iBT Speaking and Writing

New live speaking options online...

Just a quick update: I've done a little editing over at www.onlinEnglish.net, and now it is possible to access special live video rooms for EACH of the iBT TOEFL speaking tasks on our free sample test. You don't need any software, special memberships, sign-ins or downloads - the live video rooms are available directly in your Internet browser, and linked up to each iBT TOEFL speaking task page. You'll need a web-cam, of course, as well as a microphone, but it's super easy to use.

This is great if you want to meet up with other iBT TOEFL test takers and do some live practice and exchange.

Good luck with it!

 

   

GET English (Global English Talk) Launch

I've noticed an abundance of talk and chat sites strewn about the Internet, but I haven't really been able to find one that didn't involve some sort of membership sign up and/or complicated download procedure. I thought I'd do something about it, and the result is: GET English!

GET stands for Global English Talk, and it's the newest addition to our OnlinEnglish Network. It's actually extremely simple and consists of two options - Live Audio Talk or Live Text Chat.

Live Audio Talk is a simple speaking applet loaded directly into the webpage. No membership requirements and no complicated downloads (though your computer will need to be Flash-enabled). The speaking applet comprises a live online space where up to 20 people can gather and speak live using a computer mic. We've even created two rooms based on level, in case people feel they are more suited to basic/beginner level live talking or something more advanced and challenging. And just in case people fear they won't have anything to talk about, we've provided a direct link on the pages to the latest Reuter's Video News homepage, where visitors can access all sorts of current news articles!

Live Text Chat, on the other hand, is for people who either don't have access to a headset/mic, and/or prefer the good old text chatting format for interaction. It can in fact be a less intimidating way of interacting with others over the Internet, and in addition to giving you time to think and edit what you say provides good practice with live writing/typing skills. As with Live Audio Talk, we've divided it into two levels and added the Reuter's Video Link there.

This is all 100% free, 100% accessible, and 100% easy and quick to use. So if you're really wanting to practice your English skills live online, there's no excuse now really, is there...?

 

 

Happy New Year!! + Update

To all the people who stop by this blog (and especially those who contact me with comments and ideas), I'd like to wish you a very hearty

HAPPY NEW YEAR !!!

I hope 2008 brings you all the success you desire and deserve!

I've just completed a big sweep of updates for our site www.onlinEnglish.net. It's got a new look and several upgrades added. You might like to check it out, especially the new iBT speaking self-trainer tasks.

I also just plowed through about 50 iBT independent essays we had sitting in our free test forum. They all now have scores and feedback, so if you were one of the people who submitted an essay and were waiting for someone to look at it, you might like to pop over to the site and take a look:

http://www.onlinenglish.net/TOEFL/Forums.html

Here's to a great 2008!

Best,

Jason Renshaw

Free online TOEIC writing test with scores and feedback from tutors

We've finally loaded up our first free TOEIC test, this one focusing specifically on the new writing section that has recently been added to the test (though I believe it is still an optional section to take).

We enjoyed making this test, and think as online tests go it has a fair bit going for it.

Go to: http://www.onlinenglish.net/TOEIC.html

You can type in responses to the test and get some scores and feedback from our expert tutors.

And our first free online speaking version is not far away either!

I-B-C: The essential formula for success with TOEFL (Part 1 – the iBT writing tasks)

Over the many years I have been preparing students (and other teachers) for the TOEFL, there is a single simple framework that I have constantly returned to – and one that has generated the most success when it comes to taking the test and getting a good score as a minimum and potentially a perfect score if things go a test-taker’s way on the day.

   

I have to point out here that I have prepared students for the TOEFL at various levels of proficiency and “readiness”, and as a busy teacher and writer I’ve needed a grounding framework that can work at multiple levels. My formula has worked with a student who achieved a perfect 300 on the CBT, and it has worked with teenagers who on the writing portion of the CBT went from consistent 2s and 3s out of 6 for the essay to a minimum of 4 out of 6. The formula, albeit slightly adapted in some specific cases, has transferred excellently to the iBT version, complete with another writing task and 6 new speaking tasks. In fact, when I first began to seriously analyze the questions added for the iBT I honestly thought this formula was a very high instinctive priority in the test makers and raters as well as they went about designing and launching the speaking and writing portions of the new test. If true, it is no coincidence. That’s because this basic formula could be considered fundamental to a wide variety of academic/ formal/ professional presentations, whether they are written or spoken in nature.

