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Average Joe/Jose takes a level test | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5428 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 9 of 80 22 June 2013 at 3:29am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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What exactly is the point of que OP? What is an average Joe? I think the idea behind the question is that C2 is akin
to native-level proficiency. Therefore all natives must be at the C2 level. How could natives fail a C2 or a C1 exam? The reasoning here is wrong. Let's remember what the CEFR is designed to do. It is not to be used to measure native proficiency of any sort. It is designed to measure foreign language proficiency for the specific purpose of facilitating academic (the Erasmus program) and professional mobility among the EU nations. A professional board in a EU country requires that all immigrant candidates have a certain CEFR level. The assumption is that the native members of the profession have that minimal level. And they probably do. A university facutly requires that students from other EU countries have a certain CEFR level in order to be admitted. Again, here the assumpption is that native students have that minimum level. There'a no question of whether an average Joe off the streets can pass these exams. That so-called average Joe probably could not. If you really want to compare, you have to compare our CEFR candidates with equivalent candidates in terms of education, age and test preparation. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5128 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 10 of 80 22 June 2013 at 3:43am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Absolutely
On the other hand, some European universities only require passing a B2 to gain entrance. I know that I would have a pretty hard time of it in a Turkish university with only a B2 certificate, maybe even a C1. But I also look at Turkish as quite different than any other language I've studied, since there's really no frame of reference for me to fall back on, other than the occasional French or Italian loanword. R. == Edited by hrhenry on 22 June 2013 at 4:02am 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 11 of 80 22 June 2013 at 5:27am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I think there is a different idea behind the question. Noone is questioning whether native speaker Joe is trully at the level of a native speaker, of course, and noone is trying to say they are more native-like than some natives. It is rather a question about the nature of the exams and actually quite a fresh point of view in my opinion. We all know that every scale and every exam does have some bugs, and the CEFR with all the certificates is not an exception. I think enquiring how much is the exam content and format relevant to the real life is a good think. And the more that there trully are huge gaps in between those two. It is the more valid subject as we DO remember the point of the CEFR that you have mentioned. So behind the OP's question, I wouldn't look for a stupid attempt to measure native proficiency of less intelligent native speakers and to get our egos high at their expense. I can see an honest interest in how much does the exam really tell about the learner and his or her skills. The more that I think most CEFR exams are much better tailored to the educational purposes than the professional ones in my opinion. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| outcast Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member China Joined 4947 days ago 869 posts - 1364 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English*, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Mandarin Studies: Korean | Message 12 of 80 22 June 2013 at 6:12am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I should have perhaps elucidated my underlying train of thought. It was not to mock
native "average joe" in any way, on the contrary. My thinking is (though not expressed overtly), that many of us here have these dreams of passing a C2 exam and somehow that will make us "near native" in fluency. When the evidence given here by multiple posters from societies all over the world strongly hints at the fact that a C2 exam is Academia to the power of pi, and that one can be native and a productive citizen without the ability to pass it. 5 persons have 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 13 of 80 22 June 2013 at 1:45pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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OK, I'm no Average Joe, but if you excuse my lack of humility in saying so and my thus being off-target I'll eventually get there...
I always wanted to say: if you think my English C2 is worth something, then I can assure you that my native Spanish would be C4 or C6 if those levels existed. I just sat through a sample C2 Spanish test (find it at Instituto Cervantes) to actually check, in the exact same conditions that I sat my English test: no prior preparation —unless checking out a couple of sample tests counts as 'preparation'—, no anything – simply sit the test. My results were about the same I got for English: passed with flying colours (which was to be expected), but not perfect scores and --here comes the surprise-- with a monumental indignation regarding the exact same points I complained about when I sat my English test (which was kind of a relief for me). If any of you are interested, I think I could open a separate thread with my reflections on these tests. So, back on track -- the C2 tests I've tried so far are somewhat hard even for non-average Joes because, for one, some comprehension tasks are artificially hard, i.e. you can't easily make sense out of vague blabbering that doesn't make much sense to start with. Then there are other tasks (f.ex. inserting paragraphs in gaps in a text, in the 'appropriate' order to form a coherent whole) which do not rely on special linguistic skills beyond the basics -- it's all about using logic and see that pronouns should be used only after items become known, etc. Now if you ask me, that's all more cognitively- than purely linguistically demanding. Given that in today's comfortable existence most people are hardly ever pressed to develop their cognitive abilities to their full potential (at least in the self-complacent West) I can see how modern Average Joes most likely don't (f.e. by not receiving higher education), and thus easily fall under that cognitive threshold, being doomed to fail C2 tests. However, such Average Joes do develop their native linguistic abilities to whatever life requires from them, and are, in many cases, able to surpass learners that, even if more cognitively endowed than them, lack in other fronts (f.e. vocabulary breadth). My conclusions? Most modern day Average Joes will fail current C2 tests, but they will do so for all the wrong reasons -- these tests are transvestites pretending to test linguistic abilities alone, when they do much more and much less at the same time. But I think that's another story that deserves a thread of its own. Edit: and n people posted while I was away. The flaws in the whole test/level system can be traced to the CEF itself (Longman PDF print).
Even what hardly makes sense or follows any logic, like most guests blabbering on in a radio talk-show? Come on...
Heavily cognitive, loosely linguistic.
And if you're not particularly quick-witted? You'll most likely not qualify as C2. Etc., etc. Edited by mrwarper on 22 June 2013 at 2:06pm 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cogs Newbie Ireland Joined 4172 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 14 of 80 22 June 2013 at 3:23pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Out of curiosity, I just did the sample test on the Cambridge website.
It only gives an approximate score but it'll have to do for the moment. Based on my score I am recommended to take the Cambridge Proficiency Exam (CPE) which is the C2 exam afaik. I think I could pass a proper C2 exam without preparation because I have studied English at university and I am familiar with languages in general. I'm not sure if every native speaker could though and that is not to suggest that I am in any way more advanced than them; rather I think the exams are academically oriented and probably favour those with a background in the humanities. Edited by Cogs on 22 June 2013 at 5:11pm 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 15 of 80 22 June 2013 at 4:32pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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As I said in my previous post, the CEFR system was not designed to measure native language proficiency. In fact
the measurement of native poficiency is a big can of worms. All of us here have taken exams on our native language in school. What do they measure? It is always how well we know normative grammar, can read and spell. There are no tests of pronunciation or oral proficiency. That is taken for granted. All native-language testing is biased towards the written language and with a literary component because that is what is taught in schools under "language arts." This has little to do generally with how the language is really spoken and nothing to do with the CEFR. The CEFR may have its questionable points but I don't think it is flawed because it doesn't measure native proficiency. For what it aims to do it does a relatively good job in my opinion. 1 person has 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 16 of 80 22 June 2013 at 5:58pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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And nobody disagrees with that. But how good is "relatively good" depends on the level - starting with B2 there are more and more things that have nothing to do with your actual language knowledge.
Also, that's not an attack on CEFR specifically. All high level tests are guilty of this and have probably always been. And of course anything that doesn't test your cognitive skills is labelled as 'dumbing down' :/ Edited by Serpent on 22 June 2013 at 6:00pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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