How to Test Speaking Skills in Japan

Part 2 How can we mark & administer speaking tests? Decide your overall approach Chapter 5: Identify & define your evaluation criteria Chapter 6: Decide the details ahead of time I would argue that the essential principle to be followed in class room oral communicative testing is that the testing should be as direct and as natural as possible, and should not be very different from a good communicative activity in the talking class. -H. Douglas Brown (1994: 106) T he main goal of Part 2 is to help remove some of the mystery and cognitive overload surrounding the marking and admin istration of speaking tests The ideas put forth here are not meant to imply that these are the only way of doing things; after all, the field of language testing is wide open, and there are many good ways to mark and conduct oral exams However, one does need to start somewhere, so we shall proceed with a proven step-by-step process based on sound principles taken from the literature on language testing best practices Chapter 4: Holistic or analytic?

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