An investigation into assessing speaking of students learning new english textbook in a high school in vietnam

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITYUNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FALCUTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES TRẦN THỊ HIỀN AN INVESTIGATION INTO ASSESSING SPEAKING OF STUDENTS LEARNI

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FALCUTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

TRẦN THỊ HIỀN

AN INVESTIGATION INTO ASSESSING SPEAKING OF STUDENTS LEARNING NEW ENGLISH TEXTBOOK

IN A HIGH SCHOOL IN VIETNAM

(Nghiên cứu việc đánh giá kỹ năng nói của học sinh đang học chương trình sách giáo khoa mới, tại một trường THPT ở Việt Nam)

Major : English Teaching Methodology Code : 8140231.01

HANOI – 2019

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FALCUTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

TRẦN THỊ HIỀN

AN INVESTIGATION INTO ASSESSING SPEAKING OF STUDENTS LEARNING NEW ENGLISH TEXTBOOK

IN A HIGH SCHOOL IN VIETNAM

(Nghiên cứu việc đánh giá kỹ năng nói của học sinh đang học chương trình sách giáo khoa mới, tại một trường THPT ở Việt Nam)

Supervisor : Dr Nguyễn Thị Ngọc Quỳnh

Nguyễn Thị Ngọc Quỳnh

HANOI – 2019

DECLARATION

The thesis entitled “An investigation into assessing speaking of students

learning new English textbook in a high school in Vietnam” has been submitted for

the Master of English teaching methodology

I, the undersigned, hereby declare that I am the sole author of this thesis I have fully acknowledged and referenced the ideas and work of others, whether published or unpublished, in my thesis

My thesis does not contain work extracted from a thesis, dissertation or research paper previously presented for another degree or diploma at this or any other universities

Signed

Date / /

am equally indebted for the exceptional friendliness, kindness, and patience that she demonstrated during my study at ULIS-VNU and my research

My sincere thanks also go to the Dean - Dr Huỳnh Anh Tuấn as well as the staff members at the Faculty of Postgraduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies (ULIS), Vietnam National University (VNU), who are always

so kind and supportive during my study time

In addition, I would like to express my thankfulness to all the participating students and teachers at the high school who helped me in my research, especially the teachers who accompanied me during a long time of my data collection time The results I have achieved today partially belong to them

Last but not least, I would like to thank my family for their motivation for me to overcome all the difficulties and to become a better me now

Thanking you all

ABSTRACT

Language assessment in general and oracy assessment in particular has posed language teachers high schools in Vietnam many troubles One of the outstanding issues relate to the design of speaking activities that saw poorly, boring tasks that do not motivate learners while learning the skill The other issue refers to the assessing criteria that are not familiarized by language teachers at schools This research aims

at finding popular task types that teachers used when assessing speaking Also, the study provides a framework for speaking assessment criteria that can be applicable for teachers as well as problems encountered by teachers when doing speaking assessment The study was carried out with 5 teachers of English at a school in Hai Duong The results reveal a fact that most teachers are not familiar with task types neither assessment criteria Last but not least, the researcher would like to suggest some changes in teaching English at schools so that students can balance among language skills and aspects

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

ABBREVIATIONS vi

PART I INTRODUCTION 1

PART II – DEVELOPMENT 5

CHAPTER I LITERATURE REVIEW 5

1 The nature of speaking 5

2 The nature of speaking assessments 7

2.1 Assessment, testing and evaluation 7

2.2 Principles of language assessment 8

2.3 Speaking assessment 10

2.4 A taxonomy of oral proficiency 11

2.5 Designing speaking task type assessment 13

2.6 Speaking scales 19

2.7 Criteria for speaking assessment 21

2.8 Types of speaking assessment 25

2.9 Validity and reliability 29

3 Studies in the field of speaking assessment 30

3.1 Speaking assessment in the world 30

3.2 Speaking assessment practice in Vietnam 33

3.3 Speaking in the new textbooks in Vietnam 34

CHAPTER II METHODOLOGY 37

1 The research design 37

2 Participants 39

3 Data collection instruments 39

4 Procedures 39

4.1 Conducting the interviews 40

CHAPTER III RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS 42

1 Results from interviews 42

PART III CONCLUSION 46

1 Summary of the findings 46

2 Limitations of the study 47

3 Suggestions for further research 48

4 Recommendation 48

REFERENCES 49 APPENDICES I

APPENDIX A: Questionnaires for teachers of English I

ABBREVIATIONS

ACTFL: The American Council for the Teaching of Foreign Languages CEFR: The Common European Framework of Reference

EFL: English as a foreign language

SLA: Second Language Acquisition

VSTEP: Vietnamese Standardized Testing English Proficiency

PART I INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale

Speaking has an important role in human beings life because speaking is a productive skill in which the speaker produces to communicate among people in a society in order to keep the relationship going well Speaking is the thing that we use to express ideas at the same time he/she tries to get the ideas from others Rivers (1987:162) says that through speaking, someone can express his ideas, emotions, attentions, reactions to other person and situation and influence other person So, through speaking, everyone can communicate well or express what he/she wants from other and responds to the speaker The teaching of speaking has been neglected for many years in foreign language teaching, including English as a foreign language (EFL), for various reasons (e.g., the strong influence of the grammar translation method, lack of English native speaker teachers and EFL teachers with near-native English proficiency, large class size) (Nation, 2011) Increasing use of communicative language teaching methods in classroom settings for the past several decades have probably helped English teaching professionals to rediscover the value and importance of speaking in foreign language teaching and learning These issues have long been concerned the heart of communicative teaching approach Our personality, our self-image, our knowledge of the world and our ability to reason and express our thought are all reflected through speaking performance

In the English language teaching context, speaking ability takes a long time

to develop and requires masteries of many sub-competence such as sound system, appropriate vocabulary, clear thinking and most importantly the understanding of cultural settings of the target language Besides, the interlocutor needs to understand what is being said to them and be able to respond appropriately in order to maintain amicable relations or to achieve their communication goals Alongside with the focus on teaching and learning of speaking skill, the assessment of this skill raises

great issues in English language teaching context It is a fact that the assessment of speaking must weigh as much as important as the teaching and learning in order to avoid the negative washback from learners In other words, the assessment of speaking therefore requires complicated and thoroughly designed rubrics A person's speaking ability is usually judged during a face-to-face interaction, in real time between interlocutor and candidates

1.2 The statement of problem

The move from teacher-centred to learner-centred teaching styles brings along many changes in assessment format That is from discrete points testing to communicative testing However, it is seemingly that in Vietnam there are incongruities between the teaching practice and testing activities Inbar-Lourie (2008: 289) notes that:

The move from an atomized view of language knowledge to what is known as communicative competence, and to communicative and task-based approaches to language teaching has accentuated the incongruity of existing assessment measures Calls for matching language learning and evaluation have been repeatedly made since Morrow (1979) urged language testers over three decades ago, to bridge the gap between communicatively focused teaching goals and the testing procedures used to gauge them

That also means that the most active productive skill and the most common

focus of communicative-oriented language teaching and the hallmark par excellence

of communicative language teaching, is not tested at all While most teachers confess to make their teaching draw on the principles developed in the literature of communicative language teaching, however, in practice they tend to be much more traditional and structural to the extent that they measure their progression in the programme in purely grammatical terms instead of notional-functional categories,

an easy way to spot their way on the teaching/testing continuum This reflects that there is somewhere some form of resistance to change that is deliberately expressed and manifested by teachers, not least long experienced teachers, let alone many novice teachers whose pre-service training leaves a lot to be desired

Textbooks include of speaking sections, but the types of assessment as well

as criteria for assessment of speaking is not mentioned in any teaching materials at this level In addition, the final exam is paper-based not oral-based so the assessment of oral English has not received sufficient considerations

There have been many attempts to bridge the gap between teaching and testing, especially with the approval of the National Project 2020 and the development of VSTEP However, the assessment of speaking skill at high schools

is still a limitation for many teachers of English at this level in Vietnam

With these backdrops, the main purpose of the paper is to give a brief overview of theories and practice of EFL speaking assessment, with a particular emphasis on the assessment criteria, task design, and rating scales, validity, reliability, practicality and related issues More specifically, the paper will: (a) first discuss criteria to be assessed during speaking performance, (b) then describe the major components of the assessment development process (including test/task design, rating scale development/validation, rater training), (c) and finally identify some problems that teachers encounter when they conduct speaking assessment as well as some suggested solutions for the problems

1.3 The scope of the study

The study will focus on the application of speaking assessment at high school level whose learners are studying the new national textbooks namely; English 10, English 11, and English 12 written by Prof Hoang Van Van and co-authors in 2015

