This document discusses various methods for assessing speaking ability, including imitative, intensive, responsive, interactive, and extensive speaking tasks. It provides examples and descriptions of assessment tasks like word repetition, picture description, role plays, interviews, presentations and story retelling. Scoring methods are outlined for tasks like repetition, read-alouds, interviews and presentations. The document emphasizes specifying assessment criteria and eliciting optimal speaking outputs for reliable evaluation.

1. Build Bright University
Language Testing & Assessment
Chapter- 7Chapter- 7
Assessing SpeakingAssessing Speaking
Prepared by Kheang Sokheng, Ph.DPrepared by Kheang Sokheng, Ph.D
Candidate and MEd in TESOLCandidate and MEd in TESOL

2. Basic Types of Speaking
• Imitative. It is simply the ability to parrot back
a word or phrase or a sentence.
• Intensive. It is the production of short
stretches of oral language. Examples include
directed response tasks, reading aloud,
sentence and dialogue completion, limited
picture-cued tasks.

3. Basic Types of Speaking
• Responsive. The tasks include interaction and
test comprehension but at the limited level of
short conversations, standard greetings, small
talk, requests, and comments.
• Interactive. The length and complexity of the
interaction are more in interactive tasks than
in responsive ones. The task sometimes
includes multiple exchanges and/or multiple
participants.

4. Basic Types of Speaking
• Extensive. (monologue) The tasks
include speeches, oral presentations,
and story-telling. Oral interaction
from listeners is either highly limited
or ruled out altogether.

5. Assessment Tasks: Imitative Speaking
• Word repetition task
• Test-takers hear:
• beat/bit bat/vat
• I bought a boat yesterday.
• The glow of the candle is growing.
• Test-takers repeat the stimulus.

6. Scoring scale for repetition tasks
• 2 acceptable pronunciation.
• 1 comprehensible, partially correct.
• 0 silence, seriously incorrect.

7. Phonepass Test
• It elicits computer-assisted oral production
over a telephone. Test-takers read aloud,
repeat sentences, say words, and answer
questions.
• Part A: Test-takers read aloud selected
sentences.
• Examples: Traffic is a huge problem in
Southern California.

8. •Part B: Test-takers repeat sentences dictated
over the phone.
•Example: Leave town on the next train.
•Part C: Test-takers answer questions with a
single word or a short phrase.
•Example: Would you get water from a bottle or
a newspaper?
•Part D:Test-takers hear three word groups in
random order and link them in a correctly
ordered sentence. Example: was reading/my
mother/a magazine.

9. • Part E: Test-takers 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.

10. Assessment Tasks: Intensive Speaking
• Directed Response Tasks
• Directed response
• 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.

11. Test of Spoken English Scoring Scale (Read-
Aloud Tasks)
• Pronunciation:
• Points:
• 0.0—0.4 frequent errors and unintelligible.
• 0.5—1.4 occasionally unintelligible.
• 1.5—2.4 some errors but intelligible.
• 2.5—3.0 occasional errors but always
intelligible.

12. Test of Spoken English Scoring
Scale (Read-Aloud Tasks)
• Fluency:
• Points:
• 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.

13. Variations on Read-Aloud tasks
• Reading a scripted dialogue.
• Reading sentences containing minimal pairs.
Examples: Try not to heat/ hit the pan too
much.
• Reading information from a table or chart.

14. Read-Aloud Tasks
• Advantages:
• Comparisons between students are quite
simply.
• Tests are easy to prepare and to administer.
• Predictable output, practicality, and reliability
in scoring.

15. Read-Aloud Tasks
• Disadvantages:
• 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.

16. Sentence/Dialogue Completion Tasks and
Oral Questionnaires
• First, test-takers are given time to read
through the dialogue to get its gist, then the
tape/teacher produces one part orally and the
test-taker responds.
• Example (p. 150) short dialogue (p. 151)
• Advantage: more time to anticipate an
answer, no potential ambiguity created by
aural misunderstanding (oral interview).

