Professional Documents
Culture Documents
TECHNIQUES
Prepared by Elena Onoprienko, Yulia Polshina, Tatiana
Shkuratova
Based on material by Fumiyo Nakatsuhara
Outline
Key questions
Nature of speaking
Speaking as a skill
Test purposes and types of test
Speaking test tasks
Scoring
Washback effect
KEY QUESTIONS
Key questions
What is
speaking?
How
(test)?
Why assess
speaking?
Construct
Purpose
Task types
Scoring criteria
How
(score)?
Nature of speaking:
spoken language;
speaking as interaction;
speaking as a social activity;
speaking as a situation-based activity.
What is speaking?
A part of the shared social activity of talking
(Luoma, 2004: 29).
In comparison with writing, speaking is
More:
Less:
transient
planned
dynamic
complex
formal
interpersonal
content dependent. lexically dense.
Speaking vs Writing
The main differences are in two sets of
conditions - processing and reciprocity:
Processing is connected with time - speaking
is going on under greater pressure of time.
Solution to this problem in spoken language
reciprocity. Speakers take turns and create a
text together.
(Bygate,1987)
Spoken language
Pronunciation
Spoken grammar
Lexis
Pronunciation
Speech is judged on the basis of pronunciation.
What is standard? Native speaker vs non-native speaker.
Communicative effectiveness, which is based on
comprehensibility and probably guided by native speaker
standards but defined in terms of realistic learner
achievement, is a better standard for learner pronunciation.
(Luoma, 2004).
What to include in assessment of pronunciation?
Pronunciation individual sounds, pitch, volume, speed,
pausing, stress and intonation.
Spoken grammar:
grammar is easy to judge because it is easy to
detect in speech and writing;
speakers do not usually speak in sentences;
speech consists of idea units connected with and,
or, but, or that;
planned vs unplanned speech complex
structures vs short idea units;
the internal structure of idea units - topicalisation
and tails create an impression of naturalness.
SPEAKING AS A SKILL
Speaking as a skill
What is skillful speech?
task fulfillment/content;
fluency;
accuracy;
vocabulary and grammar range;
interaction.
Performance testing
Performance testing in second language
proficiency assessment is traditionally used
to describe the approach in which a
candidate produces a sample of spoken or
written language that is observed and
evaluated by an agreed judging process.
(McNamara, 1996)
Speaking tasks
A communicative task is a piece of classroom work
which involves learners in comprehending,
manipulating, producing or interacting in the target
language while their attention is principally focused
on meaning rather than form (Nunan 1993:59).
Speaking tasks can be seen as activities that involve
speakers in using language for the purpose of
achieving a particular goal or objective in a particular
speaking situation (Bachman and Palmer 2010).
Evaluative talk:
explanation
justification
prediction
decision.
(Bygate,1987)
Communicative functions
Microfunctions according to CEFR:
giving and asking for factual information (describing reporting,
asking);
expressing and asking about attitudes (agreement/disagreement);
suasion (suggesting, requesting, warning);
socialising (attaching attention, addressing, greeting, introducing);
structuring discourse (opening, summarising, changing the topic);
communication repair (signalling non-understanding, appealing
for assistance, paraphrasing).
(Council of Europe, 2001:123, Luoma, 2004:33)
Open-ended tasks
Paired
Structured tasks
Group
SCORING
Rating criteria
Phonological control; Grammatical accuracy; Vocabulary range; Fluency
(Council of Europe 2001)
Test format: interview format with the following structure:
1.Openings (1 minute).
2.Conversation on familiar topics (3 minutes) The interviewer asks the
candidate to talk about him/herself.
3.Picture Description (2 minutes) The interviewer asks the candidate to
describe a photo.
4.Conversation on topics from the given picture (5 minutes) The interviewer
asks the candidate questions linked to the picture (from general to extended
questions).
5.Closings (1 minute).
(Nakatsuhara, 2012)
Scoring
Holistic scale
e.g. Trinity College
Bands A, B, C, D
Analytic scale
e.g. IELTS
Fluency and coherence
Lexical resources
Grammatical range and
accuracy
Pronunciation
Positive features:
can provide diagnostic information if scores reported
separately;
potentially clear, explicit and detailed;
usually more reliable (multiple scores);
useful in training raters to focus on our construct;
potentially useful in guiding learners.
Disadvantages:
time-consuming;
may overburden raters.
(Green, 2012)
WASHBACK EFFECT
Washback Effect:
The effect of testing on teaching and learning
Positive / negative washback:
positive test stimulates classroom
teaching of important skills;
negative narrow focus on teaching just for
the test.