The Development of the Test of Chinese as a Foreign Language (TOCFL)

This chapter describes the development of the Test of Chinese as a Foreign Language (TOCFL), which is a proficiency assessment tool for Chinese learners. It is divided into four major sections. First, a brief background of Teaching Chinese as a Second Language in Taiwan is provided together with the historical development of the Chinese Proficiency Test (CPT) and the Test of Proficiency-Huayu (TOP), which were the predecessors of the TOCFL. The second section discusses issues that the TOCFL research team faced in its effort to map the test to the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR). The third section then discusses four challenging issues that the TOCFL research team has faced over the years in its effort to develop and maintain a standardized CSL/CFL test. The final section presents some washback effects of the TOCFL and work in progress.