Assessing Spoken Proficiency: What Are the Issues?

Abstract

Developing FL students’ spoken communicative proficiency is arguably a central goal of the contemporary communicatively-oriented classroom. This central goal has implications for how to assess this proficiency in construct valid ways. Two essential questions are addressed in this chapter: what does it mean to speak proficiently in the FL? What modes of assessment might best capture authentic instances of spoken proficiency for measurement purposes? The chapter presents one influential model of communicative competence and uses that model to define a spoken communicative proficiency construct that informs, from a theoretical perspective, what current communicative approaches to language teaching and learning aim to achieve. The chapter goes on to discuss how to tap into a spoken communicative proficiency construct for purposes of assessment. Three central issues that concern how we might most effectively measure this proficiency in high-stakes contexts are discussed – whether, and to what extent, assessments should be: operationalised within a static (i.e., summative) or dynamic (i.e., formative) assessment paradigm; task-based or construct based; single interview or paired/group.