Intermediate level? B1? How good is my English anyway?
(請到這裡閱讀本文章的中文版)
After a few sessions with Seymour, you may notice that most of the lessons are labeled as “Intermediate”. At a glance, it seems that there aren’t many lessons at other levels. What does “Intermediate” really mean? Do other levels even exist on the Seymour platform?
The short answer is: of course there are! Let’s take a look:
Basic User: Can use elementary English
- Breakthrough / Novice
I can greet you, say thanks, and apologize using fixed patterns. I can tell you where I live, who my family and friends are, and what I possess. - Waystage / Elementary
I can tell you about basic personal and family information, where I work, what is nearby, and what you can buy. I can also communicate about daily routine work at a basic level.
Independent User: Can use English independently
- Threshold / Intermediate
I can understand and explain what happens at work, at school, and in my day-to-day life. I can share my experiences, aspirations, opinions and feelings. I can handle most situations when I travel. - Vantage / Upper Intermediate
I can interact naturally and fluently with native users. I can comprehend and explain complex information. In my specialized field, I can debate from different perspectives and analyze their respective pros and cons.
Proficient User: Can use English autonomously
- Advanced
I can produce long and complex text in various social, academic and professional settings, with clear structure and fluent delivery, without an obvious need to search for words. - Mastery
I can easily understand any information, and reconstruct various arguments in a coherent manner. My vocabulary use is precise, differentiating between finer shades of meaning.
Given that most Taiwanese universities have set an English proficiency threshold at 550 for the TOEIC Listening and Reading Test as a graduation requirement, we have intentionally designed a majority of our free English lessons at the Intermediate level, making them suitable for most office workers in Taiwan to practice their receptive and productive language skills in their day-to-day lives. Even if it’s content they have learned in the past, the challenges in each lesson still provide valuable opportunities for practice.
Once in a while, we do offer free lessons at the Elementary or Upper Intermediate levels, allowing users at different levels to experience what Seymour has to offer.
Did you guys come up with these proficiency levels?
The proficiency levels on Seymour are based on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). It is an international language proficiency framework introduced by the European Commission in 2001. The framework allows teachers, students, employers and employees alike to describe the language abilities required in general, academic and professional settings, under a common set of standards. Not only does it cover the traditional skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing activities, it also provides scales for communication strategies, interaction and mediation abilities, linguistic and sociolinguistic applications, and so on. The levels in Seymour lessons are fully aligned with this international framework, and correspond to CEFR levels as follows:
The CEFR has been widely adopted since its launch, and even adapted for non-European languages. A similar scale is used in the Test of Chinese as a Foreign Language administered by the Ministry of Education in Taiwan.
Is CEFR C2 the highest level of language proficiency?
That is a very common misunderstanding! Even though C2 is labeled the “Mastery” level, there is no limit to one’s language proficiency. Many language experts have attained proficiency levels far beyond what C2 describes. This is why, when the CEFR was being developed, its authors used the letter A to denote the lowest measurable proficiency, and moved on to letters further back in the alphabet as they went up in terms of proficiency level. It’s just that proficiency above C2 is beyond the scope of general higher education and business usage, and it becomes impractical to develop a common set of descriptors.
Nonetheless, in specific professional settings, there are indeed descriptors for even higher levels of proficiency. For instance, PETRA-E, the European literary translation educational network, has developed its own PETRA-E Framework, which is a five-level scale for describing different competence levels for literary translation. Under the PETRA-E framework, a language expert at CEFR C2 for reading and writing may only attain LT2 (out of 5).
I scored XXX in my TOEIC / IELTS. Which level do I belong in Seymour / CEFR?
A single test score doesn’t tell the whole story of a person’s language proficiency. Nonetheless, many testing organizations have provided a correspondence scale to CEFR. Let’s take a look at how certain common English tests benchmark against CEFR levels:
