BONJOVI H.

HAJAN
M.A.Ed in English Language Teaching

Reflective Paper

Communicative Language Testing Approach:

A Key Towards Global Competence and Competitiveness

In an increasingly globalized world, where competence and competitiveness are the two
things being sought for, the ability to function well in order to keep oneself abreast with the
growing demands of the century is becoming indispensable. Intercultural communications are
surely one step towards keeping up with this enormous goal as they afford people with various
cultural backgrounds a common platform to share in one their differing views and beliefs
towards some important issues concerning education and work. However, the notion of
intercultural communications in this respect is quite wide-ranging; thus, linking it to classroom
situations where its premise all starts is essential. The need to produce professionals who can
negotiate communicative functions not only in the local contexts but also in the international
arena brings so many challenges among English as a second Language teachers in the country.
One step that has been taken as an attempt to address some of these issues is the dominant use of
Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) along with English for Specific Purposes (ESP), and
Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) approaches in language classrooms as reported in a
quick survey of memoranda, circulars and orders from the Department of Education. In this
paper, however, my discussions take off only from the broader tenets of CLT with which I will
then narrow down to Communicative Language Testing. What does CLT encompass? The
practice of CLT is entrenched on Canale’s (1983) communicative competence model. The idea
of communicative competence illustrated in the model involves four major competencies, which
are commonly referred to as grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, discourse
competence, and strategic competence. The grammatical competence is also known as linguistic
competence which refers to the knowledge of the language code such as grammar and
vocabulary and also of the conventions of its written representations. The sociolinguistic
competence embraces an awareness of sociocultural rules of language use with emphasis on the
facility to use and respond to language appropriately in various contexts. The discourse
competence capitalizes on the knowledge to produce and understand oral or written texts by
means of speaking/writing and listening/reading respectively. It is the skill to integrate language
structures into a cohesive and intelligible oral or written text of varying types. Lastly, the
strategic competence entails the ability to recognize and repair communication breakdowns
before, during, or after they take place.

It should be noted, however, that although English teachers oftentimes use CLT in
teaching the English language, some are likely to express views which run in the exact
opposition of the idea of CLT while others may employ activities which are not even related to
CLT (Manzano, 2015). Alptekin (2017) in his article, Towards intercultural communicative

ELT 506- Language Testing

competence in ELT suggests that teachers need to rethink on designing appropriate pedagogies
and instructions that incorporate the implications of the international status of English which
“will help learners become successful bilingual and intercultural individuals who are able to
function well in both local and international settings” (p. 63). If we are to aim for realistic
experiences to prepare students for life-long learning, then we as teachers might as well take into
consideration the authentic applications of the teachings we do in the classroom. We should
make sure that students make use of the language and not just memorize the rules of the
language. Engaging students in activities where they get to feel what it is like to be in the real
world is surely one thing that keeps their motivations in learning the language. Hence, it is
suggested that continuous professional trainings for teachers who are assumed to take critical
roles towards addressing relevant issues are provided on a regular basis so as to keep them
aligned with trends and issues surmounting them in the society.

Nevertheless, all these issues I have mentioned are only few among what is really going
on in the context of English language teaching in the country. Of note is that language testing is
one major component of English language education in general. As Desheng and Verghese
(2013) suggested, language testing plays a central role in the process of language teaching and
learning processes as it aids teachers in identifying students’ skills in the target language which
can then be useful for evaluation and intervention provisions. Along this line, testing and
assessment help monitor student’ educational progress and evaluate the quality of school systems
(Fulcher and Davidson, 2007, as cited in Nguyen & Le, 2013). It is distressing, however, that the
Philippine public high school teachers are still confined to the pen-and-paper type of tests with
preference on the use of multiple-choice type test instead of other authentic assessment types
such as portfolio or performance-based (Lasaten, 2016). This result should even be alarming to
the country’s educational leaders because it clearly reflects what the public schools do lack in
line with language assessment. The production of sound tests that can measure students’ use of
language is of paramount importance. I use the term ‘use of language’ here as I am pertaining to
the actual communicative use of the language in context. In the 21st century, I argue that
language education should have very little emphasis on grammatical structure or employment of
structuralist or discrete-point approach in testing. For optimal learning experiences, students
need to utilize the target language to carry out conversations in various settings. Supported by the
nature of communicative competence, grammatical structure is just one area to be developed
among students and structralist testing will never be an appropriate approach as it fails to assess
other higher linguistic skills such as sociolinguistic and strategic competence. Thus,
communicative language testing is essential in this respect as it fosters social interaction and
interaction among students. A communicative language testing system necessitates tests which
look into not only students’ knowledge of a language and its usage, competence but also the
extent learners apply their knowledge to meaningful communicative conditions, performance
(Fulcher and Davidson, 2007, as cited in Nguyen & Le, 2013). On the employment of
communicative language testing, it is important to keep in mind some salient principles and
characteristics. One important principle is that test makers should clearly identify the skills to be

ELT 506- Language Testing

tested and build on scales that will measure what is tested. It is also critical that students’ abilities
and needs match with the assessment since our goal is to allow them to perform certain language
tasks. As Carroll (1983) stated, ‘... the language tasks our learners are expected to perform in
their future jobs will guide us with the tasks we will set them in our tests’ (p. 37). Moreover,
Brown (2006) elucidates on the idea of ‘bias for best’ principle to which he refers as ‘a term that
goes little beyond how the student views the test to a degree of strategic involvement on the part
of student and teacher in preparing for, setting up, and following the test itself’ (p. 34). This
means that teachers need to ensure that students are well familiar with the test type given,
otherwise the latter may end up drawing partial understandings which may mediate the test
results. As for characteristics, Brown (2005) suggested meaningful communication, authentic
situation, unpredictable language input, creative language output, and integrated language skills
(p. 21). The ideas encompassing these five core characteristics boil down to one main goal of
communicative language testing—packing up students with rich, relevant communicative
simulations where language is used in authentic contexts; hence, transforming them into
competent and competitive communicators of the target language.

If we wish to produce new breeds of world-class professionals who can stand firm and
cope with standards that the world keeps imposing, then we must consider critically reflecting
and rethinking on our current approaches to language testing for until we bank on assessing what
the world deems invaluable, never will we see hopes in what we desire for.

ELT 506- Language Testing