1.

0 INTRODUCTION
Since the beginning of their training, teacher trainees are expected to be familiar with
different types of technique and methodology in teaching. Knowing many types of techniques
will help them develop and manage their lesson as well as their classroom better. On the other
hand, how do teachers measure their students level of mastery for the lesson that they have
learnt? This is the part where testing take place.
Testing can benefit both teachers and students. In one way, it can help create positive
attitudes in class as it gives out a sense of accomplishment for students. In another way, it can
help by confirming the progress that has been made and showing how teachers can best
redirect their future efforts. In addition, good tests can sustain or enhance class morale and
aid learning (Madsen, 1983, Techniques in Testing).
Similar to teaching, there are many techniques applicable in testing. These techniques
are usable according to the focus group and content you taught in class. As an ESL teacher,
you have to know first the reason you are testing your students and what is the focus and
whether you are testing them on one of the four English skills, the vocabulary or a specific
grammar item. Failure to choose a correct technique will defeat your purpose of testing and
may leave you more problems than previously.
One example of technique of testing is oral interview. As stated by Madsen (1983) in
his book, the interview procedure, however, is not really an elicitation device, but rather a
kind of framework for using various elicitation techniques. He is trying to relay that, in order
to use this technique to test students speaking skill, teachers cannot be rigid and merely
thought interview as simply a series of questions and answers. In contrast, it has a lot of
devices for elicitation and need constant interaction of the interviewer and the students.

2.0 WHAT IS ORAL INTERVIEW IN TERMS OF TESTING SPEAKING SKILL

Oral interview is a technique of testing that usually uses to test students on their speaking
skill. Therefore, as stated in Nesamalar, Saratha, and Teh Soo Choon, (2005), in the book,
ELT Methodology, an oral interview is a common oral interaction test in which one or two
testers interview a candidate regarding a number of predetermined topics.
Oral interviews also known as a face-to-face conversation where someone
communicates with other people to gain information. The word interview comes from Latin
and middle French words meaning to see between or see each other. Generally, interview
means a private meeting between people when questions are asked and answered. According
to Gary Dessler, An interview is a procedure designed to obtain information from a persons
oral response to oral inquiries. And according to Thill and Bovee, An interview is any
planed conversation with a specific purpose involving two or more people.
Compared to some other oral proficiency tests, oral interview gives students the
chance to show their communicative abilities in a surprisingly natural way: a conversation.
Students will sit and chat with a teacher who will ask them straightforward, easy-to-answer
questions that dont have right or wrong answers. A conversation wouldnt be a conversation
at all if students merely memorized a response and recited it robotically come test time.
Due to this, Madsen emphasized in his book that rapport is important. When students
began to feel threatened and nervous, they tend to speak ineffectively. That is why, a good
interviewer should be neither harsh nor familiar, condescending nor intimidating but sincere,
open and supportive.
The step by step procedures of this technique will be explained further on 4.0.

3.0 WHO SHOULD BE TESTED USING ORAL INTERVIEW

Due to the reason that oral interview requires for students to at least be able to form a
sentence orally and listened to the questions given by teachers, it is not recommended for
teacher to test beginner level students using this technique. For example, lower grade students
in Sekolah Rendah Kebangsaan (SRK) would not be able to communicate with their teachers
in English. They also might give teachers indescribable words or sentences that teacher could
not grade appropriately. This, in turn, will waste a lot of resources.
On the other hand, oral interview technique is quite suitable for advance level students
in SRK. They will be able to use real time communication with their teachers and their
teachers also able to gauge the extent to which their students are able to communicate freely
using English.
For students beyond the level of SRK, like Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan (SMK)
and tertiary schools, teachers are recommended to use oral interview as a speaking testing.
Although it still depends on the proficiency level of the students, teacher may ready their
students beforehand by practising vocabulary as well as sentence patterns. Furthermore, by
this level, students are already expected to produce at least a simple sentence which they can
form to answer questions. Besides that, students in SMK are able to think more in their mind
to elicit answers.
To sum this topic up, although oral interview can be conducted with beginner level
students, it is not suitable for beginner level especially when they are only about to learn
English language. Meanwhile, it is very appropriate for advanced level students as they
already have good command in English and are now need to test in theirs peaking for
communication skill. Besides that, it is also suitable to do a guided oral interview with
average level students as teachers are able to find out the exact effectiveness of the lessons
taught and the students also able to participate in real time communication.

4.0 HOW TO CONDUCT ORAL INTERVIEW

4.1 Before Interview
a. Set the topics that need to be interview. (Preparation)
a. Teacher need to think a number of different topics that teacher can use as
stimuli for talk during the interview.
b. Prepare a set of questions that can be used as prompts during the interview and
the questions that appropriate for the each level of the students.
b. Choose a topic from previously made up list of topics (i) and should

memorise

them.
c. Asks very simple questions that the students can answer easily.
a. Can help the teacher to judge roughly what band the candidate may fall into.
b. Ask questions that fit to the students level and then adjust the questions
upwards or downwards accordingly.
c. This early questions has two functions:
i. To put the students at ease.
ii. To establish the identity of the candidate for mark allocation purposes.
d. This part of questioning should not take long.
e. Ask the students regarding their name, parentage, age, likes and dislikes.
4.2 While-Interview
i.

