“Assessing Speaking

Skill in the Context of

Communicative
Competence” research design and conduct a
precise measurement to determine if

S
these goals have been met. The oral
peaking skill is one of the four
communication field needs a clear-cut
skills that need to be tested in
method of evaluation as can be found in
order to know how the students’
discrete language skill classes such as
successful in using that language when
listening comprehension (Nakamura &
they interact with another in the context
Valens, 2001). Language teachers and
of communicative competence. The
language testers need a method which
testing speaking has traditionally taken
takes subjective qualitative observations
the form of testing knowledge about
and then transforms them into objective
language; the idea of testing
quantitative measures.
communicative competence is becoming
In testing speaking skill, or oral
recognized as being of great importance
skills of second language learning, four
in second language learning. In testing
components are emphasised. These
communicative competence, speaking
include: vocabulary, grammar,
and listening tasks are commonly used.
semantics, and phonology. Accurate
Those require tasks such as the
assessment of limited-English speaking
completion of an information gap and
learners requires a total description of
role play (Kitao & Kitao, 1996).
the communication skills, linguistic
As language teachers, it is
structures, and functional usage of the
important for us to enhance the students’
learner’s language within all social
delivery skills, increase their confidence,
domains (Silverman, Noa, & Russel,
and develop their methods of
1977).
organization and critical thinking skills.
A critical issue in the assessment
On the other hand, as language testers, it
is the selection of criteria for evaluating
is necessary to establish a careful
performance. Stiggins (as cited in Butler

1
& Stevens, 1997) points out that the correlation with each other, and which
selection of these criteria should be one do not lend themselves well to objective
of the first steps in designing testing. In ( Kitao & Kitao, 1996), it was
performance assessments. Students mentioned that there are not yet good
should understand ahead of time what is answers to questions about the criteria
expected of them and whenever possible, for testing these skills and the weighing
actually help them determine on what of these factors.
basis their performance will be judged. It is possible to find people who
When students are actively involved in can produce the different sounds of a
establishing assessment criteria for tasks, foreign language appropriately; hence
they do not only have a better they lack the ability to communicate
understanding of what is expected of their ideas correctly. This is one of the
them when they perform the tasks, but difficulties that testers encounter when
they will be able to more fully appreciate testing the oral production of learners.
why the criteria are important (Butler & However, the opposite situation could
Stevens, 1997). occur as well; some people do have the
This paper is divided into two ability of expressing their ideas clearly,
sections. The first provides a brief but at the same time they can not
description of the difficulties that testers pronounce all the sounds correctly.
of speaking skills encounter. The second Another difficulty is the
presents different methods and administration of speaking skills testing.
approaches to testing speaking skills and That is because it is hard to test large
oral proficiency in second language numbers of learners in a relatively short
learning. time. Therefore, the examiner of an oral
production is put under great pressure
Difficulties in Testing the Speaking (Heaton, 1988).
Skills The next difficulty discussed
here is that speaking and listening skills
Speaking is probably the most are very much related to each other; it is
difficult skill to test. It involves a difficult to separate them. They are such
combination of skills that may have no kind of integrated skills. In most cases,

