Oral language testing at tay nguyen university  (Page 7/53)

Chapter 3 describes the methodology employed in the study. In order to evaluate current practices, the study involves describing the existing practices of spoken language testing at TNU, and investigating the staff’s perceptions of oral testing by delivering questionnaires to 12 staff members.

Chapter 4 presents the results of the study, and analyses the results to point out findings.

Chapter 5 makes some practical recommendations for standardisation of TNU oral testing practices, and provides a summary of the main details of the whole thesis with a conclusion ending the thesis.

Chapter 2: literature review

Chapter 1 presents the background information of the study. This chapter looks at main issues of oral testing. The discussion of the issues is meant to give a theoretical foundation on which to develop a framework for developing oral tests. The chapter discusses the following issues: (1) typical features of spoken language, (2) communicative approach to testing oral language ability, (3) theoretical framework for test development, (4) major considerations in construction of oral test tasks and tests, and (5) qualities of a good test.

2.1 typical features of spoken language

Spoken language had been ignored in language teaching long before it was noticed to be as essential as written language as well as other aspects of this science. From this time learners of a foreign language have been encouraged to learn how to produce spoken language forms spontaneously, not simply to utter written language sentences.

The features of spoken language reviewed here will help to specify typical and important areas of language knowledge to be involved in the process of testing speaking skill.

The most special feature of spoken language is its functions. Brown and Yule (1983) demonstrate that spoken language encompasses two functions in terms of a speaker’s intention. These two functions are defined as Interactional function and Transactional function. The former refers to the kind of spoken language speakers use to make their interaction atmosphere pleasant whereas the latter is concerned in interactions where speakers want to mainly convey their intentions and messages. Therefore, Brown and Yule (1983, p.13) assert that interactional language is listener-oriented while transactional language is message-oriented.

In interactional situations the participating speakers do not challenge each other to communicate information, and tend to end up feeling friendly and comfortable with each other. In transactional situations information transmission requires language exchanges between interlocutors to be understandable and appropriate. Obviously, ‘all foreign learners of English, who wish to learn the spoken form of the language, need to be able to express their transactional intentions’. They must know how to make clear the ideas to be communicated, even in their own mother tongue environment, yet it is easier to make themselves understood in their own language than in a new language.