Speaking Skills Issues And Solution English Language Essay

speech Skills Issues And solving English Language EssayFor the weeklong time, the idea of test terminology have al vogues revolved about scrutiny the knowledge of the nomenclature itself but now, the idea of test for communicative competence is getting more and more popular. In testing communicative competence, verbalise and audition lines ar commonly utilize. Those require tasks such(prenominal) as the completion of an information gap and role play (Kitao Kitao, 1996).As teachers of ESL, it is positive for us to enhance the students delivery skills, increase their confidence, and develop their manners of organization and captious thinking skills. In order to do this, a valid and authorized way of assessment to determine whether the set goals were met is required. The oral communication dramaturgy needs a clear-cut method of evaluation as empennage be found in discrete language skill classes such as listening comprehension (Nakamura Valens, 2001). Language t eachers and language testers need a method which takes subjective qualitative observations and then transforms them into objective quantitative measures.A critical issue in the assessment is the selection of criteria for evaluating performance. Stiggins (as cited in butler St notwithstandings, 1997) points out that the selection of these criteria should be one of the first steps in designing performance assessments. Students should be lowlystand ahead of time what is judge of them. This slew actu entirelyy helper them determine on what basis their performance leading be judged. When students are actively involved in establishing assessment criteria for tasks, they do not only have a better understanding of what is expected of them when they perform the tasks, but they will be able to more richly appreciate why the criteria are important (Butler Stevens, 1997).The Issue of Assessing speech Skills.Speaking is probably one of the to the highest degree difficult skills to test. It combines skills that may have small-scale or no correlation with each other, and which do not do head to objective testing. In ( Kitao Kitao, 1996), it was mentioned that there are not nevertheless not bad(predicate) answers to questions about the criteria for testing these skills and the weighing of these factors.It is possible to find great deal who toilet produce the different sounds of a foreign language befittingly hence they lack the ability to communicate their ideas correctly. This is one of the difficulties that testers encounter when testing the oral production of learners. However, the opposite situation could occur as well some people do have the ability of expressing their ideas clearly, but at the same time they arseholenot pronounce all the sounds correctly.Another difficulty is the actual implementation of speech skills testing. That is because it is difficult to test a large come of learners in a relatively short time. Therefore, the examiner is put under great pressure (Heaton, 1988).The next difficulty is that speaking and listening skills are very much related to one another it is impossible to notice them mutually exclusive. In most cases, there is an interchange between listening and speaking, and speaking appropriately depends on comprehending spoken input. Therefore, this has an impact on testing speaking because the testers will not know whether they are testing strictly speaking or speaking and listening together.Finally, the assessment and scoring of speaking skills is one of its biggest line of works. If possible, it is better to record the examinees performance and the scoring will be done upon listening to the tape. The aspects of speaking that are considered part of its assessment overwhelm grammar, pronunciation, fluency, content, organization, and vocabulary. (Kitao Kitao, 1996).Depending on the situation and the purpose of the test, testers need to choose the appropriate methods and techniques of testi ng.The Solution Method of Assessing Speaking Skills.3.1. Monologue, Dialogue and Multilogue Speaking psychometric test.Nakamura Valens (2001) conducted a study on Japanese graduate students at Keio University. They used three different types of speaking tests as a form of assessment. The first type is the Monologue Speaking Test which is in any case called the presentation. Students were asked to perform some tasks such as base and tell where they talk about anything they choose. This gives the students a chance to make a mini presentation. The endorsement type is Dialogue Speaking Test which is also known as the interview. It is an open-ended test where the students lead a treatment with the teacher, and students in that kind of test are required to use dialogue skills that they have learned before. The third type is Multilogue Speaking Test that is also called the discussion and debating. Here, the discussions are student-generated, and students are put into groups where as a group, they square up on a topic they feel would be of inte balance wheel for the rest of the classroom.The evaluation criteria that was used in that study was as followsEvaluation ItemsPresentations coreLanguageEye contactInterviewsComprehensibilityPronunciationFluency great power to explain an ideaDiscussing and debatingAble to be part of the conversation to help it flow naturallyUses fillers/ additional questions to include others in conversationTransfers skills used in dialogues to group discussionsThe grade scale ranged between poor and good with the symbols from 1 to 4.The finding of their study reveals that among the three test types, the discussion tests was the most difficult