The national English proficiency test will be launched before 2020 and divided into nine grades.

　　(Reporter Liu Xu) The official WeChat of the Ministry of Education reported yesterday that the main body of the China English Proficiency Scale has been developed, and the National English Proficiency Test is planned to be gradually launched before 2020. This means that a unified English assessment system will be established in China in the future. The launch of the "National Edition" English Proficiency Test Plan is conducive to solving the problems of different English test standards and incoherent teaching objectives at various stages, realizing the communication and mutual recognition of various learning achievements, reducing repeated exams, and meeting various needs such as teaching evaluation, further studies, and employment.

　　It is understood that there are about 300 million English learners in China, but there is often a lack of coherence in various English syllabuses and uniform standards for various exams. People need to cope with a wide variety of English exams, so it is necessary to develop a unified English grade scale and corresponding grade exams.

　　Lin Huiqing, Vice Minister of Education, recently revealed at the Second International Symposium on Language Testing and Evaluation that the main body of the China English Proficiency Scale has been developed and is expected to be officially released in 2017. This is the first competency standard covering English teaching, learning and assessment at all stages of education in China. It will help to solve the problems of different English test standards, separation of teaching and testing objectives, and incoherent teaching objectives at all stages, and realize "one-stop" English teaching and mutual recognition of various learning achievements. In addition to describing listening, speaking, reading and writing skills, China English Proficiency Scale constructs a "pragmatic competence" scale, which also includes translation and interpretation competence scales, which are rare in foreign language proficiency scales, filling the gaps in domestic and foreign language proficiency scales.

　　Professor Liu Jianda, vice president of Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, introduced that the newly-developed rating scale will be divided into nine grades. Among them, Grade 1 and Grade 2 roughly correspond to the primary school level, Grade 3 corresponds to junior high school, Grade 4 corresponds to senior high school, Grade 5 and Grade 6 corresponds to universities, Grade 7 corresponds to English majors, and Grade 8 and Grade 9 correspond to high-end foreign language talents. In addition, this level of examination standard can also be used for multiple purposes, which reduces repeated examinations and can meet various needs such as teaching evaluation, further studies and employment.

　　The newly launched National English Proficiency Test will be based on the China English Proficiency Test Scale, and the tests at all levels will be coherent and orderly. On the basis of inheriting the advantages of various English tests in China, the relevant expert teams have designed a graded and classified proficiency test, which can meet the different needs of different educational stages and meet the needs of educational modernization.

　　The Beijing Youth Daily reporter also learned that 26 provinces used English test papers with unified national propositions in this year’s college entrance examination, and the reform of the test content has been deepened, which has enhanced its foundation, comprehensiveness, application and innovation. In 2014, the State Council made it clear in "Implementation Opinions on Deepening the Reform of Examination Enrollment System" that the goal of China’s foreign language proficiency assessment system is to promote the reform of examination content and form on the basis of establishing national foreign language assessment standards, and realize the connection or integration between the national English proficiency test and the existing foreign language tests.