A Pilot study on PET and aptis tests for English non – major students at Hoa Sen University

Journal of Science and Technology, Vol.37, 2019

© 2019 Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh City

A PILOT STUDY ON PET AND APTIS TESTS FORENGLISH NON￾MAJORSTUDENTS AT HOA SEN UNIVERSITY

QUACH THI TO NU, VUONG NGỌC TIEN, HONG NGUYEN THANH TAM

Hoa Sen University;

[email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

Abstract. This study aims to investigate the appropriateness of PET and Aptis for students whose major

is not English (called non-majors) at Hoa Sen University (abbreviated to HSU), to decide on the more

suitability of either tests and to give some recommendations for teaching English to the non-majors. Both

quantitative and qualitative research methods were employed in this study, which was mainly based on

the Test Results of 39 non-majors. Questionnaires were used to collect extra-information on those tests.

The research findings suggest that PET and Aptis should be suitable to HSU non-majors, that Aptis could

be more suitable than PET, and that the currently applied curriculum should be changed a bit to make the

non-majors familiar with composing Email responses and Interactive writing in PET and Aptis.

Key words. Aptis, non-majors, PET

1 INTRODUCTION

The English program at English Zone (abbreviated to EZ), HSU, has been designed to equip the non￾majors with the four basic language skills in English, namely reading, writing, listening and speaking, to

succeed academically and to be able to communicate fluently in the demanding working environment. In

order to graduate, the non-majors can submit one of those three certificates: TOEIC 550, TOEFL iBT 64,

or IELTS 5.0. These requirements are relevant to the Vietnamese Six-Level Language Competence

Framework (VLLCF) 2020. Accordingly, Vietnamese graduates have to complete 3/6 in VLLCF

(equivalent to B1 of CEFR). Students can choose a certificate of their own interest and orientation. HSU

has been cooperating with IIG to provide a free TOEIC exam to students who joined the whole English

program at EZ. It can be inferred that TOEIC is not the only exit certificate for the non-majors. However,

most of them choose it because EZ students can take a free exam once and non-EZ students do not have

to pay a lot of money for this two-skilled test.

After years of organizing TOEIC exams to the non-majors, we have found out some drawbacks:

Firstly, TOEIC no longer matches the English program objectives as the currently-used TOEIC test does

not test all the four basic language skills in English. Secondly, TOEIC is irrelevant to CEFR and VLLCF

used for building EZ curriculum, choosing course books, teaching and assessing. TOEIC, therefore,

cannot be integrated into the curriculum’s testing and assessment. Thirdly, most of the non-majors do not

take the TOEIC exam right after finishing the English Program but wait until their graduation time, which

results in knowledge loss and skill weakening. Fourthly, EZ has to provide a TOEIC preparation course

as the TOEIC exam is far different from EZ’s English program. Last but not least, only 58% of the non￾majors get the required scores. This is a waste of HSU investment and students’ time. Hence, we need to

find a substitute test (1) which is relevant to the training aims, HSU’s English program, (2) which tests all

four skills, (3) which is relevant to CEFR and the VLCF, (4) which can be integrated into the teaching

program to assess students during and after the program, (5) which can increase the percentage of

successful English learners and guarantee the teaching quality, and (6) which is affordable.

Those new conditions lead us to consider PET and Aptis to assess the non-majors competence after

completing the EZ English program. These new certificates are provided by prestigious organizations

(Cambridge Examinations or British Council) whose assessment systems can be compared to CEFR and

MoET. In comparison to TOEIC, their prestige, confidentiality, validity and reliability of language

assessment are equivalent. Upon providing new test, HSU keeps recognizing TOEIC 550, TOEFL iBT 64

and IELTS 5.0 as English graduation benchmark. There is a need for us to find out whether these two

tests actually meet our hypothesis.