A mini review of communicative language testing

Linyu Liao; Shelly Xueting Ye; Jinsong Yang

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1058411

A mini review of communicative language testing

Front Psychol. 2023 Apr 6:14:1058411. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1058411. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Linyu Liao¹, Shelly Xueting Ye², Jinsong Yang¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Foreign Languages, Guangdong Medical University, Dongguan, China.
² Department of English, University of Macau, Macau, China.

Abstract

Compared with traditional language testing, which heavily emphasizes psychometric reliability, communicative language testing (CLT), which uses authentic tasks to measure communicative abilities, has long been dominant in language assessment. Given its widely acknowledged advantages and widespread use, CLT has become less controversial in the language assessment field and thus is receiving decreased scholarly attention. However, real-world communication, in which CLT is grounded, evolves over time, suggesting the need to update our understanding of it. To address this need and facilitate the further development of CLT theories and practices, this paper offers an up-to-date review of CLT, including its various approaches, implementation challenges, and suggestions for future research.

Keywords: approaches to CLT; challenges of CLT; communicative abilities; communicative language testing; language assessment.

Publication types

Review

Grants and funding

The work was supported by Education Department of Guangdong (project number 4SG22287G) and Guangdong Medical University (project number 4SG22027G), China.