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2013
ELL SUMMER INSTITUTE SECTION
TOEFL iBT Speaking
REQUIREMENTS FOR SAVING AND SUBMITTING DOCUMENTS
1. Filename: Save your document with your first and last name plus the ELL Summer Institute
section and the year “2013”.

Example: Jane Doe TOEFL iBT Speaking.doc
2. Identifying Info: Your name should not appear anywhere inside the document. It should
only appear in the filename.
3. Submission Format: Create a separate Word document for your work sample. Do not
include the instructional material or the accompanying socialization source material in your
submission. Include both your Listening/Speaking item and your
Reading/Listening/Speaking item in your document. Insert a page break between the two
assignments.
OVERVIEW
The TOEFL iBT® Speaking test is designed to evaluate the English speaking proficiency of
students whose native language is not English but who want to pursue undergraduate or graduate
study in an English-speaking context. The Speaking test is one of four sections of the TOEFL
iBT test. In the TOEFL Speaking section, examinees are asked to speak in response to material
that they read and/or hear.
During the ELL Summer Institute, Speaking interns will write speaking prompts on topics that
are familiar to students. Interns will also research academic or campus-based topics and write
various kinds of scripts used in the Speaking test. The Speaking interns might also continue after
the Summer Institute in a freelance capacity as off-site writers of Speaking items.
For this work sample, you will write two samples of Speaking items that are like those that
appear in the Speaking section of the TOEFL test. A complete item consists of a stimulus, which
is the material the examinee hears or reads; a prompt, which is the instruction that indicates the
kind of spoken response the examinee is to make to the stimulus; and the key points, which are
used by scorers as guides to the kinds of responses a high-ability examinee should make. The
work samples are described as follows.
WORK SAMPLE TASKS
Part I: A Listening/Speaking Item
The listening/speaking stimulus you are asked to write consists of a self-contained excerpt from
an academic lecture, similar to a lecture a student would hear at a university. The stimulus is
roughly 230 to 280 words in length. Examinees listen to the lecture stimulus and are then
directed to give a spoken summary of the main points of the lecture. The listening/speaking item
evaluates an examinee’s ability to speak about the content of an academic lecture.
You will find source material at the end of this packet to use in developing this item.
Item Specifications
In a lecture, the professor does the following.
 Introduces a concept or claim

Elaborates the concept or claim by presenting two aspects, perspectives, parts, or stages
that help further characterize or explain the concept or claim

