An Experimental Report of the Web-based Test for English Communication (WeTEC) and the Common European Framework of References (CEFR)

The Web-based Test for English Communication (WeTEC) is used as a placement test as well as an achievement test at Waseda University. The WeTEC is a computer adaptive test and it has four sections: vocabulary, conversational schema, listening comprehension and partial dictation. Every year about 10000 students take this test and most of the test-takers study in the English Tutorials courses at the Open Education Center. English Tutorials are designed based on the Common European Framework of References (CEFR). There are six class levels: beginner, basic, pre-intermediate, intermediate, preadvanced and advanced. These class levels roughly correspond to the six CEFR levels: A1, A2, B1, B2, C1 and C2. Since the WeTEC is also used as an achievement test, it has been hoped that correspondence between the WeTEC scores and the CEFR levels can be obtained. In this paper, we give our tentative solution to our problem. Several kinds of the CEFR assessment questionnaires were given to both students and tutors. These questionnaires contain can-do descriptors. The analysis based on the Item Response Theory has demonstrated that both students and tutors judge the difficulty of descriptors in accordance to the six levels in the CEFR. However, the relationship between the WeTEC scores and the CEFR proficiency estimates was not strong enough to link the WeTEC scores and the CEFR levels. The present paper therefore attempts to link the WeTEC scores and the CEFR levels, analyzing the data by logistic regression.