2
there is an interchange between listening
and speaking, and speaking
appropriately depends on
comprehending spoken input.
Therefore, this has an impact on testing
speaking because the testers will not
know whether they are testing purely
speaking or speaking and listening
together.
Finally, the assessment and
scoring of speaking skills is one of its
biggest problems. If possible, it is better
to record the examinees’ performance
and the scoring will be done upon
listening to the tape.
The aspects of speaking that are
considered part of its assessment include
grammar, pronunciation, fluency,
content, organization, and vocabulary.
(Kitao & Kitao, 1996).
Depending on the situation and
the purpose of the test, testers need to
choose the appropriate methods and
techniques of testing. The next section
will discuss some of these methods.
Methods of Testing the Speaking Skill
In (Kenyon, 1998) the author
claims that performance tasks are the
foundation of any performance-based
assessment. The task he describes refers
to the open-ended stimulus serving to
elicit the examinee’s performance to be
evaluated. An example of that is an oral
response to an interviewer’s questions or
instructions to a role-play, or to the
physical response to instructions given to
the examinee in the target language. His
study was based on the Speaking
Proficiency Guidelines of the American
Council on the Teaching of a Foreign
Language. The framework of that study
is that the determining source of the
examinees’ proficiency level lies in
his/her ability to accomplish speaking
tasks that are associated with different
levels of proficiency that are defined by
the Guidelines. There are four levels of
proficiency in the Guidelines.
The level which is characterized by the
ability to communicate minimally in
highly predictive situations with
previously learned words. Intermediate
which is related to the ability to initiate,
sustain and close basic communication
tasks. Advanced that is characterized by
the ability to converse fluently in
participatory fashion. Superior that is
related to the ability to participate
effectively in most formal and informal
3
conversations on practical, social, to use conversation skills that they have
professional, and abstract topics. learned throughout the course. The third
Between these four main levels, there are type is Multilogue Speaking Test that is
sublevels as well. also called the discussion and debating.
Kenyon states that “When Here, the discussions are student-
students are asked to give a linguistic generated, and students are put into
performance in response to a task in a groups where as a group, they decide on
testing situation, it is paramount that the a topic they feel would be of interest for
directions to the performance-based task the rest of the classroom.
be absolutely clear.” The evaluation criteria that was
used in that study was as follows:
Monologue, Dialogue, and Multilogue Evaluation Items:
Speaking Tests Presentations:
 Content
In their report Nakamura &  Language
Valens (2001) conducted a study on  Eye contact
Japanese graduate students at Keio Interviews:
University. They used three different  Comprehensibility
types of speaking tests: Monologue
 Pronunciation
Speaking Test which is also called the
 Fluency
presentation. In this type, students were
 Ability to explain an idea
asked to perform some tasks such as;
Discussing and debating:
show and tell where they talk about
 Able to be part of the
anything they choose. This is considered
conversation to help it
a chance to give students an opportunity
flow naturally
to make a small presentation. The second
 Uses fillers/ additional
type is Dialogue Speaking Test which is
questions to include
also known as the interview. It is an
others in conversation
open-ended test where the students lead
 Transfers skills used in
a discussion with the teacher, and
dialogues to group
students in that kind of test are required
discussions
4

