ASSESSING SPEAKING

CHAPTER 6

Theory of Speaking Assessment:

          There are four competencies supporting the speaking ability:

1.      Grammatical competence (sounds of letters, pronunciation, intonation and stress.

2.      Discourse competence (relationships beyond sentence level, cohesion, coherence and communication in a meaningful way).

3.      Sociolinguistic competences (applying knowledge of what is expected socially and culturally by users of the target language).

4.      Strategic competence (the way the learners use language to carry out communicative purposes).

Designing Speaking Assessments:

Formal speaking assessment techniques:

Parts:

a.     Warm up

b.     Level check

c.     Probe

d.     Wind down

Types of assessments:

1.      Picture cue

2.      Prepared monologue

3.      Role play

4.      Information gap activity

5.      Oral presentations

6.      Debate on a controversial topic

7.      Reading aloud

8.      Retelling stories

9.      Verbal essays

10.  Extemporaneous speaking

Rubrics for assessing speaking:

         They basically should include grammar, vocabulary, fluency and pronunciation and levels from excellent to unacceptable or poor.