Language Testing | 2019
An evidence-based review of Celpe-Bras: The exam for certification of proficiency in Portuguese as a foreign language
Abstract
Celpe-Bras, the exam for the certification of proficiency in Portuguese as a foreign language, is the only Portuguese proficiency test recognized by the Brazilian government (Ministério da Educação, 2013). The exam was first launched in 1998 with 127 examinees taking the test in five testing sites (Ministério da Educação, 2013). By 2018, CelpeBras had been administered to a total of 113,172 test takers at 94 testing sites across 37 countries around the world (UFRGS, n.d.). Given the recent growth of interest and also its unique design as a large-scale proficiency test, this review seeks to examine the overall usefulness and fairness of Celpe-Bras, using Kunnan’s (2018) most recent model of test fairness and justice. As the current field of language testing still tends to focus on the assessment practices and issues of English language testing, it is also our hope that this review, together with other such recent reviews (e.g., Elder, 2018), could help to raise awareness about the assessment of world languages other than English, hence expanding our profession’s scope and impact.