17. Picture-Cued Tasks
• A picture-cued stimulus requires a description
from the test-taker. It may elicit a word, a
phrase, a story, or incident.
• Scoring scale for intensive tasks:
• 2 comprehensible; acceptable target form
• 1 comprehensible; partially correct
• 0 silence; or seriously incorrect

18. A Scale for Evaluating Interviews
• Grammar
• Vocabulary
• Comprehension
• Fluency
• Pronunciation
• Task (the objective of the elicited task)
• Example (p. 158)

19. Translation
• Translation is a communicative device in
contexts where English is not a native lang.
• 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.
• Advantages: the control of the output & easily
specified scoring.

20. Responsive Speaking
• Question and Answer
• Examples: 1. What is this called in English?
• ( to elicit a predetermined correct response)
2. What are the steps governments should
take, if any, to stem the rate of de-forestation
in tropical countries? ( given more
opportunity to produce meaningful language
in response)

21. Questions Eliciting Open-Ended Responses
• 1. What do you think about the weather
today?
• 2. Why did you choose your academic major?
• 3. a. Have you ever been to the U. S. before?
b. What other countries have you visited?
c. Why did you go there? What did you like
best about it?

22. Giving Instructions & Directions
• Examples: how to operate an appliance, how
to put a bookshelf together, or how to create
a dish.
• Scoring: based on
(1) comprehensibility
(2) Specified grammatical/discourse categories.

23. Eliciting Instructions or Directions
• Test-takers hear:
• Describe how to make a typical dish
• What’s a good recipe for making _____?
• How do you access email on a PC computer?
• How do I get from ___ to ____ in your city?
• Test-takers respond.

24. Eliciting Instructions or Directions
• The task should require the test-taker to
produce at least 5 or 6 sentences.
• Use familiar topics and test linguistic
competence.
• Paraphrasing
• Examples: paraphrasing a story and
paraphrasing a phone message (p. 162)

25. Considerations of Paraphrasing
• 1. elicit short stretches of output
• 2. the criterion being assessed:
a. Is it a listening task more than production?
b. Does it test short-term memory rather than
linguistic ability?
c. How does the teacher determine scoring
of responses?

26. Test of Spoken English (TSE)
• TSE is a 20-minute audiotaped test of oral language
ability within an academic or professional
environment.
• TSE scores are used by many North American
institutions of higher education.
• The tasks are designed to elicit oral production in
various discourse categories. (p. 163)
• Example: sample items in TOEFL (p. 164)
• Scoring: a holistic score ranging from 20 to 60
(performance, function, appropriateness,
and coherence)

27. Interactive Speaking
• Oral Interview: a test administrator and a test-
taker sit down in a direct face-to-face
exchange and proceed through a protocol of
questions and directives.
• It varies in length from 5 to 45 minutes,
depending on purpose and context.
Placement interviews may need only 5
minutes while Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI)
may require an hour.

28. A Framework for Oral Proficiency Testing
• Four stages: Warm-up, Level check, Probe, and
Wind-down.
• Warm-up: The interviewer directs mutual
introductions, helps the test-taker become
comfortable with the situation, apprises the format,
and reduces anxieties.
• Level check: Through preplanned Qs, the test-takers
respond using expected forms and functions.
Linguistic target criteria are scored.

29. A Framework for Oral Proficiency
Testing
• Probe: In this phase, test-takers go to the
heights of their ability and extend beyond
the limits of the interviewer’s expectation.
• Through probe questions, the interviewer
discovers the test-taker’s proficiency. At the
lower levels of proficiency, probe items may
demand a higher range of vocabulary and
grammar than predicted. At the higher levels,
probe items will ask the t-t to give an
opinion, to recount a narrative or to respond
to questions.

30. A Framework for Oral Proficiency
Testing
• Wind-down: the interviewer encourages
the test-taker to relax with some easy
questions, sets the t-t’s mind at ease, and
provides information about when and
where to obtain the results of the
interview. This part is not scored.
• Content specifications (p. 169)
• Sample questions (p. 169-170)

31. Sample Questions of an Oral Interview
• 1. Warm-up:
• How are you?/What’s your name?/What
country are you from?/Let me tell your about
this interview.
• 2. Level check:
• How long have you been in this city?/tell me
about your family./What is your major?/How
long have you been working at your
degree?/What are your hobbies or
interests?/Why do you like your hobby?

