ABSTRACT

The purpose of this article is to present qualitative and quantitative tools to assist teachers and authors of examination materials in their preliminary assessment of text complexity/difficulty according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. The qualitative scales were compiled specially for this study, based on previous research and development in the field. The quantitative scales are based on existing online instruments for stylistic and lexical analysis, adjusted to CEFR levels. Using these tools, we select and analyse texts which should represent appropriate difficulty at the various CEFR levels. The validity of the instruments is tested at B1 and B2 levels by inviting students assessed at these levels to translate the corresponding texts. The majority of the tested learners demonstrated understanding of at least 90% of the vocabulary of the text corresponding to their level. This confirms the validity of the tools proposed in assessing text complexity according to CEFR levels, at least as far as the intermediate levels B1 and B2 are concerned.

摘要

本文的目的是提供定性和定量工具，以帮助教师和考试材料的作者根据欧洲共同语言参考框架对文本复杂性/难度进行初步评估。定性量表是专门为本研究编制的，基于该领域先前的研究和发展。定量量表基于现有的用于文体和词汇分析的在线工具，并根据 CEFR 水平进行调整。使用这些工具，我们选择和分析应该代表不同 CEFR 级别的适当难度的文本。通过邀请在这些级别评估的学生翻译相应的文本，测试工具的有效性在 B1 和 B2 级别。大多数被测试的学习者表现出对与其水平相对应的文本词汇的至少 90% 的理解。这证实了根据 CEFR 级别评估文本复杂性所提出的工具的有效性，至少就中间级别 B1 和 B2 而言。