EDU 5266 TESTING AND EVALUATION

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Article: The key to success: English language testing in China by Liying Cheng Irene Geritt See GS24931

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English test development in China

Major test -College English Test (CET)

-National Matriculation English Test (NMET) -Test for English Majors (TEM) Examination -Graduate School Entrance English (GSEEE) -Public English Testing System (PETS) -Cambridge Business English Certificate (BEC)
CET and the NMET are the two large high-stakes national

tests.

CET
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Department of the Ministry of Edu in China

Aims at measuring the Eng.proficiency of

college/university undergraduate students.

Test battery-comprised CET-Spoken Eng.Test(CET-SET) Jin(2005)-CET maintained high reliability and validity

NMET
University entrance of Eng. For whole the country Purpose: to make inferences about candidates

Eng.language ability, which is used in university admission decisions together with the scores from university entrance tests in another 5@6 secondary school subjects.
Norm-referenced standardized test with a major function

of selecting secondary school graduates for institutions of 4/22/12

Issues in Language Testing within Chinese Context

There are 3 areas:

- test validity - testing of speaking - test washback Test validity

- The validity of a widely used test format in China-MCQ. - Adopt large numbers of MCQ in order to save time &

manpower that would otherwise be involved in grading the test powers. true-false questions to evaluate the effectiveness of the latter as test format.
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- Wang (1996) conducted a comparative study of MCQ &

- The efficiency of true false was greater than MC tests. - However, both the reliability & discrimination indices of

the true-false test were lower than those of the MC tests.

- To conclude, true false test format can be used in

classroom assessment.

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Testing Speaking
- The development of oral testing started in the 1990s in

China.
- NMET & CET are formally the testing speaking, - Li & Wang (2000) reported on the development of the

NMET-oral subtest.

- Many limitations including the huge size of the test

candidature & the rigid limitation of human & time resources in China. strength of its being-based test of spoken interaction achieving a balance between control & spontaneity in the required spoken output, a union of the analytical & the holistic approach to rating, & combination of the singleexaminer method in test administration & a double4/22/12 marking method for scoring.

- The validity of the NMETOS format was asserted on the

- NMETOS is not just a test that suits the conditions & meets the needs of China.
- In the wider context of language testing,it can claim to be a

successful in mass-scale oral testing. into the validity of the CET-SET.

- He & Dai (2006) conducted a corpus-based investigation - Examined the degree of interaction among candidates in

the group discussion task with respect to a set of interactional language functions(ILFs) to be assessed. the task.

- It showed a low degree of interaction among candidates in - Suggest that the inadequate elicitation of ILFs from the

candidates may well pose a problem for measuring their speaking ability in terms of the ability to engage in communicative interaction.
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Test Washback
- Qi (2003) investigated the intended washback of the

NMET.
- NMET failed to bring about the intended changes or wash

back effects on the teaching & learning of Eng. in secondary school. * the selection functions * the function of promoting change

- 2 major function:

- NMET has achieved very limited intended wash back & the

test is an inefficient tool for bringing about the pedagogical changes in schools in China. Wash back effects of CET-SET Took the test to have their communicative competence in 4/22/12

- It was important to have an oral test in the CET-SET battery.

- SET have a huge impact on college Eng.teaching & would

in promote students ability to use Eng.communicatively. have taken place in college Eng.teaching.

- Since the administration of the CET-SET, positive changes - For example, many colleges & universities began to pay

more attention to improving students communicative competence; students became more involved in the oral activities in class; and some universities even developed teaching materials that catered to the test.

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Conclusion

The relatively new development of Eng.testing in China-

NMET & CET has provided unique challenges to English language education in China. as a fair indicator of students academic success.

The Chinese society in general accepts the function of testing The impact of the 2 national tests- the NMET & CET-is in

particular evident on the teaching & learning of English in China and has been much debated.

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