New virtual contexts for learning foreign languages have been arising from the development of new communication technologies. Now, there is the necessity to think about how the students' communicative competence may be evaluated in such virtual contexts. This article aims at presenting a retrospective of the origin and development of oral proficiency tests for speakers of foreign languages, as well as pointing out and discussing the aspects that should be taken into account when designing this kind of tests for virtual environments.
language assessment; oral proficiency; technology
