MAKALAH

TESTING SPEAKING

Oleh:
A. Tri Ayu Utami Ibrahim 4518101017

UNIVERSITAS BOSOWA
MAKASSAR
2021
 TABLE OF CONTENT
TITLE ...................................................................................................... i
TABLE OF CONTENT.......................................................................... ii
CHAPTER I PRELIMINARY............................................................... 1
A. Speaking........................................................................................ 1
B. The Issue of Assesement Speaking Skills..................................... 2

BAB II DISCUSSION............................................................................. 4
A. Method of Speaking Assesment Skills.......................................... 4

BAB III CLOSING................................................................................. 6

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 BAB 1
BACKGROUND

A. Speaking Skill
Speaking activity can be defined as speaking activity, where the speaking activity is
speaking in English. If seen from the origin of the word, the word "speaking" comes from the
word, namely "speak is to express opinions; to say; to converse ”. So speak here is a way of
issuing or expressing opinions, words that we want to convey. That is the meaning of
speaking in simple terms and the origin of the word from speaking. But in a broad sense
speaking has a considerable scope in our lives. Every day many people in this world express
their opinions so that we can listen, conclude and also take an attitude from what they say.
B. The Issue of Assessing Speaking Skills.
Speaking is probably one of the most difficult skills to test. It combines skills that
may have little or no correlation with each other, and which do not do well to objective
testing. In ( Kitao & Kitao, 1996), it was mentioned that there are not yet good answers to
questions about the criteria for testing these skills and the weighing of these factors. It is
possible to find people who can produce the different sounds of a foreign language
appropriately; 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 cannot pronounce all the sounds correctly.
Another difficulty is the actual implementation of speaking skills testing. That is because it is
difficult to test a large number 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 keep 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 purely speaking or
speaking and listening together
Finally, the assessment and scoring of speaking skills is one of its biggest problems. 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
include 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 testing.

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 BAB 2
DISCUSSION
A. Method of Assessing Speaking Skills.
1. Monologue, Dilaogue, and Multilogue Method
The first type is the Monologue Speaking Test which is also called the presentation.
Students were asked to perform some tasks such as; show and tell where they talk about
anything they choose. This gives the students a chance to make a mini presentation. The
second type is Dialogue Speaking Test which is also known as the interview. It is an open-
ended test where the students lead a discussion with the teacher, and students in that kind of
test are required to use conversation 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
decide on a topic they feel would be of interest for the rest of the classroom.
The evaluation criteria that was used in that study was as follows:
Evaluation Items:
1. Presentations : Content, Language, Eye contact
2. Interviews: Comprehensibility, Pronunciation, Fluency. Ability to explain an idea
3.Discussing and debating: Able to be part of the conversation to help it flow naturally,Uses
fillers/ additional questions to include others in conversation, ansd used in dialogues to group
discussions.
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.
2. Testing speaking using visual material
Without 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 decide on the sequence of the pictures without showing them
to each other, and then put them down in the order that they have decided on. They then have
the opportunity 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 other’s 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 choice of the materials used must be
something that all the students can interpret equally well, since if one student has a difficulty

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understanding the visual information, it will influence the way he/she is evaluated (Kitao &
Kitao, 1996).
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 for teachers.
3. Guided Test
Guided conversation are dialogues and exercises that are the central learning devices
the lesson begins with a model guided conversation that illustrate the use of one or more
functions and the structures students require, all in the context of a meaning full
exchange of communication (Molinsky& Bliss 1986). It means that guided
conversation are the dialogue and the question and answer exchanges, the students are
presented with a model conve rsation that highlight a specific aspect of grammar to
help students improve their accuracy in constructing the sentences.

BAB 3
CLOSING
A. Conclusion
Previous 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. While there is similarity of descriptors from
one rubric to another in professional 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 beneficial backwash. If speaking is tested, unless it is tested at a very low level, such as
reading aloud, this encourages 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 creative 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.
B. Suggestion
This paper is still far from perfect, therefore we expect constructive criticism and
suggestions from readers so that this paper can be better in the future.