32. To be Continued
• What is your favorite food?/Tell me about your
exciting experience you’ve had.
• 3. Probe:
• What are your goals for learning English in this
program?/Describe your academic field to me. What
do you like or dislike about it?/Describe someone
you greatly respect, and tell me why you respect that
person./If you were [president, prime minister] of
your country, what would you like to change about
your country?

33. To be Continued
• 4. Wind-down:
• Did you feel okay about this interview?/You’ll
get your results from this interview next
week./Do you have any question to ask?/It
was interesting to talk with you. Best wishes.

34. The Success of an Oral Interview
• Clear administrative procedures (practicality)
• Focusing the questions and probes on the purpose of
the assessment (validity)
• Biased for best performance
• Creating a consistent, workable scoring system
(reliability)
• Descriptions of the Oral Proficiency Scoring
Categories (p. 172-173)

35. Role Play
• It is a popular pedagogical activity in communicative
language-teaching classes.
• The test administrator must determine the
assessment objectives of the role play, then devise a
scoring technique that pinpoints those objectives.
• Examples: “Pretend that you’re a tourist asking me
for directions”, “You are buying a necklace from me
in a flea market, and want a lower price”.

36. Discussions & Conversations
• As informal techniques to assess learners, D & C
offer a level of authenticity and spontaneity that
other assessment techniques may not provide.
• (clarifying, questioning, paraphrasing, intonation
patterns, body language, eye contact, and other
sociolinguistic factors)
• Games
• Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) guidelines (p. 177)

37. Designing Assessments: Extensive
Speaking
• Extensive speaking tasks are frequently
variations on monologues, usually with
minimal verbal interaction.
• Oral Presentations:
• Examples: presenting a report, a paper, a
marketing plan, a sales idea, a design of a new
product, or a method.

38. • Rules for effective assessment: (a) specify the criterion,
(b) set appropriate tasks,
(c) Elicit optimal output, and
(d) establish practical, reliable scoring procedures.
• Oral presentation checklist:
3. excellent; 2. good 1. fair 0. poor
• Content:
The purpose or objective of the presentation was
accomplished.
• The introduction was lively and got my attention.
• The main idea or point was clearly stated toward the
beginning.

39. • The supporting points were clearly expressed and
supported well by facts and argument.
• The conclusion restated the main idea or purpose.
• Delivery
• The speaker used gestures and body language well.
• The speaker maintained eye contact with the audience.
• The speaker’s language was natural and fluent.
• The volume of speech was appropriate.

40. • The rate of speech was appropriate.
• The pronunciation was clear and
comprehensible.
• The grammar was correct and didn’t prevent
understanding.
• Used visual aids, handouts, etc., effectively.
• Showed enthusiasm and interest.
• Responded to audience questions well.

41. Picture-Cued Story-Telling
• At this level, a picture/a series of pictures is used as a
stimulus for a longer story or description.
• The objective of eliciting narrative discourse needs to
be clear. (p. 181) (Tell & use the P. tense)
• For example, are you testing for oral vocabulary,
(girl, telephone, wet) for time relatives (before, after,
when), for sentence connectors (then, so), for past
tense of irregular verbs (woke, drank, rang), or for
fluency in general?
• Criteria for scoring need to be clear.

42. Retelling a Story, News Event
• Test-takers hear /read a story or news event
that they are asked to retell.
• It differs from the paraphrasing task discussed
above in that it is a longer stretch of discourse
and a different genre.

43. Translation (of Extended prose)
• Longer texts are presented for the test-taker to read
in the native language and then translate into English.
• Texts vary in forms: dialogue, directions, play, movie,
etc.
• Advantages: the control of the content, vocabulary,
the grammatical and discourse features.
• Disadvantages: a highly specialized skill is needed.