2018 Annual Conference of China English Language Education Association (CELEA2018)

295 / 2018-06-25 10:24:02

Chinese EFL students' response to the China's Standards of English Language Ability

China's Standards of English

Plenary track > 中国特色英语测评研究

Language assessment has crucial backwash effect on students' language learning in different ways, such as shaping their perception of courses, conditioning their learning goals and redirecting their interpretation to tests. Thus it is understandable that policy makers put efforts into language assessment to initiate changes in education. Recently, China's Ministry of Education and the State Language Commission have jointly issued an assessment scale for English language ability, called "China's Standards of English Language Ability". This scale delimits English ability to three categories, namely basic, intermediate and advanced, with nine levels, covering all the educational periods from elementary school to university. Along with defining competencies in traditional language skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing, the scale also includes pragmatics competence, aimed to help develop student's practical language capacity, cultural awareness and intercultural communication skills. And the National Education Examination Authority is now working on the development of a National English Proficiency Test based on the scale. However, despite the influential backwash effect of language assessment on students’ learning, it is students who play pivotal role in deciding whether the new assessment can be realized fully and successfully. Therefore, this study tries to find out, by surveys and interviews, students' responses to this scale and the possible changes in their learning, like their attitudes, motivations, goals and approaches to language learning. The findings are intended to lead to a more nuanced understanding of the potential factors that favor or limit the realization of the scale.