 

Well, after all that build up, I am happy to say this formula is neither complicated nor foreign-feeling. It’s simple, and it’s something most students and test-takers already now something about.

   

It is: I-B-C.

   

Or in full form: Introduction-Body-Conclusion

   

Perhaps you’ve just let out a sigh of disappointment, wondering how I could possibly quote such a simple, well-known formula and make it out to be so profound.

 

The truth of the matter is that many test-takers (and even many of the teachers who prepare them, for that matter) take the test and come up with an ordinary score because in many (or even most) cases, people feel they know the ingredients in this formula and how to apply them well – when in fact they don’t.

   

What the TOEFL demands and watches very carefully for is an ability to understand and stay on topic (first and foremost), to be able to back that up in thoughtful detail, the ability to do so in clearly organized and cohesive fashion, and a capacity to take all of this somewhere (hopefully) to create a final position or state. The I-B-C model is a great way to ensure that happens, but until you can get it right you are pretty much praying to the ETS gods for good fortune and a lucky break.

 

Basically, if you can introduce content (or a response to content) in a framing and original way that makes a clear topic or case, then present a body of clearly organized information supporting and extending that original topic, then wrap up the overall production in a clear and original way, tying together the various well-organized on-topic threads and leaving the reader or listener with a concluding thought, then you have the essential formula for handling almost all of the productive tasks on the TOEFL, AND the potential to score highly on them.

 

Let me take you through the various TOEFL writing and speaking tasks so you can see what I mean. I’ll start with the writing tasks – (1) because I believe this is the format we’re all most familiar with when it comes to the I-B-C principles, and (2) because I honestly believe most of the academic speaking tasks for the test were designed based on what was familiar and consistently applied in the pre-existing writing section.

 

Independent Essay (iBT TOEFL Writing Task 2)

 

I –

Introduce a topic and show some awareness about it. State a clear thesis or guiding idea for your essay. Refer broadly to the sub-topic ideas you will be addressing in the body of the essay, as an initial rationale for the thesis/guiding idea you have asserted. The introduction is absolutely crucial for immediately demonstrating to a test rater that you understand the topic and task, and that you are on track (“on topic”) from the very outset.

 

B –

This is the “meat” of the essay, where all the nitty-gritties are presented, explained, rationalized and/or exemplified. Given the scope of detail to be expressed here, staying true to the main topic, clearly organizing sub-ideas, and expressing details with good advanced appropriate language – all of these factors are so important. The body is often the place where writers slip and demonstrate either a vague or deficient understanding of the topic. You’ll need 2-3 paragraphs here, corresponding to the broad sub-topic ideas you mentioned in the introduction with a nice clear topic sentence for each. In fact, the I-B-C model becomes relevant to each body paragraph. You introduce the sub-topic or idea in a topic sentence, followed up with a mini-body of details, reasons and examples, and tie the paragraph up in a well-rounded conclusive way. Make sure all your supporting details correspond clearly with the sub-topic in the topic sentence, and if that in turn corresponds with the thesis/guiding idea in your introduction, then your challenge is with good written expression and the chances or wandering away from your main idea are somewhat reduced.

 

C –

The conclusion wraps up the essay, rather like the curtain-call of a concert or play. It needs to re-state the thesis and main ideas from the body, but in a new and/or refreshing way. The best quote I’ve heard about conclusions is to “make sure they contain the essential information and impressions you want your readers to walk away from the essay with.” To that I would add that it is important to do this without sounding like you’re simply repeating yourself. Whereas the skill with the main topic in the introduction was to get it our clearly and succinctly, and in the body it was to deal with the topic in a very comprehensive and well structured way, here in the conclusion I believe the skill is about talking about the topic and thesis in a united and authoritative way, and leaving the reader with a lasting impression of it.

 

 

The independent essay is the single longest piece of production you will put together on the entire TOEFL test, so it is necessarily the part where understanding and applying the I-B-C formula is most complicated and yet crucial. But if you can get it right here, applying the formula to other writing and speaking tasks actually becomes easier. Given the production in these other parts is much shorter and less complex, we can strip the I-B-C formula back to some essential basics and reapply it.

