How to Test Speaking Skills in Japan

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Chapter 7: Write & Speak a Conversation

is to make the test closed-book rather than open-book for the full 25 minutes You could also experiment with allowing students to create an L1 script during Stage 1 but not look at it during Stage 3, or by limiting the amount of open-book writing time Be aware, however, that increasing test difficulty may make it more time consuming and less practical to administer To make the test easier, try giving more time for the writing and/or practice stages If students are incapable of talking at all for whatever reason (ie they are total beginners), then you could just have them read their English scripts aloud and mark them on their pace, voice quality, and/or grammatical accuracy Mark all of the errors on the English scripts, much as you would a regular writing composition In the next class, each pair can then pair-write the conversation again on a new sheet of paper, taking care to fix all of their mistakes The students can then memorize their corrected version and perform it with other classmates in small groups of 4, 6, or 8 In addition to giving them the motivating feeling of knowing their English is correct, this activity can help students vicariously learn from their peers Read new Japanese transcript, speak English In groups of 4, 6 or 8, pairs exchange their L1 scripts and have a go at performing their classmates’ conversation in English The original authors can confirm their accuracy, help out as needed, and give some overall feedback Noticing Tasks Another way to learn from the scripts is to conduct a few noticing Follow-up activities Fix, memorize, and perform