This document discusses assessing speaking ability in English. It outlines basic types of speaking like imitative, intensive, responsive and interactive. It recommends choosing an appropriate technique to elicit a valid oral sample, such as interviews, role plays, or responses to audio recordings. The document provides a rating scale from 1 to 6 to evaluate ability to communicate orally based on ease, errors, and difficulty experienced by native English speakers. It stresses creating reliable scales to score aspects of speaking like accuracy, appropriateness, range, flexibility and size.

1. SPEAKING ASSESSMENT
(Language Assessment)
SHEILA WIJAYANTI
@Sheila_Chei
ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT
JEMBER UNIVERSITY

2. TESTING ORAL ABILITY
The objective of teaching spoken language is the
development of the ability to interact successfully in that
language, and that this involves comprehension as well as
production.

3. BASIC TYPES OF
SPEAKING
1. Imitative
2. Intensive
3. Responsive
4. Interactive
5. Extensive

4. ELICIT A VALID SAMPLE OF ORAL
ABILITY
• Choose appropriate technique:
- Format 1 interview:
questions and requests for information
pictures
role play
interpreting
prepared monologue
reading aloud
- Format 2 interaction with fellow candidates
discussion
role play

5. - Format 3 responses to audio- or video-recordings
- described situations
- remarks in isolation to respond to
- simulated conversation
• Plan and structure the testing carefully

6. Rating Ability to communicate orally
• 6 Excellent: on a par with an educated native speaker. Completely at ease in his
use of English on all topics discussed.
• 5 Very good: although he cannot be mistaken for a native speaker, he expresses
himself quite clearly. He experiences little difficulty in understanding English, and
there is no strain at all in
communicating with him.
• 4 Satisfactory verbal communication causing little difficulty for native speakers.
He makes a limited number of errors of grammar, lexis and pronunciation but he is
still at ease in communicating on everyday subjects. He may have to correct himself
and repattern his utterance on occasions, but there is little difficulty in
understanding him.
• 3 Although verbal communication is usually fairly satisfactory, the native speaker
may occasionally experience some difficulty in
• communicating with him. Repetition, re-phrasing and re-patterning are sometimes
necessary; ordinary native speakers might find it difficult to communicate.
• 2 Much difficulty experienced by native speakers unaccustomed to
• 'foreign' English. His own understanding is severely limited, but communication on
everday topics is possible. Large number of .errors of phonology, grammar and lexis.
• 1 Extreme difficulty in communication on any subject. Failure to
• understand adequately and to make himself understood.

7. ENSURE VALID AND
RELIABLE SCORING
Create appropriate scales for scoring
• ACCURACY
• APPROPRIACY
• RANGE
• FLEXIBILITY
• SIZE