Illustrates each of the two differentiating aspects, perspectives, parts, or stages with a
concrete, vivid example
Example of a Listening/Speaking Item
The following lecture script is an example of an academic listening/speaking item. The lecture
takes place in a biology class. In the script, underlining indicates spoken emphasis. The scripts
are recorded by professional readers.
Lecture/ Human beings aren’t the only animals that use tools. It’s generally recognized
stimulus that other animals use tools as well . . . use them naturally, in the wild, without
(script) any human instruction. But when can we say that an object is a tool? Well, it
depends on your definition of a tool. And in fact, there are two competing
definitions—a narrow definition and a broad one.
The narrow definition says that a tool is an object that’s used to perform a
specific task . . . but not just any object. To be a tool, according to the narrow
definition, the object’s gotta be purposefully changed or shaped by the animal,
or human, so that it can be used that way. It’s an object that’s made. Wild
chimpanzees use sticks to dig insects out of their nests . . . but most sticks
lying around won’t do the job . . . they might be too thick, for example. So the
sticks have to be sharpened so they’ll fit into the hole in an ant hill or the insect
nest. The chimp pulls off the leaves and chews the stick and trims it down that
way until it’s the right size. The chimp doesn’t just find the stick . . . it . . . you
could say it makes it in a way.
But the broad definition says an object doesn’t have to be modified to be
considered a tool. The broad definition says a tool is any object that’s used to
perform a specific task. For example, an elephant will sometimes use a stick to
scratch its back . . . it just picks up a stick from the ground and scratches its
back with it . . . . It doesn’t modify the stick, it uses it just as it’s found. And
it’s a tool, under the broad definition; but under the narrow definition it’s not
because, well, the elephant doesn’t change it in any way.
Prompt
Using points and examples from the talk, describe the two different definitions
of tools given by the professor.
Key
points
Narrow definition of tool: an object that has been purposefully changed or
shaped or somehow made by an animal or human in order to perform a specific
task. For example, when chimps use sticks to find insects, they first modify the
sticks by pulling off leaves and sharpening them. They cannot use just any
stick.
Broad definition of tool: any object that is used to perform a specific task. It
does not have to be modified (it can be used as found). For example, elephants
use sticks to scratch their backs, but they use those objects just as they find
them and do not modify them. Such sticks are not tools under the narrow
definition.
Additional Example of a Academic Listening/Speaking Item
The following lecture is another example of a listening/speaking item. The lecture takes place in
an education class. In a script, italicized words in brackets indicate recording directions for the
professional reader.
Lecture/
stimulus
(script)
One of the hardest parts of teaching is keeping your students’ attention.
Now, the key to doing this is understanding the concept of attention.
Basically, there are two types of attention.
The first type is active. Active attention is voluntary—it’s when you
intentionally make yourself focus on something. And since it requires
effort, it’s hard to keep up for a long time. OK, so um, let’s say you’re
teaching a—a biology class. And today’s topic is frogs. Alright, you’re
standing at the front of the room and lecturing: [in a boring, robotic
voice—“a” is pronounced “ay”] “A frog is a type of animal known as an
amphibian . . . .” Well, this isn’t necessarily going to keep the students’
interest. But most of them will force themselves to pay active attention to
your lecture . . . but it’s only a matter of time before they get distracted.
Now, the other type of attention is passive attention—when it’s
involuntary. Passive attention requires no effort, because it happens
naturally. If something’s really interesting, students don’t have to force
themselves to pay attention to it—they do it without even thinking about it.
So back to our biology lecture. You start talking about frogs, and then you
pull a live frog out of your briefcase. You’re describing it while you hold it
up . . . show the students how long its legs are and how they’re used for
jumping, for example. Then maybe you even let the frog jump around a bit
on the desk or the floor. In this case, by doing something unexpected . . .
something more engaging, you can tap into their passive attention. And it
can last much longer than active attention; as long as the frog’s still there,
your students will be interested.
Prompt
Using points and examples from the talk, explain the difference between
active and passive attention.
Key points
Active attention is voluntary; it occurs when people force themselves to
pay attention to something. A dry, boring lecture about frogs will require
students to pay active attention, but they will not be able to maintain their
attention for long.
Passive attention is involuntary; it occurs when people are naturally
interested in the material at hand, and it requires no effort. If a teacher pulls
out a live frog, the students’ passive attention can be maintained.
Work Sample Assignment for the Listening/Speaking Item
Use the accompanying source material on socialization to construct an academic
listening/speaking item of your own. The item should include a stimulus, a prompt, and a sample
response. Do not attempt an exhaustive synthesis of the sources. Rather, the task is to find
material within the source that meets the requirements of the item. The two examples in your
items should be based on the source material as well as your own background knowledge.
In writing your lecture, keep the following in mind.

The examinee will hear the lecture only once and will not see the script. Unnecessary
details should therefore be kept to a minimum so as not to tax a test taker’s memory.

The purpose of the item is to determine how well test takers can speak, not to test their
listening proficiency (a separate section of the TOEFL test). Consequently, the structure
and exposition of the lecture need to be very clear. The main idea or topic, the two
elaborated aspects, and their respective exemplifications need to be transparent on a
single hearing. The lecture should be kept simple, should stay focused, and should be
memorable.

The lecture’s style and syntax should reflect spoken academic language. For example,
there can be hesitations or filler words (“um,” “uh,” etc.), contractions, and even false
starts. However, be careful that such aspects do not interfere with communicating the
lecture.

The central topic should be clearly identified, and the relationship between the main topic
and its two aspects, perspectives, parts, and stages should also be presented clearly.

