Job Discussion Forums

[erracht]

The English level tests I have found on the Internet tend to test a particular topic (phrasal verbs, idioms, etc). What I need are some placement tests which test various skills at the same time. Ideally, I�d have general tests at three levels which could be administered to students testing for that particular level, so an "elementary" test, an "intermediate" test and an "advanced" test. Any useful links anyone could suggest to me?

[YearOfTheDog]

The way to classify students is a followed:

1) Get all the students to line up according to height.
2) Group the tall students, the short students and the middle students together.
3) As their age. If you have a tall younger kid you are ok. But you need to make sure a shorter older kid isn't with the younger ones. This is seen as bad.
4) Now, for parity sake, mix and match some of the girls with boys so it doesn't look like you are playing favourites....

And you are done. Enjoy.

[ls650]

I thought the original question was a pretty good one. Does anyone out there have a useful answer?

[Girl Scout]

There is something called COMPASS I once heard about when I worked at a community college. ACT also has another older placement test. These are both computer based test. Most of the test I'm familar with test grammar, reading and speaking. The on-line TOFEL practice test combine listening, reading and speaking into one section. Now that the IELTS will be computer based, it is also integrating skills in its componets.

I do wonder why you are interested in placement tests?

http://www.act.org/compass/

[Justin Trullinger]

The MPT (michigan placement test, from U of M) is what I use. It isn't super reliable for low beginners (Absolute zero to Elementary/false beginner tend to get a very narrow range of results) But a brief interview sorts that out easily enough. An advantage of this test is that it's designed to be taken by any student, and doesn't presuppose that you know anything about their level, whereas a TOEFL eval, for example, presupposes that students are approximately TOEFL level.

We also use the SLEP (Secondary Level English Proficiency exam, from the ETS) for students who are going overseas on highschool exchanges. It's more expensive to get hold of, a pain in the @ss to correct, and takes a long time to administer, but it gives a pretty good read of the English skills necessary in secondary studies.

I've worked in schools that seem to use YearoftheDog's suggestion, and it works pretty well, as long as your goal has nothing to do with education.

[Kent F. Kruhoeffer]

The few links below might help.


Some of these tests are interactive but, with a little effort in front of

your keyboard, you could print them out if you needed a hard copy:


http://englishenglish.com/englishtest.htm

http://www.reward-net.co.uk/placement.htm

http://www.churchillhouse.com/cgi/oeframe.cgi?url=http://www.churchillhouse.com/tests/

http://www.dse.ie/index.php?module=vquiz&func=run&quizid=5

http://www.transparent.com/tlquiz/proftest/english/tlengtest.htm

http://www.world-english.org/english_test.htm

http://www.english-test.net/


This thread might also come in handy if you give up and decide to write your own test:

http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/job/viewtopic.php?t=24364&highlight=placement+tests

[erracht]

Thank you for the links. I am interested in this simply because my school asesses students to see if they are good for a particular level (eg. students suspected of being good for an FCE or intermediate class will be given a test to see just how intermediate they are) and we need more tests so students won�t get the same one over again. I have written a bit of my own, but would like to get some ready-made tests as I really don�t have too much time now.

[comenius]

Great links, Kent!