“Why test language for specific purposes?”

There are professional or vocational fields in which the English have to be used, likewise, the language teaching has specific characteristics where the person that work in the field must manage.

“There are lexical, semantic, syntactic, and even phonological characteristics of language peculiar to any field, and these characteristics allow for people in that field to speak and write more precisely about aspects of the field that outsiders sometimes find impenetrable”.

Test language for specific purposes is more precise and can be more motivating and understandable for the learner due to the field that they already know furthermore in a future business the person can address the issue more easily and with confidence.

A specific purpose language test is one in which test content and methods are derived from an analysis of a specific purpose target language use situation, so that test tasks and content are authentically representative of tasks in the target situation, allowing for an interaction between the test taker's language ability and specific purpose content knowledge, on the one hand, and the test tasks on the other. Such a test allows us to make inferences about a test taker's capacity to use language in the specific purpose domain.

Reference

Douglas, Dan. (1999) Assessing Languages for Specific Purposes. Iowa State University. Cambridge University Press.