The two examples should be concrete and vivid.
Before submitting your writing sample, you might find it helpful to test your lecture by asking
someone to record a response to it.
Part II: A Reading/Listening/Speaking Item
The reading/listening/speaking item you are asked to write consists of a reading passage about a
campus-related issue and a listening stimulus in which speakers comment on the issue presented
in the reading. The examinee first reads the passage, then listens to the commentary, and finally,
in accordance with the prompt, provides a spoken response.
You will find your own source for this item.
Specifications
Reading passage
The reading passage is a short passage of 75 to 100 words that can be read and processed within
45 seconds. It can be an announcement, a memo, the opening paragraph of an editorial or news
article from a campus newspaper, and the like.
The reading passage briefly sets forth a campus-related issue by describing a proposed or
intended plan or course of action along with the rationale for it, the way the example below about
a campus bus service does.
The reading passage should be focused, making only two points in support of the plan or course
of action. The situations and rationales or opinions presented in the reading should not be so
outlandish or extreme that the arguments against them are obvious before one has even heard the
commentary of the listening stimulus.
The plan or course of action and supporting rationale should be accessible to an international
audience and not presume familiarity with North American university parlance or procedures.
Additionally, plan or the course of action should be sensitive to the customs and beliefs of an
international audience. For instance, do not include references to romantic relationships, the
consumption of alcohol/drugs, campus parties, campus security issues, or religious holidays.
Listening stimulus
The listening stimulus is a response to the reading passage in the form of a conversation between
two people (one man and one woman). One of the two interlocutors is the primary speaker, and
the other serves mainly as a foil to draw out the primary speaker’s opinions. The language should
be in the form of spontaneous, nonacademic conversation.
Relationship between content of the reading passage and the conversation
The purpose of the reading/listening/speaking item is to see how well the test taker integrates in
spoken English certain information from two different sources. Therefore, the listening stimulus
of the item should be constructed in such a way that the test taker cannot derive the full answer
from the listening stimulus without incorporating material from the reading passage. Neither
speaker in the listening passage should restate the points made in the reading. In effect, each of
the speakers in the conversation assumes that the other is familiar with the content of the reading.
Thus, in order to follow the conversation and respond according to the prompt, the examinee will
need to integrate the content of the reading passage with that of the conversation.
In the conversation you write, the primary speaker should disagree with the proposal or opinion
in the reading passage. The primary speaker should engage the rationale of the reading by
making two concise points that directly address the two reasons given in the reading the way the
male speaker does in the example that follows. The speaker may also introduce new information,
but the new material must serve to directly undermine the position or rationale of the reading
passage.
Example of a Reading/Listening/Speaking Campus-based Item
Reading
passage
(an article
from a
university
newspaper)
Bus Service Elimination Planned
Listening
stimulus
(script of a
conversation
between two
students
discussing
the article)
(Man) I don’t like the university’s plan.
The university has decided to discontinue its free bus service for students.
The reasons given for this decision are that few students ride the buses and
the buses are expensive to operate. Currently, the buses run from the
center of campus past university buildings and through some of the
neighborhoods surrounding the campus. The money saved by eliminating
the bus service will be used to expand the overcrowded student parking
lots.
(Woman) Really? I’ve ridden those buses, and sometimes there were only
a few people on the bus. It did seem like kind of a waste.
(Man) I see your point. But I think the problem is that the route’s out of
date. It only goes through the neighborhoods that’ve gotten too expensive
for students to live in. It’s ridiculous that they haven’t already changed the
route—you know, so it goes where most off-campus students live now. I
bet if they did that, they’d get plenty of students riding those buses.
(Woman) OK, but at least what they’d do with the money they’d save is a
good thing. Sometimes it’s really tough to find a space in the student lots .
...
(Man) That’s the other part I don’t like, actually, because it’s just gonna
encourage more students to drive on campus.
(Woman) Because there’ll be more parking?
(Man) Yeah, and that’ll just add to the noise around campus and create
more traffic . . . and that’ll increase the need for more parking spaces . . .
(Woman) Yeah, I guess I can see your point. There are a lot of cars on
campus already.
(Man) Right. And this would just make it worse. It’s noisy enough as it is
now.
Prompt
The man expresses his opinion of the university’s plan. Briefly summarize
the plan. Then state his opinion about the plan and explain the reasons he
gives for holding that opinion.
Key points
The man disagrees with the university’s plan to discontinue its free bus
service.
He thinks the current route is responsible for there not being many riders
on the bus (a reason the university gives for discontinuing the service),
and rerouting the bus through neighborhoods where students live would
likely increase the number of riders.
He also thinks that building more parking lots will encourage more people
to drive on campus and increase traffic/noise (and will create the need for
more parking spaces).
Work Sample Assignment for the Reading/Listening/Speaking Item
Write a reading/listening/speaking item of the type described. Include a reading passage, a
listening stimulus (conversation), a prompt, and a sample response. You may find it helpful to
read through university campus newspapers or to check university Web pages for ideas for a
campus-related issue that could be used as a source for your reading passage.
As you write, keep in mind the following considerations.

Setting. Is the context clear and plausible? Is the scenario realistic and nontrivial? Is the
language in the listening passage characteristic of spoken English?

Content. Are the reasons provided in the reading passage logical and sensible? Is the
reaction in the listening passage plausible?

