The Assessment of Speaking Skills at the Tertiary Level

Asma Ounis

doi:10.5539/ijel.v7n4p95

Abstract

Since “English has become the lingua franca for academic interaction of learners and academics” (Koo, 2009, p. 77), the development of the EFL learners’ oral performance proficiency constitutes the central interest of current English language teaching methodologists and practitioners. The importance of speaking as a productive skill has been echoed in the literature. Indeed, it is viewed as a crucial “part of the curriculum in language teaching … and …an important object of assessment as well” (Luoma, 2004, p. 1). Thus, the prime aim of this study is to explore the prevailing conceptions and actual practices of the assessment of EFL learners’ speaking skills at the tertiary level. The respondents of the current research were 20 instructors who taught at the Higher Institute of languages in Gabes and at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities in Sfax, Tunisia. To collect the necessary data, a questionnaire survey was utilized. Then, the obtained data were analyzed using SPSS package. The findings revealed that the teachers’ conceptions of assessment are directed towards the development of the learners’ speaking skills. Despite the existence of a number of hardships, the teachers’ classroom teaching practices revealed a compete reliance on authentic, ongoing, organized and thoughtful oral language assessment procedures which were meant to sustain and boost the learners’ oral skill achievements.

Highlights

In the 20th century, assessing the learners’ oral production is the central concern of various scholars (Kang, 2013; Celce-Murcia, 2013; Louma, 2004)
It has been demonstrated through the analysis of the questionnaire findings that 60% of informants are provided by female teachers while the rest, 40%, constitutes the percentage of male teachers participating in the present research
Based on the questionnaire findings, the majority of informants belong to the second category with a percentage that reaches 55%, a weaker percentage goes for the ones who are aged more than 40 (30%) while the weakest percentage represents the informants who are less than 30 years

Summary

Introduction

In the 20th century, assessing the learners’ oral production is the central concern of various scholars (Kang, 2013; Celce-Murcia, 2013; Louma, 2004) It has become viewed as “an essentially interactive process, in which the teacher can find out whether what has been taught has been learned, and if not, to do something about it” According to Shepard (2000), classroom assessment refers to the “kind of assessment that can be used as part of instruction to support and enhance learning” In this respect, the central foci of current EFL instruction practices of assessment tend to go beyond the traditional standardized forms of testing the learners’ competencies to a more reformed communicatively—oriented assessment paradigms. What keeps the issue of assessment luring for researchers is its influence by several factors such as the instructors’ pedagogic and methodological ways, their major beliefs and prior knowledge, and the main purposes that urge them conduct assessment.

Objectives

Results

Conclusion