 

 

Integrated Essay (iBT TOEFL Writing Task 1)

 

Compared to the independent essay, this is a bit of a different beast. In terms of style and content, it does need to be approached differently. This is a reporting and (to some extent) critical awareness task, probing not only your writing ability but essentially making it dependent on your reading and listening skills and demanding the capacity to show you can integrate the content of the two sources in a unified way. However, if I can assume for now that you have managed to handle most of the input from the sources, the key skill of presenting this in good writing still very much benefits from our basic I-B-C formula.

 

As I mentioned earlier, we can scale back our I-B-C model compared to the way we applied it in the independent task, because (1) we have less time to write (20 minutes only), and (2) less volume of detail and very little in the way of personal opinion is expected by the test raters. The ETS guides say this can be a mini-essay or just one extended paragraph. I think from the outset I would recommend a three-paragraph approach with a very short introduction and conclusion, with the bulk of the writing in the body. Raters in a rush who quickly scan your writing will then in that single eye-blink get an impression of a well-organized writer who makes a clear assessment at the start of the writing and backs it up with lots of detail in the middle, before rounding it off in a nicely conclusive fashion.

 

If you have some talent and can produce a lot of writing fast, you may even still want a 4-5 paragraph approach, with each body paragraph exploring a key issue or idea. That is in fact a good way to write this kind of essay, because towards the end it will show you how many ideas you’ve managed to cover and in what degree of detail. You can always pull the sections back together again to create one large body paragraph, or even for that matter pull everything together for one single paragraph overall. In either case (pulling the pieces together into one longer paragraph), I recommend doing so if you haven’t managed to cover a whole lot in each discrete idea-section, and it is a good idea to use appropriate transitions and cohesive devices to create a feeling of flow from one main point to the next.

 

In any case, an I-B-C approach to the integrated task (especially as a general writing process) will get a feeling of how much content you’ve managed to address and how well you’ve organized and expressed it.

 

I –

Introduce the topic represented by both of the input sources, and state in a nutshell how the two sources relate to each other (it will almost always be a case of one source contradicting or challenging the other, or agreeing with, exemplifying or extending it). You would want two, but no more than three sentences in this part.

 

B –

Again, this is the “meat” of the essay, where all the nitty-gritties are presented, explained, rationalized and/or exemplified. If your introduction was on track, you’ve stated the broad topic and explained generally how the two sources work with each other. Therefore, this is the place to show that relationship in some detail. Another way of putting it is that you’ve already stated we have a hamburger with an overall mix of ingredients in the middle/core that either complement or clash with each other. Well, here is where you describe that mix of ingredients. Explain each key idea from one source, with the relevant detail you managed to pick up, then compare/contrast it with what the other source has to say. I would go so far as to say there will be at least three key ideas for you to demonstrate and explain here, involving both of the inputs for each one. However, the main thing to remember is sticking to and reporting the details, and expressing the relationship between the sources using appropriate devices and expression. Your opinion should not be expressed here at all – it’s all about reporting and unifying what you’ve read and heard.

 

C –

You can add a concluding sentence for this task. Even though the official TOEFL guides usually say it’s not necessary, if you can do so in a simplified and non-opinionated way I think it is a great way to sum up what has been reported and to show again that you have understood what was essentially going on in the mix of the two input sources. As long as you don’t simply repeat your introduction and can state something overall in a concise way, it can’t hurt you to include a concluding statement and may even benefit you.

 

 

 

So there you have it – my views on how a simple I-B-C formula relates to handling the writing tasks on the iBT TOEFL. Very soon I’ll be back with Part 2 of this posting, and there we will move on to see how I-B-C benefits answering each of the iBT speaking tasks!

 

 

 

 

 

English iView - A new place on the net for people to practice English speaking and writing...

I've got a new blog going now, called English iView.

It's my personal experiment with using a blog to facilitate content and activities for anyone anywhere anytime. Basically, people can come and watch regular video news stories from around the world, and comment by leaving a recording or a written piece.

It's not for beginners, but it does cater to wide range of ages. Good place to keep up your general speaking and writing skills - all of which, of course, is beneficial for iBT TOEFL or IELTS skills.

Drop by, watch some news, and say hello!

Big round of exciting updates for the iBT section of OnlinEnglish.net

Well, myself and the boys over at www.onlinEnglish.net have really been burning some midnight oil, and we're happy to announce a huge update for the site with lots of new goodies for the iBT TOEFL section.

