2.AssessingSpeaking (excerpts from by H. D. Brown, Language Assessment: Principles and Classroom Practices,Chapter7.PearsonLongman2004.

) While speaking is a productive skill that can be directly and empirically observed, thoseobservationsareinvariablycoloredbytheaccuracyandeffectivenessofatest takerslisteningskill,whichnecessarilycompromisesthereliabilityandvalidityofan oralproductiontest.Howdoyouknowforcertainthataspeakingscoreisexclusively a measure of oral production without the potentially frequent clarifications of an interlocutor?Thisinteractionofspeakingandlisteningchallengesthedesignerofan oralproductiontesttoteaseapart,asmuchaspossible,thefactorsaccountedforby auralintake. Anotherchallengeisthedesignofelicitationtechniques.Becausemostspeakingis theproductofcreativeconstructionoflinguisticstrings,thespeakermakeschoicesof lexicon, structure, and discourse. If your goal is to have testtakers demonstrate certain spoken grammatical categories, for example, the stimulus you design must elicitthosegrammaticalcategoriesinwaysthatprohibitthetesttakerfromavoiding orparaphrasingandtherebydodgingproductionofthetargetform. As tasks become more and more open ended, the freedom of choice given to test takers creates a challenge in scoring procedures. In receptive performance, the elicitationstimuluscanbestructuredtoanticipatepredeterminedresponsesandonly those responses. In productive performance, the oral or written stimulus must be specific enough to elicit output within an expected range of performance such that scoring or rating procedures apply appropriately. For example, in a pictureseries task, the objective of which is to elicit a story in a sequence of events, testtakers couldoptforavarietyofplausiblewaystotellthestory,allofwhichmightbeequally accurate.Howcansuchdisparateresponsesbeevaluated?Onesolutionistoassign not one but several scores for each response, each score representing one of several traits (pronunciation, fluency, vocabulary use, grammar, comprehensibility, etc.). All of these issues will be addressed in this chapter as we review types of spoken language and micro and macroskills of speaking, then outline numerous tasks for assessingspeaking. BASICTYPESOFSPEAKING // We have cited four categories of listening performance assessment tasks. A similartaxonomyemergesfororalproduction. 1. Imitative. Atoneendofacontinuumoftypesofspeakingperformanceisthe abilitytosimplyparrotback(imitate)awordorphraseorpossiblyasentence. Whilethisisapurelyphoneticleveloforalproduction,anumberofprosodic, lexical, and grammatical properties of language may be included in the criterion performance. We are interested only in what is traditionally labeled pronunciation no inferences are made about the testtakers ability to

understandorconveymeaningortoparticipateinaninteractiveconversation. The only role of listening here is in the shortterm storage of a prompt, just longenough to allow the speaker to retain the short stretch oflanguage that mustbeimitated. 2. Intensive. A second type of speaking frequently employed in assessment contexts is the production of short stretches of oral language designed to demonstratecompetenceinanarrowbandofgrammatical,phrasal,lexical,or phonological relationships (such as prosodic elements intonation, stress, rhythm,juncture).Thespeakermustbeawareofsemanticpropertiesinorder tobeabletorespond,butinteractionwithaninterlocutorortestadministrator is minimal at best. Examples of intensive assessment tasks include directed response tasks, reading aloud, sentence and dialogue completion limited picturecued tasks including simple sequences and translation up to the simplesentencelevel. 3. Responsive. Responsive assessment tasks include interaction and test comprehensionbutatthesomewhatlimitedlevelofveryshortconversations, standard greetings and small talk, simple requests and comments, and the like. The stimulus is almost always a spoken prompt (in order to preserve authenticity),withperhapsonlyoneortwofollowupquestionsorretorts:

A. Mary:Excuseme,doyouhavethetime? Doug:Yeah.Ninefifteen. B. T:Whatisthemosturgentenvironmentalproblemtoday? S:Iwouldsaymassivedeforestation. C. Jeff:Hey,Stef,howsitgoing? Stef:Notbad,andyourself? Jeff:Imgood. Stef:Cool.Okay,gottago.

