International Civil Aviation Organization - ICAO
FLIGHT SAFETY (FLS) SECTION
Guidance on the evaluation of language proficiency
Are there any tests already available?
Efforts to develop appropriate and commercially available aviation-specific testing instruments are underway and aviation-specific test options are already available and more will become available in the near future.
Most of the commercially available English knowledge tests such as TOEFL are not appropriate for the purpose of testing English competency for pilots and air traffic controllers. The main reason is that those tests have not been designed for testing the "speaking and listening ability" required by Annex 1. Some oral proficiency tests are available but they are generally designed for a context (e.g. business) that is not that of civil aviation and are therefore not fully satisfactory.
Generally speaking, the evaluation of the speaking and/or listening skills requires face-to-face contact between tester and test-taker, or semi-direct contact, through recorded speaking prompts and recorded responses that are analyzed later by the tester. Other testing methods and in particular those using only "pen and paper" tests or their computerized versions are not appropriate.
* Thanks for the member Fawaz77 to remind us about this.