Foreign Language Testing: a Comparative Study (IELTS, JLPT et al.)

In the last few decades, globalisation had an indubitable impact on the way people live. And although there are effects caused by it that could be considered adverse by some, we can’t deny the constantly expanding collaborative system that has been established between nations worldwide. In these times, the only prerequisite for applying one’s high expertise and fulfilling one’s career and academic aspirations abroad would be verifying one's foreign language proficiency. That is why exploring and perfecting standardised foreign language proficiency tests carries a high relevance. This research is focused on English and Japanese foreign language proficiency tests, more specifically, IELTS and JLPT. The purpose of this paper is to identify common positive and negative tendencies in foreign language assessment field by means of a comparative analysis of constituents of the named tests, as well as their tangible materials. The practical importance of this work could be attributed to the possibility of implementation of the findings in a language testing field.