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The Power of General English Proficiency Test on Taiwanese Society and Its Tertiary English Education

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Abstract

Reacting to the government’s policies to increase Taiwanese university students’ international competitiveness by raising their English proficiency, universities in Taiwan have set up a graduation requirement of English proficiency in recent years. This chapter reports on how the implementation of the English graduation requirement has affected the university students and the English curriculum. The requirement accepts scores from various English proficiency tests as proof of proficiency, instead of one particular test. Thus, the findings of this study have implications as to what determines the strongest washback that any language test can have in the context of multiple tests existing and competing for influence.

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© 2016 Shwu-Wen Lin

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Lin, SW. (2016). The Power of General English Proficiency Test on Taiwanese Society and Its Tertiary English Education. In: Yu, G., Jin, Y. (eds) Assessing Chinese Learners of English. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137449788_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137449788_13

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-349-55397-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-44978-8

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

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