Now allowed to type on new HSK test

[ironlady]

Right, but I'm talking specifically about non-native Chinese who have had a far shorter period of time to learn to speak and write the language.

Education is supposed to prepare people for the real world. Yet we are hard pressed to find examples of times when extensive writing by hand in Chinese from memory without any aids of any kind is required in the real world outside of education. Therefore, right now what's going on is "You have to learn this because you need it to pass the class/pass the test", not "You need to learn this because you have to be able to do it in the real world."

If there is such a huge disconnect between what is required during a person's education in Chinese and what s/he will need to do in the real world in Chinese, it's time to reevaluate what is presented in the courses and refocus the courses on what real-world skills are necessary.

[gato]

Reading is obviously much more important than writing, and therefore it makes sense to spend much more time on reading than writing. The rest of the debate seems kind of academic.

[hbuchtel]

So how about having a 'reading messy handwriting' section on the HSK? (only partially in jest...)

[jbradfor]

Maybe they could start with a "reading tidy handwriting" section, say around HSK 4. Then move on to reading messy handwriting, and finish up with reading 草-style calligraphy on HSK 6 B)

[anonymoose]

Yet we are hard pressed to find examples of times when extensive writing by hand in Chinese from memory without any aids of any kind is required in the real world outside of education.

I've already given numerous examples in a previous post. So what is the point of the written exam in the HSK then? Because I'm sure the need to write a 400-character essay, even with the aid of a computer, in 40 minutes is less than the need of general handwriting in the real world.

I'm talking specifically about non-native Chinese

I think you need to be clear which group of people you are talking about. In a prior post, you mentioned you did a survey amongst native speakers about what they need handwriting for, and used this as justification that testing handwriting is unnecessary in the real world. Yet now you are talking specifically about non-native Chinese speakers.

Education is supposed to prepare people for the real world.

And what's the main real world use of the HSK? To apply to universities in China, and guess what, that's where you'll be needing your writing skills.

[ironlady]

Whatever. You are thinking only of your own personal experience.

You need to understand that very few students of Chinese will ever do a degree in China, relatively speaking. I am concentrating on the thousands of students who take Chinese in their home countries and possibly never even make it to Asia. Even if they do -- for work, perhaps, or travel -- they do not need to write by hand without references available, because, as has been stated, outside of the educational sphere, native speakers do not need to do so. AND the educational sphere could be worked around in most cases if that were necessary.

I am speaking to the utility of spending thousands of hours with thousands of people to make them memorize writing by hand, when it is a skill that will actually be needed by a tiny fraction of them. It is like choosing vocabulary for a first-year course. You teach the high-frequency words first, not the ones that appear only once or twice a year in the newspaper.

Spending a lot of time on rote writing (what I call "mechanical literacy") is probably one of the major reasons why more Westerners do not achieve a proficient level of spoken and aural Chinese -- on the basis of which they could easily become literate. The insistence on rote writing and demonstrating that specific skill to prove "proficiency" in the language shows that the designers of the test are not thinking of the real needs of real people in the real world. What happened to "the masses", after all? :rolleyes:

[Jose]

In my opinion, a general proficiency examination for any language X should include writing by hand. Otherwise, it should clearly be labelled as a special kind of examination like "Proficiency in Spoken X" , "Reading Comprehension in X", or whatever. I just don't think software tools should be allowed in this kind of exam. Why not allow the use of spell-checkers in English exams like TOEFL then? You could also argue that "in the real world" you don't need to know how to spell pesky words like "definitely" or "separate".

[ironlady]

Back in the day when I used to get a lot of handwritten documents to translate, the best rule of thumb I found was "if the character isn't legible, try 能". It seemed to work about 80% of the time.

[anonymoose]

You need to understand that very few students of Chinese will ever do a degree in China, relatively speaking. I am concentrating on the thousands of students who take Chinese in their home countries and possibly never even make it to Asia.

So why do they even need to take the HSK then? The HSK has very little official recognition outside of university applications in China. And furthermore, if they do not need to write Chinese, they can just not take the written exam. Seems simple enough to me. I don't understand why you insist on a written exam that does not require writing. Handwriting might, according to you, be of little practical use for most people, but according to common sense, the need to write timed essays in Chinese without access to reference material is of even less practical use for most people.

[ironlady]

Writing timed essays reflects fluency of expression and the ability to recognize and produce appropriate written language. I am arguing about HOW this is done, not WHY -- specifically that the requirement that the writing be done by hand is confusing what is being tested. If a student fails to use a certain structure, is that because he truly doesn't know it, or because he can't remember how to write it and had to substitute something else?

