Bridging Learning and Testing in an EFL Curriculum: Pursuing the Effective Use of a Commercially Produced Speaking Test

Abstract

As part of the English-language curriculum for a new language program with non-English majors at a private university, we have adopted a computer test that emphasizes the development of speaking skills. It was not realistic to develop a localized speaking test because of the limited resources of our institute. Therefore, we decided to adopt a commercially available speaking test. In this study, we conducted a questionnaire survey of the students immediately after they took the speaking tests both at the beginning and at the end of the program to observe the validity of the test use from the learners' perspective. We briefly describe quantitative results for both the speaking test and the questionnaire. In addition, we present the results of text analysis of the post-questionnaire by using KH Coder (Higuchi, 2016, 2017). On the basis of the results we have obtained in this study, we conclude by noting the importance of the "alignment" between assessment and content in order to make the program successful and to provide visible results to the learners.