees dance?
Key: To tell other bees about food
Now, use the source material below as a reference to create a reading set for the TOEFL Primary population. Your stimulus should be approximately 80–120 words.
Evaluation:
The stimulus you write will be evaluated on the basis of a number of factors, including the following.
· Is the language and vocabulary in the reading stimulus characteristic of academic texts a late elementary school aged student would encounter?
· Is the content of the reading stimulus age appropriate?
· Is the information presented in a clear and direct way?
· Is the information accessible to international students?
Question 1: Main Idea
Write a key (correct answer) for the following stem:
What is the reading about?
Question 2: Detail Item
Write a stem (a question) and a key (correct answer) about an explicitly stated detail in your stimulus.
Task 2: Write a University-Level Academic or Fictional Reading Text
Construct either an academic reading text or a fictional reading text aimed at a university-level student. This task is designed to show Summer Institute applicants’ general writing ability. There is no item-writing component for this task. Your stimulus must be 300–400 words.
Evaluation:
If you choose to write an academic reading text, there will be no source material provided. You are to determine a topic appropriate to a content area such as social studies or science. The text you write will be evaluated on the basis of a number of factors, including the following.
· Is the language and vocabulary in the reading text characteristic of academic texts?
· Is the information presented in a clear and direct way?
If you choose to write a fictional reading text, you should write it as a narrative that may or may not include dialogue. The text you write may be a complete story or an excerpt from a larger story.
PART II—Listening
Directions: Part II is composed of two tasks.
Task 1: Using the provided source material as a reference, write an academic listening set (stimulus and items) aimed at the TOEFL Primary testing population. This stimulus should represent a lecture that would be given in a class for 10-year-old students.
Task 2: Write a dialogue between two students or a student and a teacher that would likely occur during any part of an elementary school day. There is no item-writing component for Task 2.
Task 1: Write an Academic Listening Set
A sample listening set is provided for you below. Please note the following.
· For the stimulus
· The stimulus is structured to sound like spoken language; therefore, the speech and register are appropriate to a teacher of young learners in an academic setting.
· The test taker will hear the lecture only once and will not see the script. Unnecessary details should be kept to a minimum so as not to tax the test taker’s memory, while relevant details should be prominent and salient.
· For the items
· In a listening item, a proficient listener should be able to identify the correct answer without seeing the options.
When you have finished creating your stimulus and items, read the stimulus to a friend, and then ask the friend to answer the questions. If your friend can answer all of the questions without looking at the options, you have created a good set.
Sample Listening Set[Script] (Listen to the audio file without reading along with the script to mimic the test-taker experience.)
(Narrator): Listen to a teacher talking in a social studies class.
(Teacher): One of the biggest events in the world is the Olympic Games. At the Olympics, the best athletes in the world travel to one country to compete in lots of different sports. There are actually two different Olympics. The summer Olympics are for athletes in warm-weather sports like running, swimming, and tennis. The winter Olympics are for athletes in cold-weather sports like snow skiing, ice skating, and hockey.
Each Olympics has a flame—and a flame is a small fire—and the flame burns all day and all night during the Olympics. Before the Olympics start, there is a ceremony when the flame is lit for the first time. The flame is lit by a torch, and the torch looks a lot like a very large candle. One athlete lights the flame with the torch. Usually the athlete is famous for winning a competition at a past Olympics. It is a big honor to light the flame with the Olympic torch.
Of course, that torch also has to be lit on fire, and for every Olympics, the torch is lit in Greece, which is where the very first Olympics happened. People carry the torch from Greece to the country where the Olympics will be. Many different people carry the torch along the way. And the people carry the torch in many different ways. Some people run with the torch, and others walk. Sometimes people travel with it on a boat or plane. People have even carried it riding a camel!
(Narrator): Now answer the questions.
Items (The option followed by an asterisk is the key.)
Question 1: Main Idea (This item tests the main idea presented in the talk.)
What is the teacher mainly talking about?
(A) All the different types of Olympic sports
(B) The different places where the Olympics take place
(C) The special fire that burns at the Olympics*
Question 2: Detail Item (This item tests an important detail from the talk.)
Who lights the flame at the Olympics?
(A) A person from Greece
(B) A famous athlete*
(C) All the athletes together
Question 3: Detail Item (This item tests an important detail from the talk.)
Why does the teacher talk about boat, plane, and animal travel?
(A) To tell about the different ways people travel to the Olympics
(B) To tell about how the Olympic torch travels to the Olympics*
(C) To tell how the Olympics changed throughout history
Now, use the source material below as a reference to create a listening set for the TOEFL Primary population. Your stimulus should be approximately 200–250 words.
Evaluation:
The stimulus you write will be evaluated on the basis of a number of factors, including the following.
· Is the language and vocabulary in the stimulus characteristic of academic spoken language in a late elementary school classroom?
· Is the information pitched at an appropriate level of difficulty?
· Is the information presented in a clear and direct way?
· Is there sufficient support for a listener to be able to answer the questions after hearing the lecture only once?
Source MaterialLike the skin of an animal, the skin of a tree–its bark–makes a watertight boat. Bark boats have been made in many places, but they were perfected by the people living in the forests of North America. This land is criss-crossed by a vast network of rivers and lakes which holds half of the fresh water in the world. The people here built canoes for gathering wild rice, hunting, transport, and for waging war. The rivers have many rapids, and bark canoes are strong enough to ride rough water. They are also light enough to be carried around waterfalls and really wild stretches. The best bark came from the white paper birch tree, but some canoes were made of elm, chestnut, and even sticky spruce bark. The Europeans who colonized North America were quick to realize the value of the bark canoe for exploration and the fur trade. At first they imitated the native tradition, though these days the art of building in bark is almost dead. But the shape lives on in thousands of canoes mass produced in plastic and fiberglass.
—From Eyewitness Books: Boat by Eric Kentley, Knopf (1992).
Question 1: Main Idea
Write a key (correct answer) and two distracters (incorrect answers) for the following stem:
What is the teacher mainly talking about?
Question 2: Detail Item
Write a stem (a question), a key (correct answer), and two distracters (incorrect answers) about an explicitly stated detail in your stimulus.
Question 3: Detail Item
Write a stem (a question), a key (correct answer), and two distracters (incorrect answers) about another explicitly stated detail in your stimulus.
Task 2: Write a Student Dialogue
Construct a dialogue between two students, a student and a teacher, or a student and a parent that would likely occur during any part of an elementary school day. There is no item-writing component for this task. Your dialogue should be 50–100 words.
Note:
· The dialogue can be between two students, a student and a teacher, or a student and a parent.
· The dialogue can be about after-school plans, a school project, a class or homework assignment, weekend plans, or any other relevant topic.
Evaluation:
The dialogue you write will be evaluated on the basis of a number of factors, including the following.