The rating scale ranged between poor
and good with the symbols from 1 to 4.
The finding of their study reveals that
among the three test types, the
discussion tests was the most difficult
followed by interview test and the
presentation test.
In the context of Indonesia, I
believe that the types of tests discussed
above could be successfully used in the
assessment of students who are learning
English for certain purposes such as; to
study in a university abroad where the
first language is English, or to be able to
work in an environment where English is
used largely as in banks or hospitals. The
learners, who have these intentions, are
in need to master these skills that were
tested in the study mentioned above.
Testing Speaking Using Visual
Material
Without the need to comprehend
spoken or written material, it is possible
to test speaking using pictures, diagrams,
and maps. Through a careful selection of
material, the testers can have control
over the use of vocabulary and the
grammatical structures required. There
are different types of visual materials
that range in their difficulty to suit all the
levels of learners. One common stimulus
material could be a series of pictures
showing a story, where the test takers
should describe. It requires the test taker
to put together a coherent narrative.
Another way to do that is by putting the
pictures in a random order of the story to
a group of test takers. The students
decide on the sequence of the pictures
without showing them to each other, and
then put them down in the order that
they have decided on. They then have
the opportunity to reorder the pictures if
they feel it is necessary.
Another way of using visual
stimulus is by giving two test takers
similar pictures with slight differences
between them, and without seeing each
others pictures they describe their own
pictures in order to figure out the
differences.
However, there is a problem in using
visual stimulus in testing speaking, it lies
in that the choice of the materials used
must be something that all the test takers
can interpret equally well, since if one
test taker has a difficulty understanding
the visual information, it will influence
5
the way he/she is evaluated (Kitao &
Kitao, 1996).
The Portfolio Approach
Butler and Stevens (1997) state that
“O’Malley and Pierce (1996) suggest
that the portfolio approach in the case of
an expanded oral profile, widely used for
assessing reading and writing can also be
used effectively to assess oral language.”
Profile or portfolio information,
reviewed periodically, can be used to
enhance teaching and learning for
students and to communicate to students,
parents, and other teachers what students
can already do and what they need to
improve. A teacher would systematically
collect and record a variety of oral
language samples for students that would
help capturing the range of their
communicative abilities.
Samples of students’ oral language
tasks may come from individual tasks or
from group or interactive tasks.
Individual tasks are those that students
perform alone, such as giving a prepared
report in front of the class or expressing
an opinion about a current event. Group
tasks require students to interact with
other students in the accomplishment of
a variety of goals, such as debates, group
discussions, role plays, or improvised
drama. Both categories of tasks are
important in providing students with a
range of activities that stretch their
speaking abilities and in helping them to
focus on adjusting their speech to the
audience. In selecting oral samples for a
profile, teachers would also consider the
continuum of formal and informal
language that is represented in the
classroom.
The Taped Oral Proficiency Test
In that approach, the learners’
performances are recorded on tapes and
then assessed later by the examiner. This
method has some advantage and some
disadvantages. According to Cartier
(1980), one disadvantage of the taped
test is that it is less personal; the
examinee is talking to a machine and not
to a person.
Another disadvantage is that it has a low
validity. Moreover, the taped test is
inflexible; if something goes wrong
during the recording, it is virtually
impossible to adjust for it. On the other
hand, there are some advantages of that
type of test. It can be given to a group of
6
learners in a language lab, it is more
standardized and more objective since
each student receives identical stimuli,
and scoring can be performed at the most
convenient or economical time and
location.
I believe that the taped test
method is very practical when it comes
to testing large numbers of students
where the examiner would not have
enough time to assess each one of them
individually. However, the problem lies
in not having enough language labs in
some institutions which, in turn, creates
a big difficulty for testers.
Previous literature on classroom
testing of second language speech skills
provides several models of both task
types and rubrics for rating, and
suggestions regarding procedures for
testing speaking with large numbers of
learners. However, there is no clear,
widely disseminated consensus in the
profession on the appropriate paradigm
to guide the testing and rating of learner
performance in a new language, either
from second language acquisition
research or from the best practices of
successful teachers. While there is
similarity of descriptors from one rubric
to another in professional publications,
these statements are at best subjective.
Thus, the rating of learners' performance
rests heavily on individual instructors'
interpretations of those descriptors (Pino,
1998).
In spite of the difficulties
inherent in testing speaking, a speaking
test can be a source of beneficial
backwash. If speaking is tested, unless it
is tested at a very low level, such as
reading aloud, this encourages the
teaching of speaking in classes.
In my opinion, testing speaking
skills could be a very interesting
experience, and
it gives teachers an opportunity to
creative in selecting the test items and
materials. Moreover, it has a great
impact on students by making them
enjoy taking the test and feel
comfortable doing so if the teacher
chooses the materials that interest their
students and that is suitable to their age
and levels of knowledge.
References:
Brown, H. D. (2004). Language
Assessment: Principles
7
 and Classroom Practices.
Longman
Butler, F. A., & Stevens, R.
(1997) Oral languages
assessment in the
classroom. Theory Into
Practice, 36 (4). 214-219.
Cartier, F. A. (1980). Alternative
methods of oral
proficiency assessment.
In J. R. Firth (Ed.),
Measuring spoken
language proficiency (7-
14). GA: Georgetown
University.
Heaton, J. B. (1988). Writing
English language tests.
Longman.