Assessing communicative competence

This chapter provides an overview and critique of communicative competence as it has been conceptualized and operationalized in language assessment. The chapter presents a historical overview of communicative competence in language assessment and a discussion of critical issues that demand attention from researchers and practitioners. The chapter then examines communicative competence in relation to practical and theoretical developments in language assessment. A key concern for practitioners is that the act of assessing language forces them to prioritize certain communicative knowledges, behaviors, and patterns over others in a constrained sample of language use. A matter for theorists is that assessment practices themselves inhere a special kind of communicative competence and are worthy of investigation as anthropological and sociological phenomena. Examples are provided of different methods that have been used to explore communicative competence in language assessment research. The chapter concludes with recommendations for more inclusive directions in assessment design, a focus on the nature of communicative competence as it emerges in assessment contexts, and consideration of the affordances and challenges for assessment brought by technological advances.