2 What criteria do teachers use when assessing speaking performance?

3 What problems do teachers encounter when assessing students’ speaking performance?

1.5 The significance of the study

The study on completion provide teachers at high schools guidelines for speaking assessment including marking criteria, and validity of a speaking test/task More importantly, the study raises an issue of language assessment in the high school final exam format By which we mean that the exam formats will motivate or demotivate learners from studying English language It is a matter of fact that syllabi consist of four macro skills, namely writing, reading, listening and speaking but the final exam is paper-based The pseudo-communicative approaches in testing

do not stimulate speaking ability

1.6 The design of the thesis

The thesis was designed in three parts Part I is the Introduction It provides

a brief overview of the study with more details of the rationale, the aims, the scope, the research methodology as well as the design of the study

Part II, the Development, consists of three chapters

Chapter 1 reviews the literature in the field of assessment This chapter

presents the theoretical background of the thesis which contains three main points: language assessment in general, speaking assessment in particular and some of the previous researches on assessments of English speaking skill

Chapter 2 focuses on the method of the study, the contextual factors of the

case school and the data collection instruments and procedure

The next chapter, Chapter 3, represents not only a detail description of data

analysis but also the discussion of the findings Chapter 3 is divided into three parts dealing with the data collected through three instruments: interview and discussion

Part III, the Conclusion, is devoted to the conclusions of the studies It

summarizes the problems associated with English speaking assessment and provides some recommendations to cope with the identified problems In this part, the researcher also mentions the limitations of the study and some recommendations

for further study as well

PART II – DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I LITERATURE REVIEW

1 The nature of speaking

Speaking is an activity of delivering massage, it occurs between speaker and listener orally In other words, the main point of speaking activity is that speakers communicate their massage to the listeners In this case, the speaker and listener should be able to understand each other The speaker can produce the sounds that involved the massages and the listener can receive, process, and response the massages Byrne (1984: 8) in Temungingsih (1997: 6) further says that speaking is

an activity involving two or more participants as hearers and speakers who react to what they hear and their contributions Each participant has an attention or a set of intentions goal that he wants to achieve in the interaction

In speaking, there is a goal or a purpose to be achieved by the speaker Speaking involves two participants at least It means that we cannot do it individually we need partner to communicate in the same language, so speaking is a process of transferring information, ideas and expressions that used the good form

of sentence in order to make the listener understand of what we are saying In addition, speaking is described by Fulcher as much more than just a skill, it is actually “the ability that makes us human” (Fulcher, 2003)

Speech is also referred to as a „real time‟ phenomenon (Bygate, 1987), because one has to plan what to say, formulate the words and articulate with substantial speed as one speaks Bygate (1987) distinguishes between language knowledge and language skills; knowledge is what enables people to talk and skills

is knowledge actively carried out in interaction, something that can be imitated and practiced He further states that language knowledge is basically a set of grammar and pronunciation rules, vocabulary and knowledge about how they are normally used; skills are considered to be the ability to use this knowledge

Brown (2001: 250) states that speaking is an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing, receiving, and processing

information Based on that idea, there are three important points that have to be occurred to the participants of communication (speakers and listeners) to construct the meaning during the interaction among them In speaking process, one tries to communicate with and send out his/her message to the others In this case, the communication needs a speaker and a listener Therefore, in speaking process, especially in dialogue, needs at least two people because we cannot do it individually Referring to this, transactional dialogue is suitable to measure students' speaking achievements since transactional dialogue refers to situation where the focus is on what is said or done The message and making oneself understood clearly and accurately is the central focus, rather than the participants and how they interact socially with each other Itkonen (2010) mentions other relevant features as proficiency and coherence Equally, Louma (2003) includes components of speaking as pronunciation, and spoken grammar

According to Rivers (1987) the teaching of speaking skill is more demanding

on the teacher than the teaching of any language skills There are five aspects must

be fulfilled in a speaking classroom, they are: (1) Fluency which is defined as the ability to speak fluently and accurately Signs of fluency include a reasonable fast speed of speaking and only a small numbers of pauses Fluency refers to the ease and speed of the flow of the speech (Harris, 1974) Fluency is the smoothness or flow with which sounds, syllables, words and phrases are join to other when speaking It means that when a person makes a dialogue with another person, the other person can give respond well without difficulty (2) Grammar as defined by Heaton (1991) that grammar as the students' ability to manipulate structure and to distinguish appropriate grammatical form in appropriate ones Meanwhile, Syakur (1978) defines grammar as a correct arrangement sentence in conversation (3) Vocabulary, the speaker cannot communicate well if he/she does not have sufficient vocabulary Therefore, vocabulary means the appropriate diction which is used in communication as what stated by Syakur (1987) (4) Pronunciation, which is the ability to produce easily comprehensible articulation (Syakur, 1987) Meanwhile

