Developments in Language Testing

Abstract

In many ways, the year 1990 represented a watershed in language testing. In that year, the 12th annual Language Testing Research Colloquium took as its theme “A new decade of language testing research: Collaboration and cooperation.” The 1990 Colloquium was also dedicated to the memory of Michael Canale, whose work during the previous decade laid the groundwork for much of that of the 1990s. In 1990, a seminar sponsored by the Regional Language Centre in Singapore, on Language Testing and Programme Evaluation, focused on many of the problems in the field of language testing that militated against the hoped for progress of the 1980s. At both of these meetings, and at others involving language testing that year, discussions were held concerning the formation of an international professional association of language testers. The result was the formation of the International Language Testing Association in 1992. Also in 1990, a language testing computer “bulletin board,” LTEST-L, was established on Listserv, so that the international community of language testing researchers and practitioners could hold electronic “conferences” and share information and data on a world-wide basis. Finally, a number of important books on language testing were published in 1990, including works by Bachman, Davies, Heaton, and Weir, which have already had an influence on language testing research and development in the first half of the decade.