This document discusses the history and development of communicative competence and its impact on language testing. It begins by defining communicative competence as introduced by Hymes in 1966. It then discusses how models of communicative competence proposed by Canale and Swain in 1980 and Bachman in 1990 shifted language testing paradigms to focus on usage over structures. A key test discussed is IELTS, which evaluates English proficiency across four skills and has undergone revisions to better test communicative competence.

1. 20
2011
Communicative Competence and
Language Testing
Abeer Barakat
Alhossary
and
Nazanin Sadegian
UPM

2. “Communicative Competence” is one of the linguistics terms that win a high attention in the
field of Teaching English as a Second Language (TESOL). This term, which was first introduced
by Hymes (1966), came about after periods of previous paradigms that controlled the field of
TESOL and eventually led to the emergence of this notion in order to fill the gaps that other
language teaching methods could not fill. This paper attempted to define the term of
“communicative competence”, trace the historical changes in TESOL that led to the emergence
of this term and how it affected language testing, and finally describe one of the prominent
English Proficiency Tests that targets to test the communicative competence of second language
learners.
The term “communicative competence” in linguistics was first introduced by Dell Hymes
(1966) as a response to Chomsky’s view in (1965) about the distinction between “competences”
and “performance”, which made “competence”, seems as an abstract notion. To Hymes,
“communicative competence” refers to the ability to use the grammatical knowledge and social
knowledge when performing in real life situations.
Later, the “communicative competence” became part of the basic theories of the
“Communicative approach” as it emerged after the Audio-lingual method (ALM), which was not
achieving the target of having second language learners communicate properly in real life
situations. ALM emerged after World War II as part of the Behaviorist school. Its basic method
was mainly made of drilling and habit-formation in order to achieve accuracy of structure and
standard pronunciation. This approach was heavily criticized by Chomsky as he stated that
language is not a “habit structure” but rather involves other factors such as innovation.
Chomsky’s views led to the emergence of the Communicative Language Teaching approach
(CLT).
In 1980, Canale and Swain introduced a new definition of communicative competence, which
included three components and then updated their model in 1983 to include a fourth competence:
1

3. 1. Grammatical competence: knowledge of words, rules of sentence structure, and
2
phonology.
2. Sociolinguistic competence: knowledge of appropriate language use in social context.
3. Strategic competence: knowledge of communication strategies of verbal and verbal
language.
4. Discourse competence: mastery of coherence and cohesion.
In addition, Bachman (1990) proposed a model of competencies which is considered as an
extension of the Canale and Swain model. Bachman’s model includes three competencies; in
which each of these competencies comprises further competencies that interact with each other
in the context of language use. These competencies are:
1. Language competence: (organizational competence, pragmatic competence).
2. Strategic competence: ( assessment, planning, and execution)
3. Psychophysiological mechanisms.
Not only the notion of “communicative competence” affected the methods of language teaching,
it also affected testing the learner’s language. Testing the communicative competences of
learners means to provide testers with information about the testee’s ability to perform in the
target language in tasks given about specific contexts. The more realistic the tasks in the test are,
the better results about the testees performance will be. According to the model of four
competencies proposed by (Canale and Swain, 1980) language testing should not only included
testing the learners’ knowledge of the target language, but also testing the learners’ ability to use
the language in communicative situations.
The two models of communicative competencies provided (Canale and Swain 1980) and
Bachman (1990) played an important role in shifting the testing paradigms by providing a useful
framework for designing communicative language tests (Weir 1990).