In particular, we've worked hard to get the iBT writing side of things up to speed. We recently got the following things completed and uploaded to the site:

• A localized independent writing task with heaps of real student sample essays, including two drafts and two rounds of detailed feedback and advice from our online tutors - for each essay!
• Three separate integrated writing tasks (with very different topic foci), again with tons of drafts from real students plus the detailed tutor help;
• A new embedded writing board/forum for the writing tasks in our free actual test, so that now it is really easy for visitors to practice and submit their writing for the tasks straight away - as with our free speaking tasks, we're hopeful to give dozens of test takers reliable scores and good advice on how to improve their production.

Here's how the main page of the site now looks (this image is a bit smudgy with the transition to jpg - on the actual site it's much nicer to look at!):

iBT Speaking Self-Trainer (Beta Version)

For some time now I've been looking into ways to create online speaking activities that allow test-takers to practice and develop their speaking ability without necessarily needing a teacher or expert there to ensure they are getting better. By the same token, I didn't want the usual stuff I see about the Net, like basic listen and repeat, or speak and compare to a model answer.

What I wanted was a guided approach that allowed a student to record an answer, then look at some specific tips and examples, and re-record it, in effect creating a comparison the student could see and learn from him/herself.

IBT Speaking Self-Trainer is my first major attempt at an alternative.

There's only one task set up so far, with application to the first part of the iBT speaking section. Basically, it allows a person to record 6 or more responses to a set question, following a series of guided steps, each of which is designed to bring something new to the answer - something to enhance or direct it in a new way. It works heavily on the principle that learners can and will reflect on and improve their performance on their own, if given the right kind of framework to do so.

We'll see how this first Beta version goes, and then look at enhancing and improving it based on the feedback and visitation patterns we get. If all goes well, we'll expand it for application to multiple tasks within each part of the speaking section of the IBT test. I also think it has some powerful potential for developing writing skills as well.

Note for teachers:

If you're a teacher that works from (or has access to work from) a computer lab with your students, the IBT Speaking Self-Trainer could become a very valuable tool. It allows you to get even large classes of students working independently on their speaking through a series of well-organized steps, and it also provides you with a chance to walk around and help individual students at different points of progress. I'd just advise that you stick to the central idea of this being self-training, with the student responsible for his/her own efforts as well as reflecting on how progress is or is not happening.

Let's hope this goes somewhere!

TOEFL iBT and IELTS Tests Compared

I recently found a very interesting PDF page link that compares the basics of TOEFL iBT and the IELTS test.

I was surprised to see that TOEFL has a bigger reach than IELTS - I'd heard in the past that IELTS had more test takers.

I also chuckled when I saw that the comparison claims that the iBT has integrated tasks where IELTS does not. To my mind, the first of the writing tasks on IELTS clearly requires integration of reading and writing skills, and the fact that their speaking tasks involve interacting with a face-to-face interviewer (and one task where test-takers have to interact with another test-taker on-site) should lead to the general assumption that integration of skills is intrinsic to these tasks.

We shouldn't lose sight of the fact here that IELTS scores have always had a stronger correlation to actual academic ability in English-speaking tertiary contexts, and the iBT speaking section in particular was added to make the iBT more competitive with IELTS, which has had a tried and true speaking section for decades.

Don't forget also that ETS has been staring down the barrel of IELTS starting to infringe on its home territory (the United States), with dozens of US universities starting to accept IELTS scores due to its stronger reputation as a genuine measure of academic English ability in all skill areas.

I wonder if iBT will become a sort of "The Empire Strikes Back" maneuver for ETS. Mmmm....

iBT Speaking and Writing - how do they stack up to the real thing? (Part 1)

As an English language educator based for a long time in South Korea, I have to confess to being rather heartened when rumors began to circulate in the market about the arrival of iBT - a new "next generation" Internet-based version of the TOEFL.

Having gone through the experience of preparing Korean teenagers for TOEIC, then CBT (Computer-Based TOEFL) - as the market swung around somewhat chaotically through such test fads - I was looking forward to the idea of more integrated skills and equal emphasis (in terms of points) for the four basic skills. Tests are everything in this context (as they are in many others), so in many ways what we as teachers get to apply in class and how we are judged depends greatly on the 'tests of the day.' To be quite frank, I am a very firm believer in communicative and task-based language learning, and preparing students for TOEIC and CBT almost made me want to give the profession away at times. Students stopped speaking - because they didn't need to. The tests, and as a result the whole general market, were telling them that it was okay not to speak or communicate. Just study, memorize, and analyze in your L1 until you have enough patterns and rules wedged in your head to ace the test on the day. I did achieve considerable success in the field, with several students obtaining perfect TOEIC scores and many with high CBT scores (including one perfect 300), but I was becoming a trainer - not an educator. I always walked away from these classes feeling that whatever success had been achieved had been somewhat shallow and was coming at a price that students and the market/country in general would pay for later.

