Abstract
In language assessment, the assessors often need to judge whether certain language forms produced by students are correct or acceptable. This seemingly easy procedure may be at stake in situations where the de jure language standard is unspecified. Drawing upon the challenges we encountered in developing proficiency descriptors for Chinese language (CL) in Singapore, this study attempts to examine the impact and implications of lacking an officially endorsed standard and norm for CL education and assessment. To resolve the dilemmas in pedagogy and assessment, we suggest that the value of the indigenized CL variety be recognized and more focus be put on communicative competency rather than language forms. Understanding language tests and their effects involves understanding some of the central issues and processes of the whole society, and thus, decision makers have to be well versed in sociolinguistics and be able to elaborate on the consequences of tests in broader sociopolitical settings.
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Notes
- 1.
For the differences between speaking and spoken interaction and between writing and written interaction, please see Zhu (2014).
- 2.
The full title of the project was “Development of the Proficiency Descriptors Framework of the Teaching, Learning and Assessment of Mother Tongue Languages in Singapore.” The Chinese part was the prototype for the other two MTLs, i.e., Malay and Tamil languages.
- 3.
This selection criterion was set up with a purpose to screen out students with extremely high or extremely low CL proficiencies so that the participants represented the normal and average level of CL speaking for each stage. This selection was mainly done by the CL teachers in the participating schools according to their prolonged observation to the students’ daily performance in CL speaking. In addition, the research team also sifted out obviously unsuitable participants during the tasks.
- 4.
Whether there are significant differences between Singaporean Huayu and other varieties, particularly Taiwan Guoyu, is a complicated issue. Admittedly, many of the so-called Singapore-specific or unique linguistic features that are noted by researchers are also squarely shared by Taiwan Guoyu. The main reason for the high-level similarities between Singaporean Huayu and Taiwan Guoyu might be due to the fact that the bulk of the population in both polities are originally native speakers of Hokkien, a Southern Chinese dialect that exerts considerable influence on Mandarin. Other reasons may include the strong presence of Taiwan Guoyu speakers in local media before the 1980s (Kuo 1985, pp. 115, 131) and the popularity in Singapore of TV drama series and recreational programmes produced in Taiwan. A detailed discussion on how and why Taiwan Guoyu and Singapore Huayu share a lot of similarities would take us too far afield from the focus of this chapter. Interested readers may refer to Guo (2002), Li (2004) and Khoo (2012).
- 5.
In a creole continuum, acrolect is the variety that approximates most closely the standard variety of a major international language, as the English spoken in Guyana or Jamaica; basilect is the variety that is most distinct from the acrolect; and mesolect is any variety that is intermediate between the basilect and the acrolect.
- 6.
This refers mainly to inflection-like suffixes in Chinese. There are derivation-like suffixes in Chinese that are not pronounced in neutral tone, such as 者 zhe and 家 jia.
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The authors wish to express their appreciation for the comments from the anonymous reviewers on an earlier draft of this article. All errors and omissions in this version are, of course, our own.
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Shang, G., Zhao, S. (2017). What Standard and Whose Standard: Issues in the Development of Chinese Proficiency Descriptors in Singapore. In: Zhang, D., Lin, CH. (eds) Chinese as a Second Language Assessment. Chinese Language Learning Sciences. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-4089-4_8
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