Speaker's Abstract
Title:
"Development of an academic c-test with GenAI to measure students’ academic language proficiency for EMI studies"
Language proficiency has always been an important variable in second language research and education. In English Medium Instruction (EMI), some researchers and practitioners are concerned about the English proficiency that students need in order to learn without experiencing too many difficulties. However, it is not always easy to gauge students’ academic English proficiency especially at the time when they transition from secondary schools to universities. Some universities would use the scores of academic proficiency tests such as IELTS; however, not all students would have taken these tests in their secondary school years. Others would consider using high-stakes pre-university entrance examination results as an indicator, but these examinations do not always measure the academic language proficiency that is most relevant to studies at university. For example, a student who succeeds in writing a speech or letter does not mean that s/he is good at writing an extended academic essay or engaging in academic discussions. Therefore, some universities administer their own tests for placement purposes, i.e., to determine which students need to receive extra support and take an additional academic English course. However, administering tests could be time-consuming and labour-intensive, especially if the institutions would like to measure all four skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing.
It is, therefore, of both theoretical and pedagogical value to develop an academic English proficiency assessment that is efficient and economical. This paper presents the development of such a test – an academic c-test – with the support of GenAI. In the language testing literature, c-tests have been regarded as a valid, reliable, and efficient test. However, most previous research has used it as a general language proficiency test, and not a test of academic language proficiency. This presentation introduces a newly developed academic c-test and evaluates how it can be used to gauge university students’ academic English proficiency for placement purposes. Research and pedagogical implications will be discussed.