206 / 2018-04-09 18:01:08

Read and Know, Reason, Question and Create—The "FLTRP Cup" National English Reading Contest in Enriching Learning and Empowering Teaching

reading, standard, assessment,,college

全体主题 > Standards in developing language assessments

The nature of reading and the development of reading ability have been focuses in language assessments. Differing from the current assessments of all kinds which are mostly integrated of multiple language skills, the "FLTRP Cup" National English Reading Contest is an all-rounded assessment of the English reading ability and it sets a standard in developing an assessment to fully test students' reading capability. The current research explains the rationale and design of the Reading Contest, and introduces a detailed report of Chinese college students' reading ability by data analyses of the 2017 Contest.

Initiated in 2015, the Contest aims to facilitate learning and teaching of English. It is now one of the most influential assessments of English reading in China and currently the only English Reading Contest for Chinese college students. It emphasizes contextual reading through texts of multiple topics and genres, it indicates all-rounded reading capability through testing items of all sorts, and it promotes target language reading through the annual set books for the Contest.

The Contest consists of four parts: Read and Know (objective questions on short texts), Read and Reason (objective questions on logical reasoning and texts of different subjects and types), Read and Question (objective questions on various passages of one theme), Read and Create (a 300 words essay in reply to the questions of a cited text). Five subskills of reading are tested: main points and significant information; specific ideas and important details; purpose and attitude; background information, logical reasoning and appropriate inferences; literary styles and text organizations. Various testing items are employed based on a detailed analysis of both domestic and international English reading tests, including but not limited to CET 4&6, TEM 4&8, IELTS, MSE, PTE, TOEFL, GRE and DELNA.

The current research takes as example the testing results of the 9 contests in 2017: the Preliminary Contest (4 contests, approximately 80,000 contestants), the Provincial Final of 30 provinces (4 contests, approximately 5,000 contestants) and the National Final (1 contest, 90 contestants). All data are analyzed using both CTT and IRT, and the data analyses is interpreted, answering the following questions:
1. How should we design a reading test to fully assess students' reading capability?
2. What are the strengths and weaknesses in English reading of Chinese college students?
3. What can we indicate to facilitate the learning and teaching of English reading and the English language for college students and teachers?