A student of the University of Wisconsin at Madison: "Taking the NETPAW listening test just inspired my memories of preparing and taking the TOEFL IBT. During the test, I feel a little bit scared, but more and more confident. Having spent a year living in the United States, I feel so familiar with the conversations in the test, in which almost all the contents are contextualized, about family, shopping, cooking, medicine, grant application, invitation, and so on. Preview of the options is allowed, which makes listening tasks easier and more understandable. The test is composed of four parts, which are arranged by levels of difficulty. One impressing advantage is that the test can be partly controlled by me; for instance, I can keep listening to the contents many times, which releases testing nervousness to some extent. Also NETPAW makes me more independent and autonomous. Meanwhile, when one part is finished, the system will remind me of time left automatically, which helps me to keep the rhythm under control. In sum, I felt comfortable and confident when I was taking NETPAW not only because of its flexibility, but also because of its contextualized testing contents."
Professor Francois Victor Tochon
Chair, Academic Council, Deep University/Institute
As stated in O’Neill (2009), it “represents the first step towards the design of a larger study that will investigate both the usefulness of NETPAW for testing the knowledge and proficiency of a wider group of candidates who may wish to take advantage of being able to take a test of English proficiency online and also the views of educators who have a stake in being able to assess their students’ English and collect diagnostic data to improve students’ learning and their pedagogical approach.” As the students at the University of Southern Queensland responded concerning their experiences with NETPAW, the students at the City University of Hong Kong thought that NETPAW “offers a valuable alternative that is user-friendly through its availability online and its interactive assessment experiences” (O’Neill). Since the NETPAW levels relate to the Common European Framework (CEF) that describes learner proficiency at each level, it makes it easy to link NETPAW levels to other ESL/EFL assessments. Therefore, as Prof. O’Neill stated (2009), NETPAW “has potentially multiple uses and international applicability for English language assessment and the teaching of English.”
Professor Birtha Du-Babcock
Associate Professor, City University Of Hong Kong