And many students in the US take the HSK. It is a far more reliable test of proficiency in Chinese than most of the tests given here, which are mostly made up by teachers with no background in test writing and are biased toward particular textbooks or courses. Many of us (teachers) are recommending that the HSK be used in place of such exams.

[Meng Lelan]

And many students in the US take the HSK. It is a far more reliable test of proficiency in Chinese than most of the tests given here, which are mostly made up by teachers with no background in test writing and are biased toward particular textbooks or courses. Many of us (teachers) are recommending that the HSK be used in place of such exams.

I do not feel the HSK is a reliable test of proficiency when assessing practical and real life communication skills in Chinese. The Chinese SAT and the Chinese AP would be more realistic assessments of a student's ability to use Chinese for the real life in the real world. The Oral Proficiency Interview and the Written Proficiency Assessment were designed by Chinese language teachers and scored by Chinese language teachers who must undergo hours of training to learn how to properly score them. In fact I would say the Written Proficiency Assessment is a better measure of how well someone can construct essays and compositions and letters in written form.

Being a teacher of Chinese, I would not recommend the HSK at all.

[anonymoose]

Well I think we'll just have to agree to disagree then.

At least if the OP is right, you will have it your way anyway.

[ironlady]

Hi Meng,

Yes, you're right. I'm wasn't thinking of the SAT and similar standardized, normed tests; I'm thinking of the "homemade" tests that are used in many States as endpoint assessments. They are very biased and written by people who have no idea about writing test items or what the test items they do write are really testing, in many cases. For example, in New York State, there is no statewide Regents exam in Chinese -- it is written more or less on an ad hoc basis, and it can hardly be objective when the teacher writes it for his own students (and has no particular preparation in test writing).

[Meng Lelan]

For example, in New York State, there is no statewide Regents exam in Chinese

Interesting. We do not have the Regents exam system in Texas, but students in the last and final year of foreign language study are often encouraged to take the AP exam in their chosen language so they can get some idea as to where they compare with peers and to get college credit if they score high enough. The HSK isn't offered as an option because many schools focus very heavily on helping students get as many college credits through the AP as they can so as to save on college tuition costs.

[renzhe]

In my opinion, a general proficiency examination for any language X should include writing by hand. Otherwise, it should clearly be labelled as a special kind of examination like "Proficiency in Spoken X" , "Reading Comprehension in X", or whatever. I just don't think software tools should be allowed in this kind of exam. Why not allow the use of spell-checkers in English exams like TOEFL then?

You don't have to hand-write in either TOEFL or the GRE. You type your answers. Many people today would not be able to handwrite their TOEFL essays fast enough.

Anyway, the problem with this question is that there are two separate skills involving handwriting Chinese characters. The first one is cognitive, or reproducing characters from memory. This is an important skill for a Chinese learner living in a Chinese environment. Not the most important, but it can be important in many situations, like anonymoose and others have pointed out.

The second skill is the mechanical one, or writing thousands of characters at insane speed, like a robot. This is pure mechanical practice and muscle memory, takes years of practice, and is next to totally worthless for the vast majority of Chinese learners.

The problem is when you conflate the skill of being able to compose and write an essay with the skill of handwriting hundreds of characters per minute. If you don't have FAST handwriting, you fail the writing part of the test. This is problematic and quite unrealistic, as it doesn't simulate most situations where a foreign speaker of Chinese needs to write things by hand.

[hanxue]

Wow, so do we have any news on this HSK IBT? When will we be able to take it online?

[elliott50]

It seems the HSK IPT was piloted in Canada on 14th November 2010:

See here for Hanban report.

"Six levels of written exams and three levels of oral exams were involved in the test, with a total of 167 students from local schools participating."

The write-up suggests to me a fully centralised on-line service, including registration and payment, with local testing administration centres.

As I can't even write legibly in english (my mother tongue), I'm all for using pinyin to type chinese, after all that is what I do when I am communicating by e-mail with my chinese friends anyway.

So I plan to study towards this new HSK IBT and sign up as soon as it becomes available!

[roddy]

Oooh, thanks for the update.

[边斌同学]

I asked the test operator for 北语 HSK and they confirmed that the written portion is most definitely not on a computer haha.

[sleepy eyes]

Can anyone confirm first-hand that you are now allowed to type? Is that true to all centres?

Depending on whether this is true or not, things would change DRASTICALLY for me.

If anyone can confirm me one place where this has been implemented, I'd be willing to travel all the way there just to make sure I can type instead of handwrite. It would make life much easier and passing the level that I have to pass actually feasible. Particularly because I write them VERY SLOWLY, more so than most, even when I have them down to the last detail. And I can barely recognize my own handwriting in western alphabets, when I can. Characters don't get all that much more legible.

Thanks in advance.