Aligning Tem-4with The Cefr

The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching,Assessment (the CEFR) published by the Council of Europe in2001, provides a comprehensive, systematicand unified reference of language proficiency for foreign language learners, teachers and assessmentproviders. The CEFR facilitates the co-operations among different education institutions of differentcountries, at the same time, makes it possible that various examination systems could compare with oneanother and various language certifications could identify with one another. Besides discussing on thecharacteristics of the CEFR and its advantages and disadvantages, foreign scholars did lots of researches onaligning examinations with the CEFR. Then, in2003the Council of Europe published the Manual of RelatingLanguage Examinations to the Common European Framework of Reference for Language: Learning,Teaching, Assessment (the Manual) which offers users of the CEFR a reference project for alignmentresearches. Till2006, there were more than40research institutions from more than20countries trying outthe Manual and giving suggestions for the improvement of the Manual.In China, the researchers analyzed and discussed the content and the characteristics of the CEFR,and all accepted that the CEFR was appropriate for language learning, language teaching and languageassessment. The Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi (HSK) has already been aligned with the CEFR, but there are fewresearches on aligning national English examinations with the CEFR. The main English proficiencyexamination systems in China are College English Test (CET) Band4and6, Tests for English Majors (TEM)Band4and8, Public English Test System (PETS) from Band1to5and English test system for working staff.Some scholars think that our English examination systems lack of comprehensiveness, coherence, unity andcomparability. In order to facilitate these English examination systems’ developments, as well as theconnection of these systems with current international English proficiency standard, and to facilitate themutual authentication and cooperation among our English education institution and other countries’, it isimportant and imperative to do the researches on aligning our English examination systems with the CEFR.In terms of the CEFR, following the procedures in the Manual, this paper firstly aligned TEM-4with the CEFR by the method of comparative analysis. Then through data analysis, it verified the validationof the linking result. The first chapter introduced research background and purpose. Chapter two sumed up the research achievements about the CEFR in hand by domestic and overseas scholars, and analyzes theorigins, characteristics, contents and applications of the CEFR and the Manual in detail, and gives a briefintroduction of TEM-4. In chapter three, research question, methodology and research procedures weredemonstrated. During this research, the author chose60sophomores of English major classes in XinlianCollege, Henan Normal University, who took part in the tests of TEM-4and TOEFL, at the same time, theauthor took the Teaching Syllabus for English Majors, the Syllabus for TEM-4and five administered testpapers as analysis materials to be used in the procedure of Specification. In Chapter four, firstly, the authorfigured out which Common Reference Level the TEM-4could be linked to. Then in the procedure ofStandardization, the cut-off score of the TEM-4was calculated and verified. In the procedure of Validation,through the analysis of students’ scores of TEM-4and TOEFL, the validity and reliability of TEM-4and thevalidity of the alignment were tested. Chapter five summarized the research result, pointed out thelimitations and put forward suggestions for further researches on aligning our national English tests with theCEFR.This research finds out that the language proficiency level of TEM-4is B1+, which means that thetest-takers who passed TEM-4, have English listening, reading and writing competence of level B1+inCEFR. This paper is the first empirical research on the alignment of our national English test—TEM-4withthe CEFR, which can be regarded as the beginning of the follow-up studies.