Harris (1974) defines pronunciation as the intonation patterns (5) Comprehension, comprehensibility denotes the ability of understanding the speaker's intention and general meaning (Heaton, 1991) Defines comprehension for oral communication that requires a subject to respond to speech as well as to initiate it (Syakur, 1987) This idea means that if a person can answer or express the sentence well and correctly, it shows that he/ she comprehends or understands well In terms of language teaching and learning, teachers and learners must do well on all of these five aspects Moreover, in a speaking class, a teacher should give stimulus, guidance, direction and support the students in learning process It means that the role of the teacher in learning process is as director and facilitator Teacher also should motivate the students to do what the teacher asks them to do Speaking skills are an important part of the curriculum in language teaching, and this makes them

an important object of assessment as well

2 The nature of speaking assessments

2.1 Assessment, testing and evaluation

The term assessment and test are sometimes used interchangeably in many popular educational situations However, they are not exactly the same While tests are prepared administrative procedures that occur at identifiable times in a curriculum when learners muster all their faculties to offer peak performance, knowing that their responses are being measured and evaluated, assessment, on the other hand, is an ongoing process that encompasses a much wider domain Whenever a student responds to a question, offers a comment, or tries out a new word or structure, the teacher subconsciously makes an assessment of the student's performance (Brown, 2004)

Tests, then, are a subset of assessment; they are certainly not the only form

of assessment that a teacher can make Tests can be useful devices, but they are only one among many procedures and tasks that teachers can ultimately use to assess students Evaluation is a collection and interpretation of information about aspects

of the curriculum, including learners, teachers and materials for decisions making

purposes (Brindley, 2001) Kendle (2000) refers to two different types of evaluation; internal and external evaluation Internal evaluations are conducted to get information about programs so that managers can make sound decisions about the implementation of these programs This collaboration helps ensure that the evaluation is fully participatory and builds commitments on the part of all involved

to use the results to make critical program improvements External evaluation are required for funding purposes or to answer questions about the program's long-term impact by looking at changes in demographic indicators such as graduation rates or poverty level Evaluation and assessment can often be terms which are used interchangeably, but for these purposes their meanings are quite different Assessment here refers to tasks which students undertake so that teachers can assess their level of competence in a course; on the other hand, evaluation means the process used by teachers to evaluate how effective these assessment tasks have been

in meeting their aims

2.2 Principles of language assessment

To assess is not only to give a grade to students, it requires some principles that a test should follow to do a good test According to Brown (2004), there are five principles which are practicality, reliability, validity, authenticity and

washback

Practicality

Brown (2004) says an effective test is practical when, it is not expensive, it stays within appropriate time constraints, it is easy to administer and it has a scoring/evaluation procedure that is specific and time-efficient

Reliability

According to Brown reliability means when the teacher presents a test and after, she/he gives the same test to the same student, the test should yield similar results; it is what reliability consists on However, there are some characteristics that can do that student‟s grade change; for example, fatigue, illness, anxiety and some others physical or psychological factors; additionally, conditions of classroom

which could make that a student does not pay enough attention to the test, conditions such as: noise outside, light in different parts of the room, temperature or conditions of desks and chairs

Validity

Validity is when the results of the test are appropriate, meaningful, and useful in terms of the purpose of the assessment In other words, a test or task measures what teachers want to measure When a test has validity, learners encounter a well- constructed format with familiar tasks, items and directions are clear, tasks are related to course work and it presents a reasonable challenge for students

language learning and improve them

Taking into account these principles, it is necessary to mention Gross (1999) who establishes at least four functions of a test She states that a test helps teachers evaluate students and assess whether they are learning what you are expecting them

to learn Second, well-designed tests serve to motivate and help students structure their academic efforts Third, tests can help teachers understand how successfully you are presenting the material Finally, tests can reinforce learning by providing students with indicators of what topics or skills they have not yet mastered and should concentrate on Despite these benefits, testing is also emotionally charged

and anxiety producing

According to these characteristics, it can be said that a test that follows these parameters, is beneficial for teachers and students, because the former can know what is happening with the students‟ learning and then latter, find in a test a good opportunity to demonstrate what they have been taught

2.3 Speaking assessment

Assessment is a huge field on which much research has been carried out and a huge amount of literature and theory has been published Nevertheless, research has tended to focus on assessment in general, rather than on speaking English in particular According to Fulcher (2003), testing second language speaking is considered to be more difficult than testing other language skills Therefore relatively few books about testing second language speaking have been published

