LANGUAGE TESTING SYSTEMS IN EUROPE AND IN RUSSIA: REASONS FOR CREATING, PURPOSES AND OBJECTIVES

At all times, people have sought to objectively control knowledge. In this regard, testing was one of the best solutions: the personal attitude of the examiner cannot affect the grading. The idea of testing as a form of control of knowledge had already appeared in the ancient times. Active development of testing had already been started in the beginning of the XX century.
The reasons for elaboration of language testing in Europe are connected, first of all, with the foundation of the European Union. The united economic space required from workers knowledge of foreign languages confirmed by corresponding certificates. After the spread of language testing and the creation of international organizations involved in the development of testing in Europe, it has become possible to unify the language exams of different countries. In Russia there manifested another situation. After the breakdown of the Soviet Union, the Russian language began being perceived in foreign countries as one more foreign language together with German, English or French. Therefore, it was required to create a new system of language testing, which would allow Russian language to integrate into the system of European educational space. When Russian researchers created a language testing system, they used the European experience, but took into account the specifics of the Russian language and the developments that already existed in the Russian methodology. Now we can see, that their experiment has great results. Soon the Russian testing system will hold its twentieth anniversary, and the TORFl system will continue to evolve.
In the article the history of test control, the stages of development of linguistic-didactic testing are presented. The reasons of appearance of test systems, the purposes and aims assigned by European researchers and their Russian colleges are considered.

foreign languages, Russian as foreign language, European test system, Russian state test system of Russian as foreign language, testing.