How to Test Speaking Skills in Japan

107 Chapter 9: What about testing small groups of high-level learners?

tionnaire designed to help them reflect on their progress (Appendix D) The purpose of this step is quite clear—you want your best stu dents to put extra effort into critically appraising their performances and figuring out for themselves what they can do to improve It’s one thing to hear advice from you, but it’s altogether more powerful if students can realize what they can do to get better by themselves Overall, this format will require a bit more work on your part, as you will not be able to complete the marking process during class time In addition, there will be audio files to transfer and keep track of, so there is an additional technology angle to consider Neverthe less, if you can make peace with these factors, Record & Transcribe a Conversation is a highly beneficial learning activity in its own right, one where the benefits will outweigh the extra work involved Once you get comfortable with the overall workflow, you may find you’ll want to implement this approach with larger groups Getting Ready As with all the other speaking test formats, conduct a practice test before you try this method out for the first time During this prac tice session, you’ll need to cover the following topics: Transcription conventions Be sure to show students how you want them to transcribe their recordings (Tensai, 2016) It’s up to you on how precise you want students to get during this task At the very least, encourage the students to write down everything they hear, exactly as they hear it, including any mistakes or instances of Japanese Creating a tran script faithful to the actual recorded performance is a key part of the learning process Remind them that nothing will be gained by ignoring or correcting any errors For example: