Schema Association Training: Empowering Students for Speaking Assessments

Abstract

This article describes Schema Association Training (SAT), an enrichment programme designed to develop students’ confidence and ability to sustain discussions during speaking assessments. The author observed that many students had difficulties introducing relevant ideas to prolong discussions during Spoken Interaction, an assessment component of the Singapore-Cambridge GCE O-Level English language oral communication exam. Notably, there appears to be a tendency for students to compartmentalize the content knowledge they possess, often resulting in missed opportunities to surface relevant ideas that could possibly add depth to discussions. This raises a need for classroom preparatory work to move towards encouraging learners to make meaningful connections between related topics. SAT was thus implemented to achieve this. During SAT, students first go through an individual Spoken Interaction exercise which is audio recorded. This audio recording is subsequently utilized during an individual reflective conversation with the teacher. Finally, students consolidate their learning via an online learning module. This article describes the steps involved in carrying out SAT, and also presents preliminary findings that suggest the potential benefits of SAT in helping learners elaborate better during speaking assessments.