followed by interview test and the presentation test.In Malaysia, we saw a exchangeable system being implemented but were seriously regulated and in any case restrictive. Dialogues are used in the school-based assessment and Monologues and Multilogues are common in both school-based assessment and the MUET speaking test. Although it follows this model, it failed to accurately adjudicate students speaking ability as the tests were poorly regulated (prevalent in school-based assessment) and too restrictive (MUET).3.2. testing speaking utilise visual materialWithout even comprehending spoken or written material, it is possible to test speaking using visuals such as pictures, diagrams, and maps. Through a careful selection of material, the testers can control the use of vocabulary and the grammatical structures as required. There are different types of visual materials that range in their difficulty to suit all the levels of learners. One common stimulus material could be a series of pictures showing a story, where the student should describe. It requires the student to put together a coherent narrative. Another way to do that is by putting the pictures in a random order of the story to a group of student. The students settle tear down on the sequence of the pictures w ithout showing them to each other, and then put them down in the order that they have decided on. They then have the fortune to reorder the pictures if they feel it is necessary. In the Malaysian context, this system is already in use in the school-based oral assessment for primary school.Another way of using visual stimulus is by giving two students similar pictures with slight differences between them, and without seeing each others pictures they describe their own pictures in order to figure out the differences. However, there is a problem in using visual stimulus in testing speaking, it lies in that the resource of the materials used must be something that all the students can interpret every bit well, since if one student has a difficulty understanding the visual information, it will influence the way he/she is evaluated (Kitao Kitao, 1996).3.3. The Taped Oral Proficiency TestIn that approach, the students performances are recorded on tapes and then assessed later by the exa miner. This method has some advantage and some injurys. According to Cartier (1980), one disadvantage of the taped test is that it is less personal the examinee is talking to a machine and not to a person. Another disadvantage is that it has a low validity. Moreover, the taped test is inflexible if something goes wrong during the recording, it is virtually impossible to coif for it. On the other hand, there are some advantages of that type of test. It can be given to a group of students in a language lab, it is more standardized and more objective since each student receives kindred stimuli, and scoring can be performed at the most convenient or economical time and location.I believe that the taped test method is very practical when it comes to testing large numbers of students where the teacher would not have enough time to assess each one of them individually. However, the problem lies in not having enough language labs in some schools which, in turn, creates a big difficulty f or teachers.ConclusionPrevious research on classroom testing of ESL speech skills provides several models of both task types and rubrics for rating, and suggestions regarding procedures for testing speaking with large numbers of learners. However, there is no clear, widely disseminated consensus in the profession on the appropriate paradigm to guide the testing and rating of learner performance in a new language, either from second language acquisition research or from the best practices of successful teachers. plot there is similarity of descriptors from one rubric to another in skipper publications, these statements are at best subjective. Thus, the rating of learners performance rests heavily on individual instructors interpretations of those descriptors (Pino, 1998).In spite of the difficulties inherent in testing speaking, a speaking test can be a source of in effect(p) backwash. If speaking is tested, unless it is tested at a very low level, such as reading aloud, this enco urages the teaching of speaking in classes.In my opinion, testing speaking skills could be a very interesting experience, and it gives teachers an opportunity to fictive in selecting the test items and materials. Moreover, it has a great impact on students by making them enjoy taking the test and feel comfortable doing so if the teacher chooses the materials that interest their students and that is suitable to their age and levels of knowledge.ReferencesButler, F. A., Stevens, R. (1997) Oral languages assessment in the classroom. Theory Into Practice, 36 (4). 214-219.Cartier, F. A. (1980). Alternative methods of oral proficiency assessment. In J. R. Firth (Ed.), step spoken language proficiency (7-14). GA Georgetown University.Heaton, J. B. (1988). Writing English language tests. Longman.Kitao, S. K., Kitao, K. (1996). Testing speaking (Report noneTM025215). (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED398261)Kitao, S. K., Kitao, K. (1996). Testing communicative competence (Repor t No. TM025214). (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED398260)Nakamura, Y., Valens, M. (2001). Teaching and testing oral communication skills. Journal of Humanities and graphic Sciences,3, 43-53.Pino, B. G. (1998). Prochievement testing of speaking matching instructor expectations, learner proficiency level, and task types. Texas Papers in Foreign Language Education, 3, (3), 119-133.