Language Testing has just published a review of the CELPIP Test by Coral Yiwei Qin and Beverly Baker.
The CELPIP is mostly used for Canadian immigration and is owned by Prometric, an American company. The review indicates that it can be taken at 97 test centers in Canada and about 43 in the rest of the world.
The review provides a detailed overview of the test’s content before appraising the content. A few points stood out when I read the review:
- According to the authors, the test lacks assessment of interactional competence. They note: “the purpose of CELPIP-General is to evaluate test takers’ English abilities in everyday situations, which inevitably encompasses interactional competence as a part of the target language use domain. Nevertheless, interactional competence is only captured in a limited way in CELPIP-General.”
- The authors feel that the test lacks content that can assess test takers at advanced levels. They note that while the test assigns scores which correspond to CLB levels 10 and above, they “did not find sufficient evidence suggesting substantial content coverage at these advanced levels of performance.” The authors note that this could be a political consideration, as IRCC desires that tests match CLB levels all the way to level 12.
- The authors note that much of the content “was distinctly Canadian in nature.” Canadian situations are referenced, there is evidence of a Canadian accent, and the test includes lines like “That was good, eh?”
There is more in the review, both positive and negative. Do check it out. It is in open access.