Engagement Techniques in Language Testing: An Analysis of TOEFL & IELTS Reading Texts through the Appraisal Model

Mustafa, Awat M.

doi:10.30470/irelc.2025.2054429.1018

Engagement Techniques in Language Testing: An Analysis of TOEFL & IELTS Reading Texts through the Appraisal Model

Document Type : Research Article

Author

Awat M. Mustafa

English Language Department, College of Language Sciences, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

10.30470/irelc.2025.2054429.1018

Abstract

This research examines engagement strategies in TOEFL and IELTS reading passages through the lens of the Appraisal model. The study investigates how engagement resources, such as dialogic contraction and expansion, enhance interaction between the text and examinees. The study deploys a qualitative content analysis approach, focusing primarily on the Engagement subsystem of the Appraisal model inside various reading texts from the TOEFL iBT and IELTS academic examinations. The study makes a detailed comparison, highlighting the ways in which the two tests use resources differently and similarly, and assessing the implications for test-takers' critical engagement. Based on Martin and White's (2005) framework, the findings show that both tests use a variety of engagement techniques to help test-takers’ comprehension. Nonetheless, the IELTS reading passages demonstrate a greater number of dialogic expansion approaches, enabling a more complex reader response, whereas TOEFL passages typically favour dialogic contraction to emphasise particular interpretations. The results show that while comprehension skills are necessary for both tests, their capacity to elicit critical engagement varies, which aligns with particular goals in academic language assessment.

Keywords

Engagement system

the Appraisal model

Language testing

IELTS and TOEFL test

Reading texts

Subjects

Interdisciplinary Engagement and ELT

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