THE NATURE OF SPEAKING AND SPEAKING ASSESSMENT

Subject: Language Testing

Lecturer: Agus Hidayat, M.Pd

Arranged by: Group 5

1. Dhika Rizky Luqman N 2111040148

2. Hera Riani 2111040167
3. Ismarianti 2111040173
4. Fitri Nurlaila 2011040214

RADEN INTAN STATE ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY OF LAMPUNG

FACULTY OF TARBIYAH AND TEACHER TRAINING
ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT
2023
 PREFACE

All praise be to Allah SWT who has given his favors and guidance, especially the
blessings of opportunity and health so that we can complete the paper for the course "Language
Testing". Sholawat and greetings are conveyed to our great Prophet Muhammad SAW who has
provided life guidelines, namely the Qur'an and Sunnah for the safety of people in the world.

The author expresses his deepest gratitude to Mr. Agus Hidayat, M.Pd as the supervisor
of the Language Testing course and to all parties who have provided guidance and direction
during the writing of this paper. The author realizes that there are many shortcomings in the
writing of this paper, therefore the author expects constructive criticism and suggestions from
readers for the perfection of this paper.

Bandar Lampung, 28 October 2023

Author

ii
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE .................................................................................................................................ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ...................................................................................................... iii
CHAPTER I ............................................................................................................................. 1
INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................................... 1
A. Background of Paper .................................................................................................... 1
B. Problem .......................................................................................................................... 1
C. Purposes ......................................................................................................................... 1
CHAPTER II ............................................................................................................................ 2
DISCUSSION ........................................................................................................................... 2
A. The Nature of Speaking and Speaking Assessment ................................................... 2
B. Characteristic of Spoken Language ............................................................................ 2
C. Difficulties in Assessing Speaking................................................................................ 3
D. Elicitation Techniques .................................................................................................. 4
E. Micro and Macro Skills of Speaking ........................................................................... 6
F. Types of Speaking Task ................................................................................................ 7
CHAPTER III .......................................................................................................................... 8
CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................................... 10
A. Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 10
REFERENCE.........................................................................................................................11

iii
 CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. Background of Paper
Speaking is a language skill or a mean of communication in which people can
express His/her idea or information to others in spoken form. It is a complex language
skill because people need to find the ideas before speaking, and then arranged in a good
sentences so people may understand what the speaker says. This statement is supported
by Brown (2003) "Speaking is oral interaction where participants need to negotiate
meaning in a contained ideas, feeling and information, and manage in terms of who is
to what, to whom and about what”.
This activity discusses the characteristics of spoken language, difficulties in
assessing speaking, techniques for eliciting language performance, micro- and macro
skills of speaking, types of speaking tasks, and techniques for scoring speaking. By
learning this activity, students are expected to get knowledge and skill in designing
speaking tasks.

B. Problem
1. What is The Nature of Speaking and Speaking Assessment?
2. What is Characteristic of Spoken Language?
3. What is Elicitation Techniques?
4. What is Micro and Macro Skills of Speaking?
5. What is the Types of Speaking Task

C. Purposes
1. To Know what is The Nature of Speaking and Speaking Assessment
2. To Know what is Characteristic of Spoken Language
3. To know what is Elicitation Techniques
4. To know what is Micro and Macro Skills of Speaking
5. To know what is Types of Speaking Task

1
 CHAPTER II

DISCUSSION

A. The Nature of Speaking and Speaking Assessment

Speaking is one of the four language skills. Together with writing, they are
categorized as productive skills, namely, ability to produce language orally (for
speaking) and in written form (for writing). This activity discusses the characteristics
of spoken language, difficulties in assessing speaking, techniques for eliciting language
performance, micro- and macro skills of speaking, types of speaking tasks, and
techniques for scoring speaking. By learning this activity, students are expected to get
knowledge and skill in designing speaking tasks.

