CSE Development Seminar Held in Guangzhou

  On November 26th 2015, a CSE seminar was held at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies. Since the last meeting, each group has revised and refined over 17,000 descriptors in the descriptors bank, resulting in the number being reduced to just over 8,000. The remaining descriptors underwent inter-group review, where questions and suggestions were posed and summarized. During the conference, project members addressed three areas – “strategies,” “language knowledge” and “language ability” – and offered their appraisal of and suggestions for each one. A key goal of the conference was, once again, to unify the methodology that group members utilize in revising and improving the descriptors. The conference also provided a forum for exchanging experiences of collecting typical English learning, teaching and testing activities and emphasized the principles of determining them. It was reiterated that the descriptors should be descriptive and prescriptive. In addition, the descriptors should cover the public, educational, professional and personal domains. Furthermore, the most typical activities should be determined by investigative research.