On January 20, 2016, the conference on China Standards of English (CSE) Construction and Research was successfully held at GDUFS hosted by Academic Research Division. This project is the Key Project of Philosophy and Social Sciences Research supported by Ministry of Education. Professor LIU Jianda, Director of the center is the PI of the project. Experts and scholars from several colleges and universities on language teaching and assessment participated in the conference. Professor ZHONG Weihe, President of Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, also attended the conference.
Professor LIU Jianda presented the research design and the plan for the project. As one of the major tasks of the assessment system of foreign language proficiency, CSE serves as the common foundation for English teaching and assessment reform. In September, 2014, the State Council promulgated The implementation opinions of the State Council on deepening the reform ofexamination and enrollment system, clearly putting forward the urge to strengthen the “construction of the assessment system of foreign language proficiency”, which is the first time from the national level to propose specific requirements on foreign language teaching and assessment reform. Under this context, a set of language proficiency standards and assessment framework covering all stages of education has to be established to provide different roads and opportunities for students’ growth and to recognize learning outcomes of all types and all levels.
CSE describes what Chinese learners and users of English can do with the target language. It defines language proficiency levels comprehensively by specific, accurate and easy-to-understand descriptors in terms of language communicative functions and language skills. It is one of the fundamental strategies to promote English learning, teaching and assessment in China.
Experts provided comments and suggestions on CSE’s level setting, use of academic terms, relationship between language teaching and assessment and the connection between CSE and teaching curriculums, etc.
