Assessing Speaking What is Assessing Speaking? Two kinds of
speaking performance Basic Types of Speaking Micro and Macro Skills
of Speaking Designing Assessment Task: Imitative Speaking Designing
Assessment Tasks: Intensive Speaking Designing Assessment Tasks:
Responsive Tasks Test of Spoken English Designing Assessment Tasks:
Interactive Speaking Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) Designing
Assessments: Extensive Speaking
WHAT IS ASSESSING SPEAKING? Speaking is a productive skill that
can be directly and empirically observed, those observations are
invariably colored by the accuracy and effectiveness of a
testtakers listening skill, which necessarily compromises the
reliability and validity of an oral production. Speaking is the
product of creative construction of linguistic strings, the speaker
make choices of lexicon, structure, and discourse.
Two kinds of speaking performance:a. Receptive Performance The
elicitation stimulus can be structured to anticipate predetermined
responses and only those responses. b. Productive Performance The
oral or written stimulus must be specific enough to elicit output
within an expected range of performance such that scoring or rating
procedures apply appropriately.
BASIC TYPES OF SPEAKINGa. Imitative It is the ability to simply
parrot back ( imitate ) a word or phrase or possibly a sentence
This is a purely phonetic level of oral production, a number of
prosodic, lexical, and grammatical properties of language may be
included in the criterion performance.
b. Intensive It is talking about the production of short
stretches of oral language designed to demonstrate competence in a
narrow band of grammatical, phrasal, lexical, or phonological
relationships ( such as prosodic elements- intonation, stress,
rhythm, juncture ) Intensive assessment task include : Directed
response tasks Reading aloud Sentence Dialogue completion; Limited
picture cued tasks, including simple sequences; and translation up
to the simple sentence level.
c. Responsive It includes interaction and test comprehension but
at the somewhat limited level of very short conversation, standard
greeting and small talk, simple request and comments. d.
Interactive It includes multiple exchanges or multiple
participants. Interaction can take the two forms : Transactional
exchanges It has purpose of exchanging specific information
Interpersonal exchanges It has the purpose of maintaining social
relationships. e. Extensive ( monologue ) It includes speeches,
oral presentations, and story telling.
MICRO AND MACRO SKILLS OF SPEAKING a. Micro Skills The micro
skills refer to producing the smaller chunks of language, such as
phonemes, morphemes, words, collocations, and phrasal units.
Produce differences among English phonemes and allophonic variants.
Produce chunks of language of different length. Produce English
stress pattern, words in stressed and unstressed positions,
rhythmic structure, and intonation contours. Produce reduced forms
of words and phrases. Use an adequate number of lexical units
(words) to accomplish pragmatic purposes. Produce fluent speech at
different rates of delivery. Use grammatical word classes (nouns,
verbs), system (tense, agreement, pluralization ), word order,
patterns, rules, and elliptical forms. Express a particular meaning
in different grammatical forms. Use cohesive devices in spoken
discourse.
b. Macro Skills The macro skills imply the speakers focus on the
larger elements : Fluency Discourse Function Style Cohesion
Nonverbal communication Strategic options
Appropriately accomplish communicative functions according to
situations, participants, and goals. Use appropriately styles,
registers, floor-keeping and yielding, redundancies, pragmatic
conversations, conversations rules, and other sociolinguistic
features in face to face conversations. Convey facial features,
kinesics, body language, and other nonverbal cues along with verbal
language. Develop and use battery of speaking strategies, such as
emphasizing key words, rephrasing, providing a context for
interpreting the meaning of words, appealing for help, and
accurately assessing how well your interlocutor is understanding
you.
c.
Three important issues as you set out to design tasks: No
speaking tasks is capable of isolating the single skill of oral
production. Eliciting the specific criterion you have designated
for a task can be tricky because beyond the word level, spoken
language offers a number of productive options to test-takers.
Because of the above two characteristics of oral production
assessment, it is important to carefully scoring procedures for a
response.
DESIGNING ASSESSMENT TASKS: IMITATIVE SPEAKING To see the
inclusion of simple phonological imitation in a consideration of
assessment of oral production. Then, endless repeating of words,
phrases, and sentences was the province of the long since discarded
Audiolingual Method, and in an era of communicative language
teaching, many believe that non meaningful imitation of sounds is
fruitless.
PHONEPASS TEST The Phone Pass test elicits computer assisted
oral production over a telephone. Test takers read aloud, repeat
sentences, say words, and answer questions. Test takers are
directed to telephone a designated number and listen for
directions.
DESIGNING ASSESSMENT TASKS: INTENSIVE SPEAKINGa. Directed
Response Tasks The test administrator elicits a particular
grammatical form or a transformation of a sentence. b. Read Aloud
Tasks It includes reading beyond the sentence level up to a
paragraph or two. The technique is by selecting a passage that
incorporates test specs and by recording the test takers. Reading
aloud is somewhat inauthentic in that we seldom read anything aloud
to someone else in the real world, with the exception of a
parent
reading to a child, occasionally sharing a written story with
someone, or giving a scripted oral presentation. c. Sentence /
Dialogue Completion Tasks and Oral Questionnaires Dialogue
completion tasks An advantages of this technique lies in its
moderate control of the output of the test takers. One disadvantage
of this technique is its reliance on literacy and an ability to
transfer easily from written to spoken English. Directed response
tasks It helps to unlock the almost ubiquitous link between
listening and speaking performance. d. Picture cued Tasks It is the
way to elicit oral language performance at both intensive and
extensive level that requires a description from the test taker.
