The Ministry¹ of Education is drafting a national English proficiency² testing and rating system, Lin Huiqing, vice-minister of education, said at the 2nd International Symposium³ on Language Assessment⁴ and Evaluation⁵.

教育部副部长林蕙青在第二届语言测试与评价国际研讨会上透露，教育部正在草拟国家英语能力测评体系。

Lin said the draft of the rating system has been completed and will be officially released next year, and a detailed⁶ plan about the national tests will be carried out step by step before 2020.

林蕙青表示，评价体系的草案已经完成，将于2017年正式对外公布，2020年前将逐步推出国家级测试的详细计划。

In guidelines released in September 2014, the government announced that a better assessment system on foreign languages would be established.

在2014年9月颁布的指导方针中，政府宣布将对外语建立一个更好的测评体系。

A series of reforms in English tests after that, including reform of the national college entrance exam, represented steps in that direction.

在此之后的有关英语考试的一系列改革，包括全国高考改革，都代表了在这个方向进行的举措。

Liu Jianda, vice-president of Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, said a unified⁷ evaluation system with consistent standards is needed in China to regulate current wide-ranging English teaching and testing approaches.

广东外语外贸大学副校长刘建达表示，我国急需标准连贯、统一的评价体系来规范当下种类繁多的英语教学和测试方式。

He said China now has 300 million English learners, and many different English tests.

他表示，我国现在有3亿英语学习者，有许多不同类型的英语测试。

"But the syllabus⁸ is not consistent, and there's no national standard to appraise⁹ the learners' performance against uniform benchmarks," he said.

他说：“但是教学大纲是不一致的，并没有国家标准以统一的基准来评价学习者的表现。”

The system envisions assessment of English proficiency from a low to high level, with nine grades. Each grade has its own requirements for language skills, including listening, speaking, reading, writing and translating.

据悉，该英语能力测评体系从低到高划分了九个等级，每个等级在听说读写、翻译等语言能力方面都有不同的要求。