Innovative Speaking Assessments

1. Innovative Speaking Assessments Katie Subra subr0054@umn.edu Minsk State Linguistic University

2. SWBAT Theory & Practice • Q: What is the purpose of requiring and assessing speech acts in an English classroom? • A: Students will be able to… • Action Objectives: • Address • Develop • Engage • Expand • Improve • Formulate • Lead • Navigate • Prepare • Project • Promote • Self-analyze • Speak • Utilize • Value

3. Sample Action Objectives How would you assess these skills? SWBAT – Students Will Be Able To: 1.Speak comfortably and fluently in conversational situations, 2.Address large and small groups using formal speech, 3.Lead and actively participate in group conversations, 4.Utilize counter-argumentation techniques in debate or persuasive speaking style, 5.Develop etiquette strategies for speaking to a diverse population, 6.Promote themselves using interview skills, 7.Prepare English phrases for urgent situations, 8.Self-analyze and respond to body language and hesitation markers in speech, 9.Expand upon impromptu and small-talk topics, 10.Improve pronunciation skills, including intonation, stress and rhythm.

4. Contextualized Objectives • Informal • Individual: Extemporaneous/Impromptu Speeches, Introductions, Storytelling with pictures • Conversational: Small Talk Topics, Conversation Partners/Tandem Programs, Situational Role Plays • Formal • Individual: Genre Speeches (Research?), Speaking Journals • Paired: Microteaching, Genre Speech (Good Deeds), Paired Speeches (Movie Critique/Interview) • Group: VoiceThread (Group Journal/Message board), Debate, Emergency Situation Role Plays, Theater

5. Food for Thought Our speech acts often depend upon the appropriate Sociopragmatic signals of our culture which we develop in our L1 from the time we are infants. Our students' best chance for developing their speaking fluency in their L2 depends on our ability to set the scene: -Formal/Informal Practice -Holistic Grading/Rubrics -Individual/Paired/Group Work -Micro/Macro Skills

6. Forms of Assessment Feedback Holistic/Task Completion Rubrics • Sliding scale points • Point-per-task • Focused task completion • Ignores errors that aren't related to main objective (vocabulary use, pronunciation, word order, intonation) • Continuum of points • Specific descriptors of goals • See examples: • Mock Interview • Good Deeds

7. Assessing Informal Speech Acts Look at this list of informal speech acts. Decide: 1) What active objective is being accomplished? 2) How would you rate the student's performance? • Extemporaneous/Impromptu Speeches: • Pop Topics – Students practice talking with a partner about random topics assigned to them for 5 minutes at a time. Partners may elect them for large group presentations. • Small Talk Topics – Students are given a situation which they are likely to find themselves in and asked to assign roles with their partner and begin speaking about it. • Storytelling Task (see next slide)

8. Assessing Informal Speech Acts Storytelling Task Students are given a series of pictures (e.g. storybook, comic strip, or travel photos…) The student must describe what they see after a few minutes of reflection. Encourage students to use grammatical phrases, details, and time markers. What active objective is being accomplished? How would you rate the student's performance? From ELSA Handbook 2003.

9. Food for Thought • "When people talk, they lay lines on each other, do a lot of role playing, sidestep, shilly-shally and engage in all manner of vagueness and innuendo. We do this and expect others to do it, yet at the same time we profess to long for the plain truth, for people to say what they mean, simple as that. Such hypocrisy is a human universal." Steven Pinker

10. Assessing Informal Speech Acts Sociopragmatic Speech Acts in Role Plays: • Apologies • Complaints • Compliments/Responses • Refusals • Requests • Thanks Practice using specialized grammar, polite phrasing, and indirect speech for these and other common face-saving situations (formal & informal speech).

11. Sociopragmatic Example: Apologies Taken from Carla, The Center for Advance Research on Language Acquisition, UMN (Cohen & Olshtain, 1981): • Can you guess how Americans would use apologies for the following purposes? Create the scene. • An expression of apology (e.g. I'm so very sorry!) • Acknowledgement of responsibility (e.g. It's my fault.) • Explanation or account (e.g. The bus was late.) • Offer of repair (e.g. How can I make it up to you?) • Promise of non-recurrence (e.g. It won't happen again) • Why are these speech acts important? When would your students use them? Think about the level of your students. What additional preparation would they need?

