1. Minimal English Test vs. TOEIC®
Masaya Kanzaki
Kanda University of International Studies
PanSIG2015, May 16, 3:30-3:55, Room 309

2. Minimal English Test A listening, cloze test
Origin: Simple Performance-Oriented Test (SPOT), a Japanese language test
Two passages (about 200 words each) with 72 blanks
Test-takers listen to the audio and fill in the blanks.
The target words are four letters or less.

3. Purpose
To compare the scores of the listening, reading and speaking tests of the TOEIC and the Minimal English Test to see how closely they correlate with each other

4. Participants
90 university students attending a private university specializing in foreign languages
Year: 7 in the 1st year, 47 in the 2nd year, 16 in the 3rd year, 20 in the 4th year
Sex: 15 male, 75 female
Major: 51 International Communication, 26 English, 11 International Business Career, 1 Chinese, 1 Portuguese
First language: 87 Japanese, 2 Korean, 1 Chinese

5. Materials TOEIC Listening and Reading Test (TOEIC LR)
TOEIC Speaking Test (TOEIC S)
Minimal English Test (MET)

6. TOEIC LR: 200 multiple questions, 2 hours, 10-990 points
Listening
Part
Task # 1
For each question with a photo, listen to four sentences and choose the one that best describes the image. 10 2
Listen to a question or statement followed by three responses and choose the most appropriate response. 30 3
Listen to a conversation and answer comprehension questions. 4
Listen to a short talk and answer comprehension questions.

7. TOEIC LR: 200 multiple questions, 2 hours, 10-990 points
Reading
Part
Task # 5
Choose a word or phrase to fill in a blank in a sentence. 40 6
Choose words or phrases to fill in three blanks in a passage. 12 7
Read a passage or a set of two passages and answer comprehension questions. 48

8. TOEIC Speaking: Computer-based

9. TOEIC S: 11 questions, 0-200 points, 20 minutes#
Task
1–2
Read aloud the text that appears on the screen. 3
Describe the picture on the screen.
4–6
Answer three questions about a single topic as though you are participating in a telephone interview.
7–9
Read the information on the screen and answer three questions about it as if responding to a telephone inquiry. 10
Listen to a recorded message about a problem and propose a solution for it. 11
Express an opinion about a specific topic.

10. Results

11. Descriptive Statics (N = 90)
Test
(possible score)
Mean SD
Minimum
Maximum
TOEIC L
(5-495)
369.61
56.67
170
495
TOEIC R
256.17
71.52
100
430
TOEIC LR
(10-990)
625.78
116.22
310
925
TOEIC S
(0-200)
112.36
21.39 60
MET
(0-72)
47.49
8.55 31 67

12. Reliability
Cronbach’s alpha for the MET: .85

13. Correlations among 3 TOEIC tests (N = 90)
* = p < .001 L R S 1
.64*
.45*
.38*

14. Correlations between MET and TOEIC (N = 90)
TOEIC L
TOEIC R
TOEIC LR
TOEIC S
MET
.39*
.51*
.50*
.59*
* = p < .001

15. How closely correlate with TOEIC S
Correlations with TOEIC S: TOEIC LR .45 MET .59

16. Conclusion
The MET would be a better placement test for a speaking class than TOEIC LR.

17. References

18. Q&A
Thank you. Acknowledgement This study was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number