6360

6360

The relationship between the sequence of testing the listeningreading, and writing skills and performance on the IELTSproficiency test

masters of arts

Teaching English as aForeign Language

August 2008

August 2008

Dr. Seyed Mahmood MirtabatabaeeDr. Gholamreza Barzegar

Dr. Shahin Vaezi

Abstract The International English Language Testing Service (IELTS), which is a high-stake English language proficiency test, is used nowadays for a variety of purposes and its results are accepted by many universities and institutions worldwide. Due to the importance of making sound decisions based on its results, various studies have embarked on identifying and doing away with factors leading to error score, which may contaminate the results and the interpretations made based upon them. The present study investigates the potential effect of the sequence in which the listening, reading, and writing modules are presented on the applicants’ performance on the individual skills as well as the overall score achieved on the examination. The study consisted of two parts. In the first part, a questionnaire was developed, piloted and distributed among a number of prospective and former IELTS candidates. The purpose of this questionnaire was to elicit the respondents’ beliefs about the sequence of testing skills and to find out what sequences, other than the standard sequence, are favored by them. In the second part of the study, three groups of thirty participants were asked to participate in the General Training module of the IELTS proficiency test. For each group of participants, the test was administered with a different sequence. T