Begin with a few personal questions.

This step is important as it build rapport between the interviewer and interviewee.
This part of questioning should not take long. Teacher may ask the students regarding
their name, parentage, age, likes and dislikes. This early questions has two functions
which are;
a. To put the students at ease.
b. To establish the identity of the candidate for mark allocation purposes.
Example; Good morning Syahirah, you seem cheerful today, thats nice. lets
see, I heard that you live in Kuala Selangor area. Around the mosque?
[Teacher knowingly give wrong place so the student can correct her.]
(response) Is it near the market? (response) Do your parents work there?
(response) Tell me a little about your parents job, would you? (response).

ii.

Avoid personal items

The teachers should note that the initial questions are quite simple. It also covers information
that the students is thoroughly familiar with. However, teacher must not relate with personal
items like;
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
iii.

Marital status of parents,

Religion
Weight
Age
What-did-you-have-for-breaksfast questions.

Truth factor

Manufactured answers should not be given from the students. It may confuse students or
prolonging the time waiting for answers. Therefore, teacher needs to include truth or factual
items in their questioning. Example;
Who sent you to school this morning?
What time does Mr. Lim come to school this morning?
iv.

Not language focus

Teachers should not base the questions on language focus. It defeats the purpose of testing
using oral interview. Students could not give answers spontaneously and teachers can only
mark students in one area. Language focus should be check indirectly by teachers through the
given sentences.
What are the activities that you have done during last holiday?
Change this sentence into passive sentence, Mira and Hani are washing the dishes
v.

Flexible in questioning

Teacher should be flexible in questioning and take note for the answers given by students. If
the students already give answers that the teacher already knows, it is pointless to ask further
questions for it. For example question;
T- Where is your hometown? In which state?
S- I come from Kundasang, Sabah
This is the scenario if the student is currently living in Kuala Lumpur. Teacher should not ask
questions that are very obvious.
T- Oh, thats far. Then, what can I do in Kundasang if I were about to go there?
T- Oh, thats far. Are you supposed to board an airplane to go here?
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vi.

Questioning Intonation
Incidentally, teachers have to be careful about the intonation for their questions. A wrong
stress on the sentence can make students give yes/no answer instead of the require word.
For example,
T- Do you want to use a pen or a pencil?

S- A pencil
T- Do you want to use a pen or a pencil?
S- Yes

More demand is placed on the student when we use an information (or wh-) question.
T- What languages do you speak?
T- How long have you been studying English?

vii.

Use statements that need clarification

What is important in oral interview is to elicit answers from students. One objective in the
guided interview is to get the student talking on his own. The use of statements is one way.
Another way is providing information that may need qualifying, revising, or correcting.
T- Is the city of Kota Kinabalu is near the mount Kinabalu? (Actually, its far from
each place.)
These kinds of items are used sparingly, of course. Another way to generate student speech is
to mention something or someone needing clarification.
T- Would you put this on the other teachers desk after you leave here?
S- Sorry mdm. which teacher do you mean?
viii.

Give 2-3 easy questions, give relaxation

Items on the guided interview will vary in difficulty, with easier questions coming early.
However, after a rather challenging item or two, it is good to insert one or two easy questions.
This can help relieve tension and allow the student to regain confidence.
ix.

Difficult item
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The level of difficulty of items on any given interview should vary both to maintain student
confidence and the flow of the interview and also an opportunity for the teacher to see how
competent the student really is. For upper-intermediate to advanced students, the interview
can be concluded with a challenging item on some contemporary social issue, for example.
x.

Material and time allocation

Finally, interview should not be limited to just questions (or statements) and responses like
those that have been discussed above. For example,
a. A third person can be involved for role play or relaying information.
b. Visuals and paraphrase technique can be used.
Furthermore, the time spent is also flexible. Some teachers may spend as much as 15-30
minutes per students but this is not necessarily the rule. 5-10 minutes per students is generally
ample for most classes.

