LANGUAGE TESTING FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OF COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE: AN INPUT-PROCESS-OUTPUT (IPO) FRAMEWORK

Abstract

The notion of communicative competence emphasises the teaching and testing of every aspect of language to ensure the use of language appropriately by the learners. For sustaining the development of communicative competence in the learners, this paper suggested an Input-ProcessOutput (IPO) language testing/assessment framework formulated from the existing communicative/pragmatic competence models. The language components in the form of skills such as grammatical, discourse, strategic, and sociolinguistic competencies received by the learners are regarded as the Input; learners are placed as a feature in the heart of the process; and learners’ production/communicative performance is referred to as Output. The learners’ level of competence may be high, intermediate, or low. Therefore, this framework seems to be applicable in the classroom language test/assessment and research activities.