How to Test Speaking Skills in Japan

Epilogue You need a human approach. Oral tests must treat people as human beings. In small ways, as well as in the design of the test procedure in general, we can make taking a test challenging, instructive, and even an enjoyable experience. There is a good practical reason for this, not just that it is nice to be nice; if you treat people in as friendly and human a way as possible, they will tend to respond in kind, and you are going to get a much more accurate picture of their oral ability. I n this book I’ve done my best to make the case for why we need to put more effort and attention into testing our students’ speak ing skills While the current juken eigo system does its worst and is easy to blame for why Japanese students can’t speak English very well, it’s really no excuse for not doing more to help them In the face of often daunting institutional barriers, there is always some thing we can do better, even if it’s just a small thing such as conduct ing better classroom exams Every little bit helps! After all, testing is part of what we do, so it makes sense that we put more effort and attention to this fundamental aspect of our job Once we do, we put ourselves on a positive and sustainable path towards professional development and empowerment The wrath we often feel towards testing here in Japan is ulti mately more about the negative washback induced by the NRT- -Underhill (1987: 6)

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