Summary:

According to local media reports, work on developing China’s new unified national standards for English proficiency is close to completion. Standards have been drawn up, and the Ministry of Education (MoE) is in the process of benchmarking these standards against existing international tests such as IELTS.

As discussed on SIEM News in November 2016, the new standards are intended to create a unified way of comparing Chinese students’ English language ability. A large number of English language tests are currently offered in the country, including the College English Test for university students, the Public English Test System used by the National Education Examinations Authority (NEEA), the English language component of the Gaokao university entrance examination and many others. However, these tests have low international recognition and it is hard to compare learners’ scores on different tests.

According to previous announcements, the new standards will cover listening, speaking, reading and writing as well as “application capability”, aiming to promote the learners' practical language use, cultural awareness and intercultural communication. The MoE hopes that the new standards will help to create a standard measure of English ability that will be recognised both inside and outside China.

Analysis by Kevin Prest

This development is roughly in line with the originally announced timeline for the new standards, which called for the first draft of the standards to be released by the end of 2017. The MoE’s goal is for implementation of the new standards to start by 2020.

From the perspective of UK institutions, a well-developed measure of English proficiency will make it easier to assess the capabilities of potential Chinese students. It could play a particularly important role in recruitment to transnational education programmes operating within China, which sometimes find it harder to require IELTS scores or other international standardised tests. The value and reliability of the new standards will become clearer over the next few years as more information is released.

Sources

1. Xinhua article on recent progress: http://www.xinhuanet.com/2017-12/27/c_1122175488.htm (in Chinese)

2. Previous SIEM News article on the new standards: https://education-services.britishcouncil.org/news/market-news/china-will-introduce-unified-national-english-proficiency-examinations-2020