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Alternated IELTS Speaking Test for Examine Elias’s Oral Ability

Xuwei (Sara) Luo

GSEP – Pepperdine University

EDTE 608 – Issues in Language Assessment

Dr. Andrea Steinfeld

April 15, 2021

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Alternated IELTS Speaking Test for Examine Elias’s Oral Ability

Introduction

I would choose IELTS speaking interview as my assessment tool to evaluate Elias's

speaking ability. I have considered both TOEFL and IELTS speaking tests. IELTS speaking test

is more natural, and the questionaries are more consistent. In comparison, TOEFL speaking test

is simply answering questions prompt to a computer. Unlike interview, there is no follow-up

questions or person to talk to, which could cause Elias to get more nervous and less likely to

speak. Besides, TOEFL is designated for college or higher education students; this test's primary

purpose is to examine students' language abilities in academic settings or post-graduate studies.

Since Elias is only 11 years old and studies in fifth grade, it is challenging for him to take the

TOEFL exam.

On the other hand, the IELTS speaking test is an interview format. It includes self-

introduction, personal opinions of daily topics, and discussing a controversial topic (IELTS,

2021). However, considering Elias's age and background, he cannot provide discussion for a

broad and complex controversial topic. Though, I believe the teacher can help him develop

critical thinking skills by slowly increasing the difficulty level of discussion topics. Therefore,

instead of directly using the formal IELTS speaking test, I decided to change the topic discussion

section to a more authentic and simplified version. Since Elias does not fully understand all

school materials, the teacher could also add some academic talking into the

conversation/interview. Of course, the difficulty level should be slowly increasing. This

assessment should be graded based on four criteria: fluency and coherence, vocabulary,

pronunciation, and grammar. This formal assessment will be held once a month or once in two

months. The teacher could record the interview. Thus, after grading the assessment, the teacher
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and Elias can sit down and replay the recording to figure out what kind of mistakes that Elias

made during the interview and discuss how to improve Elias's speaking skills. The teacher can

also help him develop a mind map of talking. The mind map will help him organize the thinking

process.

This alternated IELTS speaking test can be both informal and formal assessment. In

terms of informal tests, Elias could do it after school or during the free period. The task will also

be interview, but the interview can take place somewhere that he felt safe with talking about

everything that he wants to discuss and at the same time give him some confidence. Informal

assessment will be the teacher chatting with him, building a closer relationship, and creating a

safe environment for him. The interview could occur in different areas of the school campus,

such as the playground, cafeteria, music room, etc. For example: if this interview is happening in

the cafeteria. During the interview, the teacher can ask him about his favorite food in the

cafeteria; who is his lunch pal? What kind of food does Elias expect the cafeteria to have in the

future? etc. There should be follow-up questions as well, which will help him develop improvise

and thinking skills. To increase the level of difficulty, the teacher could ask questions related to

schoolwork. During the informal interview, the teacher should listen carefully to Elias's word

choice, fluency, pronunciation, and grammar. When there is an error that occurs, the teacher

should not correct it immediately. Instead, the teacher can repeat what Elias said and ask

questions to assist him to realize the error by himself. This informal assessment can also be seen

as practice interview.

Assessment Tool

This alternation of the IELTS speaking test does meet the five principles of assessment.

First, for practicality, this is a practical test for Elias for several reasons. Firstly, the school board
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will cover all the expenses; Elias’s family does not have to worry about fees. Secondly, Elias will

do these informal and formal assessments after school, which only takes 30 minutes to an hour,

and the teacher will help him do this assessment. Thus, Elias and the teacher do not have to come

to school during the weekend or other spare time to complete the assessment. However, there

might be some limitations for the school board and the teacher. The informal assessment requires

teachers who have some ESL teaching experience to design the questionaries and give the

assessment, which means the teacher who will provide the examination might need some ESL

teaching training. Plus, since these assessments will happen after school, and as the introduction

introduced, the informal assessment would likely be acting as a tutor session. It means the

teacher needs to put a lot of effort into this assessment. At the same time, the teacher has to be

very committed to the job, in order to organize this speaking assessment.

In terms of reliability, there will be rubrics provided to the teacher for grading the

speaking assessment. The rubric follows the original IELTS criteria. There will be four criteria:

fluency and coherence, vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar. While the teacher is listening to

Elias talking, she/he should look for mistakes and errors and take notes. When Elias is done

talking, the teacher needs to give him a grade based on these four criteria. Besides, the teacher

will explain the grading standard for Elias, let him know where he made a mistake, and

correct/improve it so that Elias could quickly develop his speaking at the same time. During the

formal assessment teacher will record the interview for further grading and evaluation. Elias’s

grades will entirely depend on his performance in that specific interview.

Next, in terms of validity, this alternated IELTS mainly focuses on assessing Elias's

speaking ability, with some indirect testing to listening, grammar, and vocabulary assessment. To

elaborate, the IELTS speaking test uses the interview as a task, which means Elias needs to use
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speaking as output to create a conversation with the teacher. And teacher will grade his interview

according to how well he speaks. The assessment also requires Elias to listen to the

question/topic prompt so that listening will count as an indirect testing object. While Elias

answers the question/topic prompt, he will be relying on his background knowledge and

vocabulary to do the discussion. Furthermore, the grading rubric does have one standard taking

vocabulary and grammar errors into consideration, which indirectly tests his lexical and grammar

ability, as this essay stated in the introduction.

Based on authenticity, this assessment will have some alternation and change the

controversial topic section in IELTS speaking test into some topics that are more relied upon

Elias's daily activities or school-related issues. Since the informal test will take place in different

school campus areas, the teacher will ask Elias to share something about him. Elias must have

lots of interesting stories or memories to share with the teacher. During the interview, the teacher

will also ask follow-up questions to help Elias build a thinking process and help him fill out all

the detailed information for his story. The whole interview will be contextualized with two to

three topics, allowing Elias to talk more and have more speaking output for the teacher's ease to

acknowledge and score Elias's natural speaking ability.

Finally, based on washback, as the author mentioned before, there will be the recordings

for the formal assessment interview. The teacher and Elias will watch together and talk through

the improvement from the last interview and the errors Elias made during this interview. If

possible, the teacher can ask Elias to make an interview log and list all the grades he received,

the number of mistakes, and feedback from the teacher. Elias can directly visualize his progress

and what areas that he needs to keep practicing. The interview log will also help the teacher

notify if Elias needs to work on specific areas.

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Conclusion

This alternated IELTS speaking test is not only designed for Elias, but it could also help

other students who are unwilling to speak or beginning ESL learners. It is necessary to consider

students' mental stage and their background when assessing their language proficiency. For

further consideration, there is a massive need for a more accessible and more affordable

standardized test. The test itself should not be a tool for making money. It should be an assistant

for teachers to get to know their students' proficiency level to better help them improve.
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Reference

IELTS Introduction. (2021). IELTS. Retrieved February 9, 2021. https://www.ielts.org/en-

us/what-is-ielts/ielts-introduction

Luchian T. (2016). Comparative analysis between different English exams: Cambridge, IELTS,

TOEFL. Politehnica Graduate Student Journal of Communication, 1(1), 106-113.