Artifice et réalisme des tests de langues

Application du principe d’immersion mimétique au CLES B2

Yves Bardière, Université Grenoble Alpes

Abstract: Although oral interaction is given a specific focus in the Common European Framework, due to its paramount importance in real life, it must be acknowledged that its assessment in an institutional context is strongly tainted with artifice: candidates are expected to play a role, willingly or unwillingly, over a pre-determined period of time, before observers convened for the occasion, and are sometimes requested to defend a point of view which is at variance with their inner convictions. If the situation of utterance (the exam situation) is artificial, it is nevertheless possible to offset the artifice by devising a simulated situation (the situation conceived by the test designers) that creates the illusion of reality. An appropriate way to trigger a referential illusion is to ensure the propitious conditions for mimetic or fictional immersion. The French Higher education language certificate (CLES), on which this study is based, advocates a scenario-based language assessment (SBLA). This approach is particularly well suited to the implementation of mimetic immersion. The major interest of mimetic immersion is to induce a behavioural mimesis which is close to real life and proves to be most valuable during oral interaction. After tackling the notions of reality and realism and pointing out the differences between them, this article aims at providing a better understanding of mimetic immersion applied to language testing and more specifically oral interaction. It attempts to dismantle the underlying mechanisms at work in the context of scenario-based language assessments such as the CLES.