ASSESSING SPEAKING

ASSESSING SPEAKING

1. Listening and speaking are closely interrelated. Speaking is a productive skill.

2. Basic types of speaking

   • 1. Imitative. - is the ability to parrot back a word or phrase.
   • 2. Intensive. - the ability to respond with simple sentences
   • 3. Responsive. - is the interaction and comprehension but following the questions.
   • 4. Interactive. - is the length and complexity of the interaction with multiple participants.
   • 5. Extensive (monologue). - speeches, oral presentations and storytelling.

3. Macro and micro skills

   • They are objective tasks
     • 1. No speaking task. 2. Eliciting the criterion. - the elicitation has to achieve closely its aims.

4. Imitative speaking. – is the simple repetition task, test-takers repeat the stimulus with a scoring scale for repetition.

   • Phone pass test. - is a test in which you have to repeat from 8 to 12 words. The scale measurements are in pronunciation.

5. Intensive speaking. - short stretches of discourse.

   • Directed response tasks. - they are not communicative just mechanical responses.
   • Read-aloud tasks. - is to read aloud a paragraph or two with a rubric that checks intonation and stress.
   • Sentence/dialogue completion tasks and oral questionnaires. - is to read an incomplete text and the test-taker has to think in a sentence to complete, the disadvantage is the transfer from written to spoken.
   • Picture-cued tasks. – is the action to describe a picture that has many elements.
   • Translation (limited). – test-taker has a group of words in his native language and he has to translate.

6. Responsive speaking Brief interaction with an interlocutor.

   • Question and answer. – one or two questions with open-ended responses.
   • Giving instructions and directions. – is the task of provide instructions orally, test-taker has to have a prior knowledge to do this.
   • Paraphrasing. – read two or five sentence and the test-taker has to paraphrase.

7. Interactive speaking Long interactive discourse like interviews, role plays, discussions or games.

   • Interview. – face-to-face questions, from 5 to 45 minutes depending on the purpose. Warm-up that is a preliminary talk. Level check be sure of the answers given. Probe the ability to extend the limits of expectations and Wind-down are final advices to follow after the exam.
   • Role play. – are set by guidelines but with the freedom of creativity. Test-takers have to be able to answer anything.
   • Discussion and conversations. – is more or less an informal technique because of the spontaneity.
   • Games. – with language production such as “tinker toy”

8. Extensive speaking Complex, relatively lengthy and variations on monologues

   • Oral presentations. – are evaluated by a checklist, the content and the way of delivery are graded.
   • Picture-cued story-telling. – is the same as describing a picture but in this part the test-taker has to tell a story with the image.
   • Retelling a story, news event. – is the ability to communicate a sequence of events.
   • Translation (extensive). – this is more text presented in the native language to be translated to English.

9. Test of spoken English (TSE) 20 – minute audiotaped test for oral ability. Oral proficiency interview (OPI) is designed to check pronunciation, fluency and integrative ability, cultural knowledge, grammar and vocabulary.