Testing intercultural competence in (International) English: Some basic questions and suggested answers

Abstract

AbstractThe testing of intercultural competence has long been regarded as the field of psychometric test procedures, which claim to analyse an individual's personality by specifying and quantifying personality traits with the help of self-answer questionnaires and the statistical evaluation of these. The underlying assumption is that what is analysed and described as a candidate's personality can be treated as an indicator of that same person's practical performance in intercultural encounters. From the point of view of a test constructor for language competence, all intercultural tests of this type raise basic questions concerning their construct and predictive validity.Against this background, this article firstly examines the shortcomings of personality-based tests of intercultural competence. Secondly, based on relevant parts of the CEFR as well as on the work of numerous contributors to the international debate, a practicable construct of intercultural communicative competence is suggested. Special attention is paid to the concept of politeness in intercultural encounters and the role of English as a lingua franca (ELF). Thirdly, a basic outline of a criterion-based test of intercultural competence in English is provided. The test procedures on which this article draws have been extensively piloted and are part of a training package including test specifications, course materials and teacher-training material.