General Language Proficiency (GLP): Reflections on the “Issues Revisited” from the Perspective of a UK Examination Board

Abstract

Looking back to the language testing world of the 1980s in the United Kingdom, we need to be aware that how we perceive or remember ourselves to have been then—whether as individual language testing academics or as corporate language testing organisations—will be shaped by multiple influences. Although we may have been present at and shared in the 1980 discussions, our recollections of how things were then and our views on how they have (or have not) changed will vary. What follows in this article offers a predominantly personal perspective. It is the view as I perceive it, in light of my own journey as a UK-based language teacher and tester over the past 30 years, seen from where I stand now as a consultant to a large international examining board in the United Kingdom. It is also therefore an institutional perspective, drawing on a long association with one particular language testing organisation. Just as my perspective is from the position of only one language testing institution, I am also only one individual from within that institution. There will undoubtedly be other stances, voices, and perspectives that are equally valid and relevant from within the same institution.

Notes

¹ The CLC is an electronic database of exam scripts written by students taking Cambridge English exams around the world. For more information, go to www.cambridge.org/corpus

² For more information about English Profile, go to www.englishprofile.org

³ For more information, go to www.alte.org

⁴ The ALTE Code of Practice and quality management and assurance can be found at www.alte.org/qa/index.php

⁵ I am grateful to one of the external reviewers of an earlier draft for drawing my attention to the issue of power and influence in scholarship and for inviting some reflection on it here.