Language Acquisition and Oral Proficiency
Testing Oral Proficiency: Difficulties and Methods
Introduction: Although testing language has traditionally taken the form of testing knowledge about language, the idea of testing communicative competence is becoming recognized as being of great importance in second language learning. In testing communicative competence, speaking and listening tasks are commonly used. Those require tasks such as the completion of an information gap and role play (Kitao & Kitao, 1996). As language teachers, it is important for us to enhance the students’ delivery skills, increase their confidence, and develop their methods of organization and critical thinking skills. On the other hand, as language testers, it is necessary to establish a careful research design and conduct a precise measurement to determine f these goals have been met. The oral communication field needs a clear-cut method of evaluation as can be found in discrete language skill classes such as listening comprehension (Nakamura & Valens, 2001). Language teachers and language testers need a method which takes subjective qualitative observations and then transforms them into objective quantitative measures. In testing oral proficiency, or oral skills of second language learning, four components are emphasised. These include: vocabulary, grammar, semantics, and phonology. Accurate assessment of limited-English speaking learners requires a total description of the communication skills, linguistic structures, and functional usage of the learner’s language within all social domains (Silverman, Noa, & Russel, 1977). A critical issue in the assessment is the selection of criteria for evaluating performance. Stiggins (as cited in Butler & Stevens, 1997) points out that the selection of these criteria should be one of the first steps in designing performance assessments. Students should understand ahead of time what is expected of them and whenever possible, actually help them determine on what
Introduction: Although testing language has traditionally taken the form of testing knowledge about language, the idea of testing communicative competence is becoming recognized as being of great importance in second language learning. In testing communicative competence, speaking and listening tasks are commonly used. Those require tasks such as the completion of an information gap and role play (Kitao & Kitao, 1996). As language teachers, it is important for us to enhance the students’ delivery skills, increase their confidence, and develop their methods of organization and critical thinking skills. On the other hand, as language testers, it is necessary to establish a careful research design and conduct a precise measurement to determine f these goals have been met. The oral communication field needs a clear-cut method of evaluation as can be found in discrete language skill classes such as listening comprehension (Nakamura & Valens, 2001). Language teachers and language testers need a method which takes subjective qualitative observations and then transforms them into objective quantitative measures. In testing oral proficiency, or oral skills of second language learning, four components are emphasised. These include: vocabulary, grammar, semantics, and phonology. Accurate assessment of limited-English speaking learners requires a total description of the communication skills, linguistic structures, and functional usage of the learner’s language within all social domains (Silverman, Noa, & Russel, 1977). A critical issue in the assessment is the selection of criteria for evaluating performance. Stiggins (as cited in Butler & Stevens, 1997) points out that the selection of these criteria should be one of the first steps in designing performance assessments. Students should understand ahead of time what is expected of them and whenever possible, actually help them determine on what