An Introduction to Applied Linguistics

7.2 Language proficiency testing
Testing is more a normal part of language teaching than of other curriculum subjects
because the language teacher is concerned with skill as well as with knowledge. This
means that there is more need for testing. Testing is further complicated by the
unusual presence of a living criterion, the native speaker. In History, Physics and so
on there is no equivalent, no body of persons who represent ultimate attainment. Of
course there may be an individual, an Einstein or a Gibbon, whose scholarship is
universally recognised as a model for us all; but even that is not really comparable
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because no course of instruction sets out to emulate such scholarship whereas in
many language-teaching operations the goal is the native speaker, but increasingly
testing comes under criticism as to 
which
native speaker (see Davies, Hamp-Lyons
and Kemp 2003).
What language proficiency testing is about is the setting of appropriate targets for
varying levels and uses of language. Such tests aim to provide the rigours of test
guidelines, while ensuring that the right kinds of language behaviour are included
and in appropriate quantities. The applied linguistic interest in language proficiency
testing is now central but that was not always the case. What has become clear over
the last thirty years is the role of the test in encapsulating both what the learner needs
to know for a particular purpose and what amount of that knowledge counts as
success. This is a major contribution both to the practice of language learning and
teaching, and to the theoretical understanding of language learning and language
need.
Furthermore, language proficiency tests both model the native speaker and at
the same time provide an alternative means of setting goals for learning. They
operationalise language learning precisely by setting explicit goals, which is another
way of stating that language tests make language learning accountable by establishing
what it means to ‘know’ the language. They do this by sampling the relevant areas of
language to be learned and guarantee that their sampling is correct through their
documentation on reliability and validity. And here is the major distinction between
tests of proficiency and tests of achievement (or attainment): tests of proficiency
sample the language that is being learned; tests of achievement sample the teaching
programme (syllabus, course, textbook etc.) that has already been agreed, a sample
then of an existing sample.
We can distinguish six kinds of information that language testing provides. The
first is in research in which language testing is used to provide hypotheses in relation
to our understanding of language and language learning. The status and concept
of language proficiency, the structure of language ability and the natural order of
language acquisition have been much discussed by language testers using language
testing techniques to produce data which furthers discussion. Such issues are
primarily intended to add to our knowledge and understanding of language and
language learning, though no doubt they also have an applied potential in language-
teaching programmes.
The second use of language testing in experiments is a subset of the first use, in
research. But there is an important difference. In the research use we are thinking of
research into language testing; in the experimental use we are thinking of tests as
criteria for language teaching experiments, for example in method comparison.
The third use, which is reflexive, and much discussed as a responsibility of testing,
is used less than it could be, that is the washback effect on the syllabus of language
testing (Clapham et al. 1997). The implications of test results and their meaning are
employed as a critique of the syllabus and the teaching; while the testing structure,
the content and method of the tests themselves influence the teaching. We are
concerned here with teaching to the test, for it is always the pejorative aspect of
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washback that is implied, but we stress that there is a positive side to this. The
implications are, first, that teaching is influenced by testing and, second, that testing
has an important responsibility – to ensure that its influence is constructive.
The fourth use of language testing is measuring progress among learners, the most
common type of test being the achievement test.
The fifth use is in selection of students on the basis of either previous learning or
in terms of some more general language-learning ability or aptitude for the next stage
of education or a particular vocation. What is of interest here is the interaction
between use for progress and use for selection, that is to what extent a valid test of
progress is in itself a valid test for selection purposes.
The sixth use is in relation to evaluation of courses, methods and materials. This
is a special use of testing which must cope with the learner variable, distinguishing it
from the evaluation of the materials, programme and so on.
Language assessment provides a triple message:
1. A message about skill, to what extent learners have reached adequate pro -
ficiency, however that is defined and the role of language tests in developing
more specific and detailed indicators of adequate proficiencies.
2. A message about development, which appears at first sight only to be psycho -
linguistic since it seems to suggest a progress along a very clear and obvious
path towards ultimate attainment. That obviousness is not true even of native
speakers, who may have very different endpoints. Attached to this message
about development for all language learners is an indication of the identity
which the learner chooses (usually unconsciously). Information about develop-
ment therefore provides an indication – through assessment – as to both the
psycholinguistic and the sociolinguistic provenance of the learner.
3. A message about knowledge. Language users, both native speakers and non-
native speakers, distinguish themselves in terms of their awareness of language.
This shows itself both in the range of acceptability judgements they are
prepared to make and in the extent of their conscious metalinguistic reflect-
ing upon language, which in turn demonstrates itself in knowledge about
language and in areas of ludic creativity. Such a reification of language does
seem to discriminate both among native speakers and among non-native
speakers; it does, of course, have some bearing on our first message, that of
skill, since there may well be an element of knowledge within skill which deter -
mines differential proficiency (Davies 1990: 11, Davies 2006).