12. Sociopragmatic Example: Refusals Taken from Carla, The Center for Advance Research on Language Acquisition, UMN (Cohen & Olshtain, 1981): • Imagine that you have to make a refusal for the following situations. How could you do so while being polite? Would your language change if you were talking to your boss vs. friend? • Refusal of Request (e.g. additional work/helping a friend) • Refusal of Invitations (e.g. birthday invitation) • Refusal of Offers (e.g. offer to dry clean your coat after spilling on it) • Refusal of Suggestions (e.g. suggestion to change work habits) • Why are these speech acts important? When would your students use them? Think about the level of your students. What additional preparation would they need?

13. Informal –> Formal Voicethread http://voicethread.com/

14. Assessing Formal Speech Acts • Start with a clear statement of requirements • Consider showing your rubric or grading method ahead of time • Practice peer assessment (Native Speaker & Peer Ex.) • Use variety: • Microteaching (great for grammar or research review) • Good Deeds Speech • Mock Interviews • Emergency Situation Role Plays

15. Bloom's Taxonomy Review In 1956, Benjamin Bloom proposed a taxonomy of student learning objectives. The taxonomy is a range of skills attained by students. The assessment techniques used to measure student success along this range of objectives can be formative or summative in nature. Formative= Decision Making/Creative Application   Summative= Information Retention

16. Assessing Micro/Macro Skills Knowledge – Understand - Apply Analyze – Evaluate - Create • Interview Skills • Pop Topics • Good Deeds Speech • … • Role plays • Storytelling • Social Speech Acts • …

17. How do we define a Speech Task? Candlin (1987) – from Fulcher (2003) Nunan (1989) – from Fulcher (2003) • Input or material used • Roles of participants • Settings/arrangements • Actions/what happens • Monitoring/leader • Outcomes as the goal • Feedback/Evaluation • Input • Learner role • Settings • Activity • Teacher role • Goals

18. Communicative Potential of Tasks (Wright, 1987)

19. An Alternate Framework (Fulcher, 2003) • Task orientation • Open: outcomes dependent upon speakers • Guided: outcomes are guided by rubrics with flexibility • Interactional relationship • Non-interactional • Interactional: One-way, Two-way, or Multi-way • Goal orientation: None, Convergent, or Divergent • Interlocutor status and familiarity: No interlocutor, Higher status, Lower status, Same status, or Degree of familiarity • Topic(s) 6. Situations

20. Comparing the Communicative Potential of Two tasks (Fulcher, 2003) Define: 1.Task Orientation, 2.Interactional Relationships, 3.Goal Orientation, 4.Interlocutor Status and Familiarity, 5.Topics, 6.Situations

21. Task 1: Results • Task Orientation: Closed/Guided. The test taker merely has to read the sentences aloud, in an order indicated by a computer-generated voice. The outcome of the task is entirely dictated by the rubric and the input, and no deviation is allowed. • Interactional Relationship: non-interactional. There is no communication between speakers.

22. Task 1: Results (cont'd) • Goal Orientation: none. In this task type there is no goal orientation at all because there is no 'communication' taking place. It is feasible to have a computer-administered […] but for the most part, computer-administered speaking tests cannot simulate divergent goal orientations. • Interlocutor Status and Familiarity: No interlocutor. • Topics: Home, travel, food. • Situations: variable.

23. Task 2: from CUEFL (1988) Define: 1.Task Orientation, 2.Interactional Relationships, 3.Goal Orientation, 4.Interlocutor Status and Familiarity, 5.Topics, 6.Situations

24. Task 2: Results • Task Orientation: open. While the input suggests topics it is made clear that the learner does not have to use any items in the list, and may talk about anything else that may have affected their life in the past year. • Interactional Relationship: one-way. The learner is being asked to communicate opinions and view to the teacher; while the teacher may ask clarification questions, or encourage the learner through the use of appropriate back-channelling, it is clearly the case that the learner is intended to spend most of the time talking to the teacher. Communication is not co-constructed.

25. Task 2: Results cont'd • Goal Orientation: convergent. • Interlocutor Status and Familiarity: The interlocutor is a teacher and therefore the status of the interlocutor is high. The teacher is one who has not taught the learner, and so familiarity is low. • Topics: Familiar topics about which the learner can express thanks, requirements, opinions, comment, attitude, confirmation, apology, wants or needs, information; narrate a sequence of events; elicit information, directions, or service. • Situations: variable.

26. Resources • Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition. (2013). Description of Speech Acts. UMN. Retrieved from: http://www.carla.umn.edu/speechacts/refusals/american.html • ELSA Handbook. (2003). LCCIEB Customer Service. p. 56. • Fulcher, G. (2003). "Tasks for second language speaking tests" in Testing second language speaking (pp. 50-87). Harlow, England: Longman/Pearson Education. Contact me with questions or to obtain a copy of this Powerpoint: subr0054@umn.edu website: elfbelarus.wordpress.com