COMPARING HOLISTIC AND ANALYTIC WAYS OF SCORING IN THE ASSESSMENT OF SPEAKING SKILLS

Abstract

of testing oral performance are usually applied: holistic and analytic scoring. In the present study, these two ways of evaluating the spoken proficiency are explored in order to examine the relationship between them. English speaking skills of a total of 50 subjects, who are Slovak university EFL (English as a foreign language) students, were assessed by an interlocutor and an assessor. The interlocutor conducted the holistic scoring, while the assessor performed the analytic scoring. Categories within the analytic scoring consisted of content and organisation, pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar. The overall average for the four criteria was 3.32, while the holistic scoring mean was 3.56. The results demonstrate that there exists a statistically significant difference between the holistic and analytic ways of assessment as the p-value was calculated at 0.001 (p < 0.05). It is, therefore, suggested that employing both ways of scoring in the assessment process might be considered appropriate as they appear to complement each other, and together contribute towards more objective assessment.