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Technics in testing oral abilities - Coggle Diagram
Technics in testing oral abilities
Challenges in Testing Oral Ability
Tasks must represent a realistic sample of speaking activities.
. Responses should reflect a candidate’s true speaking ability.
Scores must be assigned validly and reliably.
Defining Oral Test Content
A. Information Skills
B. Interactional Skills
Candidates should be able to:
• Express and recognize purposes.
• Agree, disagree, and elicit opinions.
• Repair breakdowns in communication.
• Persuade others and establish common ground.
Candidates should be able to:
• Provide and request information.
• Describe events, processes, or people.
• Make comparisons, express opinions, justify ideas.
• Narrate stories, speculate, paraphrase, and summarize.
C. Skills in Managing Interactions
Candidates should be able to:
• Initiate, sustain, and conclude conversations.
• Change topics and share conversational responsibility.
• Take turns effectively in a discussion.
Designing Oral Test Tasks
• Addressees: Speaking to a peer, teacher, or examiner.
• Dialect/Accent: Standard British or American English preferred.
• Speech Rate: Varies by task type.
• Vocabulary: Should be non-technical unless required.
Types of Oral Test Formats & Techniques
Several test formats can be used to assess oral skills:
Format 1: Interview
• Common but limited: The interviewer’s dominance can restrict the candidate’s speech.
• Can include various elicitation techniques, such as:
• Open-ended questions: “Can you explain why…?”
• Requests for elaboration: “Tell me more.”
• Role shifts: “What if you were in this situation?”
• Interruptions: To see how candidates handle them.
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Format 2: Interaction with Fellow Candidates
• Encourages peer-to-peer conversation, eliciting natural exchanges.
• Candidates may be asked to:
• Discuss a topic (e.g., “Should mobile phones be banned in schools?”).
• Make a decision together.
• Role-play scenarios (e.g., a customer negotiating with a seller).
Challenge: Dominant candidates might overshadow quieter ones.