语言测试研究的新视角:批判语言测试

A New Perspective of Language Testing Research:Critical Language Testing

长期以来,语言测试工作者研究的核心是如何提高测试的信度与效度,以客观、精确地测量考生的语言能力。语言测试尤其是大规模高风险语言测试带来的社会影响,很难由改良测试本身来解决。批判语言测试(Critical Language Testing)的提出把语言测试置于更广阔的社会政治语境中,对测试后效(consequences)的反思不再局限于反拨效应(washback),而是重新审视测试中渗透的权力与控制,测试所具有的社会价值、政治功能等。

For a long time, the main focus of research conducted by language testers and language testing researchers has been on improving reliability and ensuring validity of tests in order to assess test-takers＇ language proficiency objectively and accurately. With their widespread use, large-scale and high-stakes language tests have exerted a great influence on test-takers＇ lives as well as the lives of other stakeholders, which has drawn more attention of the public to fairness and social consequences of language tests. Language testers are fully aware that improving tests can only solve the problems concerning the internal quality of tests, without providing effective solutions to those embedded in social and political contexts, such as minimizing misuse or abuse of tests, enhancing fairness of test administration and use, etc. Therefore, the field of language testing has shifted its focus to the issues of test use and impact, and efforts have been made in recent years to look at the social dimensions of language testing and language education. The research of social dimensions of language testing has been nourished by the development of validity theory. The first section of the article reviews the development of validity theory of language testing and the background of critical language testing theory. Elana Shohamy advanced the theory of Critical Language Testing （CLT） in the plenary talk at the annual conference of the American Association for Applied Linguistics in 1997. She pointed out that ＂The act of language testing is not neutral. Rather, it is a product and agent of cultural, social, political, educational and ideological agendas that shape the lives of individual participants, teachers and learners. ＂ The theory of critical language testing illuminates a broader social and political context of language tests. It reconsiders the consequences of tests which are not confined to washback, in terms of effects on instruction, learning and educational advancement. Instead, it reexamines the exercise of consensual power and control of tests over individuals and educational systems. The second section of the article introduces the main idea of CLT in five aspects in detail, including emergence of power of language tests, transformation of language tests from measuring tools to powerful tools, fairness of language tests, the alternative assessment of language tests and social responsibilities of language testers. The third section suggests the implications of CLT for language testing practice and foreign language education in China. First, efforts should be made to balance Chinese learning and foreign language learning while attaching importance to the latter. Students＇ awareness of learning Chinese should be enhanced in order to preserve, promote and develop Chinese culture. Second, the critical perspective should be taken to examine the use of tests in wider social context and to guard against the misuse and abuse of tests. Third, attempts should be made to develop alternative assessment aiming at reducing the risk of some large-scale tests as the only evidence for decision-making. As one of the various perspectives reflecting language testing, CLT broadens the research field from psychometrics and st＇atistics to sociology and signifies a paradigm shift in language testing research. Rather than limiting its concerns to technical sophistication and efficiency, CLT shifts its focus to social discourse and social dimensions of language testing. Reflections on how to apply CLT to language testing research and practice and further develop the theory will prove a worthwhile endeavor.