Fifty Years of Language Assessment

Abstract

The chapter provides a critical review of institutional language testing over the 50-year period following the publication of Robert Lado's Language Testing (1961). It is argued that, over the period, language testing has professionalized itself, as shown by research, university degree courses, international journals and publications, national and international language-testing associations and codes of ethics. A compromise was found early in the period between competence (structure) and performance (communication) following the brief venture into communicative language testing. The period represents a move away from a primary concern with test reliability to a wider interest in validity, from an emphasis on language testing content (especially language for specific purpose) and method (notably statistical procedures and technological resources) to a mature concern for the use of language tests and the extent of the profession's responsibility for that use.