Language Assessment
EUROPEAN
SCALES
OF
LANGUAGE
PROFICIENCY
BASIC CONCEPTS IN ASSESSMENT
ASSESSING ORAL PERFORMANCE
Global Scale
 Basic User
 Independent User
 Proficient User
A1, A2
B1, B2
C1, C2
(Common European framework of reference for languages. Learning,
teaching, assessment.)
Assessment
 Informal
 Formal
Formative (over time)
Summative (outcomes at the end of instruction)
How to Test Speaking?
 What is a speaking task?
…activities that involve speakers in using
language for the purpose of achieving a
particular goal or objective in a particular
speaking situation.
(Bachman and Palmer as cited in Sari Luoma
Assesing speaking. p. 31)
Types of classroom speaking
performance:
 Imitative (like a tape recorder)
 Intensive (rhymes, learners ‘go over’ certain forms of the
language)
 Responsive (short replies to teacher-or student-initiated
questions or comments.)
 Transactional (dialog to convey or exchange specific
information)
 Interpersonal Dialog to maintain social relationships
 Extensive (planned or impromptu monologues)
(Based on H.D. Brown Teaching by Principles pp.271274)
Steps in designing classroom assessment
procedures:
 Specify the category of speaking performance.
 Consider the micro- and macroskills that you are
going to assess.
 Think of the genre of spoken language.
Some suggestions for consideration:
 Imitative speaking tasks

Repeating the sentences
Intensive
Learning a rhyme
 S1-Whole class (What did you do on holiday?)
 Completing a dialogue
 Acting out a dialogue
 Reading aloud (for checking pronunciation)
 Picture-cued elicitation of a grammatical item

Some suggestions:
 Responsive
Question elicitation (ask me about my favourite film)
 Picture-cued elicitation of response (Q-A)
 Map-cued elicitation
 Question and answers

Some suggestions:
 Interactive tasks



Role plays
Interviews
Debates
 Extensive



Retelling a text
Describing a picture
Describing one’s favourite film, …..
What to evaluate in a speaking task?
 Accuracy in phonology, vocabulary and grammar.
 Fluency and discourse (cohesion, sociolinguistic
appropriateness).
 Accomplishing the objective of the task.
Suggested reading:
 Brown, H. D. (2007). Teaching by principles: An interactive




approach to language pedagogy. Longman: New York.
Common European framework of reference for languages.
Learning, teaching, assessment. (2001). Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Harmer, J. (2007). The practice of English language
teaching. Fourth edition. Harlow: Longman.
Luoma, S.( 2004). Assessing speaking. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Weir, C. J. (1990). Communicative language testing. Prentice
Hall International