Integration. Is integration of the reading and listening passages necessary to answer the
prompt, or is the item answerable only by summarizing the listening?

Accessibility. Is the information presented accessible to an international student?
Before submitting your writing sample, you might find it helpful to try it out by asking a native
speaker of English to give a spoken response to your prompt after reading your reading passage
(within 45 seconds) and after listening to a dramatization of your listening script.
SOURCE MATERIAL FOR PART I
Use the following information as source material to as the basis your academic
listening/speaking item.
Socialization: the process by which, through contact with other human beings, one becomes a
self-aware, knowledgeable human being, skilled in the ways of a given culture and environment
Agencies of Socialization
Agencies of socialization are structured groups or contexts within which significant processes of
socialization occur. Such agencies also influence gender socialization: the learning of male roles
versus female roles.

Primary socialization occurs in infancy and childhood and is the most intense period of
cultural learning. Family is the main agent of socialization during this phase.

Secondary socialization takes place later in childhood and into maturity. Main agents of
socialization include schools, peer groups, organizations, the media, and the workplace.

The family is the principal socializing agency of the child during infancy.

Schools are institutions in which students pursue a definite curriculum of subjects.
Students also learn about certain subtle behavioral expectations that will later be related
to their job experience.

Peer relationships are social group attachments among children of similar age and with
similar social backgrounds.

Mass media include printed documents, radio, television, recordings, and videos. Few
societies in current times remain completely untouched by mass media.

Work is an area that may require major adjustments in a person’s outlook or behavior.
Through the process of individualization, individuals learn about social roles—those socially
defined expectations that a person in a given social position accepts and conforms to.
In terms of psychology, socialization is the process by which children and others adopt the
behavior patterns of the culture that surrounds them.
Sociologists may distinguish between:
 Primary socialization, which is the upbringing of a dependent infant and initiation into a
mother tongue