Speaking and listening, by nature are almost always closely interrelated It is very difficult to isolate oral production tasks that do not directly involve the interaction of aural comprehension Only in limited contexts of speaking people can assess oral language without the aural participation of an interlocutor As a productive skill, speaking can be directly and empirically observed The interaction

of speaking and listening challenges the designer of an oral production test to tease apart, as much as possible, the factors accounted for by aural intake (Brown 2004)

Assessment of speaking skills often lags far behind the teaching those skills

in the curriculum We recognize the importance of relevant and reliable assessment for providing vital information to the students and teachers about the progress made and the work to be done We also recognize the importance of backwash Most teachers would accept that if you want to encourage oral ability, then test oral ability (Hughes, 1989:44) But the problems of testing oral ability make teachers either reluctant to take it on or lacking in any confidence in the validity of their assessments Such problems include: the practical problem of finding the time, the facilities and the personnel for testing oral ability; the problem of designing productive and relevant speaking tasks; and the problem of being consistent (on different occasions, with different testees and between different assessors)

The approaches to language testing and assessment dated from early 1970s to early 1980s These approaches still prevail today in spite of some changes of the so-called discrete point test and integrative test The former was constructed on the assumption that language can be broken down into its component parts and that

these parts can be tested successfully These components consist of language skills and language units The later consisted of cloze tests and dictation (Brown, 2004: 8) By the mid 1980s, the language testing shifted to communicative language testing approach The very central tenet of communicative language testing is that the tasks are designed to represent authentic activities which test learners are to be expected to encounter in the real world outside the classroom Brown (2005) identifies five requirements that make up what is to be called a communicative test The requirements in question are (1) meaningful communication i.e the test needs

to be based on communication that is meaningful to students, that is, it should meet their personal needs It should promote and activate language which is useful for them Making use of authentic situations can increase the likelihood that meaningful communication will be achieved (2) Authentic situation i.e communicative test offer students the opportunity to encounter and use the target language receptively and productively in authentic situations to show how strong their language ability

is (3) Unpredictable language input i.e the fact that in reality it is usually impossible to predict what speakers will say; this natural way of communication should be replicated in a communicative test (4) Creative language output i.e the fact that in reality language input is largely dependent on language input to prepare for one‟s reply And (5) integrated language skills i.e a communicative test will elicit the learners‟ use of language skills integratively, as is the case in real life communication

2.4 A taxonomy of oral proficiency

Brown and Abbeywickrama (2010: 184) have divided oral skills into five

different categories Firstly, Imitative category which students can only do the

repeating of what someone else has already said Here focus lies on intonation and pronunciation of words or sometimes very short sentences as well Pronunciation is the highest priority when assessing from this perspective and creating unique sentences or original meanings is completely put aside in this aspect of oral

production The secondly category is called Intensive This aspect of language

assessment is focused on larger linguistic segments than the previous imitative aspect Here focus lies on elements such as intonation, stress, juncture etc What is assessed is, in other words, how well the student masters the production of sentences, rather than just words Focus is still not on meaning, though, but rather how the sentences “sound” Alas, the difference between imitative and intensive

speaking is merely the complexity of the sentences Thirdly, the Responsive

category, this is the first category that actually includes interaction between two people, even if the situation is very artificial and each question and response is very

much thought out beforehand Standard phrases such as “Hi, how are you; fine, and

you?” are typical when assessing this category of speech The forth category is

called Interactive It is not very different from the Responsive save for the length

and complexity of the interaction Interactive oral proficiency can then be broken

down further into two subcategories, Transactional which is the purpose of exchanging information, and the Interpersonal which maintains personal

relationships

According to Brown & Abbeywickrama the Interpersonal category is more complex and much more spontaneous than the Transactional and is also more dependent on slang, colloquial language, intonation etc The last category is called

Extensive This category is based on monologues, such as speeches, storytelling etc

and contains no interaction at all This could be used in social situations as well as where someone might retell a trip they have made or tell a humorous story, which involves none or very little interaction The difference between this category and the intensive one is the language complexity and sentence length

Furthermore, Brown & Abbeywickrama (2010:185) also divide spoken language into two other different categories, called micro skills and macro skills In this perspective micro skills cover the ability to control phonemes, stress patterns and intonation contours Macro skills on the other hand focus on the communicative functions, styles, body language and other language strategies Even if this taxonomy is relatively extensive and complex the categories listed are by no means

absolute No test can only be isolated into one single category but usually covers all

of them with some being more focused than others

2.5 Designing speaking task type assessment

2.5.1 Imitative speaking assessment

At the imitative level, it is probably already clear what the student is trying to

do At this level, the student is simply trying to repeat what was said to them in a way that is understandable and with some adherence to pronunciation as defined by the teacher It doesn‟t matter if the student comprehends what they are saying or carrying on a conversation The goal is only to reproduce what was said to them One common example of this is a “repeat after me” experience in the classroom An example of imitative speaking test is the Versant It elicits computer-assisted oral production over a telephone Test-takers read aloud, repeat sentences, say words, and answer questions

