SOME CONSIDERATIONS IN ORAL TEST

Abstract

Most English teachers usually conduct oral tests based on
their intuition. They do not use any theoretical basis in scoring. In
some English courses, even though there is a routine meeting to
discuss material, method and other things, which relate to learning
teaching activities, they do not pay much attention in discllssing
scoring system. So far teachers give score on learners 'oral proficiency
or achievement based on the notes they may make during the interview
or just based on their general impression without tryillg to analyse
some dW'erent aspects of the learners' speaking ability. Perhaps they
neglect to make a scoring guide because it is 1I0t easy alld it takes
time. Oral test can often be more difficult to design, administer and
mark. It is sometimes felt that giving someone all oral interview is a
quick and painless way of assessing that persoll:~ oral proficiency.
Actually a speaking test is a repeatable procedure to measure speaking
ability that requires the learner to speak, or to produce utterances
and he/she is assessed 011 the basis of his/ her utterances. III order to
measure his/her speaking ability, teachers may use some speaking
prompts, such as picture, topic or photograph but they do 1I0t use
any scoring guide in their marking process. Since Oral test has got
only less attention than other skills, this paper is directed to show
some considerations in oral test: steps in developing oral test, type
of oral test and its marking system, including validity alld reliability.