How Can Listening Contribute to Aviation Safety? EPLIS Paper 1 under the Spotlight

Assessing listening for specific purposes involves understanding the nature of listening and making careful theoretical and practical decisions on the authenticity of the input, the type of tasks, mode of delivery, as well as the characteristics of the target test population. In a context of aviation language testing for licensing purposes, in which listening comprehension is central to aeronautical communications, test developers must guarantee that tests are valid, effective and reliable by complying with best practices. In this paper, the listening test of the Aeronautical English Proficiency Exam (EPLIS) for the Brazilian Airspace System will be appraised. EPLIS item development process will be examined in order to see how it contributes to the test construct validity, in terms of offering empirical evidence and theoretical rationales to ensure that the interpretations of test scores are meaningful for the uses and impact desired by its test developers.