The Principles of Preparing Persian Language Proficiency Test (PLPT) / (AMFA)

A Proficiency test is one of the language tests with the goal of assessing/evaluating the language learners'' achievement. This test does not deal with language teaching and learning methods. In fact، in a proficiency test، we concentrate on determining the level of the testee’s ability in applying language at the time of administrating the test and for the test taker، it is not important that how the testee has achieved the language ability. Concerning this short definition of the proficiency test and with regard to the large number of non-Iranian students who are studying in Iranian universities، and also with regard to this point that there must be an appropriate and reliable criterion for the admission of non-Persian students in Iranian universities، this article is going to present the basics and preliminaries of development of Persian Language Proficiency Test (PLPT) in order to assess the Persian proficiency of those who come to Iran to continue their academic education. Furthermore، a sample of this test will be also presented. The test introduced in this paper is a kind of proficiency test that avoids concentrating on language knowledge/competences (grammar، vocabulary، and pronunciation) and their direct assessment and instead، with testing the testees in the field of language skills، finds out the level of their proficiency at language knowledge/competences. The test assesses the proficiency level of language learners in applying the language، which is the same as language skills. This test which is called AMFA in Persian، tries to test four main language skills (listening، speaking، reading، and writing). The most important point in AMFA is that it avoids direct and explicit assessment of grammar، vocabulary، and pronunciation. Instead، it assumes that these components are required to succeed in those four main language skills. In other words، it believes that language learners’ proficiency in these components will be revealed indirectly at the time of assessing those four skills. The similar test to AMFA، in other languages، is IELTS which is the most prominent proficiency test worldwide.