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Abstract:According to test theories including the practicality，validity，reliability，description，backwash and communicative sense of a test or assessment，a system of continuous alternative classroom oral assessment devices are designed for college students with the purpose of improving the speaking ability and acquiring some speaking skills to have their language competence enhanced greatly，and for teaches，their value lies in a good backwash to the teaching procedure and lesson plan，which in turn they will certainly guide the teaching.

Key Words:continuous alternative oral assessment；backwash；communicative sense of a classroom assessment and test

中圖分類號:G642.475 文獻(xiàn)標(biāo)識碼:A 文章編號: 1673-1875(2008)12-024-03

1. Introduction

Oral assessments in colleges in China are rather underdeveloped，as most assessments in ELT do not include speaking on account of time and costs.However，speaking ability must be taught and tested according to the requirements of College English Teaching Curriculum.Many English teachers，especially those who teach non-English majors，are increasingly conscious of the significance of oral assessments and giving more and more of their attention to teaching and assessing students’oral ability.

Alternative assessment or performance and portfolio assessment was a hot topic in the field of education and test in the USA in 1900s.It is authentic to assess the students’studies，progress and achievement based on observation and professional judgment with a focus on task， process and product with reference to the criteria and standards (Herman，Aschbacher， Winters，1990).Therefore alternative assessment is a proper method to assess the students’speaking ability in classroom.

The author has designed a system of continuous alternative classroom oral assessments，using topics familiar to students，such as campus life，education，news，everyday activities，etc.such as，short talk，conversation，group discussion，role-playing or retelling，etc.

2. Description of Candidates and Assessment Context

The candidates are the first grade non-English major students in Maoming College，whose English level is intermediate，and the class size is 40.The textbook being used is New Horizon College English which focuses on listening，reading and writing，but actually，according to the nature and rules of language teaching and learning，teaching and assessing speaking are also indispensable.However，with the stress of communication in ELT，more and more colleges are encouraged to take actions to train and assess the students’oral abilities.The latest Curriculum of College English Teaching requires that students must be able to ask and answer the questions based on the contents of the texts and listening materials，retell the contents，and have daily conversations in English about familiar topics with clear expression and basically correct pronunciation and intonation.

In such a context，continuous oral assessment devices are designed to guide teaching and learning are absolutely necessary.As a continuous systematic assessment，it is done once or twice a week consistently for approximately 20 minutes each time.

3. Purpose and Value of the Assessments

Carroll highlights the special role of oral assessment，and he also states that language must be taught and assessed according to the needs of the learner (Carroll，1981:8).As it is a classroom continuous alternative oral assessment，it is subjective but direct，or a class progress test or diagnostic test(Heaton，1988:171-172).The purpose for students is:1)they know where they are， how much progress they are making and what they can(or cannot yet)do with the skills they have acquired (Blanche， 1988:75)；2)they are stimulated to learn speaking enthusiastically and efficiently.Meanwhile teachers can get the information as a backwash on how the students learned and what help they need， which in turn would guide the teaching.

4.Design of Items

4.1 Item Types and Procedures

The item types and procedures selected for the continuous and alternative assessment are mainly as the following:

Short Talk

In a short talk， students are given a topic chosen before class from the listening material in the textbook，and are required to have a discussion on it.Then a volunteer or someone asked would give a short speech in front of the class.The performance of the individual student would be recorded in the following table.However，there is a problem that student would recite what they have prepared.

Conversation

A topic related to the text prepared by a teacher is written on the blackboard，and a conversation on the topic is carried out in groups in the class as a preparation.Then，two or three students pointed or volunteers are to have a conversation in the front，or sometimes it is a conversation between a student and the teacher.An interview can be also performed in this situation，such as a student interviewing a teacher about study habits or how to learn a foreign language，or it also can be an interview on job application，etc.The performance could be recorded as a future measurement.

Group Discussion

When a group discussion is assessed，a topic related to the text or listening materials would be offered to all the groups.For example，after learning a text about computer，students would be asked to have a discussion about the positive and negative effect of computer.After five minutes preparing，a group(three or five)would be asked to have a discussion in front of the class.As it is difficult to rate so many students at the same time，a recorder can be also used in this situation for later rating.

