Regimes of language skill and competency assessment in an age of migration: the in/visibility of social relations and practices.

This paper draws on ethnographic research to discuss the textual practices and social relations of language assessment. It examines the tensions that language educators and assessment practitioners encounter while making decisions about immigrant professionals’ language competence. It also analyzes the role of other social actors in constituting conceptions of skill. The paper concludes by considering social practice theory as an alternative for exploring conceptions of competence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]