So suffice to say I was pretty enthusiastic about the arrival of the iBT. I started checking out the speaking side of things a good three years ago, and I wasn't all that shocked to see that the speaking portion of the iBT was pretty much a re-jigging of the existing TSE (Test of Spoken English) already offered by ETS as a stand-alone component. The new writing task on the iBT - integrated writing - also appears to be an extension into writing from the pre-existing question 4 of the TSE. So the new portions of the test hardly came out of the blue, and a well-connected colleague of mine assured me that ETS had actually been trying to get the iBT going for some 10 years or more before they finally announced it officially.

So given the considerable time for development and research and pre-testing, a huge question now is: how well do these speaking and writing tasks stack up to what might be expected of foreign students studying at English-speaking universities? The more complicated way of asking this in testing terms is: how valid is the test? Do the speaking and writing portions of the iBT test what they claim to test - the academic and real-world proficiency in speaking and writing required to be able to handle study at tertiary level in an English-speaking context?

I'll chew on this particular pie piece by piece, shall I? For the moment, I am leaving alone issues like test reliability and timing/format. They are also interesting questions to pursue, but I'll do so in separate postings. For now let's just look at each task and think a little about (1) what it asks students to do, and (2) how well this relates to using speaking and writing skills in the 'real' college/university world.

Starting with the speaking tasks...

Speaking question 1 asks the test taker to talk about something based on personal experience. It is termed "independent open choice" because, based on a question, the student can choose what to talk about. It could be a person, place, thing or event that is familiar to the speaker. Okay - I have no major problems with this one. It is very general and I'm not sure exactly how it relates to university-oriented talking, but the generality of it is what makes it attractive to me. Official ETS guides for the test also encourage the idea of describing and giving reasons for the choice the speaker makes. Not bad in my mind - these are general discourse skills that will serve a student well not just in a tertiary setting but in all sorts of other situational settings as well. I also think the task is fairly appropriate as a test-opener. It is generally accessible and sends a nice message: you need to make your own choices, elaborate what you mean, and say why. Okay, I'm not falling out of my chair in admiration for the task, but I'll take it.

Speaking question 2 is another independent task, but now involves a 'closed choice'. That is, here are two options. Choose one and explain why you prefer it. I like this one as well. Very general, and therefore has a wide range of situational and communicative applications. It could have relevance to talking with friends about plans, but it could also have application in tutorials, for example, where students are encouraged to have opinions and be able to back them up from an argumentative point of view. Keeping the question general and personal gives it good scope, with the speaking and language selection skills involved having a nice wide range of potentially possible situational applications. I'll take this one, too. I might even applaud softly at the choice.

Speaking question 3. Mmmmm. Read a campus-related notice. Listen to two students talking about the notice. One of the students feels strongly about the notice (in a positive or negative way). Say how the student feels and explain his/her reasons for feeling this way. Mmmmm. Okay, I'll be honest. Question 3 started off with the right idea and then went off somewhere into la-la land. Sure - looking at campus notices is realistic enough. Yes, it's reasonable to expect to hear students talking about it and having positive or negative reactions. So why now does the test taker have to 'report'? Is it so that they can tell a friend about a notice they saw and then pass on the crucial additional information regarding two complete strangers talking about it, with one of them having a particular reaction of some kind? I'm sorry, but I can honestly say I never needed to do this in all my days on campus, and I cannot for the life of me see why a foreign student would need to talk about it either. Yeah sure - we could realistically expect to pass on information we read from a notice, or heard other students talking about, especially if it is important. But why the idea of passing on the unknown student's opinion and reasons? I think this could have relevance as a listening task, in that listening to other students talking about notices could help a foreign student better grasp the message's meaning and gravity. But, aside from the fact that as far as I am aware there is a very well catered-to section in the iBT for pure listening skills, I'm left with the feeling that a positive chance to speak productively here has been lost. Why not have the test taker paraphrase the information in the notice to a friend, or weigh in with his/her own opinion in relation to the notice? Okay, the context may be too specific and the speaker doesn't know enough to reliably form his/her own opinion. However, a very valid speaking application here could be for the speaker to ask additional questions about the notice, or to make a prediction about how other students might be affected or feel about the announcement. To me the task as it stands is basically 'integration' of reading and listening for the sake of it. While the setting and situation are potentially viable, what the student needs to do in response is a bit out there. In all, speaking question 3 needs some adjustment before it can expect my vote of approval (and as you can no doubt see, ETS never did nor ever will ask people like me to approve their test items!).