Kinds of picture cued : 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 Test takers
are not only identify certain specific information but also to
elaborate with their opinion, to accomplish a persuasive function,
and describe preferences in paintings. e. Translation ( of Limited
Stretches of Discourse ) Translation is a part of our tradition in
language teaching that we tend to discount or disdain. Translation
methods of teaching are certainty pass in an era of direct
approaches to creating communicative classrooms. It is a well
proven communication strategy for learners of a second
language.
DESIGNING ASSESSMENT TASKSO: RESPONSIVE SPEAKINGa. Question and
Answer Question and answer tasks can consist of one or two
questions from an interviewer : Intensive in its purpose It is a
display question intended to elicit a predetermined correct
response. Question at the responsive The test taker is given more
opportunity to produce meaningful language in response. Responsive
questions may take the following forms : Questions eliciting
open-ended responses Elicitation of questions from the test taker
To assess test-takers ability to produce questions, prompts. b.
Giving Instruction and Directions Using such a stimulus in an
assessment context provides an opportunity for the test-taker to
engage in a relatively extended stretch of discourse, to be
very clear and specific, and to use appropriate discourse makers
and connectors. c. Paraphrasing Example Paraphrasing a story
Paraphrasing a phone message Use short paraphrasing tasks as an
assessment procedure, its important to pinpoint the objective of
the task clearly.
TEST OF SPOKEN ENGLIS (TSE) The tasks on the TSE are designed to
elicit oral production in various discourse categories rather than
in selected phonological, grammatical, or lexical. TSE represent
the discourse and pragmatic contexts assessed in each
administration : 1. Describe something physical 2. Narrate from
presented material 3. Summarize information of the speakers own
choice 4. Give instructions
5. Give an opinion 6. Support an opinion 7. Compare / Contrast
8. Hypothesize 9. Function interactively 10. Define
DESIGNING ASSESSMENT TASKS: INTERACTIVE SPEAKINGa. Interview The
interview, which may be tape-recorder for re-listening, is then
scored on one or more parameters such as : accuracy in
pronunciation or grammar, vocabulary usage, fluency sociolinguistic
/ pragmatic appropriateness, task accomplishment,
and even comprehension Michael Canale (1984) suggested that
test-takers will perform at their best: Warm-up The interviewer
directs mutual introductions, helps the test taker become
comfortable with the situation, apprises the test takers of the
format, and allays anxieties. Level check This stage could also
give the interviewer a picture of the test takers extroversion,
readiness to speak, and confidence. Probe Probe question and
prompts challenge test-takers to go to the heights of their
ability, to extend beyond the limits of the interviewers
expectation through increasingly difficult questions. Wind-down The
test-taker to relax with some easy questions, sets the test-takers
mind at ease, and provides information about when and where to
obtain the result of the interview.
The success of an oral interview will depend on : Clearly
specifying administrative procedures of the assessment
(practicality) Focusing the questions and probes on the purpose of
the assessment (validity) Appropriately eliciting an optimal amount
and quality of oral production from the test-taker (biased for best
performance) Creating a consistent, workable scoring system
(reliability) b. Role play It is a popular pedagogical activity in
communicative language teaching classes. It allows some rehearsal
time so that students can map out what they are going to say. It
has the effect of lowering anxieties as students can, even for a
few moments, take on the persona of someone other than
themselves.
c. Discussion and Conversations It may be especially appropriate
tasks through which to elicit and observe such abilities as: Topic
nomination, maintenance, and termination. Attention getting,
interrupting, floor holding, control Clarifying, questioning,
paraphrasing Comprehension signals (nodding uh-huh, hmmm)
Negotiating meaning Intonation patterns for pragmatic effect
Kinesics, eye contact, proxemics, body language Politeness,
formality, and other sociolinguistic factors. d. Games Types of
games: Tinkertoy game A tinkertoy (or lego block) structure is
built behind in a screen. One or two learners are allowed to view
the structure.
Crossword puzzles are created in which the names of all members
of a class are clued by obscure information about them. Each class
member must ask questions of others to determine who matches the
clues in the puzzle. Information gap grids are created such that
class members must conduct mini-interviews of other classmates to
fill in boxes City maps are distributed to class members
ORAL PROFICIENCY INTERVIEW (OPI) The OPI is carefully designed
to elicit pronunciation, fluency and integrative ability,
sociolinguistic and cultural knowledge, grammar, and
vocabulary.
DESIGNING ASSESSMENTS: EXTENSIVE SPAKINGa. Oral Presentation The
rules for effective assessment must be invoked: Specify the
criterion Set appropriate tasks
Elicit optimal output Establish practical, reliable scoring
procedures. For oral presentations, a checklist or gird is a common
means of scoring or evaluation. Holistic scores are tempting to use
for their apparent practicality, but they may obscure the
variability of performance across several subcategories, especially
the two components of content and delivery. b. Picture Cued Story
Telling One of the most common techniques for eliciting oral
production is through visual pictures, photographs, diagrams, and
charts. Every assessment of speaking ability, the objective of
eliciting narrative discourse needs to be clear. c. Retelling a
Story, News Event Test-takers hear or read a story or news event
that they are asked to retell. d. Translation (of Extended Prose)
Translation of words, phrases, or short sentences was mentioned
under the category of intensive speaking.
The advantage of translation is the control of the content,
vocabulary, and to some extent, the grammatical and discourse
features. The disadvantages is that translation of longer texts is
highly specialized skill for which some individuals obtain
post-baccalaureate degrees.