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Average Joe/Jose takes a level test | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5007 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes  Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 33 of 80 23 June 2013 at 6:55pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
This reminds me of another example of how stupid it is that some exams require people to know how to write the exam instead of just knowing the tested subjects. The medical faculty where I am does organise admission exams of three subjects: biology, chemistry and physics. And they do publish three paperbacks with model questions. And apart from people using these books right (as a complement to their normal preparation and study of the three subjects, this is even writen in the preface), there are people who learn most of the questions-answers by heart. And they get into the school even though they don't understand most of the things they wrote into the test and they take place of someone else who had a few points less in the test but in reality knows much more and would make a better medicine student. I can think right away of two more such examples. So, do you really think studying specifically for the test is always such a great thing? I think common sense should be applied when those exams are being created. It seems to me, sometimes, that those creating such exams are so obsessed with their own importance and so torn away from the real life that they unnecessarily widen the gap between the test and the real skills. 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| nonneb Pentaglot Groupie SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4749 days ago 80 posts - 173 votes Speaks: English*, Ancient Greek, Latin, German, Spanish Studies: Mandarin, Hungarian, French | Message 34 of 80 23 June 2013 at 7:04pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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CEFR exams past B1/B2 test your level of education at least as much, if not more than your language ability. It's clearly designed for academics and professionals, and isn't worth much in other contexts. That's all fine, because it is explicitly designed to test these kind of skills. That makes it near worthless to me, but not a bad test. The problem I have is that people insist on using the CEFR to talk about language levels when it's really a test of professional competency in the language. I'm guilty of the same thing at times because I don't know what else to use. I'm from a small mountain in Southern Appalachia, illiteracy around 13%. Because CEFR is non-native speakers, let's talk about the children of the Guatemalan immigrants who come here to work in the chicken coops. By the time they come out of high school, their English is hardly distinguishable from the locals. But, like most everyone else here, reading and writing is a chore, their ability to give presentations and form arguments is minimal. In short, there's no way in hell they meet the B2 requirements posted by Jeffers, but they're just as near-native as any C2 speaker I've met. But their English is a huge asset to them working in the area. Most young people, local and immigrant, collect firewood and scrap metal, some become pulpwooders. The immigrant children that grew up here do business with the "natives," share their jokes, have their trust. They have more opportunities than their parents. How can I put them in the CEFR scale? I could say B1, but that doesn't explain their language ability very well. There seems to be two types of goals in language learning which are not mutually exclusive: You can strive to sound like natives, or you can strive to sound like an educated speaker of the language, or both. The CEFR tests test the last goal exclusively. Not useful for me. In Honduras, I lived in a very isolated rural area and communicated almost exclusively with campesinos from the area. Would those B2/C1/C2 skills like presentations and making arguments and understanding complex texts and writing cohesive papers have been useful there? Hardly. Would it have been helpful to have had a better command of Spanish than my B2 ability? Yes, but not in a way that had anything to do with C1 or C2 skills. I needed to speak more fluidly, understand better, and make fewer mistakes. I want a framework that lets me measure that without also measuring whether or not I'm educated. It's irrelevant to me and to my life. I somehow learned standard English, thank god, but I don't really care if I have the expressive range of a construction worker from the Ruhrgebiet in German, because that's who I talk to. Similar story in Spanish: I would love for my Spanish to be more like the people I talk to. That simple. That's what I need from that particular language. Some people aim to have professional or academic competency in their languages. That's great, and I'm glad you (and others) have the CEFR scale to judge your progress. If you have C2 in a language, there's little doubt your language level is very high. There is, however, no support for language ability by itself, without throwing those other skills/tasks in. I want a test of how well you can speak a language, assuming you're just an average person with an average education, which in my part of the world is nothing like what the CEFR expects. I've started preparing for the Spanish C1 test recently, I'm planning on taking it within the next year or so, and this has been bothering me a lot. To answer the original question, most of the native English speakers I know could probably pull off B1, but would fail higher than that. In the nearest city, which might be fairer, you're looking at about 7% illiterate, so they fail the written tests, 35% failing B2, 30% failing C1, and most everyone else failing C2. I would realistically only expect doctors/lawyers/preachers to pass the C2, plus some engineers and community college teachers. Sorry for the wall of text. I got carried away. 11 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5428 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 35 of 80 23 June 2013 at 7:28pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Really, I have a hard time believing this. Are you saying that one shouldn't have to prepare for a formal test? If you are going to write an admissions test for a university faculty, especially for the most sought-after factulties like law and medecine, do you seriously think that it should not be necessary to prepare to take the test? Well, be my guest, Tell that to all the students who takes preparatory courses and buy books on the tests. Nobody actually forces you to prepare for a test. But let's come back to the CEFR C2 exam. You know that one component of the speaking test requires that you read, present and discuss a text. Should you prepare for this by doing some exercises and working with a tutor? Or maybe just go in cold, saying. "I know my stuff. This shouldn't be a problem." Personnally, I like to prepare. I get some past sample exams and work with a tutor so that when I get to the exam there are no surprises. Isn't this how most people prepare for a test or an exam? Now, one can say that this kind of test is divorced from real life and that most people never have to summarize artiicles, give oral presentations and debate. That is certainly true, but the C2 skill set says that you have to be able to summarize and discuss complex topics. How do you demonstrate this? Currently, the protocol is the give the candidate something to read, present and debate. Is there a better way? Possibly. Does anybody have a suggestion? Maybe people could just talk about anything they wanted to talk about for an hour? Since this read, present and discuss a document protocol is what we have to work with, I would certainly suggest that candidates prepare for it, especially if you are not a university graduate student where this sort of things is a common activity. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5007 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 36 of 80 23 June 2013 at 7:52pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Well, I say that a test measuring ability in a subject or language should primarily require you to know the subject or language. Not primarily to know the test.
