The International English Language Testing System (IELTS) has served as one of the most reliable proofs of people's English language proficiency. There have been rumors about the discrepancy in difficulty between the two modules of IELTS, namely Academic (AC) and General Training (GT); however, there is little empirical evidence to confirm such a…

Scores of different language tests intended for similar purposes (e.g., admission to higher education) are used to determine candidates' language proficiency and readiness for a chosen domain. To be fair to all students irrespective of the test they took, score requirements should be comparable. Score concordance tables provide an empirical basis…

An increasing number of language testing companies are developing and deploying deep learning-based automated essay scoring systems (AES) to replace traditional approaches that rely on handcrafted feature extraction. However, there is hesitation to accept neural network approaches to automated essay scoring because the features are automatically…

This study examines the impact of teacher metapathy, or teachers' capacity to comprehend and sympathize with students' emotional and cognitive requirements, on the academic outcomes of IELTS applicants, such as total band scores, motivation, and language learning orientation. Ten IELTS teachers from five language training centers and 100 IELTS…

This study applied the Mixed Rasch Model (MRM) to the listening comprehension section of the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) to detect latent class differential item functioning (DIF) by exploring multiple profiles of second/foreign language listeners. Item responses of 462 examinees to an IELTS listening test were subjected…

This paper discusses the challenges of defining coherence in the context of oral language assessment literacy and proposes that better understanding of the construct can be achieved through a systemic-functional linguistic lens. Coherence is taken to be a foundational quality of written and spoken discourse and is a standard feature in the…

Despite the vast research on test anxiety and test performance since the 1950s, studies on how students' English test anxiety affects their English proficiency test performance in the context of second- and foreign language learning remain few. Therefore, using a quantitative research design, this study explored students' English test anxiety and…

Several high-stakes English proficiency tests including but not limited to IELTS, PTE Academic, and TOEFL iBT recommend a 2-year time limit on validity for score usage. Although this timeframe provides a useful rule-of-thumb for the recency of testing, it can have far-reaching consequences. In response to stakeholder queries around IELTS validity…

This study delves into writing scores in both tests, aiming to uncover the reasons behind score differences. Through comprehensive comparative analysis, this research explores scoring patterns, criteria, and score distributions in IELTS and PTE writing sections. It investigates sources of score variation, including task design, rating criteria,…

Stakeholders in exam-driven countries are responsible for developing test-related tasks to assess the quality of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teaching and learning. Hence, the language assessment literacy (LAL) of different stakeholders has to be investigated. This mixed-methods study explored the required LAL competencies among two groups…

The TOEFL Junior® tests are designed to evaluate young language students' English reading, listening, speaking, and writing skills in an English-medium secondary instructional context. This paper articulates a validity argument constructed to support the use and interpretation of the TOEFL Junior test scores for the purpose of placement, progress…

The TOEIC has emerged as the benchmark for assessing the English language proficiency and communication abilities of individuals whose first language is not English. Achieving a high score on this examination may prove challenging for them. While there have been numerous studies into metacognitive strategies towards reading comprehension, in the…

Aural lexical knowledge (ALK) is crucial for second language (L2) listening. Despite its importance, there is scant research that has validly explored the relationship between ALK and L2 listening across different English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts. In an effort to broaden this research base, the current study closely replicates a…

This paper investigated the effect of a Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) project on English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners' self-perceived communication competence (SPCC), communication anxiety (CA), and soft skills. The participants were 157 university students from Japan, Türkiye, and Spain who completed various tasks and…

Chinese learners of English often experience difficulty with English tense presumably because their native language is tenseless. We showed that this difficulty relates to their incomplete conceptual representations for tense rather than their poor grammatical rule knowledge. Participants made acceptability judgments on sentences describing…