Transcript T.O.E.F.L. Reading Comprehension Assistance Site

TOEFL Reading
Comprehension
Assistance Site
Cleveland Q. Crosby
Advisors: Professors Aaron Cass and Junko Ueno
Interdepartmental Senior Project
(CSC – MLT)
Agenda






Purpose and goals of Application
Background on the TOEFL
Content Overview (MLT)
Design Overview (CSC)
Problems Encountered
Future Work
Project Purpose




Design a web application to aid in preparation
for the Reading Comprehension portion of the
TOEFL test.
Make the site universally accessible through use
of cross-platform acceptable character
encoding.
Create a Mock-TOEFL test and grade it using
HTML and PHP.
Avoid JavaScript as much as possible.
T.O.E.F.L. Format



Most common measure of North American
English proficiency.
Administered mostly by way of computer.
Composed of 3 sections.
Listening Comprehension
 Writing
 Reading Comprehension

Essential Topics for Reading
Comprehension



Understanding the nuances of English verb
conjugations compared to those found in
Japanese.
Understanding the subtle details of English.
Understanding the meanings behind colloquial
English.
Finished Product Demonstration
Content Overview

Pedagogical material covered
•
•
•
•
•

Verb Tenses and their nuances
Conditional Statements (“If ” and “When”)
Phrasal Verbs ( e.g. “Stand Out” or “Pull Through”)
Idioms and Colloquialisms
Explanations of smaller aspects of English (e.g.
Contractions, Irregular verbs, Subject-Verb
Agreement…)
Mock Reading Comprehension test
Design Overview

Written entirely with the Unicode character
encoding. (UTF-8)



Style of the site is controlled with CSS.
A single JavaScript function is used.


Supported by the major operating systems.
(Windows, Linux, MacOS)
Done so IE users can use the drop-down menus.
Mock-TOEFL is designed using PHP.
Mock TOEFL Guidelines

Test is composed of multiple choice questions.
Number of questions is up to the creator of the test.
 Number of choices per questions is also left to the
creator.


Text found within delimiters is to be in proper
HTML format.

E.g. if one wishes to input a left angle-bracket, they
must type “<” or “<” in the text.
Demo (Text File to Test Page)
Demo (Cont’d)
How the Mock Test Page Works



From a delimited text file on the server, PHP
script reads and creates a test page with which
the user to interacts.
HTML forms are used for multiple choice
questions.
PHP checks the selected answers with the
answers stored in a created array, and displays
the right and wrong answers.
Example (Test Correction)
Example (Cont’d)
Problems Encountered

Text encoding and display trouble


CSS problems with Internet Explorer


Mostly with Windows systems, for Asian charactersets must be installed separately. (Go Microsoft…)
Essentially, it was IE’s fault. (Go Microsoft…)
Determining the effectiveness of the Mock
TOEFL

Surprisingly, NOT Microsoft’s fault…
Future Work

Continued additions to the information
featured on the site.
More Colloquialisms
 More Phrasal Verbs
 More Visual Aides.



Finding a way to gauge the effectiveness of the
site.
Different language implementation…?
Questions?