Aligning Chinese Year3 English Majors' Language Proficiency With The Common European Framework Of Reference (CEFR)

The thesis aims to align the Chinese Year 3 English majors' English proficiency with the CEFR(Common European Framework of Reference)level.Moreover,the weakness and strength of the Chinese Year 3 English majors' proficiency and the reason of them are also detected.The correlation between student self-assessment and teacher assessment is investigated.The student's and teacher's data are collected through questionnaires which is composed of the descriptors of B1+,B2,B2+ and C1 levels in the CEFR,which are selected according to analysis of the national Teaching syllabus for English major and the results of former study.The Rasch analysis is employed in the process of data analysis.The logits of each descriptor and logits of students' proficiency are estimated.To investigate the Year 3 English majors' proficiency and their weakness and strength,t-tests are carried out between corresponding descriptors and students' ability.The logits of the descriptors are compared with the appropriate item difficulty(mean+1SD).The descriptors which are extreme difficult and easy for the students are analyzed with reference to the data of the interview in order to dig the reason of students strength and weakness,which are beneficial for teaching and studying.The correlation between teacher assessment and student self-assessment is calculated by Pearson correlation.The study finds out that the Year 3 English majors' English proficiency can be situated at B2 level in general basically.However the Year 3 English majors' English proficiency develops unevenly,which indicates that in teaching different aspects should be treated differently.The students' ability in reading,spoken interaction,spoken production and strategies has achieved B2 level,listening which has not reached B2 level is the weakness of these students,while the students excel inwriting,which has achieved C1 level.Through analysis of the descriptors,the study finds that students are poor in listening for the reason of lacking of vocabulary,background knowledge,speed,listening anxiety etc.This result is corresponded with the results of many studies on listening.The students' speaking ability is not sufficient because of vocabulary,anxiety,cognitive skill and ineffective use of strategies.All these reasons reflecting the deficiency in teaching.The extremely easy descriptors are normally the emphasis of our classroom teaching,while parts of extremely difficult descriptors are gap of teaching.This indicates the necessity of broadening the range of teaching content.The teacher assessment and student self-assessment are not significantly correlated,which also reflects in teacher's interview.This will give some illuminations in the teacher arrangement of English major and how to increase the familiarity of teachers with the student's individual difference and ability is the problem to solve,which will greatly facilitate teaching and studying.The results of the study will be of great help in English teaching and keep the Chinese English assessment in line with the international standard.