Abstract
This chapter is composed of two parts. The first part introduces the conceptualization, development and validation of the China’s Standards of English language ability (CSE), with a focus on the sub-scales of English writing in the Chinese EFL context. Based on the Communicative Language Ability model (Bachman, Fundamental considerations in language testing. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1990; Bachman and Palmer, Language testing in practice: designing and developing useful language tests. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1996), the construct of writing ability in the CSE integrates organizational knowledge, pragmatic knowledge, text typology knowledge and writing strategies. As such, the sub-scales include sets of “can-do” statements that describe what English learners at different levels can do. In addition, how the writing sub-scales were validated is also briefly introduced in this part. The second part is concerned with the praxes of how the writing sub-scales can be applied to assessments of English writing in the Chinese EFL context. On the one hand, the self-assessment descriptors can be localized to enrich the feedback of writing tests to test takers. On the other hand, the writing sub-scales can also have a key role to play in formative assessment, such as peer assessment. Examples and tentative guidelines of such applications are provided in this chapter for better illustration.
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Appendix: An Example of Self Rating Descriptors
Appendix: An Example of Self Rating Descriptors
Descriptors
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1. My writing was highly related to the given topic. | |||
2. In my writing, punctuation was used correctly. | |||
3. In my writing, tenses were used correctly. | |||
4. In my writing, different word(s) of similar meanings were used interchangeably to achieve lexical variety. | |||
5. In my writing, topic sentences were written for different paragraphs. | |||
6. In my writing, figures of speech were used for expressiveness. | |||
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Pan, M. (2022). The Writing Sub-scales of the China’s Standards of English Language Ability: Construction and Application in Writing Assessments in China. In: Hamp-Lyons, L., Jin, Y. (eds) Assessing the English Language Writing of Chinese Learners of English. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-92762-2_7
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