The Landscape of Language Testing and Assessment in Europe: Developments and Challenges

The article opens with a short sketch of developments in language testing and assessment, and presents Spolsky′s tripartite categorization of major approaches in language testing/assessment. This is followed by an account of current developments in language testing and assessment in Europe. One prominent development in Europe has been a strong increase in cooperation in language testing/assessment. This was shown by the emergence of associations devoted to language testing/assessment, ALTE in 1990 and EALTA in 2004, both producing codes/guidelines for good practice. A major outcome of cooperation in the field of language education, the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR; Council of Europe, 2001), brought about further challenges for language testing/assessment, immediately after its publication in 2001. Its potential was utilized by DIALANG, a pioneering internet-based system for diagnostic assessment and still apparently unrivalled. Most attention in the article is devoted to an analysis of future challenges. Justification of testing/assessment is increasingly challenged, and work is being done on analyzing assessment use argumentation. The problem of criterion, while not a new challenge, calls for attention both in terms of its logical status and various systems of standards published. Standard setting – setting one, or increasingly more often, multiple cut scores to indicate levels of proficiency is another current challenge, especially in efforts to relate tests, examinations etc to the CEFR levels. Following interest in international comparisons generated by the PISA programme, there is a trend to carry out international comparisons in the area of language competence (e.g. EILC).