The ESF Y11 Chinese Benchmark will take place in October in all ESF secondary schools. It is a service provided by ESF Centre to measure the attainment level of Y11 students against the entrance level of IB Diploma courses. It is therefore also a reference for students and teachers to make a better informed decision on the IB Diploma courses to study.
The test instrument, containing a 1-hour writing paper and a 1-hour reading paper, is jointly written by ESF Centre and Chinese teachers from our schools. In each paper there are three categories of questions to suit the learning for both Chinese Acquistion and Chinese Language & Literature courses. The papers are marked centrally and recommendation of IB DP course is made for every student, sometimes with pedagogical notes.
The Benchmark is not an assessment of students’ progress or a quality control measure, but a snapshot of attainment at a key exit point, therefore no preparation is needed or indeed recommended. As both tests are administered in a semi-public examination manner, numerical marks are not made available to students or parents, but recommendation for IBDP courses are available from Chinese Department or teachers. These tests incur no extra costs to parents.
In the past years the Benchmark has proved to be a very useful tool to assist IB DP option and we trust it will continue to do so. This practice has been established as a part of our effort to strengthen Chinese learning and to create a smooth transition between Y11 and the final two years of study.