Assessing Speaking

Basic Types of Speaking (1)

Imitative Focus on pronunciation Not concerned about comprehension or expression of meaning e.g. Repeat after me: [bit, beat] I bought a boat yesterday.

Intensive (limited, mechanical, or controlled) Semantic, syntactical, phonological aspects Minimal interaction Directed response tasks, reading aloud 1. directed response tasks

e.g. Tell me that you aren’t interested in tennis. 2. read-aloud task

e.g. read the passage (p. 148) 3. dialogue completions task (p. 150) 4. picture-cued elicitation of oral comprehension (p. 153)

Basic Types of Speaking (2) Responsive

Interaction and test comprehension Limited level of very short conversations1. Questions eliciting open-ended responses

e.g. what do you think about the weather today?2. Giving instructions and directions

e.g. describe how to make a typical dish from your country.3. Paraphrasing a story

e.g. hear the little story and respond with two or three sentences. (p. 162)

Interactive Transactional language v.s. interpersonal language Longer and more complex Specific and interpersonal exchanges1. Interview

1. Warm-uplevel checkprobewind-down

Interview

4 stages: e.g. 169 Warm-up: small talk

not scored Level check Probe Wind-down

Not scored

Basic Types of Speaking (2)

Interactive2. role-play

e.g. pretend you are a tourist asking me for directions.

3. Discussion and conversation

4. Games

Basic Types of Speaking (2)

Extensive (monologue) Language style

deliberative (i.e., planned) Formal

Examples Oral presentation. Speeches Retelling the story Picture-cued Story-telling Translation (the test-taker read in the native

language and then translate into English)

Micro- & Macro-skills of Speaking

Microskills Phonemes and allophones Stress patterns, rhythmic structure, intonation Lexical units Reduced forms Rates of delivery Chunks of language of different lengths Strategic devices: pauses, fillers, backtracking Grammatical word classes, systems, word order, patter

ns, rules, elliptical forms Speech in natural constituents Cohesive devices

Macro-skills

Accomplish communicative functions according to situations, participants, goals

Styles, registers, pragmatic conventions, conversation rules, interrupting, etc.

Making connections between new/given info., generalization/exemplification, etc.

Nonverbal cues: facial features, body language, etc.

Speaking strategies: Key word emphasis Rephrase . . . . and more