B. Characteristic of Spoken Language

The use of language in speaking, according to Luoma (2004: 9-28), has the
following characteristics. Speaking uses spoken language. The implication is that the
sounds of speech when speaking can show the speaker's personality, attitude, origin, or
they can also show whether the speaker is a native-speaker of English or not. Different
from written language, spoken language is accompanied by speed, pause, pitch,
volume, and intonation to support the saying. Spoken language is primarily represented
by pronunciation (including stress and intonation). Ideally, a good pronunciation is that
of native-like. However, deciding the standard of pronunciation is not easy, because
English as a native language (ENL) has a number of dialects, i.e. British, American,
and Australian, which are different from each other. Instead of determining the
pronunciation standard, Luoma (2004: 10) proposes the use of communicative
effectiveness, which means the ability to communicate comprehensibly, as the
pronunciation standard. Speaking uses spoken grammar. Writing usually uses complete
sentences and complex sentences; whereas speaking uses short, simple, and sometimes
incomplete grammar. Grammar in planned speech, such as lectures, conferences,
discussions, is formal. In informal communication, however, the grammar is
characterized by the use of thematic expressions or topicalization and tails. For
example, instead of saying "Mount Raung erupted again yesterday", a speaker may say
"Erupted again Mount Raung yesterday". In writing, a writer uses specific words and
fixed phrases, but in speaking a speaker uses generic words or phrases with fillers,
2
 hesitation markers, and repetition. For example, in telling a step to make salad a writer
writes "Peel the oranges, pears, and apples. Cut them into bite sized pieces, and put
them into a bowl". For the same purpose, a speaker will say "Peel this fruit, this fruit,
and this fruit. Do like this to get small things, and then ... and then ... , put them into er
this container". Writing is a process of one-way communication, and can take ample
time for the preparation.
On the other hand, speaking is a reciprocity, in which the speaker and the listener
take turns or react to each other. It has limited time and requires .immediate
comprehension and response. Speaking as meaningful interactions can be in the forms
of monolog or dialog. The dialog can help understanding, because it enables the process
of negotiations of meaning between or among the speakers. The spoken language used
may vary, depending on:
(1) whether it is talking to chat or talking to inform,
(2) the different social situations where the talks occur, and
(3) the roles, role relationships, and politeness used by the speakers.

C. Difficulties in Assessing Speaking

Due to the characteristics of spoken language, assessing speaking is not easy.
Heaton (1988: 88-89) mentions some difficulties in assessing speaking, namely as
follows:
1. First, speaking assessment requires the examinee to show his/her spoken
performance which needs subjective judgment; therefore, we need the
raters/examiners who have high mastery of English and speaking assessment.
2. Second, as mentioned above, it is difficult to determine the standard of
pronunciation; so, as a solution, we can use communicative effectiveness as the
criterion, even though there is still a problem with a speaker who can communicate
successfully with others but has bad pronunciation.
3. Third, the success of communication does not depend only on the speaker, but also
on the listener. Sometimes, a speaker has problems in pronunciation, grammar, and
expressing ideas, but the listener manages to comprehend the utterances, which then
makes the communication successful.
4. Fourth, speaking is interrelated with listening. The ability to respond to a question,
for example, depends on the ability to listen to the question comprehensibly.

3
 5. Fifth, since the spoken language is transient, it is not easy to do instant scoring.
With the advance of technology, it can be helped by videorecording; however, it
takes time for the administration and may not be practical.
6. Sixth, the process of assessing speaking takes longer time compared with the
administration of objective written test, especially when the number of examinees
is large. To assess an examinee orally ideally takes approximately 10-15 minutes;
so the administration of the test for a large number of examinees in a limited time
will be a problem.
7. Last, assessing speaking involves elicitation technique. If the goal of speaking
assessment is to require the test-taker to perform certain tasks or to demonstrate
certain grammatical points, the assessor should design the tasks which can elicit the
intended language performance. The sub-topic below presents techniques to elicit
certain language performance.

D. Elicitation Techniques
In assessing speaking, an examiner needs to assess the language mastery of the
examinee. For this purpose, the examinee should be guided to show or perform his/her
language ability. There are various techniques which can be used to let the examinee
perform his/her language ability. Underhill (1987: 44-87) proposes the following
activities as the techniques to elicit the examinee's language performance.
1) Conversation or discussion. In this technique, the examiner asks two or more
examinees to discuss or make a conversation on a given topic, e.g. sharing good
strategies for learning English.
2) Oral report. The examinee prepares and presents a topic orally. The length of
presentation can be 5 to 10 minutes. For example, the examinee is asked to present
his/her thesis proposal.
3) Joint discussion or decision making. A group of two of more examinees discuss a
topic for decision making, e.g. determining the criteria for an ideal president of our
country.
4) Role-play. In this technique, two or three examinees are asked to act on different
roles and make a conversation on a given situation, e.g. a patient consults a doctor
for a health problem.

