Moving forward to Communicative Proficiency: A Comparison between CET-4 Listening Comprehension Tests and IELTS Listening Subtest

Abstract

The current research attempts to compare the specific degrees of communicative properties of two types of College English Test Band 4 (CET-4) listening comprehension (before and after 2006 reform) in the light of IELTS (International English Language Test System) listening subtest, to know how well each of these three tests matches student's learning expectation and requirements, and to investigate student's psychological perception on them. This paper also tries to explore to what extent that 2006 reform has improved the communicative proficiency of CET-4, in terms of listening test. Based on quantitative and qualitative methods, it makes a comparative analysis between three listening subtests: old CET-4, new CET-4 and IELTS. Research subjects are 121 students from an international joint education program in a university in Beijing. Investigations into their performances are recorded and analyzed, together with a questionnaire survey. The present research finds that listening comprehension in new CET-4 has high degree of similarity with that in IELTS, particularly in testing of English communicative competence. With substantial amount of communicative properties, new CET-4 is a valid tool to measure student's listening proficiency.