One effective way to assess your students’ speaking skills is to turn regular language practice tasks into tests. To do that, all you really need is some sort of feedback loop that provides insight into performance. With such a loop, common practice activities can be turned into assessment activities (Brown, 2013). Such an approach to oral testing can potentially open up new ideas for assessment that help your students improve their speaking ability. In this theory-light presentation, we’ll cover various strategies for creating such loops by looking at the pros and cons of typical holistic and analytic marking schemes. Guidance for creating effective feedback/marking rubrics will also be provided. Finally, practical issues regarding administration of in-class speaking tests will also be addressed. No previous experience with conducting speaking tests is required; any teacher in learning how to implement oral testing in the classroom is encourage to attend.
The presentation will be followed by an informal discussion on the speaking textbook, “Conversations in Class, 3rd Edition” which the presenter co-authored. Anyone interested in learning more about this text is encouraged to take part.