4. Interactive. The differencebetween responsive and interactive speakingisin the length and complexity of the interaction, which sometimes includes multiple exchanges and/or multiple participants. Interaction can take the two formsoftransactionallanguage,whichhasthepurposeofexchangingspecific information, or interpersonal exchanges, which have the purpose of maintainingsocialrelationships.(Inthethreedialoguescitedabove,AandB weretransactional,andCwasinterpersonal.)Ininterpersonalexchanges,oral production can become pragmatically complex with the need to speak in a casual register and use colloquiallanguage,ellipsis, slang,humor, and other sociolinguisticconventions. 5. Extensive (monologue). Extensive oral production tasks include speeches, oral presentations, and storytelling, during which the opportunity for oral interaction from listeners is either highly limited (perhaps to nonverbal responses) or ruled out altogether. Language style is frequently more deliberative (planning is involved) and formal for extensive tasks, but we cannot rule out certain informal monologues such as casually delivered

speech (for example, my vacationin the mountains, a recipe for outstanding pastaprimavera,recountingtheplotofanovelormovie). MICROANDMACROSKILLSOFSPEAKING //Inthepreviouschapter,alistoflisteningmicroandmacroskillsenumeratedthe variouscomponentsoflisteningthatmakeupcriteriaforassessment.Asimilarlistof speaking skills can be drawn up for the same purpose: to serve as a taxonomy of skillsfromwhichyouwillselectoneorseveralthatwillbecometheobjective(s)ofan assessmenttask.The microskillsrefertoproducingthesmallerchunksoflanguage such as phonemes, morphemes, words, collocations, and phrasal units. The macroskills imply the speakers focus on the larger elements: fluency, discourse, function,style,cohesion,nonverbalcommunication,andstrategicoptions.Themicro andmacroskillstotalroughly16differentobjectivestoassessinspeaking. Microandmacroskillsoforalproduction Microskills 1. ProducedifferencesamongEnglishphonemesandallophonicvariants. 2. Producechunksoflanguageofdifferentlengths. 3. ProduceEnglishstresspatterns,wordsinstressedandunstressedpositions, rhythmicstructure,andintonationcontours. 4. Producereducedformsofwordsandphrases. 5. Use an adequate number of lexical units (words) to accomplish pragmatic purposes. 6. Producefluentspeechatdifferentratesofdelivery. 7. Monitoronesownoralproductionandusevariousstrategicdevicespauses, fillers,selfcorrections,backtrackingtoenhancetheclarityofthemessage. 8. Use grammatical word classes (nouns, verbs, etc.) systems (e.g., tense, agreement,pluralization),wordorder,patterns,rules,andellipticalforms. 9. Producespeechinnaturalconstituents:inappropriatephrases,pausegroups, breathgroups,andsentenceconstituents. 10. Expressaparticularmeaningindifferentgrammaticalforms. 11. Usecohesivedevicesinspokendiscourse. Macroskills 12. Appropriately accomplish communicative functions according to situations, participants,andgoals. 13. Use appropriate styles, registers, implicature, redundancies, pragmatic conventions,conversationrules,floorkeepingandyielding,interrupting,and othersociolinguisticfeaturesinfacetofaceconversations. 14. Convey links and connections between events and communicate such relations as focal and peripheral ideas, events and feelings, new information andgiveninformation,generalizationandexemplification. 15. Convey facial features, kinesics, body language, and other nonverbal cues alongwithverballanguage. 16. Develop and use a battery of speaking strategies, such as emphasizing key words, rephrasing, providing a context for interpreting the meaning of words,

appealing for help, and accurately assessing how well your interlocutor is understandingyou. Asyouconsiderdesigningtasksforassessingspokenlanguage,theseskillscanact as a checklist of objectives. While the macroskills have the appearance of being more complex than the microskills, both contain ingredients of difficulty, depending onthestageandcontextofthetesttaker. There is such an array of oral production tasks that a completetreatment isalmost impossiblewithintheconfinesofonechapterinthisbook.Belowisaconsiderationof themostcommontechniqueswithbriefallusionstorelatedtasks.Asalreadynotedin the introduction to this chapter, consider three important issues as you set out to designtasks: 1. No speaking task is capable of isolating the single skill of oral production. Concurrentinvolvementoftheadditionalperformanceofauralcomprehension, andpossiblyreading,isusuallynecessary. 2. Eliciting the specific criterion you have designated for a task can be tricky because beyond the word level, spoken language offers a number of productive options to testtakers. Make sure your elicitation prompt achieves itsaimsascloselyaspossible. 3. Becauseoftheabovetwocharacteristicsoforalproductionassessment,itis important to carefully specify scoring procedures for a response so that ultimatelyyouachieveashighareliabilityindexaspossible.

(excerptsreprintedwiththepermissionofthepublisher)