Secondary socialization, which consists of training for specialist roles in society through
education systems and social groups by building on the basic assumed primary
socialization
Creating the Person
“Socialization” is the term sociologists use to describe the ways people learn to conform to their
society’s norms, values, and roles. People develop their own unique personalities as a result of
the learning they gain from parents, siblings, relatives, peers, teachers, mentors, and all of the
other people who influence them throughout their lives. From the viewpoint of society as a
whole, however, what is important about the process of socialization is that people learn to
behave according to the norms of their culture. How people learn to behave according to cultural
norms—that is, the way they learn their culture—makes possible the transmission of culture
from one generation to the next. In this way the culture is “reproduced” in the next generation.
Socialization occurs throughout life as the individual learns new norms within new groups and in
new situations. However, for purposes of analysis, socialization can be divided into three major
phases. The first is primary socialization, which refers to all the ways a newborn individual gets
molded into a social being—that is, into a growing person who can interact with others according
to the expectations of society. Primary socialization occurs within the family and other intimate
groups in the child’s social environment. Secondary socialization occurs in later childhood and
adolescence, when the child leaves the family for schooling and comes under the influence of
adults and peers outside the household and the immediate family. Adult socialization is a third
stage, in which a person learns the norms associated with such new statuses as wife, husband,
journalist, programmer, grandparent, or nursing-home patient.
There are a number of unresolved and highly controversial issues surrounding the study of
socialization. First, what is the relative strength of biological—meaning, genetic—
characteristics and of social influences in the creation of a person? This issue, often referred to as
the nature/nurture problem, is raised most strikingly by a certain case involving triplets. Each of
the three young men had been brought up in a different home, and yet each had similar
mannerisms, similar—and very positive—outlooks on life, vibrant senses of humor, and even the
same way of expressing ideas. This suggests that biological influences can play extremely
important parts in forming an adult’s personality, especially when the basic qualities of love,
security, and stead nurturance are present in the home environment, as they seem to have been
for each of those triplets.
A second controversy in the study of socialization involves the question of how a person’s sense
of self becomes established. What influences are exerted by others, and how do they form an
individual’s sense of self? How do people learn to conform to society’s norms and to take the
roles that society makes available to them? This process is often referred to as the social
construction of the self.
Third, how do different social environments—such as that of an affluent suburban school or of a
slum neighborhood or of a military boot camp—influence socialization? That is, how-do
different social environments, especially the intimate environments of home and family, produce
different kinds of people?
Fourth, what are the limits on what socialization can accomplish for individuals who experience
extremes of deprivation and abuse, and what are the influences throughout the life of different
agencies of socialization and different experiences with other people?
The fifth and final major subject is gender socialization, which refers to the ways we become the
girls and boys and, gradually, the men and women of our society and culture. All of the
controversies over whether behavior is innate or learned are intensified when we consider the
differences and similarities in the socialization of males and females.
In this chapter we explore each of these questions in detail. We will be concerned primarily with
the socialization of so-called normal members of society—people who are able to perform roles,
to feel empathy for others, to express emotions and yet control feelings that are antisocial, to
nurture others, and to raise children who will in turn be able to nurture and to take on new roles
as they grow older. But the failures of socialization can also tell us a great deal about what is
involved in creating the social being…
Culture and Socialization
How individuals come to master language as well as develop the other capacities that make us
human is referred to as socialization. Socialization is the process whereby helpless infants
gradually become self-aware, knowledgeable people, skilled in the ways of the culture into
which they are born. Socialization is not a kind of cultural programming whereby children
passively absorb the influences they come into contact with. Even the most recent newborn
infants have needs or demands that affect the behavior of those responsible for their care: a child
is from the beginning an active being.
Socialization connects the different generations to one another. The birth of a child alters the
lives of those responsible for that child’s upbringing—and those responsible parties themselves
also therefore undergo new learning experiences. Parenting usually ties the activities of adults to
children for the remainder of the lives of both. Older people remain parents when they become
grandparents, of course, thus forgoing another set of relationships connecting different
generations with each other. Although the process of cultural learning is much more intense in
infancy and early childhood than it is later, learning and adjustment continue throughout the
whole life cycle.
Agencies of Socialization
We can refer to the groups or social contacts within which significant processes of socialization
occur as agencies of socialization. In all cultures, the family is the main socializing agency of a
child during infancy. But at later stages of an individual’s life, other socializing agencies come
into play.
The Family
In modem societies, most early socialization occurs within a small-scale family context. The
mother is almost always the most important individual in the child’s early life. The majority of
American children spend their early years with a parent or parents and one or two siblings. In
other cultures, by contrast, aunts, uncles, and grandchildren are often part of the same household
and help look after even young infants. And within United States society, there are many
variations in the makeup of families. Some infants are brought up in single-parent households;
some are cared for by two pairs of mothers and fathers (divorced parents and stepparents). A
small number are brought up by homosexual parents. The range of contacts an infant experiences
is thus by no means standard across or within cultures.
Peer Relationships
Another socializing agency is the peer group. Peer groups consist of children of a similar age. In
some cultures, particularly small traditional societies, peer groups are formalized as age grades
and normally confined to males. Often there are specific ceremonies or rites that mark the
transition of men from one age-grade to another. Those within a particular age grade generally
maintain close and friendly connections throughout their lives. A typical set of age grades
consists of childhood, junior warriorhood, senior warriorhood, junior elderhood, and senior
elderhood. Men move through these grades not as individuals but as whole groups.
The family’s importance in socialization is obvious, since the experience of the infant and young
child is shaped more or less exclusively within the family. It is less apparent, especially to those
who live in Western societies, how significant peer groups are. Yet even without formal age
grades, children older than four or five years of age usually spend a great deal of time in the
company of friends the same age. Given the high proportion of women now in the workforce,
whose young children play together in day care centers, peer relations are even more important
today than before.
Particularly in geographic areas without much mobility, individuals may be members of the same
informal clique or may keep the same group of friends for all of their lives. Even when they do
not, peer relations are likely to have a significant impact beyond childhood and adolescence.
Informal groups of people of similar ages—at work and in other situations—are usually of
enduring importance in shaping individuals’ attitudes and behaviors.
Schools
Another important socializing agency is the school. Schooling is a formal process, and students
pursue a definite curriculum of subjects, yet schools are agencies of socialization in more-subtle
respects. Children are expected to remain quiet in class, to be punctual for lessons, and to
observe certain rules of school discipline. And they are required to accept and respond to the
authority of the teaching staff. Teachers’ reactions also affect the expectations children have of
themselves, and those expectations in turn become linked to the children’s eventual job
experiences once they leave school. Peer groups are often formed at school, and the system of
keeping children in classes according to age reinforces peer groups’ impact.
Mass media
Newspapers, periodicals, and journals flourished in the West from the early 1800s onward, but
they were confined to a fairly small readership. It was not until a century later that such printed
materials became part of the daily experience of mill ions of people, influencing their attitudes
and opinions.