The oral presentation as a context for learning and assessment

Abstract

Tests are said to be an important determiner of what actually happens in classrooms. There are claims for both positive and negative washback. However, there is still very little evidence of how washback from the test format affects learning and teaching activities in foreign language learning. There has been even less attention to the nature of the changes in classroom practice and student role when a novel test format is introduced. This article explores how the assessment format (academic oral presentations – AOP) in a university English course shapes students' group discussions in the classroom, and vice versa. Classroom observation data document interaction processes and facilitate investigation of the relationship between classroom discussions and assessed AOPs. We present a conversation analysis account of group discussions and explore the structure of oral presentations through a lexical signal framework. The analysis illustrates how classroom interactions develop and are sustained to facilitate collaborative learning. We relate the findings of this analysis to the structure, linguistic features and quality of the oral presentations of the students from the group discussions. This article argues that the assessment format can shape classroom activities so that there are enhanced opportunities for learning, and that the particular format investigated here – the AOP – has the potential to generate learning opportunities.