International workshop on the TOEFL® Junior™ at the Hellenic American Union.

03/04/2012

Established in 1947, the Educational Testing Service (ETS^®) has been recognized as a global leader in educational research and development of performance assessments. It is the largest independent educational measurement organisation in the world today; it develops, administers, and scores more than 50 million assessment tests annually in more than 180 countries, at more than 9,000 locations worldwide.

ETS^® is a non-profit institution with the mission to advance quality and equity in education by providing fair and valid assessments, research and related services for all people worldwide. Their goal is to make fundamental contributions to the progress of education worldwide through educational research and analysis, innovative product development as well as informative policy studies.

The Hellenic American Union is the sole representative of ETS^® in Greece and is assisting ETS^® with research on the TOEFL^® Junior™, a distinct product within the growing TOEFL^® family.

In this context, the Hellenic American Union hosted an international workshop with 18 educators from 15 countries: Brazil, China, Costa Rica, France, Greece, Indonesia, Italy, Kuwait, Mexico, Russia, Slovakia, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, and Vietnam. The focus of the workshop was to map TOEFL^® Junior™ test scores onto the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR). The workshop was designed and facilitated by ETS^® research scientists and occurred in Athens, Greece, on March 5-9, 2012.

The results of the research are expected to be announced soon.