I don't say one should not prepare for an exam, not at all, but I believe such preparation should be mostly done by learning the real things: the content of a subject, the skills. Not by learning a preparatory textbook by heart. There is a huge difference between going through a few past exams and otherwise using your skills which are at the examined level and by doing one or two preparatory textbooks and succeed despite the fact that the common exam topics and assignments are the only thing at that level that you can do. 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6595 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 37 of 80 23 June 2013 at 8:07pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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nonneb, s_allard:
note that the presentation and debating stuff is present in the exams you're familiar with. it's not present in ALL CEFR-classified exams. I don't know if Finnish is more of an exception or not, but I think they did it right. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5224 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 38 of 80 23 June 2013 at 8:34pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Nothing to be sorry about, you just gave me the perfect excuse to open another thread. Thank you.
But isn't it interesting nonetheless? I always thought sitting native CEFR level tests would give me a wider and deeper perspective on comparative linguistics, and how every aspect of it reflects in my own native and non-native language skills. Boy was I right. Even if I could predict most of what came out of it, I would recommend the experience to every language learner out there, especially those who have problems to following these things in the abstract. How much better will you understand what's required of you and what it invoves if you experience what is required of others? Truly enlightening.
I did it, my younger brother did it, where's that guarantee of failure? If I could turn back time I'd give our younger selves some advice to get better marks: be dull and unimaginative and don't get carried away writing, that's all. (Written English is my best skill, and the one in which we incredibly got the worst results.) Given how (sadly) most candidates we met there still fitted Cavesa's description of his CAE test, though, I do think most of them would have failed if they had just walked in like we did. But that's only because such people obviously needed to "cheat by preparation". Cavesa went over it perfectly here so I won't repeat it.
Fair point, but since most C2 candidates are university students anyway, they should already know how to summarize, analyse, give presentations, etc. OTOH I can't think of a reason why anyone who would really need help with such test tasks, were they conducted in their own language, would voluntarily try and sit a C2 test in a foreign language (doing something because you are required to doesn't fit what I understand by "voluntarily"). This would render the need for *specific test preparation* (as opposed to contents preparation) a moot point. Edited by mrwarper on 23 June 2013 at 8:49pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5428 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 39 of 80 23 June 2013 at 11:41pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I don't see what the argument is about. I really don't see the point of taking CEFR exams in one's native
language. But if this brings a form of enlightment, why not? If a learner can pass the French or Spanish B2 - C2 without any preparation, then I am impressed. Of course, it says a lot about the person's level already. As I have said, nobody obliges you to prepare for a test.If you can do without, then you will save a lot of time and money. Does anybody recommend not preparing for a test because they and their younger brother passed it just like that. I'm gearing up for the Spanish C2 in November. I intend to prepare for it by taking a C2 preparatory workshop and work with a tutor who has been an examiner. Would I spend $250 dollars just for the test alone, not prepare and then hope for the best? I don't study in Spanish. I'm not used to summarizing, presenting and discussing in Spanish. Am I cheating by preparing for the exam by practicing with past tests? This idea of cheating by preparation is one of the most laughable ideas I have ever heard:. The word preparation says it all. I think of the millions of students who sit tests in this world. How many do not prepare and just wing it? I don't care what other people do. I'm going to prepare for the test to maximize my chances and grades. If I don't prepare, I'm pretty sure to fail the C2 exam. I admire all those who can just walk into a C2 exam in a foreign language and ace it; it's not me. I wonder how many people here at HTLAL feel that they could take one of the high level CEFR tests without any test preparation. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5428 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 40 of 80 24 June 2013 at 1:06am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Here in Quebec, Canada, all immigrants from non French-speaking countries who want to practice a regulated
profession (medecine. law, engineering, nursing, accountring, etc.) must past a French proficiency exam administered by the Office québécois de la langue française. If you don't pass the test, you cannot practice your profession. So, it's very important. The test lasts two hours. I'm not sure what the current cost is, probably around $100. The important thing to note is that if you fail, you must wait three months before taking the test again. Should one "cheat" by preparing for the test? Consider the fact that a large number of people fail the first time and multiple times. An accountant friend of mine passed only on the fifth attempt. I heard of one person who took the test seven times. I know one Chinese woman who was never able to pass the test. Some people even leave Quebec because they are unable to practice their profession because of these tests. I think that anybody who doesn't prepare for this test is plain dumb. The people who think that their French is "pretty good" usually get a big shock. But why go through all this? There is plenty of study material available on the Internet. The kind of questions are well known. So why not spend some money on private tutoring and test preparation in order to pass the test the first time around? I can't understand how someone can wait to fail four times and wait 12 months before taking some kind of corrective action. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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