How to Test Speaking Skills in Japan

108 Part 3: Three speaking test ideas

Where you want ええと (eeto) go on school trip?

If you want to focus on fluency, mark any noticeable pauses by put ting the approximate number of seconds in parenthesis, like this:

I really want to (3) to go to Italy (2) after I graduate.

Interactivity can be highlighted by marking moments of simulta neous speech, where both students are talking at the same time Indicate this via the position of the words and/or marking these instances with a box: A: I really love traveling! B: Y eah, me too! How to record & share audio files In addition, the practice test is a perfect time to suss out the record ing details Let students know how you want them to go about it For example, show them which apps they can use and how you’d like them to share their recordings with you You’ll need only one copy of their best take, and there are different ways to go about transferring them: • Students can email the audio file directly from within the recording app In some instances this may not work well due to large file sizes and bandwidth limitations

• If you have an iPhone or Apple laptop, students with iPhones can wirelessly transmit their recordings via the Airdrop utility

• Set up a private class folder on a free cloud-based storage service such as Dropbox or Google Drive , then have students upload their best recording to it Once transcription conventions and technical stuff has been cov-