Assessing Oral Production of English as Lingua Franca in European Universities: Can corpora inform the test construct?

This article examines the rapidly growing phenomenon of the use of English as a lingua franca (ELF) in European universities and the need to develop tests which reflect this use. After reporting on a research project which introduced a lingua franca element into a receptive skills test set at Levels B1-B2 of the CEFR (reflecting current entrance requirements to first and second level degree programmes), it goes on to consider the challenges posed by assessment of the productive skills, and the possible role of corpora (learner corpora and ELF corpora) in contributing to the identification of a test construct for oral production.