Assessing Chinese EFL learners’ speaking proficiency levels

Abstract This study elicits 120 recordings as research data from the Test for English Majors Band 4 (TEM-4) Oral Test. We investigate the distinguishing cohesive devices across and between four pairs of speaking proficiency levels and the predictive cohesive devices for L2 speaking proficiency by examining all cohesion indices in TAACO for an independent speaking task. Results show that 15 local, 3 global, and 6 text cohesion indices distinguish across speaking proficiency levels. Besides, cohesion indices vary in differentiating powers at certain levels. In addition, 7 local, 5 global, and 1 text cohesion indices significantly correlate to L2 speaking proficiency levels. The regression model containing 2 local and 3 text cohesion indices explains 63.8% of the variance in predicting L2 speaking proficiency levels. These findings hold some implications for L2 speaking pedagogy and test assessment.