Basic principles of testing and assessing the language skills based on cefr

The Value of Language Testing

Language testing is a valuable tool both in language-learning contexts and in professional ones. Language tests can define where a student is in their current knowledge and reveal the path forward to greater proficiency. Professionals can use language testing to determine whether their skill set meets the criteria of a job or whether they need further training. At the same time, employers can certify their employees’ and new hires’ levels of language proficiency and ensure that they are able to successfully complete the tasks required of them without creating risk for the organization.
Language is complex and assessing it can be a complicated endeavor. Thankfully, experts have created tests that effectively assess a person's language skills. As an instructor, employer, student, or professional, all you have to do is take advantage of these tests to get a useful measure of language proficiency.


2.2. Basic principles of testing and assessing the language skills based on CEFR
The Cambridge English Scale is aligned to the CEFR, and each of our exams covers a particular section of the scale. This means that a particular score on the Cambridge English Scale represents the same level of language proficiency, no matter which exam is taken. For example, scores between 180 and 199 cover CEFR Level C1. Candidates at the lowest end of C1 would receive a score of 180. They would achieve this score whether they took Cambridge English: First, Advancedor Proficiency. The criteria for each level are the same across all our exams. For example, the criteria required to meet CEFR Level B2 are identical for both Cambridge English: First and Cambridge English: Advanced.
Writing and Speaking components are marked by trained, standardised examiners according to a set of analytic scales, covering a range of assessment criteria. The assessment criteria are linked to the CEFR and form an overlapping ‘ladder’. Marks are awarded according to the assessment criteria, and are combined to provide the total mark for the component. Because both the assessment criteria and the Cambridge English Scale are linked to the CEFR, the Cambridge English Scale score for the component can be determined from this total mark. This process ensures that candidates who demonstrate the same level of ability (no matter which exam is taken) are awarded the same Cambridge English Scale score. For example: Two candidates at low CEFR Level B2 sit our exams – one sits Cambridge English: First, the other Cambridge English: Advanced. They both just meet the criteria for Level B2 in the Writing paper and are awarded marks for the component accordingly. Although the raw marks across the two tests are different, the candidates are both awarded a scale score of 160 for the Writing component, as they have demonstrated the same level of ability.
Reading, Listening and Use of English components contain a series of items which are marked as either correct or incorrect. Cambridge English uses Rasch analysis to ensure a consistent standard is applied in the grading of objectively marked components, accounting for differences in difficulty between them. This is achieved by calibrating the difficulty of all the items in a given test onto the same scale. This calibration allow us to determine the raw marks for each specific test paper that represent a predetermined level of ability – the standard needed to achieve a particular grade or level. Furthermore, the scales used for each test are linked to adjacent levels, meaning that these standards can be compared and linked across levels. By a process of standards setting, these defined ability levels are linked to CEFR thresholds, meaning that the same process of mapping can take place as with the Writing and Speaking components. The same score on two different exams represents the same standard of achievement. However, it is important to note that a higher-level exam covers a broader construct (the range of cognitive processes and functions covered by the exam). This means that the candidate for the higher-level exam has demonstrated the same level of performance on the broader construct, meaning that we can be more confident in the candidate’s ability to perform those higher-level cognitive processes and functions.
The diagram below shows how IELTS band scores map to the Cambridge English Scale

Perhaps the most important benefit of using the CEFR as a teacher is that it gives you a much clearer picture of what learners at a given level are capable of. Through your own teaching experience, you will already have a general idea of how Basic learners differ from Independent or Proficient ones – that is, beginners as opposed to intermediate or advanced students. However, it is less easy to pinpoint all the differences between, say, an A2 learner and a B1 learner, and to fully understand what is involved in getting your students from one CEFR level to the next.

You can use the CEFR to help you shape your teaching syllabus and to inform your selection of textbooks and other classroom materials. The CEFR also provides you with a ready-made set of objectives for your class. These will help you to prepare for end-of-year assessment, whether this is internal or leading to an external qualification. Many international examination boards use the CEFR to define the scope of what they are testing at each level Cambridge English Language Assessment does this and below is a table showing how its examinations are linked to the CEFR:

Additionally, as it can be used as a framework for the characterization of the scope of quizzes and exams, and also on account of adjusting the principles for the acquisition of instructional goals in line with the assessment of the language skills as well as, for identifying the degree of adequacy in present quizzes and exams, in this way allowing comparisons to be made along various methods of qualifications. Noticeably, utilizing the CEFR appropriately necessitates the employers to comprehend that the CEFR is implied to help administers to define and assign proficiency levels for languages to make sure that qualifications of associate nations are equivalent. The levels have been widely used by language testing organizations namely, Cambridge English Language Assessment, British Council and Educational Testing Service for international English language tests involving IELTS, Cambridge Exams and TOEFL, which provides a perfect advantage to assess the learners’ skills and language proficiency levels through the use of CEFR. Several years after its primary publication, the CEFR has substantially changed language testing in Europe and its’ six levels have been commonly acknowledged by all stakeholders, ranging from policy makers to applicants. To assess the various features of language adequacy, the CEFR introduces 34 scales for reading, listening, writing and speaking, that consists both general language competencies and communicative competencies for a variety of areas to characterize the six levels of language proficiency. The CEFR defines the EFL proficiency as the capacity to use the language through five tasks namely, reading, listening, writing, spoken production and spoken interaction at six levels: A1 and A2 for elementary users, B1 and B2 for intermediate users and C1 and C2 for advanced users, with identifiers that characterize what students can do in the EFL process at each language proficiency level. The key scope of CEFR defines the “the background of language use, the level of language proficiency, learner acquisition, knowledge, and skills that the language user or learner need to develop”. The reference scales characterizes the cultural context in which each language is based and describes various levels of the information and dominance of the language on account of deciding about the learners’ progress. It supplies materials and a great deal of resources and also general samples¹⁰. The principles of the CEFR can be ranged as follows: 1. The CEFR is completely expressive; neither authoritarian nor standard, 2. The CEFR is language impartial; it requires to be implemented and performed conveniently with respect to each particular language, 3. The CEFR is frame of reference impartial; it requires to be practical and performed with respect to each particular instructional circumstances in line with the requirements and primacies particular to that circumstances, 4. The CEFR aims to be receptive, therein no characteristics of language knowledge, abilities and usage are intentionally neglected, 5. The CEFR proposes a mutual language and provides source as a foundation for stakeholders to think over and critically examine their actual implementation and to enable them to preferable embed their attempts as mutually, 6. The usage of the CEFR should subscribe to advanced clearness of techniques and methods increased standard of circumstances and equivalence of outcomes, 7. The usage of the CEFR should subscribe to introduction of the fundamental instructional values for which the Council of Europe leans, like communal subsumption, intercommunal conversation, dynamic democratic national status, language heterogeneity, multilingualism, learner autonomy and constant learning. The purpose of the Committee of Ministers to define these criterias was to make sure that the CEFR was practiced in a logical, practical and dependable way. Numerous countries around the world have either adapted or adopted the CEFR as a foundation for forming English language teaching and learning standards. The CEFR is commonly used in organizing language proficiency necessities, especially for international learners seeking attainment to university lectures taught in English. Significantly, the CEFR has had a great influence on university entrance policies and tests across Europe. Several researches agree that the well-known feature of CEFR is that CEFR has introduced positive effect on assessment, curriculum development and educational process. As it is referred by Lowiea, Hainesa and Jansmaa “the advantage in using the CEFR is that it provides a single common structure upon which we can base our interpretations of the linguistic performance of students”.