2017 National Assessment of French in Primary Education in Flanders

In 2017 a national assessment was carried out, which was commissioned by the Flemish government, to assess whether pupils have sufficient skills to read, listen and speak in French at the end of primary education. This assessment is not a reiteration of the previous one in 2008, because different attainment targets applied at that time. Data were collected through a written listening and reading test. A lexical knowledge test was also administered. Since this lexical knowledge test is not based on attainment targets, no statements could be made about the proportion of students that master active vocabulary at the end of primary education. The knowledge test was only conducted to frame the results for listening and reading. A representative sample of 2098 pupils from 78 Flemish primary schools participated. In addition, a speaking test was administered to a subsample of 484 pupils. Tests were supplemented with background questionnaires for pupils, parents and teachers. These questionnaires collected, among other things, information on background characteristics of the pupils, school and teachers, classroom practices and the teachers' didactic approaches. The response rates to these questionnaires were 99% for pupils and 94% for parents. Teachers were able to complete part of the questionnaire online, for which the response rate was 87%. For the paper part, the response rate was 95%.