Oral language testing at tay nguyen university  (Page 11/53)

First, such tests create an ‘information gap,’ requiring test takers to process complementary information through the use of multiple sources of input. .... The second characteristic is that of task dependency,with tasks in one section of the test building upon the content of earlier sections .... Third, communicative tests can be characterized by their integration of test tasks and content within a given domain of discourse. Finally, communicative tests attempt to measure a much broader range of language abilities – including knowledge of cohesion, functions, and sociolinguistic appropriateness – than did earlier tests, which tended to focus on the formal aspects of language – grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation.

To put it narrowly for oral testing, all speaking tests that encompass the same purpose of measuring test takers’ speaking ability in real interactions are expected to be used to assess authentic language use in context and the ability to communicate meaning, that is to include all the characteristics mentioned above. As previously discussed, the ability to communicate meaning is assured by success of meaning negotiation (figure 2.3 above) in actual acts of interaction.

Speaking tests aim at eliciting test takers’ ability of communicating ideas, and how to do this depends upon the content of test tasks or questions that fit students’ level of language proficiency. Test takers’ different levels of language proficiency can be reflected in the difficulty degree of test tasks. As reviewed in the previous section 2.1, this degree of task difficulty called communicative stress should be taken in account in the teaching and testing of speaking skill, especially on the part of teachers or test developers and assessors. A thorough understanding of the issue helps testers to make informed judgements of ‘what type of speaking activity the student would find reasonably ‘unstressful’ at a particular point in his course’ (Brown and Yule, 1983, p.107). Obviously, tasks of oral testing are to be graded mainly in accordance with the degree of communicative stress.

To sum up, the adequate approach, in my viewpoint, to assessing learners’ production of spoken language is to measure the extent to which they are able to successfully convey and achieve the intended purposes of a particular test task. In other words, learners’ performance on an oral test task should be examined in terms of communicative effectiveness or success of meaning negotiation. However, this assessment way, if a real success, is greatly related to the communicative stress under which test tasks are designed. Therefore, the next two sections will closely review more factors that must be taken into account during the construction process of speaking tests.

2.3 theoretical framework for oral test development

The two previous sections have discussed the major features of spoken language taken into consideration in assessing production of spoken language, and have considered the communicative approach as the most adequate one to assessing spoken language production. This section describes in detail the theoretical framework for developing language tests which is intended for the following interpretation into the development of speaking tests.