Oral language testing at tay nguyen university  (Page 36/53)

To sum up, the analysis of the data collected from the survey shows that TNU English teaching staff have obtained a limited understanding of oral skill assessment. Obviously, their limited and insufficient grasp of oral language testing may probably lead to their low confidence in their scores given on their students’ oral test ability. Also, their improper practices of developing speaking tests critically evaluated in 4.1.3 must be an inevitable consequence of their incomplete perceptions of speaking skill assessment.

4.3 summary

Chapter 4 has described the current process of speaking test development at TNU, presented the results collected from the observation of an end-of-term speaking test and from the survey of the staff’s perceptions of oral language testing. Then the evaluation of the current oral test development process and the analysis of the survey result help to reveal that TNU staff’s superficial knowledge of oral language testing surely results in their inappropriate practices of developing oral language tests. The study has proved to be beneficial as it helps TNU staff to find out their strengths and weaknesses, and they can therefore identify room for improvement.

Chapter 5: recommendations and conclusion

In chapter 4, the results of the study have been presented and analytically discussed in order to find out strengths and weaknesses of TNU oral language testing. The discussion indicates two main findings: first, the current practices are far from being consistent with the theoretical framework of test development, and second, TNU teaching staff have gained limited and insufficient knowledge of oral language testing. These findings serve as the basis for following recommendations regarding standardisation of TNU oral testing practices. This chapter (1) makes several practical recommendations for TNU oral testing practices, and (2) provides a conclusion ending the thesis.

5.1 recommendations for tnu oral testing practices

The findings of the study presented above imply that current oral testing at this institution really need to be improved and standardised in order to gradually increase the training quality of the institution as a whole and of the English Section in particular.

TNU staff’s lack of sufficient competence in speaking skill assessment is one of the main drawbacks resulting in their improper practices of oral test development. Since it is TNU English teaching staff who are, at this institution, the most proficient in English teaching, and directly involved in both the teaching and the testing of speaking skill, it is essential that they be aware of the need to become more competent in developing speaking tests. This thesis recommends using Bachman&Palmer’s framework for test development (See 2.3 – Chapter 2) for the context of oral ability assessment as a theoretical basis for developing speaking tests at TNU.

Based on Bachman&Palmer’s theoretical framework for test development discussed in 2.3 – Chapter 2 – and on the weaknesses of TNU current oral testing practices analysed in Chapter 4, this thesis makes seven particular recommendations, 5 of which are meant to be used to improve the whole present development process of speaking tests, and the other two of which are directly involved in the test operationalization, namely a set of TLU tasks for TNU first-year students and two sample achievement tests for first-year students. This section starts with suggestions for improving the test development process as a whole and ends with practical applications to the operationalization of speaking tests for first-years students.