5.0 HOW TO GRADE ORAL INTERVIEW

When marking a test, teachers need to have good marking schematic that is suitable to the
level of their students and also the skills they are testing their students. For oral interview,
there are at least two types of scoring marking.
5.1 Holistic
Holistic marking scheme is a method of evaluating a test based on its overall quality. Often
used in a large scale assessment such as college placements tests. Graders are expected to
make judgments based on criteria that have been agreed upon before the start of an evaluation
session.
Generally speaking, teachers with considerable experience and training are more
inclined to use holistic scoring than teachers without this background. Holistic scoring also
tends to be used when the teachers is inclined toards evaluating a wide variety of criteria
simultenously. Below is an example of holistic marking.
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5.2 Objectified scoring

Items on a quiz or short exam for beginning-level students are sometimes evaluate as being
either right or wrong, with no partial credit allowed. It can be a perfectly satisfactory way to
evaluate speaking tests. It is also can be used as a bridge to holistic grading.
All items of an interview can be handled on a 2-1-0 basis. Content questions can later
be graded on a 4-3-2-1-0 scale. Later still, guided items or entire speaking test can be done
holistically using a five point scale. By utilizing objectified scoring procedures, you can add
tests of speaking to the array of communicative and language skill exams that you are able to
prepare administer and score.
i. Procedure of marking
a. For example, on a ten-item test with question on pictures, we might ask, Whats
happening here?

b. The students look at the picture of a woman typing and simply says, Shes typing or
A lady is working.
c. Evaluation criteria may indicate that any logically appropriate and comprehensible
response is acceptable.
d. Other task can be can be handled in a similar way like example, you can divide the
route on the picture map into segments. These might correspond to place where the
person changes direction or makes a stop.
e. On a twenty-segment map, students would get five points for each part that they
describe appropriately, but zero for any part that was incorrect or confusing to the
teacher-examiner.
f. A retold story can be divided up into segments and evaluated the same way.

6.0 PROS AND CONS IN CONDUCTING ORAL INTERVIEW

As usual in every techniques uses in teaching, teachers need to recognise the strength and the
weakness of the technique they want to implement thus oral interview technique is also
included. There are several strengths and weaknesses of this technique which are being
highlighted below.

6.1 Advantages of conducting oral interview

i.
ii.
iii.

It can be one of the most communicative of all language examinations.

It is remarkably flexible in terms of item types that can be included.
The scoring tends to be more consistent and simple than a scoring of many guided-

iv.
v.

technique items.
Very high face validity because it is very similar to real-life oral interaction.
A number of skills can be tested simultaneously and this saves testing time.

vi.

It is a face to face interview; it gives opportunity to the teacher to adapt his/her

questions suits with the students. For example: When the students appears good, the
teacher can asks him questions that enable him to show his/her range of structures and
vocabulary. When poor students are being tested, teacher can simplify the questions to
enable the students to show a little what he/she can do in English and not remain
silent.

6.2 Disadvantages of conducting oral interview

i.
ii.
iii.

It is rather time consuming, particularly if taped or scored later.

It is deceptively easy for it to become a simple question-and-answer session.
The oral interview has high face and construct validity but its content validity is

iv.

debatable.
A set of tasks given 20 minute interview cannot provide a sample of speaking
information which is fully representative sample of the students achievement in

v.

various components of the syllabus.

Assessment based in this sample cannot be generalized to cover the teachers full

vi.

communicative competence.
Another difficulty of oral interview is the person who initiates the topic and asks
questions is always the interviewer. Meaning that students ability in initiating a new
topic and asking question cannot be assessed by using this technique.

7.0 Example of lesson plan

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8.0 CONCLUSION
While testing students using oral interview seems simple and meaningful, teacher must also
do some intake into their students need. If what the students need are reliable test that are able
to effectively measure their proficiency in speaking especially communicating in English is,
then conducting oral interview should be considered more. This technique will greatly help
teachers to check their students mastery level then plan lesson appropriately. Meanwhile,
students may gain some confident in communicating in English and are motivated to try
communicating with their fellow friends.
On the other hand, when teachers want to put more emphasis on pronunciation as
well as the grammar focus while using analytical marking scheme, this technique might not
be what the students need. Due to the reason that speaking to relay information and get
feedback is quite different that robotically making speech, students may blunder a lot in their
speaking which, in turn, reduce a lot of their marks. In this case, teachers should consider
another technique in testing students speaking skill.
Overall, while having some backseat in conducting this technique, to some teachers, it
is not impossible to go around the cons. For example, if having one by one oral interview is
too much time consuming, teachers may let students sit in a group, then interview one by one
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of the students using the same procedure. This is actually using one of the 8 English
Language Teaching (ELT)Methodology , Communicative Language Learning (CLL). With
some tweaks and strategies for each lessons and classrooms, this technique is a traditional but
effective one.

9.0 REFERENCES
1) Madsen, Harold S, 1983, Techniques in Testing, Chapter 8, Oxford University Press.
2) Nesamalar Chitravelu, Saratha Sithamparam, The Soo Choon, 2005, Oxford Fajar
SDN.BHD.
3) https://www.rcampus.com/rubricshowc.cfm?code=J3C775&sp=yes&,

taken on 30

November 2016.
4) http://www.rcampus.com/rubricshowc.cfm?code=L6B942&sp=true,

Rubric taken 30 November 2016.

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Oral Interview