Through the analysis of the various definitions of language ability by linguists,the article highlights Bachman s theoretical framework of communicative language ability.

On the basis of a chronicle review on the development of language testing in the past two or three centuries, the paper first introduces the theory of communicative language ability, which has been providing a broad basis for the development and research of the communicative language testing.

Bachman s communicative testing framework is scrutinized in terms of communicative language ability framework, test method facets framework and principles of evaluating language testing in an attempt to point out that this framework is comparatively scientific and it provides guidelines and methods for us to design and evaluate communicative language testing.

English learning and communicative competence;

Cultral Introduction and Development of Communicative Competence;

This paper investigates on the means through which successful implementation of tasks leads to the achievement of communicative competence.

Creating situations for language learners and teaching language in more authentic situations may help to promote students communicative language ability better,which is just the goal of modern English teaching.

Therefore,the paper provides a detailed theoretical account of Lado s skills ,Oller s unitary competence hypothesis(UCH) and Bachman s communicative competence.