Group 6 presented on assessing speaking skills. They explored the key points in assessing speaking abilities based on H. Douglas Brown's book "Language Assessment", including the skills to be evaluated, test design, rating scales, scoring methods, and issues. Speaking tests should assess a range of micro skills like pronunciation and macro skills like accomplishing communicative functions. Tasks range from imitative repetition to extensive speaking and include responsive questions, role plays, and oral presentations. Careful consideration of factors like test purpose and test-taker characteristics is needed to develop effective and reliable speaking assessments.

1. Group 6
member of group:
Akmalia Faldia
Fanisa Zahrani F.
Deva Leona R.A
Assesssing Speaking

2. Speaking Assessment
Speaking is a productive skill that is essential for language
learners, and assessing it accurately and reliably is critical in
language assessment. However, the observations of a test-taker's
speaking ability can be affected by the accuracy and effectiveness
of their listening skills, which can compromise the reliability and
validity of an oral production test. In 'Language Assessment' by H.
Douglas Brown, the author provides a comprehensive overview of
the main aspects of assessing speaking, including the skills to be
evaluated, the characteristics of speaking tests, test design, rating
scales, scoring methods, and issues in speaking assessment. In this
presentation, we will explore these key points in assessing speaking
based on the material from 'Language Assessment' by H. Douglas
Brown

3. Different type of speaking
Imitative : ability to simply imitate to the word or phrase or sentences while
listening. Examples : Word Repetition – “Repeat after me”, Every (pause)
everybody (pause), Why (pause) why not (pause), Wonder (pause) wonderful
(pause), Can you understand? (pause), Good morning everyone! (pause), Do you
remember? (pause).
Intensive : ability to producting a short streches of oral language such as
intonation, rhytm, stress. Examples : There are many things I would like to have
for my birthday. First, I would like to have my friends over. They are so much
fun! Second, I would like to have a birthday cake. I wonder if my mother will
get me one? Third, I would want my family to be at my birthday party. I love
them all. These are the things I would like to have for my birthday.
based on their communicative purposes.

4. Different type of speaking
How are you doing? (Response: I’m fine is not acceptable. Something with
more substance is needed).
What is your favorite day of the week and why? (Response: My
favorite...Friday because it is the start of the weekend).
What are the steps kids take in playing soccer? (Response:
First....Second....Finally...)
Responsive : assesment task include interaction and test comperehension such
as simple conversation. Examples :
Interactive : difference with responsive in the length and complexity of the
interaction. Examples : Interview / role play
Extensive : ability to speak on the high listeners or formal interactions such as
speech, story-telling and oral presentation. Example : Oral presentation

5. Micro and Macro skills of Speaking
1. Produce differences among English phonemes and
allophonic variants
2. Produce chunks of the language of different lengths
3. Produce English stress patterns, words in stressed and
unstressed positions, rhythmic structure, and intonation
contours
4. Produce reduced forms of words and phrases
5. Use an adequate number of lexical units (words) to
accomplish pragmatic purposes
6. Produce fluent speech at different rates of delivery
7. Monitor one’s own oral production and use various
strategic devices – pauses, fillers, self-corrections,
backtracking—to enhance the clarity of the message
8. Use grammatical word classes (noun, verb, etc), system
(tense, agreement, pluralization), word order, patterns, rules,
and elliptical forms
9. Produce speech in natural constituents : in appropriate
phrases, pause groups, breath groups and sentence
constituents
10. Express a particular meaning in different grammatical
forms
11. Use cohesive devices in spoken discourse
Appropriately accomplish communicative functions
according to situations, participants, and goals.
Use appropriate styles, registers, implicature,
redundancies, pragmatic conventions, conversation
rulesfloor-keeping and -yielding, interrupting,and
other sociolinguistic features in face-to-face
conversations.
Convey links and connections between events and
communicate such relations as focal and peripheral
ideas, events and feelings, new information and
given information, generalization and
exemplification.
Convey facial features, kinesics, body language,
and other nonverbal cues along with verbal
language.
Develop and use a 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.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Micro skills Makro skills

6. Imitative Speaking
1.
An occasional phonologically focused repetition task is warranted as long as repetition tasks are not
allowed to occupy a dominant role in an overall oral pro- duction assessment, and as long as you
artfully avoid a negative washback effect Such tasks range from word level to sentence level, usually
with each item focusing on a specific phonological criterion.
Designing Assessment Tasks
Word Repetition Task

7. Word Repetition Task
Scores for the PhonePass test are calculated by a computerized scoring template a reported back to
the test-taker within minutes. Five subscores on the same scale that rate pronunciation, reading
fluency, repeat accuracy, repeat fluency, and listening vocabulary.

