This two‐phased study explored a corpus‐driven, curriculum‐based approach to assessing proficiency development of Mandarin Chinese in US universities. In Phase I, we developed an elicited imitation (EI) test based on the Chinese curriculum at a large US university. This test demonstrated higher psychometric qualities to (1) place L2 learners into three curricular levels, and (2) assess learners' production of key vocabulary and grammatical items, providing useful information for placement, diagnosis, and achievement purposes as compared with a non‐curriculum‐based EI test. In Phase II, we revised the EI test to make it applicable across university contexts. We identified a lexico‐grammar core from a corpus‐driven analysis of 36 widely‐used Chinese textbooks in US universities and incorporated this core in EI item development. The revised EI test showed improved psychometric qualities. This study has broad methodological implications for the assessment of Chinese as well as other less commonly taught languages in university contexts.

中文翻译：

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美国大学以语料库为基础，基于课程的汉语引发的模仿测试

这项分为两个阶段的研究探索了一种语料库驱动的，基于课程的方法来评估美国大学普通话水平的提高。在第一阶段，我们根据一所美国大型大学的中文课程开发了引诱模仿（EI）测试。该测试证明了较高的心理计量学素质：（1）将L2学习者分为三个课程级别;（2）评估学习者的主要词汇和语法项目的产生情况，与非学习者相比，提供了用于放置，诊断和成就目的的有用信息基于课程的EI测试。在第二阶段，我们修订了EI测试以使其适用于大学环境。通过对36篇美国大学广泛使用的中文教科书进行语料库分析，我们确定了词汇语法的核心，并将其纳入EI项目开发中。修订后的EI测试显示出改善的心理测验质量。这项研究对大学环境中的中文以及其他不太常教授的语言的评估具有广泛的方法论意义。