Methodological Proposal for the Formulation of a Conceptualization of the Language Use of an English Certification Test as a Foreign Language

This article describes the procedure followed to formulate a conceptualization of the Target Language Use Domain for the Graduation Test of English (EXEDII). Language tests consider four abilities: listening, reading, speaking and writing, but a controversy exists about the conceptualization of the measured construct since the use of language in the real environment is neither fractioned in separate entities, nor used in a single situation. Thus it seems useful to make a conceptualization of the field before constructing or validating tests. Taking into account the adaptability of language use depending on the situation, four concatenated activities for collecting information were designed. A Focus Group and interviews provided the opinion of experts in teaching. Also, comparisons were made between the descriptions of the intermediate level of proficiency used by international institutions, a centre of language teaching and a couple of English language proficiency tests. The integration of this information produced the conceptualization which will be used as a criterion for the content validation of the EXEDII test.</span