The challenges of the certification of Spanish for specific purposes

Abstract

Proficiency certification in Spanish as a foreign or second language for specific purposes in Spanish-speaking countries is currently clustered around four examination systems. These certify the candidates´ ability to use language in the domains of business, healthcare and tourism management; only one of them claims to assess academic domains. In this article, as well as questioning the potential need for coverage in other areas, we have considered some of the issues facing this segment of language certification: the delimitation of the contexts of language use in the professional, academic or vocational domains, the location of the focus of the specificity and the criteria for grading it, the description of the assessment construct, the design of test tasks, the training of test writers and examiners and the procedures for scoring. The analysis of these issues highlights some progress made in this area and shows a number of unresolved problems. The Spanish-speaking assessment community should contribute to the development of this segment of evaluation and help to overcome these problematic issues by taking up the challenges involved through research and the creation of shared resources in a framework of collaboration in professional networks.