ASSESSING SPEAKING

MUSFERA NARA VADIA1300925

K4-13

BASIC TYPE OF SPEAKING IMITIATIVE, performance is the ability to simply parrot back

(imitative) a word or phrase or possibility a sentence. The only role of listening here is in the short-term storage of a prompt, just long enough to allow the speaker to retain the short stretch of language that must be imitated.

INTENSIVE, it employed in assessment contexts is the production of short stretch of oral language designed to demonstrated competence in a narrow band of grammatical, phrasal, lexical, or phonological relationships. The speaker must be aware of semantic properties to be able respond, but interaction with an interlocutor or test administrator is minimal at best.

RESPONSIVE, it includes interaction and test comprehension but at the somewhat limited level or very short conversation, standard greetings and small talk, simple requests and comments, and the like.

INTERACTIVE, the difference between responsive and interactive speaking is in the length and complexity of the interaction, which sometimes includes multiple exchanges and/or multiple participants.

EXTENSIVE (monologue), extensive oral production tasks include speeches, oral presentations, and storytelling, during which the opportunity for oral interaction from listeners is either highly limited or ruled out altogether.

Micro- and Macro of SpeakingThe micro-skills refer to producing the smaller

chunks of language such s phonemes, morphemes, words, collocations, and phrasal units.

The macro-skills imply the speaker’s focus on the larger elements: fluency, discourse, function, style, cohesion, nonverbal communication, and strategic options.

A. Designing Assessment Tasks: Imitative Speaking

1# Word and sentence repetition tasks (L,S) Test-takers hear: repeat after me:

Beat pause bit pauseBat pause vat pauseI bought a boat yesterdayThe glow of the candle is growingWhen did they go on vacation?Do you like coffee?

Test-takers repeat the stimulus.

Scoring scale for repetition tasks:2 acceptable pronunciation1 comprehensible, partially, correct pronunciation0 silence, seriously, incorrect pronunciation

The longer the stretch of language, the more possibility for error and therefore the more difficult it becomes to assign a point system to the text.

2# Versant

Formerly called PhonePass. Among a number of speaking tasks on the test,

repetition of sentences occupies a prominent role.

Versant has supported the construct validity of its repetition tasks not just for a test-taker’s phonological ability but also for discourse and overall oral production ability.

B. Designing Assessment Tasks: Intensive Speaking1# Directed Responsive Tasks The administrator elicits a particular grammatical form or a

transformation of a sentence, but they do require minimal processing of meaning in order to produce the correct grammatical output.

Test-takers hear (L,S)Tell me he went home.Tell me that like rock music.Tell me that you aren’t interested in tennis.

2# Read-Aloud tasks Intensive read-aloud tasks include reading beyond the sentence

level up to paragraph or two. Teachers listening to the recording would then rate students on a

number of phonological factors (vowels, diphthongs, consonants, stress, and intonation) by completing a two-page diagnostic checklist on which all error or questionable items were noted.

Some variations on the task of simply reading a short passage: Reading a scripted dialogue Reading sentences containing minimal pairs Reading information from a table or chart

There are several drawbacks to using this techniques for assessing oral production:Reading aloud is somewhat inauthentic in that we seldom read anything aloud to someone else in the real world.Reading aloud calls on certain specialized oral abilities that may not indicate one’s pragmatic ability to communicate orally in face-to-face context.

3# Sentence/Dialogue Completion Tasks and Oral Questionnaires Test-takers are first given time to read through to get its

gist and to think about appropriate lines to fill in. then as the tape, teacher, or test administrator produces one part orally, the test-takers responds:

The advantages of this technique lies in its moderate control of the output of the test-takers. On the other hand, this techniques is its reliance on literacy and an ability to transfer easily from written to spoken English. In addition, it is contrived, inauthentic nature of this task.

Test-takers see:

o Interviewer : what did you do last weekend?o Test-taker :o Interviewer : what did you do after you graduated from this

program?o Test-taker :o Interviewer : o Test-taker : I was in japan for two weeks.o Interviewer :o Test-taker : it’s ten thirty.

Test-takers respond with an appropriate lines.

4# Picture-Cued Tasks It is more popular ways to elicit oral language performance at

both intensive and extensive levels. Its stimulus requires a description from the test-takers.

Picture-cued elicitation of minimal pairs Picture-cued elicitation of comparatives Picture-cued elicitation of future tense Picture-cued elicitation of nouns, negative responses, numbers,

and location Picture-cued elicitation of responses and description Picture-cued elicitation of giving directions Picture-cued elicitation of multiple-choice description for two

test-takers

Scoring scale for intensive tasks

2 Comprehensible; acceptable target form1 Comprehensible; partially correct target form0 Silence, or seriously incorrect target form

Evaluating interview could be used: Grammar Vocabulary Comprehensible Fluency Pronunciation Task (accomplishing the objective of the

elicited task)

5# Translation (of Limited Stretches of Discourse)Translation is a meaningful communicative device in contexts in which the English-user is called on to be an interpreter.The test-taker is given a native-language word, phrase, or sentence and is asked to translate it.

C. Designing Assessment Tasks: Responsive Speaking

1# Question & Answer Question & answer can consist of one or two questions from

an interviewer or they can make up a portion of a whole battery of questions and prompts in an oral interview.

The first question is intensive in its purpose; it is a display question intended to elicit a predetermined correct response.

