Changes in students' achievement in learning the Chinese language across grades and over time.

Abstract

This paper examines the changes in students' achievement in learning Chinese as a foreign language across school grades and over a period of a school year in an Australian school. The Rasch model using the QUEST computer program was employed to calculate appropriate scores to estimate the difficulty levels of the test items on a scale that operated across grade levels (Year 4 to Year 12) and across four school term occasions. This paper also identifies whether the level of students' achievement in learning the Chinese language is associated with their proficiency in English word knowledge, as well as the student's underlying verbal ability in English. [Author abstract, ed]