(How) Can We Empower Language Exam Takers? – an investigation on the power of exams

This presentation focuses on examination, a domain in which learners of English and other languages possess limited agency regarding their engagement and actions. We aim to analyse the applications and consequences of English testing within the context of three high-stakes assessments: the Gaokao, the International Baccalaureate (IB), and the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education (HKDSE), with a critical economy lens.

The inquiry mainly draws upon "The Power of Test" by Elana Shohamy (2001) and "Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture" by Pierre Bourdieu and Jean-Claude Passeron (1990). By interviewing students and tutorial class teachers, and by critically analyse examination papers and related policies, we want to see how these examinations help shape the practices and perception of English among students, we also want to know if and how they help reproduce or even exacerbate cross-generational inequality.

Our findings suggest that, on a microscopic level, the content and the structural composition of examinations, including the weighting of the four skills (i.e. listening, speaking, reading, and writing), influences how teaching and learning in classrooms and tutorial classes are conducted, and how students see and practice English, even after years taking the examinations. A macroscopic level of analyses sees the presence and absence of certain examination elements help the reproduction of the exam takers’ social class. Together with the predetermination effect from the school-exam nexus, it is argued that there has been insufficient attention to examination, particularly in societies led by parentocracy and meritocracy.

The presentation will end by discussing some possibilities to empower language learners amid the power of examination, with the aid of AI and related engineering fields.