Rethinking the use of CEFR in Taiwan: What’s next?
Jessica Wu
The CEFR has been ‘borrowed’ by the Ministry of Education in Taiwan since 2005, aiming to establish a common yardstick against which learners’ English proficiency can be measured. Having been mandated in Taiwan for a decade, the CEFR has had several positive impacts as well as difficulties and problems in its application in the local education context (Chang, 2012; Wu, 2012). Therefore, it is necessary to rethink the use of the CEFR in Taiwan.
The paper suggests that the CEFR has been overtly used in testing and assessment in Taiwan, but its significance in promoting transparency and coherence in language teaching and empowering autonomous learning has been overlooked. The paper argues that the current asymmetric application of the CEFR in assessment should be improved to achieve better balance between learning and assessment.
While reflecting on our current use of the CEFR, a review of practices in similar EFL contexts may offer us insights. Recognizing that the CEFR is limited in its ability to take local distinctive features into consideration (e.g., cultural, economic, social, and political factors), China and Japan have decided to follow different paths (Negishi, 2014; Yan et al, 2014). The CEFR-J is an adapted version of the CEFR, which takes the Japanese context into consideration. In contrast, the Common Chinese Framework of Reference (CCEFR), an ongoing project, is a new language framework specific to the Chinese context. After discussing the feasibility of each practice for Taiwan, the paper concludes by offering a proposal with regard to how the CEFR or a language framework could be better applied in Taiwan.
References:
Cheung, H. (2012). Academic perspectives from Taiwan. In M. Byram and L. Parmenter (Eds.), The Common European Framework of Reference: The Globalisation of Language Education Policy, 229-235.
Negishi, M. (2014). The Development of the CEFR-J. The 5thALTE International Conference.
Wu, J. (2012). Policy perspectives from Taiwan. In M. Byram and L. Parmenter (Eds.), The Common European Framework of Reference: The Globalisation of Language Education Policy, 218-228.
Yan, J. et al. (2014). Developing the Common Chinese Framework of Reference for Languages: Challenges at Macro and Micropolitical Levels. The 36th Language Testing and Research Colloquium.
The above article can be found in The Way of Language (No 5, 2015) published by LTTC.
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