Oral Proficiency Interviews at Amherst Regional High School: Report of a Pilot Project

Abstract

As in almost any other discipline, foreign language teachers have the need of providing an assessment of students' progress at the end of a learning period. To obtain data to support such assessment, teachers on all levels measure student progress periodically through tests and quizzes. Chapter/unit tests provided with textbooks and standardized tests are designed to measure primarily achievement in the skills of reading, writing, and listening. Descriptions of many foreign language courses state as another learning objective the development of speaking skills. However, only very few tests are available to the average teacher for measuring speaking proficiency. The Oral Proficiency Interview (01) is an assessment of an individual's foreign language speaking ability. The 01 measures what an individual is able to do with and in a foreign language by sampling the person's speech production on various topics and at different levels rather than determining what a person may know about a foreign language. The focus of the 01 is on overall language competence rather than on achievement in any specific course or program. In order to conduct an Oral Proficiency Interview, the tester must have appropriate professional training. I was trained in oral proficiency testing and related curriculum design at the ACTFL/ETS Oral Proficiency Summer Institute at Haverford College, Pennsylvania in the summer of 1983. I participated in the institute because of two decades of interest and involvement in the assssment of students' abilities to communicate in a