Towards Higher Authenticity in Language for Specific Purpose Testing. Assessing Target Language Proficiency in Foreign Language Teacher Education

Profession-related language competences like those identified in the Profession-Related Language Competence Profiles (PRLCP, Kuster et al., 2014) are deemed central to effective foreign language teaching (Bleichenbacher et al., 2017). With their focus on testing general language ability, international language diplomas applied in foreign language teacher education to certify trainee teachers’ target language (TL) skills fail to sufficiently assess profession-related language competences (Bleichenbacher et al., 2014c). To address this gap, an online-administered competence-oriented performance test was developed for the TLs English and French. With its objective to assess the skills required in authentic foreign language classroom contexts, it is imperative that it be of high ecological validity and establish a strong connection to the “real world” (Blömeke et al., 2015; Council of Europe, 2001). To meet this prerequisite, video-vignettes simulating prototypical classroom situations from the first-person-perspective were created to elicit spoken TL productions (Jeffries & Maeder, 2005). To prompt (near)authentic written TL productions, authentic pupil writing samples were implemented. Both forms of stimuli serve to establish a near-authentic context in test tasks. This paper reports on a novel approach to language performance testing by highlighting how an innovative use of technology is combined with responding to the local needs of foreign language teacher education. The authors present the test development and implementation, preliminary test results and implications on using (video)vignettes to achieve higher ecological validity in language for specific purpose testing.