Assessing Speaking

Possible challenges in assessing speaking Effect of listening skill: Speaking without interaction is observable but very limited (telling a story, speeches, etc). Most of the time it is assessed in interactions; then the success of the test taker might depend on his/her listening skills. Design of elicitation techniques: If the goal of the tester is to elicit some grammatical categories, then the stimulus must be prepared carefully Scoring procedure: When the task is open ended, it might be difficult to score. To avoid this, the stimulus must be specific enough to elicit output that scoring applies appropriately.

Possible variables that might affect speaking exams Personal characteristics: age, sex, language proficiency level, type of general education, etc should be considered while preparing assessment tasks. E.g. if it is a mixed group, tasks should not favor sex or age group

Possible variables that might affect speaking exams Knowledge of the world: tasks should not require specific knowledge of the world Emotional response (affective schemata): topics like death, natural disasters, diseases might affect some learners negatively.

Theory of Speaking Assessment Four competences underlying speaking ability (Canale and Swain, 1980) Grammatical competence: knowledge of grammar, vocab and mechanics Discourse competence: cohesion, coherence Sociolinguistic competence: knowledge of what is expected socially and culturally by target lang users Strategic competence: being able to use learning strategies properly

Differences between writing and speaking Speaking is a productive skill, like writing So, assessment is subjective Holistic or analytical rubric needed But speaking and writing skills are different and should be taken into consideration while assessing

Format of the test Face to face: Paired format: Learner might feel nervous Interaction is only with the interlocutor Paired format: Learner has the chance to interact with a peer More advantageous if you have a large number of students

Things to consider before designing speaking assessment Focus on fluency and/or accuracy? Both are important But more importantly see if the mistakes impede comprehension Which criteria? Decide the points to be covered in the rubric E.g. Grammar, vocab, pronunciation/intonation/stress, ability to express ideas, etc Procedure for grading? If possible, use more than one rater: interlocutor and assessor

Oral Exam Task Types 1. Interview: asking questions to students to elicit their language performance Free (unstructured): might have the danger of being unreliable Guided (structured): more standardized Interview Questions Should have a variety of questions so that Ss do not recite Eg. How do you spend your free time? Tell me about your family What kind of films do you like? Why?

Oral Exam Task Types 2. Individual Long Turn: describing or comparing and contrasting visual prompts. Pictures are used most of the time because They can be obtained easily (newspapers, brochures, etc) They are effective ways to elicit long turns There will be no deficiency of reading However, the pictures should be selected carefully. Otherwise, following problems might occur: Picture is not challenging enough Too many pictures to compare and contrast makes the task very difficult Using only one picture to compare and contrast might end up with limited language output

Oral Exam Task Types 3. Discussion tasks: good opportunity to measure Ss’ oral interactional skills; There is generally a kind of opinion gap. Paired discussion activities: both Ss should be given equal opportunities; There should be a specific task focus, which should be designed carefully.

Discussion tasks in individual mode: Between the student and the interlocutor E.g. Interlocutor reads out: “I am your foreign neighbor. We live in a small town in Turkey. The local government is planning to build an international airport in our area. Let’s discuss the advantages and disadvantages of building the airport. On your sheet, there are some ideas but you can suggest other ones too.” Prompts for the Ss: Tourism, employment, environment, …

Classroom Speaking Assessment 1. Oral Presentation: An individual task Ss talk about a familiar topic. It is generally a 4-6 min. speech.

Classroom Speaking Assessment 2. Debate on a controversial topic: Two or more students argue for or against a topic A sample rubric for a three student debate is on pages 124-125.

Classroom Speaking Assessment 3. Reading aloud: Good for assessing pronunciation. Ss are given a chance first to have a look at the text and they are asked to read it aloud A checklist can be used to assess stress, rhythm, intonation, vowel and consonant sounds

Classroom Speaking Assessment 4. Retelling Stories: Ss report on a magazine/newspaper article they have read 5. Extemporaneous/improvised speaking: Ss are given a topic and asked to talk about it