Part A: read aloud selected sentences

Examples: Traffic is a huge problem in Southern California

Part B: repeat sentences dictated over the phone

Example: Leave town on the next train

Part C: Answer questions with a single word or a short phrase

Example: Would you get water from a bottle or a newspaper?

Part D: hear three word groups in random order and link them in a correctly ordered sentence

Example: was reading/my mother/a magazine

Part E: have 30 seconds to talk about their opinion about some topic that is dictated over the phone Topics center on family, preferences, and choices

Scores are calculated by a computerized scoring template and reported back to the test-taker within minutes

2.5.2 Intensive speaking assessment

Intensive speaking involves producing a limit amount of language in a highly control context An example of this would be to read aloud a passage or give a direct response to a simple question

Competency at this level is shown through achieving certain grammatical or lexical mastery This depends on the teacher‟s expectations Task types

Directed Response Tasks

Directed response elicits a particular grammatical form/transformation of a sentences

Tell me he went home

Tell me that you like rock music

Tell me that you aren’t interested in tennis

Tell him to come to my office at noon

Remind him what time it is

1.5-2.4 some errors but intelligible

2.5-3.0 occasional errors but always intelligible

Fluency

0.0-0.4 slow, hesitant, and unintelligible

0.5-1.4 non-native pauses and flow that interferes with intelligibility

1.5-2.4 non-native pauses but the flow is intelligible

2.5-3.0 smooth and effortless

Sentence/Dialogue Completion Task and Oral Questionnaires

First, test-takers are given time to read through the dialogue to get its gist (main point), then the tape/teacher produces one part orally and the test-taker responds Example:

Salesperson: May I help you

Customer: (test takers respond with appropriate lines)

Advantage: more time to anticipate an answer, no potential ambiguity created by aural misunderstanding (oral interview)

Disadvantage: It is inauthentic, except in situations such as parent reading to a child, sharing a story with someone, giving a scripted oral presentation It is not communicative in real contexts

Picture-cued task

A picture-cued stimulus requires a description from the test-taker It may elicit a word, a phrase, a story, or incident

The types are:

 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, location

 Picture-cued elicitation of responses and description

 Picture-cued elicitation of giving directions

 Picture-cued elicitation of multiple choice description for two tests takers

Translation

Translation is a communicative device in contexts where English is not a native language English can be called on to be interpreted as a second language Conditions may vary from an instant translation of a native word, phrase, or sentence to a translation of longer texts

2.5.3 Responsive speaking assessment

Responsive is slightly more complex than intensive but the difference is blurry, to say the least At this level, the dialog includes a simple question with

a follow-up question or two Conversations take place by this point but are simple in content

Question and answer

Question and answer tasks can consist of one or two questions from an interviewer, or they can make up a portion of a whole battery of questions and

prompts in an oral interview They can vary from simple questions to complex

questions For example, "What is this called in English?‟" simple question

“What are the steps governments should take, if any, to stem the rate of

deforestation in tropical countries?” complex question

The first question is intensive in its purpose It is a display question intended to elicit a predetermined correct response

Questions at the responsive level tend to be genuine referential questions in which 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

 Test-takers respond with questions

Giving Instructions and Directions

The technique is simple: the administrator poses the problem, and the taker responds Scoring is based primarily on comprehensibility and secondarily on other specified grammatical or discourse categories

test-Paraphrasing

The test-takers read or hear a limited number of sentences (perhaps two or five) and produce a paraphrase of the sentence The forms are:

Paraphrasing a story

Test-takers hear: Paraphrase the following little story in your own words

My weekend in the mountains was fabulous The first day we backpacked into the mountains and climbed about 2.000 feet The hike was strenuous but exhilarating By sunset we found these beautiful alpine lakes and made camp there The sunset was amazingly beautiful The next two days we just kicked back and did little day hikes, some rock climbing, bird watching, swimming, and fishing The hike out on the next day was really easy – all downhill – and the scenery was incredible

Paraphrasing a phone message

Test-taker hear:

Please tell Jeff that I’m tied up in traffic so I’m going to be about a half late for the nine o’clock meeting And ask him to bring up our question about the employee benefits plan If he wants to check in with me on my cell phone, have him call 415-338- 3095 Thanks

2.5.4 Interactive Speaking Assessment

The unique feature of intensive speaking is that it is usually more interpersonal than transactional By interpersonal it is meant speaking for maintaining relationships Transactional speaking is for sharing information as is common at the responsive level

The challenge of interpersonal speaking is the context or pragmatics The speaker has to keep in mind the use of slang, humor, ellipsis, etc when attempting to communicate This is much more complex than saying yes or no or giving directions

to the bathroom in a second language Examples of interactive task types are:

b No scoring takes place

Wind –down

a The interviewer encourages the test-taker to relax with some easy questions

b This part is not scored

2.5.5 Extensive speaking assessment

Extensive communication is normal some sort of monolog Examples include speech, story-telling, etc This involves a great deal of preparation and is not typically improvisational communication It is one thing to survive having a conversation with someone in a second language You can rely on each other‟s body language to make up for communication challenges However, with extensive communication either the student can speak in a comprehensible way without relying on feedback or they cannot In my personal experience, the typical ESL student cannot do this in a convincing manner

Extensive speaking tasks involve complex, relatively lengthy stretches of discourse They are frequently variations on monologues, usually with minimal verbal interaction

Oral presentation

The rules for effective assessment must be invoked:

a Specify the criterion

b Set appropriate tasks

c Elicit optimal output

d Establish practical, reliable scoring procedures

Oral Presentation picture

A checklist or grid 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 they two major components of content and delivery

Its authenticity can be supported in that all of the items on the list contribute

to an effective presentation The washback effect of such a checklist will be enhanced by written comments from the teacher, a conference with the teacher, peer evaluations using the same form, and self assessment

Retelling a Story, News Event

Test-takers hear or read a story or news event that they are asked to retell It

is a longer stretch of discourse and a different genre The objective is to produce a number of oral discourse features (communicating sequences and relationships of events, stress and emphasis patterns, „‟expression‟‟ in the case of a dramatic story), fluency, and interaction with the hearer/ listener

Translation (of Extended Prose)

Translation of words, phrases, or short sentences was mentioned under the category of intensive speaking Here, longer texts are presented for the test-taker to read in the native language and then translate into English

Those texts could come in many forms: dialogue, directions for assembly of a product, a synopsis of a story or play or movie, directions on how to find something on

a map, and other genres The advantage of translation is in the control of the content, vocabulary, and to some extent, the grammatical and discourse feature The disadvantage is that translation of longer texts is a highly specialized skill

2.6 Speaking scales

Speaking scores express how well the examinees can speak the language being tested They usually take the form of numbers, but they may also be verbal

categories such as „excellent‟ or „fair‟ In addition to the plain score, there is usually

a shorter or longer statement that describes what each score means, and the series of statements from lowest to highest constitutes a rating scale

2.6.1 The National Certificate scale

The Finnish National Certificate scale (National Board of Education, 2002)

is a holistic scale with six levels The National Certificate scale spans the whole ability range from early beginner to very advanced However, these levels are not all covered in one test Rather, ther are three tests, each spanning two levels One purpose of the scale is to inform potential examinees about the target levels so that they can choose an appropriate test for themselves (Luoma, 2004: 62)

2.6.2 The ACTFL speaking scale

The American Council for the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) Speaking scale (ACTFL, 1999) is also a holistic scale, but here the same scale is used by raters and score users It is used in foreign language programs in North American academia, particularly in colleges and universities The scale has ten levels, which focus on the beginning and intermediate stages of language learning There are four levels in the scale: Superior, Advanced, Intermediate and Novice The three lower levels are divided into three sub-levels each The aim is to show progress at the levels where most foreign language learners in the US educational contexts are

2.6.3 The CEFR

The Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) explains competences as „knowledge, skills, and attitudes‟ (p 4) and further defines competences as „the sum of knowledge, skills and characteristics that allow a person

to perform actions‟ (p.18)

The number of possible categories for oral assessment is huge The CEFR identifies 12 qualitative categories with relevance to oral assessment, for which they have developed illustrative scales for assessment; each scale describes the level of proficiency The competence categories are: turn-taking strategies, co-operating

strategies, asking for clarification, fluency, flexibility, coherence, thematic development, precision, sociolinguistic competence, general range, vocabulary range, grammatical accuracy, vocabulary control and phonological control Nevertheless, it is neither recommended nor possible attempting to assess all categories simultaneously Assessors need to make choices for each assessment situation and select the most appropriate for each assignment and only include 4-5 test criteria in each test situation (Language Policy Unit, 2001)