Speaking question 4 involves reading some academic material, then listening to a lecturer talk as a follow up to the reading. The idea is to link the two inputs and identify how the lecture relates to the reading (illustrating or challenging it in some way), and to then explain this relationship with supporting details and connections. Nice job on this one - it's very relevant to a college or university setting. It does, in fact, resonate with many of my own experiences as a university student, where what you read in texts is not always the full or even entirely accurate story. Now, while I sympathize with the poor Asia-based learners, many of whom have spent their entire lifetimes up to this point in a transmission-based education model where everything is poured into their heads and memorized for unchallenged regurgitation - usually directly out of a textbook, things are generally (or at least should be) different in western tertiary settings. If they want to learn in that environment, they need to be capable of handling readings and lectures that either (a) follow up with a real world illustration or example of some kind, or (b) directly challenge it on the basis of alternative evidence or findings. AND, students will need to be able to see the nature of the connections between the two AND report on this - hopefully with a view to discussing it in more detail. I'm pretty strongly for this one. In my mind speaking question 4 starts to press the right buttons.

Speaking question 5. Mmmmmm. You've heard me 'mmmmm' in scepticism before and I'll 'mmmmm' again here (but maybe not quite as loudly this time). The idea for this one is to listen to two students talking about a campus/study-related problem one of the them has. In response to details about the problem, the other person makes a couple of suggestions about actions that could be taken to address the issue. The test taker now needs to relate the problem, the two solutions offered, choose one of the two solutions, and say why he/she prefers it. As per speaking question 3, I'm not against the situational context presented here, or for that matter the language involved (and this one has the more attractive requirement of a personal opinion to be expressed), but I do scratch my head at the prospect of having the speaker basically report the information and apply their own opinion in a very unfocused (even abstract) way. Why does the speaker have to talk about the other students as complete strangers and deliver their own opinion to what is basically Internet ether? Is this another example of where ETS expects foreign students to stand around campus listening to native speakers talk about something so that they can then run off to tell someone else about it? A very simple change to the requirements of the task would appease me, that being that the speaker needs to suggest a third alternative directly to the person with the problem, OR - the speaker weighs into the conversation and tells the person with the problem which of the solutions suggested sounds better and why. These sound to me to be more realistic and useful sorts of spoken language application given the situation as it is presented (though I confess we may need to plug the idea the student is talking with fictional on-campus friends). It would be even better if the conversation wound up with one of the students 'turning' to the test taker and saying "well, what do you think?".

Question 6 in the speaking section involves listening to a longish lecture, then summarizing and paraphrasing the key points from it in response to a targeted question. I like this one as well - very valid when I recall tutorials following up from lecture hall deliveries, or sitting around in the library either discussing a lecture with classmates or telling the friend who didn't go to the lecture (because he or she was too hung-over at the time... and yes, I confess, sometimes that was me listening to other friends recounting the missed lecture).  All in all, I'm very happy to see this task included in the iBT.

So, doing the math, you can see the iBT speaking section gets roughly 4 votes out of 6 from me. It is slightly more complicated than that, however. I have problems with the fact that nowhere in the speaking section are test takers encouraged to frame formal questions/inquiries, make requests, or offer direct suggestions or interpretations, all of which I think are absolutely essential language skills in spoken discourse - especially in an academic setting, and especially for 2nd language learners who ought to be encouraged to ask for or offer things like additonal explanations and clarifications (amongst a host of other things). There is too much abstract reporting that doesn't seem to have a realistic and/or useful purpose, and not enough basic situational or even academic interaction. The iBT is testing speaking skills, just not enough of the ones that could or should really count.

As for writing, well I've run out of steam here. I think I'll tackle that one in a separate post sometime, and settle for calling this Part 1 of 2...