Oral‐Proficiency Testing: A Critical Analysis

Abstract

surface within the language teaching profession over the last five years is the attempt by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages and the Educational Testing Service (henceforth, ACTFL/ETS) to establish and implement second-language proficiency guidelines for testing and for organizing the language teaching curriculum. The ACTFL/ETS Guidelines are based in large part on the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) oral-proficiency test that has been in use in the federal government for nearly thirty years. While a history of the FSI and ACTFL/ETS Guidelines is an interesting study in itself, our concern in this paper is with what we perceive to be serious, if not insurmountable, problems with the ACTFL/ETS Guidelines.' Although we perceive difficulties with the Guidelines established for all four language skills and cultural performance, we will focus the present discussion on the oral-proficiency Guidelines only. To date, only minimal skepticism has been expressed toward oral-proficiency testing (OPT) as defined by ACTFL/ETS. Savignon, however, at least cautions that perhaps the profession is moving too quickly toward implementation of the ACTFL/ETS Guidelines when she