外语测试的发展和改革

The Development of Foreign Language Testing and Suggestions for Its Reform in China

外语测试是六十年代初形成的一门新兴学科。它通过研究各种外语考试和测验的内容、方法、命题技巧和对测试的评价及成绩的评估,探讨外语测试的规律。

This paper briefly reviews the history of foreign language testing abroad and traces its develop-ment from the pre-scientific and psychometric-structuralist periods to the psycholinguistic-sociolingusisticperiod. Different theoretical bases and characteristics of the discrete-point, integrative and communi-cative tests are discussed and compared. While each of these tests has its own strengths and weakness-es, all of them are certainly complementary to one another and can serve different purposes of test-ing, as indicated especially by the latest developments in the communicative and integrative tests.The paper concludes with suggested changes in foreign language testing in China.