2.7 Criteria for speaking assessment

2.7.1 Pronunciation

Pronunciation is in the CEFR included in an illustrative scale for phonological control, and a person on proficiency level B2 “has acquired a clear, natural, pronunciation and intonation” (Council of Europe, 2001: 117) Pronunciation is the ability to produce individual sounds and to link words together, as well as using stress and intonation to communicate meaning (Thornbury, 2005: 128-129)

According to Luoma (2004), „the sound of speech‟ is difficult to assess since people tend to judge the status of both native and non-native speakers based on their pronunciation However, languages which are used worldwide have developed a number of regional varieties and standards It is thus difficult to favor one particular pronunciation as standard in oral assessment and to expect everyone to imitate this one standard Also, if a native-like speech is a criterion for assessing oral production most learners will „fail‟ even though they communicate well in the target language

Therefore, it is of great importance to include other features than „the sound

of speech‟ in the category „pronunciation‟, in accordance with Thornbury‟s definition Features such as intelligibility, pitch, rhythm, pausing, stress and intonation are also relevant to the assessment of speech Communicative effectiveness, which is based on comprehensibility and defined in terms of realistic learner achievement, is therefore a better criterion for learner pronunciation (Luoma, 2004: 10)

To be participants in oral communication lexical competence is required; an important feature is thus knowledge of vocabulary and the meaning of the words According to Simensen (1998) the lack of sufficient vocabulary is the main obstacle

to using a language English contains a rich vocabulary of more than one million words (Global language monitor), however, for a L2 language user a more limited vocabulary will be expected To succeed in communicating it is important to have knowledge of more than merely vocabulary; one has to apply lexical phrases, i.e chunks of words occurring together Discourse markers such as if you ask me, by the way and I take your point and idioms and sayings such as part and parcel, make ends meet and speak of the devil, are examples of lexical phrases that extend the repertoire of a language user (Thornbury, 2005: 23) In test situations where vocabulary is a criterion for oral assessment both knowledge of and the use of vocabulary is assessed (Bachman and Palmer, 1996: 276) Thus, the range of the student‟s vocabulary is assessed; whether the vocabulary is broad enough to adequately cover the actual topic Also, the accuracy of the vocabulary is assessed; whether the student employs the vocabulary with precision and can demonstrate

understanding of the applied vocabulary

2.7.3 Grammatical accuracy

In addition to vocabulary, grammar is the building blocks in a language; the basis one can construct a language from All languages have patterns and rules one must apply in order to produce language Bachman and Palmer (1996) state that grammatical knowledge contains vocabulary, syntax and morphology, i.e

knowledge of how utterances and sentences are organised (Luoma, 2004: 99-100)

The CEFR includes one illustrative scale regarding grammatical accuracy, and a person on the highest proficiency level manages to “maintain consistent grammatical control of complex language, even while attention is otherwise engaged (e.g in forward planning, in monitoring others‟ reactions)” The CEFR also suggests that this scale should be related to the scale regarding general linguistic range, where a person on the highest level is described as being able to

“exploit a comprehensive and reliable mastery of a very wide range of language to formulate thoughts precisely, give emphasis, differentiate and eliminate ambiguity

No signs of having to restrict what he/she wants to say” (Council of Europe, 2001:110+113-114) In the latter scale, the CEFR combines vocabulary and grammatical competence and thus describes a more general linguistic competence

For assessing grammatical accuracy in oral communication it is relevant to establish to what degree the student manages to apply, for example, the correct form

of verbs, adjectives and adverbs and the plural of nouns

2.7.4 Fluency

„Fluency‟ is a term that requires further clarification, as it includes two different meanings; one general and one technical The general meaning covers the ability to speak various languages, as in „she is fluent in five languages‟, whereas the technical meaning is applied to characterize a student‟s speech The technical meaning can also be understood in more than one manner, either as the speaker‟s use of pausing, hesitation and speech rate, or as a synonym for „speaking proficiency‟, meaning one‟s general expertise What makes it difficult to assess fluency is that features such as flow and smoothness in language, as well as the use

of pausing and hesitation markers are complex; they do not just describe a person‟s speech but also include the listener‟s perception of the speech Therefore, whether the pausing a speaker produces is disturbing or not is not defined explicitly, but up

to each assessor to decide (Luoma, 2014:88-89)

Hasselgren (1998:155) defines fluency as “the ability to contribute to what a