Role-playing

Give a brief introduction of a situation or use the texts just learned.For example，in a situation of an accident，a person is wounded on the road，the driver wants to leave，and a passerby remember the truck number and dials the police and hospital.The teacher can play a character，or students can play all the characters.A recorder could be used here.

Retelling

Retelling is a convenient assessment in the class.After learning a text or listening to a passage，students would be asked to retell the text or the listening material.This task is easy but necessary for students as a reviewing and a oral practice.As it is an oral assessment，the aspects of fluency and pronunciation would be focused on in scoring

4. 2 Description of the above Task-types

The tasks in such assessment are speech，conversation，group discussion，role-playing and text or story retelling，which are all oral tasks.Because a short talk on a given topic is not an easy task(Heaton，1988:102)，students are ensured to be familiar with the topic and allowed to have enough preparation through a discussion in the class.A conversation，including an interview and other forms on a given topic or situation，is a common format for testing oral interaction(Hughes，2003:119).Group discussion and role-playing are two important techniques for assessing oral performances to discover how students are thinking and using the target language(Heaton，1988:102).As for role-playing，the teacher can be an observer or a “role”，for it is a classroom assessment rather than a formal test，though Hughes argues that a tester should be an observer without being involved(Hughes，2003:122).

5. Rating scheme and criteria

The following table is used to record students’scores as a part of the semester score and an overview evaluation.As it is an informal alternative classroom oral assessment，the distribution of scores of four parts is considered equally for the sake of practical operation and convenience.The author applies only four of the criteria of the oral test in CET--fluency，accuracy，language range and utterance length，each of which occupied 25%.The total score is 100.

The marking scheme is partly from The Criteria of Speaking Test of College English Test of CET， which stresses the accuracy(pronunciation，intonation，grammar and vocabulary)，the range of language(the degree and range of the vocabulary and grammar structure used by the candidate)，the utterance length(the candidate’s contribution to the communication in the test，and how much he talked)，the fluency(the candidate can speak for a comparative time fluently)，and the flexibility and appropriacy.

Because the marking is a subjective procedure administrated and measured by only one teacher，though the criteria are applied in the assessment，the errors of measuring or marking are unavoidable.But trying to avoid errors or to make as few errors as possible is needed.It is helpful using a tape-recorder to record the performance for scoring later，and asking another teacher to measure together according to the recording.Another method avoid errors is to exclude the students’personalities and teacher’s mood(Hughes，2003:133).

6.A Discussion in Terms of Validity，Reliability，Backwash Effect and Communicative Sense

6.1 Validity

There are various discussions in the literature on the validity(face/content/construct)and the reliability of oral tests.Generally speaking，validity can be defined as whether the test or assessment measures accurately what are intended to measure(Hughes.2003:26)and whether the test result can judge the language ability.An oral assessment of this kind has high validity because it assesses students’speaking ability directly.But the activities of the text or story telling are not satisfactory in validity，because other skills such as reading comprehension，memory and organization，are often involved(Heaton，1988:90).The assessment is to check how well students learned the texts and to train their integrated abilities as well.

As a teacher and supervisor of the classroom oral assessment，to ensure the validity of assessing students’oral proficiency is not easy.A few considerations have to be addressed.The principles to ensure the validity are:

Try to exclude the interference of other aspects，such as knowledge，culture and personality.

Unfamiliar topics are not applied.

A relaxed atmosphere is created to release the students’tension.

Some useful strategies are taught，e.g.thinking in English， learning to speak in turn and using non-verbal communication，etc.

6.2 Reliability

Reliability is an important factor of a test or assessment.A test must be reliable as a measuring instrument(Heaton，1988:162)，and it must be agreeable between the result of test and test itself.To ensure the reliability，several aspects have to be taken into account:the consistency，the contents of the assessment，the surroundings， the students’anxiety and the scoring.Heaton argues that an assessment must be consistent in its measurement(Heaton，1988:162).To make the assessment reliable，the similar oral tasks are consistently used to measure the students’oral proficiency.Another evidence of reliability is that the result of a certain student in oral assessment is close to his result in the written assessment carried out some other time.In scoring process，that the same criteria are applied and the scorer is the same teacher，which makes it a reliable assessment.Another way to strengthen the reliability could be that another teacher would be invited to the class to score when the assessment is carried out.However，as an oral assessment is subjective，it is difficult to measure the performance，and high reliability is hard to guarantee.However，because it is a low-stake assessment，a lower level of reliability might be acceptable(Bachman and Palmer，1997:135).

