LANGUAGE TEST

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        <h2>English Proficiency Test (EPrT)</h2>        
    <strong>By</strong>

Ima Normalia Kusmayanti

English Proficiency Test (EPrT)

By

Ima Normalia Kusmayanti

“It’s better to create something that others criticize than to create nothing and criticize others.”

(Obvious Magazine)

The year of 2007 was the most exciting year for me. Not only did I attend my master graduation ceremony in April 2007, I also received a confirmation letter from the Telkom Educational Foundation (YPT) that I was officially accepted as a full time lecturer at IT Telkom starting from July 2007. Furthermore, I was given the opportunity to sharpen my writing skills in academic realms. It was the year I produced my second series of course modules and my first series of language tests.

Bu Retno, Mba Flo, and I have just finished writing four course books: Technical Reading, Reading and Writing Connection, Technical Writing and Technical Presentation for STT Telkom diploma students in early 2007. At the same time, we were in the process of finishing writing three levels of course modules: foundation, novice, and pre-advanced. Right in the middle of writing the foundation or the novice module, the Dean of Science Faculty of IT Telkom (there was a transformation of STT Telkom to IT Telkom in the middle of 2007) summoned us to his office. He instructed us to visit the Language Center (LaC) of Sepuluh Nopember Institute of Technology (ITS) Surabaya to initiate the development of our own English language test.

Prior to our visit to LaC ITS, we received a letter from the ets.org stating that the use of TOEFL® in any written forms without the consent from the ets.org will receive a penalty or that the ets.org will bring such an issue to the court of law. Bu Retno, Mba Flo and I decided to develop a TOEFL® -like test for our campus. To further learn about a language center, we visited LaC ITS along with a fellow English lecturer Mr. Dadang and a talkative student who is proficient in English named Yuri. We learned so many things from Ibu Lubna, the Director of the LaC ITS. Not only did we learn about course management, we also learned the tests and material development. We returned to campus thinking about what would be the perfect name for our inhouse language test. We finally came up with the name English Proficiency Test or short for EPrT. Right after we received a confirmation from the Dean of Science Faculty IT Telkom, we started to develop our first two versions of EPrT. 

Since TOEFL® was the most prominent English language test in Indonesia, we decided to have similar content structures, but use different wording for our EPrT. The contents of EPrT are similar to paper-based TOEFL® focusing on listening comprehension, written structures, and reading comprehension. We divided the tasks among the three of us. We were assigned multi roles: managers, developers, editors, and proofreaders. I was enraptured by the possibility of enhancing my material development skills to test development. In 2008, we continued to make three more versions of the EPrT because more and more students were registering for the test. Since 2006, the EPrT has been one of the prerequisites to register for IT Telkom students’ final project defenses.

In June 2011, I was appointed as the assistant manager of language development. With only two versions of EPrT and hundreds of students registering for the test every week , we need more versions to avoid test jockeys and test answer leaks. Bu Retno was already on her doctorate study journey, but she agreed to help with the test proofreading only and Mba Flo was also on her master study journey, but she agreed to help with the test developing only. Thus, I needed to form a new team. In early or middle 2012, I recruited several language instructors to be ESAP mentors, course instructors, and possibly test developers. As I remembered, Bu Retno, Mba Flo, and I took ITP TOEFL® (paper-based) and scored above 600 before we developed the EPrT. Thus, I asked the language instructors to take the ITP TOEFL® and should score 600 above to assist me in developing more versions of EPrT. At the end of 2013, we had 10 versions of EPrT.

With the transformation of the Unit of Language Development of IT Telkom into a Language Center of Telkom University (LaC Tel-U), I had more people to help me with the EPrT development in 2015. Besides Bu Retno, Mba Flo, I was also assisted by Anistya Rachmawati, Rissa Rizkia Amelia, Aam Firdaus Ridwan, Ahmad Zaqi Firdausi, Mochamad Fajar Akbar, Aris Hermansyah Suryadi, Fihrin Zuhrufillah, and Eka Rahmat Fauzi. These people have shown their dedication and commitments to ensure the quality of the EPrT. Bu Retno shared information about test validity and reliability. At that time, I did not understand completely yet about the concept and the right procedures for test validity and reliability, so I shared this information with Anis and Bu Rita and thought that we needed to do these for the EPrT. We only did item analysis for the several EPrT versions because we need the data to register the EPrT for the registration of intellectual right. property We changed the wording of the EPrT’s structures into Listening Competence, Grammar Competence, and Reading Competence. By the year of 2016, we had almost 75 versions of EPrT and we finally registered the EPrT to the General Directorate of Intellectual Property, the Ministry of Law and Human Right of the Republic of Indonesia on April 13th, 2016 with the registry number of C00201601335.

EPrT has undergone several developments, particularly in the contents. I am glad that in the year of 2020, EPrT development is finally being handled by the right person which is bu Retno’ as she is appointed as the Manager of the LaC Tel-U. Today, EPrT is used not only for the prerequisite of final project defense, but also for the prerequisite of yearly defense (Sidang Tingkat) of Telkom University students. I am proud to have been involved in the development of EPrT.