4. Earlier before, the introduction of the notion of “communicative competence” in the teaching
paradigm, there were three periods of language testing, as Spolsky (1975) identified them: the
pre-scientific period, the psychometric-structuralist period, and the psycholinguistic-sociolinguistic.
According to Davies (1978, cited in Weir (1990) there were two test paradigms in the mid-
1970s. These paradigms fall into the “discrete” test and the “integrative” test. He argued that
although these two test types may seem totally different, but no test can be purely categorized as
falling in one type than the other; in fact language tests are a combination of these two.
With relation to these two test types, Spolsky (1976, cited in Weir (1990) categorized these test
types as: the “psychometric-structuralist era” and the “psycholinguistic-sociolinguistic era”. In
the “psychometric-structuralist” era, tests focused on “discrete” linguistic items, which are
reliable as the test items are objectively scored. Lado was one of the main figures of this
approach. In this approach, tests contained items of small language segments in order to give
information about the testees’ ability in particular language points. Yet, these kinds of tests
“suffer from the defects of the construct they seek to measure” according to (Weir 1990).
With the advent of the “integrative” testing, a new era began, which is being referred to as the
“psycholinguistic-sociolinguistic era”. In this era, the integrative testing required testees to fill
certain words in gaps within a given text, as in cloze test and dictation test, in order to provide a
measure of the testees’ ability to use language skills, (Oller 1979 cited in Weir 1990).
Nevertheless, serious questions with regard to the validity of “integrative measuring testing
devices” were raised by Alderson (1978a, cited in Weir 1990). In addition, Morrow (1979, cited
in Weir 1990) criticized the techniques of the “integrative test” by stating that the dictation and
cloze tests do not allow for the testees to have spontaneous production of language. Thus, these
kinds of test only test the testees’ competence rather than their performance.
3

5. As the new paradigm of communicative competence proceeded in response to the gaps of the
previous testing paradigms, the focus has shifted form testing the language use to usage
(Widdowson 1978, cited in Weir 1990). According to Kelly ( 1978, p.33, cited in Wier 1990):
To take part in a communicative event is to produce and/or comprehend discourse in the context
of situation and under the performance conditions that obtain. It is the purpose of proficiency test
to assess whether or not candidates are indeed capable of participating in typical communication
events from the specified communication situation(s).
Therefore, the test construct has to follow these theoretical grounds in order to test the real
communicative abilities of the testees. The test tasks should be as realistic as possible in order to
succeed in measuring the testees’ abilities. For example, testing the student’s spoken abilities
should follow certain conditions in order to be reliable in measuring what it is supposed to
measure. According to Morrow (1981, cited in Boddy and Langham 2000), the spoken tasks in
proficiency tests should reflect “normal spoken discourse” in order to give the testees’ the chance
to respond naturally.
Another aspect of the communicative language testing that was highlighted by Morrow (1981,
cited in (1981, cited in Boddy and Langham 2000) is that the assessment should be made
qualitatively. According to Morrow, answers to test are not merely true or false, but rather can be
measured on the basis of how approximately the testee has reached the proficiency level of the
native speakers. Such tests are being referred to as “criterion referenced test” as it follows
external criteria for the marking scheme.
From this point, language proficiency tests have become a necessity in order to measure
student’s communicative competence especially those second language learners, who wish to
purse their education in English speaking countries. Many English Proficiency tests have
emerged, among which the most prominent test and widely used in the world are the American
test, the (TOEFL), and the Australian Test, the (IELTS).
4

6. From a personal experience of both tests, the IELTS may be considered as a better proficiency
measuring test than the TOEFL. There were a number of criticisms directed towards the TOEFL
test, but in this paper, we will only confine ourselves to describe the IELTS due to the simple
nature of this paper and make a small comparison between IELTS and TOEFL in order to
explain how IELTS is considered better than TOEFL when it comes to testing or measuring
communicative competence.
The International English Language Testing System (IELTS) is a standardized test of English
proficiency. It was developed out of its predecessor the English Language Testing Service
(ELTS), which was known for its difficulty as it was known for being field specific. According
to Alderson and Clapham (1992) this test was first administered in the autumn of 1989 by the
Cambridge Local Examination Syndicate in collaboration with the British Council (BC) and the
International Development Programme of Australian Universities and Colleges (IDP).
IELTS evaluates the English proficiency as a second language (ESL) of speakers who wish to
migrate to or study in countries where English is the language of communication; such as,
England, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, (Alderson & Clapham, 1992). In recent years,
U.S. universities have also begun to accept IELTS scores for university entrance ("IELTS:
English for International Opportunity," n.d). IELTS measures the test candidate's ability to
communicate in English in all four language skills: listening, reading, writing, and speaking
(Taylor, 2001).
IELTS has two variants/modules: Academic and General. The Academic module of IELTS is
designed for IELTS candidates, who aim to pursue their higher education abroad; while the
General module of IELTS is intended for candidates who wish to work in, immigrate to or
participate in diploma-level training in English speaking countries ("IELTS: English for
International Opportunity," n.d). IELTS uses a nine-band scoring system with a score from 1 (no
knowledge) to 9 (expert user) to measure and report test scores. IELTS candidates are given
individual band scores for each section of: listening, reading, writing, and speaking, then the
5

