PTT 3/4 April 1995 index
In Hungary most students take the state oral exam format of general chat, discussion generated by a picture, and then a situational dialogue. It is routinely condemned by students (and some examiners) for being stressful and a one-sided, poor test of real speaking ability. Many of the situations thought up for the final dialogue were felt to be somewhat absurd.
CETT wanted a more communicative exam format for its students, who are upper intermediate and beyond. Consideration was given to the fact that it is difficult for students to play a natural, active role in the usual interview situation; for example, the examiner may ask the student how he/she feels but it is unlikely for the student to return the question. The pacing and topic are all up to the examiners. At the best of times it is stressful for students to perform alone in front of panel of examiners, and this is compounded when they are strangers. (See Making the Grade, Martin Covington, CUP, 1992, for a chapter on the issue of stress in exams - Ed.)
Not only do the students suffer but there are also major disadvantages for teachers in the state exam format. The teacher is not a detached examiner but is in fact an active participant : the prompts he/she provides are crucial to the performance of the student. In such circumstances it is difficult to concentrate on grading the student's performance. The attitude or mood of the examiner becomes a large factor in the performance and it is more difficult to maintain impartiality. A poor student performance could well be due to the examiner not being able to establish a rapport with the student as much as the student's speaking ability. Can (or should) you really grade and interview at the same time?
I had only experienced oral testing being done on one student at a time prior to joining CETT and I confess I was initially very sceptical when I heard that the oral testing format involved testing two students together. However, after seeing it in practice I became a confirmed convert.
2. THE TEST (with thanks to Steve Walsh and Jeremy Parrott, who devised it) The test consists of three tasks of about 7 minutes each involving 2 students.
The first step to reduce the stress of the exams is to discuss in class the nature of the tasks and the grading criteria. There are also practice runs to ensure the students are familiar with the procedures. A week or so before the exams a sign-up sheet is put on the noticeboard for students to choose the time that suits them best. They choose their own partners. When there is an odd number of students, one student may sit the exam twice and be awarded the highest grade he/she achieves.
In the room there are 2 students sitting on chairs angled towards each other. Sitting in front of them is the interlocutor who may help out if the students need any help. Ideally he/she does nothing apart from a spot of timekeeping and moving them on from one task to another. Further from the students is the examiner whose sole role is to grade the performances of the two students. Originally the interlocutor played a minor role in grading but in subsequent exams it was felt that his/her grade should count just as much as the examiner's. I now describe the tasks:
Task 1
Before the students go to the examination room they go to a preparation room where Student A reads one article and student B reads another one. They are about 200 words long and each one contains one viewpoint of a discussion topic eg ways to combat crime, books worth reading, western versus holistic medicine. They are allowed 10 minutes to read it, during which time they are allowed a small piece of paper if they wish to make notes. At the start of the test they must paraphrase the article. The purpose of the article is to supply ideas for later discussion and provide something to say thus breaking the ice and reducing stress at the start of the test. The other student may ask questions if he/she doesn't understand anything. As the discussion which follows is first of all based on the information supplied in the articles there is a real reason for each to communicate as clearly as possible.
The articles were written by me. They are not authentic due to
* an attempt to minimize reading difficulty.
* the difficulty of getting opposing articles of approximately
equal length.
* it is not a teaching situation.
Task 2
After the students have finished paraphrasing they ask each other about the issues raised in the articles. They should make up their own questions although they can start with suggested questions. Here they can either agree or disagree with the viewpoint they paraphrased. The objective here is to see how well students can express and stand up for their own ideas.
Task 3
To prepare this I started with 2 cartoon stories from "Andy Capp", each of which contained 4 pictures. Students are given 4 pictures each, two from one cartoon story and two from the other. Together they have all the pictures from the two cartoon stories. They must negotiate to establish which pictures belong to the same cartoon story then agree on the order they should be in. If the dialect variations in the cartoon were potentially confusing I changed the words to a more standard English.
The objective here was to test students' powers of description and deduction. Whether they achieved the original order of the cartoon stories was not important. If they could develop a reasonable argument for a different order then this was just as acceptable.
0 No English spoken
1 Some ability to communicate but below the standard of what we
expect from a trainee teacher.
2 An acceptable standard for a trainee teacher.
3 Well above the standard we expect from a trainee teacher.
Part of the rational for this is that we didn't need a very detailed grading system. We really only wanted to know pass or fail information. Using such few categories made it much easier to grade than had we had ,say, up to 10 grades. I revised the criteria to marks out of 5 to be more compatible with the grading system there.
Teachers wishing for more details of this format may contact me at CETT, Joszef Attila University, Tisza Lajus krt 103, H-6725, Szeged, Hungary. I would also like to hear from people who use other oral exam formats.
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