Testing Speaking

I.          INTRODUCTION

It is necessary to evaluate the English language skills of students whose first language is not English. Related to some skills of English, here is the summary of English test in speaking skill. There will be more discussion about how and what should we do in conducting the English speaking test.

II.          SUMMARY OF CONTENT

Oral ability, or the ability to interact successfully in the target language, requires speech comprehension and production. To test oral ability, as for writing, we want to choose tasks that form a representative sample of the tasks that we expect our students to be able to perform. It is possible for people to produce practically all the correct sounds but still unable to communicate their ideas appropriately and effectively. On the other hand, people can make numerous errors in both phonology and syntax and yet succeed in expressing themselves fairly clearly.

In many tests of oral production it is neither possible nor desirable to separate the speaking skills. Clearly, in normal speech situations the two skills are interdependent. It is possible to hold any meaningful conversation without understanding what is being said and without making oneself understood at the same time. The examiner of an oral production test is working under great pressure all the time, making subjective judgments as quickly as possible.

1) Format:

·       interview, interaction with peers, or response to an audio or video tape

2) Elicitation Techniques:

·       questions and requests for information

·       pictures (for description and narration)

·       role playing by two students

·       dialogue exchange to make a decision

·       situation description (e.g. "you are walking down the street and meet a friend who you thought was living in Spain. What do you say?")

Conversational exchanges are especially suitable for the language laboratory and can serve to focus attention on certain aspects of the spoken language, especially in those countries where English is taught as a foreign language and the emphasis is primarily on the reading skills.

Tests containing such item types are on the whole reliable, but they cannot be described as being valid tests of speaking. If an opportunity is provided in other parts of the test for real oral interaction, (i.e. genuine conversation and discussion), however, these controlled test items can be of some use in directing the attention of the students to specific language areas and skills.

Pictures of single objects can be used for a scene or an incident can be used for examining the total oral skills. This section will concentrate on the use of pictures for description and narration.

The students are given a picture to study for a few minutes; they are then required to describe the picture in a given time (e.g. two or three minutes). Occasionally, the number of words each student speaks is counted by one examiner in the room, while the other examiner counts the number of errors made (but this procedure is very unreliable.) separate scores for general fluency, grammar, vocabulary, phonology, and accuracy of description/narration are far better.

Careful selection of the pictures used for the examination will help in controlling the basic vocabulary required and may, to some extent, determine the type sentence structure that predominates.

The most effective type of examination using pictures requires not only narration or picture description on the part of the students but also a discussion about the picture(s) concerned. If the examiner asks questions and discusses the picture(s) with each student, the formal speech situation is combined with the reciprocal speech situation and two different types of oral production skills can thus be measured. It is always important to find out what a student knows – not what he or she doesn’t know; long periods of silence will tell the examiner very little.

III.          CONCLUSION

 This chapter gives an idea of the range of possible types of oral tests. Some of the exercises (e.g. picture descriptions) have proved very useful in many tests while others (e.g. pencil-and-paper tests) have met with varying degrees of success. In spite of its high subjectivity, an extremely good testis the oral interview. In many cases, one or two sub tests (or oral activities) are used together with the oral interview to form a comprehensive test of oral production skills.

REFERENCES

Hughes, Arthur. (1983). Testing for Language Teachers. UK: Cambridge University Press.