Chapter VI Assessing Speaking
Assessing Speaking can be divided by the
purpose. In daily life is an important mean of communication, give and receive
messages, communicate. In academic programs is focused on presentations of
information. In business English the focus is on telephone, customer services
skills, make reports or interact in meetings. Depending on the program , the
assessment must reflect the course objectives.
Speaking is a complex skill that also depends
on other skills such as pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, fluency and
comprehension. The main issue when assessing speaking is the time consuming
when applying the test individually for large groups.
The following considerations must be taken in
to account when designing assessment tasks for speaking: choose tasks that
generate positive washback for teaching and learning, these tasks should be
authentic as possible, allow time for warm up, keep skill contamination in
mind, large samples of language are more reliable, use a range of appropriate
techniques, ensure reliable scoring by choosing appropriate scales, train
teachers in scoring, personalize the test using students’ names, never mark the
test in front of the students.
The following techniques for assessment speaking
are commonly used and finding an
appropriate scale for scoring each one is a must: oral presentations, debates,
reading aloud, retelling stories, verbal essays and extemporaneous speaking.
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