American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages Chinese Reading Proficiency Guidelines: Verifying the Difficulty Hierarchy

• In Event: Sheraton Roundtable Session Sixteen
  In Roundtable Session: Oracy, Reading, and Pronunciation Proficiencies (Table 11)

Abstract

The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) Proficiency Guidelines have been guiding foreign language teaching, testing, and textbook development. However, the guidelines have been criticized because the descriptors were not scaled empirically. This study aimed to verify the difficulty hierarchy posited by the ACTFL Chinese Proficiency Guidelines-Reading. Seventeen ACTFL descriptors were compiled as a Likert-scale questionnaire. Ninety-five experienced Chinese language teachers evaluated 179 second language (L2) Chinese learners’ reading proficiency by using this instrument. Rasch analysis and ANOVA test results supported the difficulty hierarchy suggested by the ACTFL Guidelines. Specifically, the mean difficulty of descriptors on three levels was significantly different. The difficulty of individual descriptors ascended from Intermediate, Advanced, to Superior level, with very few exceptions.

Authors

• Jia Lin, Howard University
  Presenting Author

• Xiangdong Gu, Chongqing University
  Presenting Author

• Ting Huang, College of William & Mary
  Presenting Author