Validating Writing Scale for High School English with Common European Framework of Reference

This study aims to design an English writing test including its scoring rubric for the 3rdgrade of high school in Korea and explore the test validity in comparison with Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). From analysis of the national curriculum of high school English, two different test tasks with a controlled writing and a short essay writing were tested, both of which are two objectives of the revised 7th National Curriculum (2008) of high school English. I also designed a new writing scale with four categories and 6 levels from 0 to 5 with reference to some international writing scales and the data from writing samples of students. The t-test result showed that the two rating scales rated the test tasks similarly and the degree of difficulty of the two tasks is similar, when rated by both scales. In predicting test takers’ English proficiency levels, more categories of the new scale showed significant difference than CEFR. As for predictability, ‘Grammar’ of CEFR in a controlled writing task predicted best. Among the scale categories, ‘Content’ of the new scale is necessary to scrutinize for further study as it predicted the opposite to the proficiency test result and showed no correlation between the two task types. Lastly, both scales could differentiate test takers into three different English proficiency levels and the controlled writing task predicted their test results instead of the short essay writing task.