IELTS Speaking Assessment Research (UK)

16 February 2017

IELTS Speaking Assessment Research (UK)

Cambridge English Language Assessment and Cambridge University Press are looking for learners of English in the university or university pathway context, preferably with experience of preparing for IELTS for a research pilot project. We are assessing a speech analysis tool developed by a partner company offering an simulated IELTS speaking test. Learners would receive a report on their spoken English at the end of this pilot, assessed according to the IELTS criteria.

Requirements:

• 20 or more learners willing to take part (preferably IELTS learners, but not exclusively). We are interested in piloting this with learners whose first language is Mandarin Chinese or Arabic, but not exclusively.
• a room (or more than one) at the institution where we could carry out the product testing through the course of a day. Ideally this would have a good wifi connection which we could access. We would probably need the space to carry out the piloting for a full day.

We would be carrying out this research in March 2017 at a number of UK institutions.

We would need no more than one hour of any one learner’s time, and we would incentivise participation (although we cannot pay the learners, we would provide Amazon vouchers for their time). We would provide full support with the admin side (signing people up).

If you are a teacher of IELTS candidates, we also have upcoming opportunities for paid reviewers of materials in development. Please let us know if you are also interested in this.

If you are interested in involvement in this research, please contact Keith Sands at Cambridge University Press (ksands@cambridge.org), quoting “IELTS Speaking Assessment Research” in the subject line of your email.

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