7. scores of each section are accumulated all together to produce the overall band score.
Educational institutions and other organizations specify the band they require for admission
depending on the nature of the program or field being studied.
IELTS has gone through several revision processes, since its first appearance in 1980 when it
replaced the English Proficiency Test Battery (EPTB) most significantly in 1989 and 1995 in
order to adopt a more sociolinguistic approach and shift the emphasis from atomistic language
features to broader features of linguistic communication (Charge & Taylor, 1997). The speaking
section of the IELTS test was revised in 2001 with the omission of the role-play segment of the
test and the inclusion of the "individual long-turn", in which the candidate is required to speak
for 2 minutes on a topic chosen by the examiner (Taylor, 2001). The latest version of the IELTS
is the computer-based version, which was launched in 2005 (Maycock & Green, 2005).
IELTS has become widely accepted and considered as a “high stake test” in 2003 as the total
number of test takers in both modules worldwide had exceeded half a million("IELTS Test
Performance Data 2004," 2006).
In conclusion, language testing has gone through different faces a long the history of language
teaching and learning. Testing “communicative competence” was and still in this modern era as
one of the most important notions that came a response to the previous paradigms that mainly
focused on language use rather than usage. With the advances of technology, and open networks
for the people all over the world to communicate freely via a language that wins the global
status, which is English, it became necessary to focus on communicating efficiently in social
context. Thus, language testing should be in accordance with these advances and follow these
needs of the communication in the modern era.
6

8. 7
Reference
Alderson , J. C, & Clapham, C. (1992). Examining the IELTS Test: An account of the first stage
of the ELTS revision project. IELTS Research Reports, 2, 64-106.
Bachman, L. F. (1990) Fundamental Considerations in Language Testing. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Canale, M. and Swain, M. (1980) Theoretical Bases of Communication Approaches to Second
Language Teaching and Testing. Applied Linguistics Vol. 1 No. 1
Charge, N., & Taylor, L. (1997). Recent developments in IELTS. English Language Teaching
Journal, 51, 374-380.
Chomsky, N. (1965): Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Boston: MIT
Celce-Murcia M (l995) The elaboration of sociolinguistic competence: Implications for teacher
education. In: Alatis JE, Straehle CA, Ronkin M (eds) Linguistics and the Education of
Language Teachers: Ethnolinguistic, Psycholinguistic, and Sociolinguistic Aspects.
Proceedings of the Georgetown University, Round Table on Languages and Linguistic
, 2005. Georgetown University Press, Washington DC, pp 699–710
Hymes, D.H. (1966) "Two Types of linguistic relativity" In W. Bright (ed) Sociolinguistics pp.
114-158. The Hague: Mouton.
Hymes D (l967) Models of the interaction of language and social setting. Journal of Social
Issues 23(2): 8–38
Hymes, D. (1972): “On communicative competence”; in J.B. Pride & J. Homes (eds.):
Sociolinguistics (269-93). Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Maycock, L., & Green, T. (2005). The effects on Performance of Computer Familiarity &
Attitudes towards CBIELTS. Research Notes, 20, 3-8.
Splsky, (1975) in Miyata-Boddy, N. and Longham, C. (2000) Retrived 20/03/3012
http://faculty.ksu.edu.sa/aljarf/Research%20Library/Testing%20References/5.LANGHAM.pdf
Taylor, L. (2001) Revising the IELTS speaking test Research Notes, 4,9-12. Retrieved November
1,2007, from http://www.cambridgeesol.org/rs_notes
Weir, C. J. (1990) Communicative Language Testing. London: Prentice Hall.
Wikipedia Communicative Competence Retrieved 20/03/3012
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communicative_competence