8. 2. Intensive Speaking
At the intensive level, test-takers are prompted to produce short stretches of dis- course (no more
than a sentence) through which they demonstrate linguistic ability at a specified level of language.
Parts C and D of the PhonePass test fulfill the criteria of intensive tasks as they elicit certain expected
forms of language.
Directed Response Tasks

9. Read-Aloud Tasks

11. Sentence/Dialogue Completion Tasks and Oral Questionnaires
Another technique for targeting intensive aspects of language requires test-takers to read the dialogue
in which one speaker's lines have been omitted. Test-takers are first given time to read through the
dialogue to get its gist and to think about appropriate lines to fill in. Then as the tape, teacher, or test
administrator produces one part orally, test taker responds. here is the example

12. Picture-Cued Tasks
One of the more popular ways to elicit oral language performance at both intensive and
extensive levels is a pictl1re-cued stimulus that requires a description from the test­taker.
Pictures may be very simple, designed to elicit a word or a phrase; somewhat more
elaborate and "busy"; or composed of a series that tells a story or incident.

13. Scoring scale for intensive task

14. 3. Responsive Speaking
Assessment of responsive tasks involves brief interactions with an interlocutor, dif- fering from
intensive tasks in the increased creativity given to the test-taker and from interactive tasks by
the somewhat limited length of utterances.
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.
In designing such questions for test-takers, ifs important to make sure that you know why you
are asking the question. Responsive questions may take the following forms:

15. Giving Instruction and Direction
The technique is simple: the administrator poses the problem, and the test-taker responds.
Scoring is based primarily on comprehensibility and secondarily on other specified
grammatical or discourse categories. Here are some possibilities :

16. Paraphrasing

17. Test of Spoken English (TSE)
Somewhere straddling responsive, interactive, and extensive speaking tasks
lies another popular commercial oral production assessment, the Test of
Spoken English (TSE)'. The TSE is a 20-minute audiotaped test of oral
language ability within an academic or professional environment.

19. 4. Interactive Speaking
The final two categories of oral production assessment (interactive and extensive speaking)
include tasks that involve relatively long stretches of interactive discourse (interviews, role plays,
discussions, games) and tasks of equally long duration but that involves less interaction
(speeches, telling longer stories, and extended explanations and translations).
Interview
The suggested set of content specifications for an oral interview (below) may serve as
sample questions that can be adapted to individual situations

20. Role Play
Discussion and Conversation
Role-playing is a popular pedagogical activity in communicative language-teaching classes. Within
constraints set forth by the guidelines, it frees students to be some­what creative in their linguistic output.
And it has the effect of lowering anxieties as students can, even for a few moments, take on the persona of
someone other than themselves.
As formal assessment devices, discussions and conversations with and among stu­
dents are difficult to specify
and even more difficult to score. Discussion is an integrative task, and so it is also advisable to give some
cog­
nizance to comprehension performance in evaluating learners.

21. Games
Among informal assessment devices are a variety of games that directly involve lan­
guage production.
Consider the following types:

22. 5.Extensive Speaking
Extensive speaking tasks involve complex, relatively lengthy stretches of
discourse. They are frequently variations on monologues, usually with minimal
verbal inter­action.
Oral Presentation
In the academic and professional arenas, it would not be uncommon to be called on to present a
report, a paper; a marketing plan, a sales idea, the design of a new product, or a method. A
summary of oral assessment techniques would therefore be incomplete without some consideration
of extensive speaking tasks. For oral presentations, a checklist or grid is a common means of
scoring or evaluation.

23. Picture-cued story telling
One of the most common techniques for eliciting oral production is through visual pictures,
photographs, diagrams, and charts. At this level we consider a picture or a series of pictures as a
stimulus for a longer story or description. Consider the following set of pictures:

24. -Retelling a story, News Event
In this type of task, test-takers hear or read a story or news event that they are asked to retell. This
differs from the paraphrasing task discussed above, in that it is a longer stretch of discourse and a
different genre. Scoring should of course meet the intended criteria.

25. Conclusion
"Assessing speaking is a complex task that requires
careful consideration of various factors, such as the
purpose of the test, the characteristics of the test
takers, the design of the test tasks, the rating scales,
and the scoring methods. Speaking tests should be
designed to assess a range of skills, including
pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, fluency, and
discourse organization, and should be administered
and scored consistently and fairly. Issues in speaking
assessment, such as test taker anxiety, test format,
and pragmatic competence, also need to be taken
into account. By considering these key points, we can
develop effective and reliable speaking tests that can
help test takers achieve their language learning
goals."