4
5) Interview. This technique is like a discussion or conversation, but it is more
structured and conducted between the examiner (who leads the interview) and the
examinee (who gives responses). In the interview, the control or initiative is more
on the examiner.
6) Description and re-creation. In this technique, an examinee for instance is provided
with a picture of a building and asked to describe it orally to another examinee, who
tries to draw the building based on the description made by the first examinee.
7) Form-filling/oral questionnaire. Here, the examiner holds a form (like a
questionnaire) and asks the examinee to provide information orally about his/her
personal matters to be filled out in the form.
8) Making appropriate responses. In this technique, the examinee is given a situation
and asked to give appropriate responses. For example, the examinee is invited to go
to the movie tonight, but he/she has to refuse it because tomorrow there is a
formative test at school.
9) Question and answer. This is a common technique for oral test, in which the
examiner asks several unrelated questions to be answered by the exaID1nee.
10) Reading blank dialog. The examinee is given a written dialog with some blanks in
it. The examiner reads the written parts and the examinee fills in the blanks with
oral responses.
11) Using a picture or picture story. The examinee is given a picture to be described, or
a series of pictures to compose a story.
12) Giving instruction/description/explanation. In this technique, the examinee is asked
to tell how to do or make something, describe an object or situation, or explain about
something.
13) Precis or re-tell story or text from aural stimulus. This is simply asking the examinee
to listen to a passage or dialog from a tape-recorder or video, and then tell again
what he/she has heard.
14) Re-telling a story from written stimulus. This is the same as no. 13 above, except
that the stimulus is in written form. While in re-telling the examinee is not allowed
to read the text.
15) Reading aloud. Using this technique, the examinee is given a written text or dialog
and asked to read it aloud.

5
 16) Translating/interpreting. In this technique, the examinee is asked to translate orally
a text written in the examinee's first language, or to translate/interpret from oral first
language stimulus.
17) Sentence completion from aural or written stimulus. The examinee is asked to
complete the incomplete sentences made by the examiner.
18) Sentence correction. The examinee is provided with a written passage containing
some errors, and asked to detect and orally explain the errors.
19) Sentence transformation. This means that the examinee is asked to change one form
of English into another form, e.g. from active into passive or from direct into
indirect speech.
20) Sentence repetition. In this technique, the examinee is asked to imitate/repeat what
is said by the examiner. Besides the elicitation techniques proposed above, for
speaking assessment we also need a taxonomy of language aspects to be performed.
The sub-topic below presents a taxonomy of speaking.

E. Micro and Macro Skills of Speaking

To make it easy to construct a speaking assessment, we need to have a kind of
taxonomy of speaking skill. A taxonomy can be used as a guide for determining the
language aspects to be tested. For example, in our 2004 Curriculum and 201 3
Curriculum, there is a classification of text types into interpersonal texts (e.g. greeting
and congratulating), transactional texts (e.g. asking for information and making an
invitation), short functional texts (e.g. giving instruction and announcement), and long
functional texts (e.g. narrative and descriptive). Brown and Abeywickrama (2010: 185-
186) propose a speaking taxonomy, which they call micro skills and macro skills of
oral production. They are quoted below:

1) Micro skills
 Produce differences among English phonemes and allophonic variants.
 Produce chunks of language of different lengths.
 Produce English stress patterns, words in stressed and unstressed positions,
rhythmic structure, and intonational contours,
 Produce reduced Forms of words and phrases
 Use an adequate number of lexical units (words) in order to accomplish
pragmatic purposes.

6
  Produce fluent speech different rates of delivery.
 Monitor one's own oral production and use various strategic devices-pauses,
fillers, self-corrections, backtracking-to enhance the clarity of the message.
 Use grammatical word classes (nouns, verbs, etc.), systems (e.g., tense,
agreement, pluralization), word order, patterns, rules, forms.
 Produce speech in natural constituents-in appropriate phrases, pause groups,
breath groups, and sentences
 Express a particular meaning in different grammatical forms.
 Use cohesive devices in spoken discourse.

