A Comparative Study Of European, American, Australian And Chinese Language Proficiency Scales

Under the global background of economic globalization and multiculturalism,western countries especially Europe, North America and Australia pay much moreattention to foreign language education, due to which governments established newstandards after entering the new century. On the contrary, research on languageproficiency standards in China starts relatively late. The Office of Chinese LanguageCouncil International in2007launched authoritative Chinese proficiency standards. Inthis paper, four representatively well-structured foreign language proficiency standardsare introduced and analyzed with details: Common European Framework of Referencefor Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment (CEFR); American Council for theTeaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL); International Second Language ProficiencyRatings (ISLPR); Chinese Language Proficiency Scales for Speakers of OtherLanguages (the Scales) for the purpose of providing an overall outlook of currentlanguage proficiency standards and digging deep into the newest values of foreignlanguage education so as to explore the tendency of language proficiency stand ardsconstruction to further enrich and develop Chinese language proficiency standards.Through detailed analysis and comparison, this paper points out the similaritiesand differences among the four standards in terms of language proficiency,communicative competence, division of communicative competence, cultivationobjectives, and cultivation measures,etc. It finds the communicative language abilitymode, on which the description of language competence is based, contributes to thetheoretical foundation of the four scales. They all highlight the importance ofcommunicative competence. In addition, based on the analysis and comparison, thispaper puts forward some practical suggestions and advice for the future developmentof Chinese language proficiency standards from the aspects of description ofclassification of task-oriented communicative language ability in Chinese, declarativeknowledge, strategic competence, and affective factors. For instance, in terms ofdeclarative knowledge, the description of classification of declarative knowledge couldbe included in Chinese language proficiency standards. Finally, this paper proposessuggestions on lifelong Chinese learning. In accordance with the comparison andanalysis, this paper has carried out a thorough analysis to the world representativelanguage proficiency standards, providing feasible suggestions for the futuredevelopment and improvement of Chinese proficiency standards.