APPLIED LINGUISTICS for BA Students in English
EVALUATION
Assessing productive skills (writing and speaking)
The most common task types
There is a great variety of tasks that are employed to assess oral production. Just like writing tasks, speaking tasks can also be categorized according to how much potential is given for real communicative interaction, how much the content and the language is controlled. These tasks can be found at different language proficiency examinations
Linguistic (controlled) speaking tasks focus on certain aspects of speaking and the spoken language (e.g. pronunciation, knowledge of appropriate conversational exchanges, clichés,) and are far from authentic interaction. However, they can be found in a few language examinations. Controlled tasks are: reading aloud, response to a recorded grammatical cue or a situational cue, interpretation of what the examiners says, simultaneous translation of text in L1.
Guided speaking tasks give details of the context or situation. Typical tasks are: taking and relaying message on the tape, summarizing a conversation or a spoken text recorded on the tape, problem solving, interpreting or summarizing a written text, role-play, discussion based on an object or a picture belonging to the test taker, discussion based on a book read by the test taker.
Free speaking tasks impose minimum linguistic control on the speaker. Widely used tasks are: prepared presentation on a topic chosen by the candidate in advance, monologue on a given topic chosen at the exam, interview (e.g. discussion of personal information about the candidate, or discussion of a topic or of the candidate’s opinion about the topic), description of a picture chosen.