6.3 Backwash Effect of the Assessments

The effect of testing is known as a backwash， and can be harmful or beneficial(Hughes，2003:1).Beneficial backwash happens when students study and learn those things which teachers intend them to study and learn(Hartley and Sporing，1999:73).Some beneficial backwash effects of this assessment are obvious.First，as the topics used in the assessment are mostly related to the texts or listening materials，students have chances to review and use what they have learned.Second，it can not only evaluate the students’oral ability，but also reinforce teaching communicatively and motivate the students to learn English by using it.Finally，it has a positive backwash effect of social extent.Many graduates from colleges are claimed as“deaf and dumb”，who could not communicate in English at work when necessary.If more attentions are paid to oral teaching and assessment，they would not be embarrassed when they have to speak English.

6.4 Communicative Sense of the Assessments

Communicative tests and assessments focus on testing communicative competence and consider language to be authentic as well as contextualized(Davies，1999:26).Meanwhile it emphasizes language use more than usage(Heaton，1988:19).The classroom oral assessment is communicative as the tasks designed are mostly for assessing communicative competence and the oral use of the language.Some analysis follows.

As to short talk，the preparation discussion is communicative with interaction，authenticity，context and the real use of the language，whereas the assessment is partly communicative because only one student gives a short talk based on the discussion of the topic without interaction，though language use is assessed in this situation.

The tasks of group discussion and conversation are totally communicative，for it meets almost all the requirements of a communicative test.

Role-play activities can be used to test oral communicative ability(Heaton.1988:103).They are carried out in a very authentic context where students use the language communicatively.

The task of text or story retelling is not so communicative，for it does not involve much communicative aspects mentioned above.The only communicative feature in this situation is language use—to use the language to retell a text，listening material or a story，though pronunciation and intonation are emphasized in scoring.

7. Conclusion

A system of continuous alternative classroom oral assessment devices is of significance in enhancing students’English learning. Every English teacher knows that the better the non-native student can speak，the better he or she will do well in listening，reading and writing.The key factors are to control the procedure and the marking scheme，to keep the value of the assessment，and to make the assessments more practical，valid and reliable.

Reference：

[1]Bachman，L.F.and Palmer，A.S.，1997.Language Testing in Practice.Oxford Press

[2]Blanche，P.1988.‘Self-assessment of foreign language skills:implications for teachers and researchers’，in RELC Journal Vol.19.No.1，pp.75-93.

[3]Carroll，B.1981.Testing communicative performance.xford:Pergamon.

[4]Davies，A.1999.Dictionary of Language Testing.Cambridge University Press.

[5]Hartley，L.and Sporing.M.1999.‘Teaching communicatively:assessing communicatively’Language Learning Journal，19，73-79.

[6]Herman，J.L.，Aschbacher，P.R.， Winters，L.1990，November.Issues

in developing alternative assessments.Paper presented at the annual meeting of the California Educational Research Association，Chicago.

[7]Heaton，J.B.，1998.Writing English Language Tests.Longman Group UK Limited.

[8]Hughes，A.2003.Testing for Language Teachers.Cambridge

University Press.The Criteria of CET. Chinese Education Department

[9]The New Curriculum of College English.Chinese Education Department in 2007

英語課堂口語教學(xué)的連續(xù)性另類評量手段運用及理論分析

摘 要: 本文參考可行度、效度、信度、區(qū)分度、反饋以及測試的交際性等測試?yán)碚摓榇笠环怯⒄Z專業(yè)的學(xué)生設(shè)計了一個連續(xù)性“另類評量”隨堂口語評測系統(tǒng)。意義在于使學(xué)生不僅在口語方面能從中獲益及習(xí)得一些口語技巧，而且在提高整體英語水平方面亦起到較大作用；讓教師能得到一個對教學(xué)過程及計劃有效的反饋，從而對教學(xué)本身起著積極的指導(dǎo)作用。

關(guān)鍵詞：連續(xù)變通性口語評測 反饋 課堂口語評測的交際性