10.

Testing oral ability

Representative tasks
• Specify content

❖ Skills:
• Informational
• Interactional

❖ Managing interactions:
• Initiate interactions
• Interaction’s topic
• Share development’s responsibility
• Take and give turns
• Decide
• End an interaction

❖ Types of text
• Presentation
• Discussion
• Conversation
• Service encounter
• Interview
Representative sample when setting tasks

❖ Elicit a valid sample of oral ability:

• Appropriate techniques
• Questions and requests for information
• Pictures
• Role play
• Interpreting
• Prepared monologue
• Reading aloud
 • Interaction with fellow candidates
• Discussion
• Responses to audio/video-recordings
• Described situations
• Remarks in isolation to respond to
• Simulated conversation
• Plan and structure the testing
o As long as feasible
o Careful
o As fresh starts as possible
o Second tester for interviews
o Set only tasks and topics expected
o Interview in place with good acoustics
o Put candidates at their ease
o Collect relevant information
o Don’t talk too much
o Train interviewers
• Ensure valid and reliable scoring
o Be holistic or analytic

❖ Calibrate the used scale

❖ Train scorers

❖ Follow aceptable scoring procedures