Questions at the responsive level tend to be genuine referential questions in which the test-taker is given more opportunity to produce meaningful language in response.

Responsive question may take following forms:Questions eliciting open-ended responsesTest takers hear: 1. what do you think about the weather today? 2. why did you choose your academic major? What kind of strategies have you used to help you

learn English?

Test-takers respond with a few sentences at most

2# Giving Instructions and Directions The technique is simple: the administrator poses the problem, and

test-taker responds. Scoring is based primarily on comprehensibility, and secondary on other specified grammatical or discourse categories. The choice of topics needs to be familiar enough so that the test is not general knowledge but linguistic competence. Finally, the task should require the test-taker to produce at least five or six sentences.

Eliciting instructions or directionTest-takers hear: Describe how to make a typical dish from your country? How do you access e-mail on a PC?Test-takers respond with appropriate instruction.

3# Paraphrasing The test-takers read or hear a short story or

description with a limited number of sentences (perhaps two or five) and produce a paraphrase of the story. The advantages is they elicit short stretches of output and perhaps tap into test-takers’ to practice the conversational art of conciseness by reducing the output/ input ratio.

4# Test- of Spoken English (TSE Test) The Test of Spoken English are designed to elicit oral

production in various discourse categories rather than in selected phonological, grammatical, or lexical targets. Tasks include description, narration, summary, giving instruction, comparing and contrasting.

From their findings, the researchers were be able to report on the validity of the tasks, especially the match between the intended task functions and the actual output of both native and non-active speakers.

D. Designing Assessment Tasks: Interactive Speaking

#1 Interview A test administrator and a test-taker sit down in a direct face-to-

face exchange and proceed through a protocol of questions and directives.

Four level stages:1. warm-up, preliminary small talk to make test-taker become

comfortable with the situation. No scoring of this phase takes place.

2. level check, a series of preplanned questions.3. probe, probe questions and prompts challenge test-takers to go to

the heights of their ability, to extend beyond the limits of the interviewer’s expectation through increasingly difficult questions.

4. Wind-down, a final phase of interview. No scoring for this part.

The success of an oral interview will depend on:

Clearly specifying administrative procedure of the assessment. (practically)

Focusing the questions and probes on the purpose (validity) Appropriately eliciting an optimal amount and quality of oral

production from the test-taker (biased for best performance) Minimizing the possibly harmful effect of the power

relationship between interviewer and interviewee (biased for best performance)

Creating a consistent, workable scoring system (reliability)

#2 Role Play It frees students to be somewhat creative in their

linguistic output. In some versions, role play allows some rehearsal time so that students can map out what they are going to say. It also has the effect of lowering anxieties as students can, even for few moments, take on the persona of someone other than themselves.

The test administrator must determine the assessment objectives of the role play then devise a scoring technique that appropriately pinpoints those adjectives.

#3 Discussion and ConversationDiscussion may be especially appropriate tasks through which elicit and observe such abilities: Topic nomination, maintenance, and termination Attention getting, interrupting, control Clarifying, questioning, paraphrasing Comprehension signals Negotiating meaning Intonation patterns for pragmatic effect Kinesics, eye contact, proxemics, body language Politeness, and other sociolinguistics factors

#4 Games Assessment games: Tinkertoy game Crossword puzzles Information gap City maps

As assessments, the key is to specify a set of criteria and a reasonably practical and reliable scoring method.

5# ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) Originally known as the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) test. In a series of the structured tasks, the OPI is carefully designed

to elicit pronunciation, fluency and integrative ability, sociolinguistic and cultural knowledge, grammar and vocabulary.

Valdman (1988) summed up the complaint:“The OPI forces test-takers into a closed system where, because the interviewer in endowed with full social control, they are unable to negotiate a social world….. In short, the OPI can only inform us how learners can deal with an artificial social imposition rather than enabling us to predict how they would be likely to manage authentic linguistic interactions with target language native speaker.”

E. Designing Assessment Tasks: Extensive Speaking

1# Oral PresentationsThe rules for effective assessment must be involved: Specify the criterion Set appropriate tasks Elicit optimal output Establish practical, reliable scoring process For oral presentation, a checklist or grid is a common means of

scoring or evaluation. The wash back effect of a such checklist can be enhanced by written comments from the teacher, a conference with the teacher, peer evaluation using the same form, and self-assessment.

2# Picture-Cued Storytelling It considers a picture or a series of pictures as a stimulus for a

longer story or description.

3# Retelling a Story, News Event [L, R, S] Test-takers hear or read a story or news event that they are

asked to retell. The objectives in assigning is listening comprehension of the

original to production of a number of oral discourse features (sequences and relationship of events, stress and emphasis pattern), fluency, and interaction with the hearer.

Scoring should meet the intended criteria.

4# Translation (of Extended Prose) The longer texts are presented for the test-taker to read in the

native language and then translate into English. Those texts could come in many forms: dialogue, directions for assembly product, a synopsis of a story, etc.

The advantage: control the content, vocabulary, and the grammatical and discourse features.

Disadvantage: the translation of longer texts is highly specialized skill for which some individuals obtain post-baccalaureate degrees!

Criteria of scoring should take into account not only the purpose of stimulating a translation but the possibility of errors that are unrelated to oral production ability.

Brown, H.Douglas, Priyanvada Abeywickrama.2010. Language Assessment: Principles and Classroom Practices 2nd Ed. New York: Pearson Longman