How to Test Speaking Skills in Japan

116 Part 3: Three speaking test ideas Embedding a tracking system into the self-evaluation sheets is a good way to ensure completion Alternatively, students could be encouraged to keep a journal on their progress Finally, students can work in groups to compile statistics from their test transcripts and post them on the board This will give ev eryone an idea of how well they did with respect to certain criteria, such as the variety of conversation strategies used When everything is up on the board, it can be interesting to see which strategies were most popular and which ones were not This gives you an opportu nity to encourage use of a greater range of expressions Final Thoughts The Record & Transcribe a Dialog test format is an excellent one for higher level learners in search of more detailed insight into their speaking ability It’s a highly reliable and valid approach because the recordings preserve the actual performances, while the transcribing process serves as an excellent listening and writing task The tran scripts also help you with the marking, enabling you to spot small details you’d otherwise miss and improving the specificity and use fulness of your feedback Finally, the self-evaluation stage promotes intrinsic motivation as students reflect deeply on their performanc es Despite being a bit more work than other test formats, this one compensates by providing a significant return on your investment of time and energy While it will be most practical with higher level students in small classes, once you get confident in the overall work flow, there is no reason you could not try this approach in other types of classes Staying organized is the key to making this activity work well in other contexts