Whilst preparing this talk, I came across a quotation that seems to me to sum up the problems involved in oral testing rather nicely. It comes from a paper on the classification of oral competence published in 1981 by two Americans, Madden and Jones: "During the past few decades, oral language testing has had a great deal in common with physical fitness. Everyone thinks it is a wonderful idea but few people have taken the time to do anything about it. "