2) Macro skills
 Appropriately accomplish communicative functions according to situations,
participants and goals.
 Use appropriate styles, registers, implicature, redundancies, pragmatic
conventions, conversation rules, floor-keeping and yielding, interrupting, and
other sociolinguistic features in face to face conversations.
 Convey links and connections between events and communicate such relations
as focal and peripheral ideas, events and feelings, new information and given
information, generalization and exemplification.
 Convey facial features, kinesics, body language, and other nonverbal cues along
with verbal language.
 Develop and use a battery of speaking strategies, such as emphasizing key
words, rephrasing, providing a context for interpreting the meaning of words,
appealing for help, and accurately assessing how well your interlocutor is
understanding you.

F. Types of Speaking Task

The micro skills and macro skills which are combined with the activities in the
elicitation techniques provide the basis for designing speaking tasks. The speaking
tasks, as proposed by Brown and Abeywickrama (2010: 184- 185), can be categorized
into five types:
1. Imitative

7
 This is the simplest type of speaking tasks, in which an examinee is required to
repeat or imitate a word, a phrase, or a sentence uttered by the examiner. This type
is appropriate for testing micro skills 1, 2, and 3 (imitating English phonemes,
language chunks, and stress/intonation patterns).
Sample word and sentence repetition tasks:
-Word Repetition - "Repeat after me"
-Every (pause) everybody (pause)
-Why (pause) why not (pause)
-Wonder (pause) wonderful (pause)
-Can you understand? (pause)
-Good morning everyone! (pause)
-Do you remember? (pause)
2. Intensive
This type requires an examinee to produce short utterances to demonstrate ability
to use certain grammar points, such as micro skill 10 (expressing different
grammatical forms), or to read aloud a text. Sample directed response test:
Tell me he went home.
Tell me that you like rock music.
Tell me that you aren’t interested in tennis.
Tell him to come to my office at noon.
Remind him what time it is.
3. Responsive
Responsive include interaction and test comprehension but at the somewhat limited
level of very shorts conversations, standard greetings and small talk, simple
requests and comments. This is a kind of short replies to teacher or student-initiated
questions or comments, giving instructions and directions. Those replies are usually
sufficient and meaningful. Sample Q/A for responsive speaking test:
A. Mary: Excuse me, do you have the time?
Doug: Yeah. Nine-fifteen.
B. T: What is the most urgent environmental problem today?
S: I would say massive deforestation.
C. Jeff: Hey, Stef, how's it going?
Stef: Not bad, and yourself?
Jeff: I'm good.

8
 Stef: Cool. Okay, gotta go.
4. Interactive
Which is similar to the responsive task type, but it is a longer and more complex
interaction. The interactive task type includes an interview, transactional language
(which has the purpose to get thjngs done), and interpersonal exchange (which has
the purpose to maintain social relationships). This type is appropriate for tasks of
macro skills.
5. Extensive
Extensive oral production tasks include speeches, oral representations, and
storytelling, during which the opportunity for oral interaction from listeners is
either highly limited (perhaps to nonverbal responses) or ruled out together. This
type is also suitable for testing macro skills.

9
 CHAPTER III

CONCLUSION

A. Conclusion
Speaking is one of the four language skills. Together with writing, they are
categorized as productive skills, namely, ability to produce language orally. Speaking
as meaningful interactions can be in the forms of monolog or dialog.

The taxonomy consist of micro skills refer to producing the smaller chunks
of language such as phonemes, morphemes, words, collocations, phrasal units and
macros kills imply the speaker's focus on the larger elements: fluency, discourse,
function, style, cohesion, nonverbal communication, and strategic options. There are
five types of speaking task they are imitative,intensive, responsive, interactive and
extensive.

10
 REFERENCE

Fachrurrazy, Sintha Tresnadewi. Assessment In language Teaching, Universitas

Terbuka
Brown, H. Douglas. (2004). Principles of Language Learning and Teaching.
London: Longman
Luoma, Sari. (2004). Assessing Speaking. Cambridge: Cambridge, University
Press.
Brown, H. D. & Abeywickrama, P. (2010). Language assessment: Principles and
Classroom Practice (2nd ed.). New York: Pearson Education Inc.

11