A Study On The Scale Of SCOEC For Chinese Middle School Students

Researches on language proficiency scales(LPSs) abroad are abundant with a long history. However, most researches in China are only about the methods and procedures of developing foreign language proficiency scales or their advantages and disadvantages. Besides, researches concerned with strategies in oral English communication take the investigation and analysis of strategy application as their focus. There are few researchers who have explored strategic competence in oral English communication from the perspective of language proficiency scales. Since 2014, Chinese Ministry of Education has been devoting itself to constructing the China Standards of English. Under such background comes out this thesis whose research subject is Chinese middle school students and whose research purpose is to explore how to build an SCOEC for Chinese middle school students.Theoretically based on Bachman’s Communicative Language Ability and Constructive View of Information Ability, this thesis tries to deal with the following two questions: 1) What are the dimensions of the scale of SCOEC for Chinese middle school students? 2) What are the levels of the scale of SCOEC for Chinese middle school students? In order to find answers to the above two questions, we adopt qualitative and quantitative methods in this thesis and take the following research procedures: collecting and editing descriptors, classifying and scaling descriptors. Literature research is adopted in descriptor collection. During the research, 295 descriptors are collected from LPSs, curriculum standards and test syllabuses, and edited by adopting methods, such as translating, rewriting, splitting, integrating and self-compiling and so on according to the five principles of positiveness, definiteness, clarity, brevity, independence before writing them in the form of “can do”statements. Finally, we have 200 descriptors after editing. Descriptor classification is based on Cognitive Processing Ability of Discourse Information and it takes CEFR as a reference. In the end, descriptors are classified into four dimensions. Quantitative method is adopted in descriptor scaling. Thirty experienced teachers have been invited to judge the difficulty level of descriptors and the results have been analyzed by MFRM to set the final levels for the descriptors.Research results are as follows: 1) There are four dimensions of SCOEC scale for Chinese middle school students: planning, execution, evaluation and repair. 2) The SCOEC scale for Chinese middle school students is graded into three levels: low, intermediate and advanced according to statistical analysis of Facets. The results also show that building the descriptor pool is the basis of constructing SCOEC scale for Chinese middle school students. We should ensure the comprehensiveness, representativeness and authoritativeness of those descriptors. Also, the descriptors should be positive, definite, clear, brief and independent. Classification and scaling of descriptors are key steps to construct the scale. Classification should be theoretically-based and scaling should be supported by qualitative and quantitative data, so as to ensure the validity of the scale. Building a sub-scale is a vital and critical step for the construction of China Standards of English, which can provide valuable guidance for English teaching, learning and assessing. It is expected that this thesis can provide certain guidance for the teaching, learning and assessment of oral English communicative strategy, offer reference for the construction of China Standards of English.