Chapter 6
Assessing Speaking
We find ourselves living in a society in which many of our students feel ashamed to speak English in and out the classroom. Some feel this way because they don’t want to be laugh at or they are afraid of not being understood. This is causing our kids to grow out of the English language, making it their enemy. Many do not realize how important English is (not only in but out of the classroom) until they are out in the business world, searching for a job, a way to make a living. Therefore, we must see to it that our students fall in love with the language and try to take away the fair that invades them. As teachers we must also find the way to fall in love with the language but most importantly with teaching. Let’s fall in love again with our profession and encourage our students to speak English.
What do we understanding by speaking? It is an important conduit of communication that we use on a daily basis. In order to achieve our goals, we must prepare tasks that simulate real life situations for which our students will see the need to speak: asking and answering questions, giving and providing information, among many others.
Let us understand that there are oral skill categories:
1. Routine Skills: These are principally linked with language functions and the spoken language required in certain situations.
2. The Improvisational Skills: These are more universal and can be brought into play at any moment to elucidate something or to maintain a conversation flowing or to even change topics.
There are many factors we need to bear in mind while elaborating our speaking assessment. A very important one is whether to focus on fluency or accuracy. The truth is that both of them are important. On one hand, fluency is important for students but only when there is an important amount that can impede students from comprehending something. On the other hand, accuracy helps students use language appropriately and formally; it is more technical. You can balance both on your assessment sheet not to leave either one out, but remember that these should be handled with care because in a frenzy demand of excellence we can cripple our students’ language development. Remember that mistakes will be made and we cannot go ballistic on our students for that instead make it a time to explain what went wrong and always in a positive way.
One more factor to consider is the procedure for grading. Teachers tend to be a little flexible or very hard on students during oral tests, so a very good solution is to have other teachers to grade along your side having in this way a second and third opinion. So you may have an interlocutor who interacts with the students and an assessor who will focus on writing scores and making notes. These teachers will help you by discussing and agreeing on a final score for learners. This idea will make your test much more reliable and of course much more easy if you and the raters use an assessment sheet.
There are various techniques you can use to assess:
Warm up: Its purpose is scholars’ relaxation
Level check: Its purpose is to determine students’ speaking proficiency level.
Probe: Value maximum height of student speaking skill.
Wind down: Its purpose is to get students to relax.
Some activities you can use are:
Reaing / Reading aloud / Finishing sentences
Role play
Information gap
Debates
Wok with these ideas and be amazed of what you and your students can achieve!!
This one in particular is made out of wood, strings, and mailers. It is used to store important documents such as receipts, notes, bills, etc.... 
This student is now promoting her calendar.
