A Comparative Study of Chinese Test-takers’ Writing Performance in Integrated and Discrete Tasks: Scores and Recurrent Word Combinations in PTE Academic

Yu-Hua Chen; Ying Zheng

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-92762-2_3

A Comparative Study of Chinese Test-takers’ Writing Performance in Integrated and Discrete Tasks: Scores and Recurrent Word Combinations in PTE Academic

Yu-Hua Chen, Ying Zheng

University of Southampton

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter › peer-review

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Abstract

Despite an increasing number of studies on L1 Chinese students’ L2 English writing in recent years, little research is conducted on Chinese test takers’ performance in high-stakes international tests, particularly in terms of how integrated and discrete assessment may impact on their writing. This book chapter, therefore, aims to fill this gap by comparing Chinese and non-Chinese test takers’ responses in different writing tasks of PTE Academic in terms of scoring and use of recurrent word combinations. As an international test of academic English, PTE Academic includes both the traditional design of independent essay writing as well as two integrated tasks of summary writing from listening or reading input.

Written samples from 500 Chinese test takers and another 500 test takers of other L1s were randomly chosen from PTE Academic and analysed. The results indicate that Chinese test takers outperformed their non-Chinese peers in the tasks of read-to-summarise and essay writing. Chinese test takers also tended to write longer responses with more occurrences of recurrent word combinations, and they used more stance expressions in the essays compared with their peers. A closer examination of highly frequent word combinations, however, suggests a relationship between task type and the language elicited, regardless of test takers’ L1.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Assessing the English Language Writing of Chinese Learners of English
Editors	Liz Hamp-Lyons, Yan JIn
Publisher	Springer
Chapter	3
Pages	29-47
Number of pages	19
Edition	1
ISBN (Electronic)	978-3-030-92762-2
ISBN (Print)	978-3-030-92761-5, 978-3-030-92764-6
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-92762-2_3
Publication status	Published - 25 May 2022

Bibliographical note

Copyright © and Moral Rights are retained by the author(s) and/or other copyright owners. A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This item cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the copyright holder(s). The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.

Keywords

Academic writing
Task type
Integrated writing
Recurrent word combinations
PTE Academic

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10.1007/978-3-030-92762-2_3

Chen2022AAMAccepted author manuscript, 1.7 MB

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A Comparative Study of Chinese Test-takers’ Writing Performance in Integrated and Discrete Tasks: Scores and Recurrent Word Combinations in PTE Academic. / Chen, Yu-Hua; Zheng, Ying.
Assessing the English Language Writing of Chinese Learners of English. ed. / Liz Hamp-Lyons; Yan JIn. 1. ed. Springer , 2022. p. 29-47.

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter › peer-review

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A Comparative Study of Chinese Test-takers’ Writing Performance in Integrated and Discrete Tasks: Scores and Recurrent Word Combinations in PTE Academic

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