Proficiency Tests in Modern Foreign Languages

Extract

Not too many years ago if I had been told that I would be addressing this scholarly assembly on the subject of proficiency testing, I would have denied the thought as being synonymous with impeachment proceedings. I would have asserted with calculated dignity that such a subject was too pedestrian for my interests, I would have stated with just the right touch of scorn that such work was the business of social scientists, psychologists, or educationists, in short, to steal a leaf from Bill Parker's book, I would have been willing to “let George do it” or indeed would likely not have cared if it were not done at all. On the offchance that there are some among you who may still feel that same way, I ask you to let me state the case for a project which I have come to regard not only as having a claim to academic status, but one which I believe is worthy of the interest of all who would hold that testing is a proper function of teaching, and that determination of standards of performance within a subject matter field is a primary business of those who have the skills and teach the subjects which are to be evaluated.