Which type is more appropriate for teaching to my postgraduate students? A comparison between the reading passages of TOEFL and those of the IELTS Modules

Comprehending a reading passage depends on various factors such as background knowledge and the linguistic competence. However, which one is more effective – the former which is connected with the ESP issues or the latter which is associated with EGP? As a teacher who deals with different subjects and topics in his reading courses, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, with the students who are to obtain an acceptable score in TOEFL or IELTS to continue their studies either in Iran or abroad, we have to know the answer(s) to that question to be more efficient in our career.In the present correlational study, it was hypothesized that there would be no significant difference between the performance of students at different levels of language proficiency and their background knowledge on a specific subject matter. A TOEFL test and all three academic modules of IELTS were administered to 116 postgraduate students majoring in different fields. Therefore, each subject took a TOEFL test which showed his level of language proficiency and three modules of IELTS, one of which was in accordance with his major field of study, while the other modules were not. On the basis of their obtained scores on the TOEFL, the subjects were divided into three groups of beginners, intermediate and advanced. Afterwards, in each group, a t-test between their scores on TOEFL and their scores on each module of IELTS was used to come up with the results.The results showed that language proficient students may well cope with various sorts of reading passages without much difficulty and compensate for the lack of background knowledge on a specific subject matter, while other students at lower levels of language proficiency appeared to be more successful with familiar reading passages, i.e. with the reading module of IELTS related to their background knowledge.

کلیدواژه ها:

TOEFL ، IELTS ، reading passages ، background knowledge ، general English knowledge