INTO EUROPE The Speaking Handbook - Lancaster University

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28 INTO EUROPE The Speaking Handbook accurately candidates manage to convey messages in English, it is quite unimportant whether candidates know the famous sights of London, or the names of British political parties. A test taker may be a perfectly fluent language user without knowing these facts. We do not wish to suggest, however, that teaching about the target language culture is a waste of time. Learners’ motivation for learning can be greatly enhanced by making them familiar with different traditions, beliefs, attitudes, and social conventions of the target language culture (also referred to as ‘sociocultural knowledge’). In language testing, however, candidates’ responses to a task should never depend on knowledge of facts and figures, or how much they know about the topic of a given task. Another important aspect of candidates’ individual characteristics is their emotional response to the test task (known as their ‘affective schemata’). Affective schemata provide the basis on which language users assess a language use task and its setting in relation to past emotional experiences. Some authors suggest that controversial topics may stimulate some test takers to perform at a high level because they may have strong feelings about a particular viewpoint. This is very important when it comes to choosing the topic of discussion activities. Different topics will evoke different associations and emotional responses from candidates. However, there are certain topics – such as divorce, death, natural disasters, diseases, personal income – that are likely to affect some of the candidates in a negative way. For example, if the candidate’s parents have just divorced, or one of his/her close relatives is seriously ill. When designing test tasks, we should consider very carefully every topic in terms of how it will affect test takers. In general, potentially distressing topics should be avoided altogether in order to establish the most favourable circumstances for all the candidates and to help them perform to the best of their abilities. The mediating role between candidates’ individual characteristics and the test task and setting is played by strategic competence, which is a general ability enabling an individual to make the most effective use of their skills in carrying out a task. This ability is made up of the following strategies: planning (e.g. judging what can be presupposed or taken as given); execution (e.g. taking and releasing the floor, co-operating); evaluation (e.g. monitoring the interaction when the speaker uses facial expressions or body language); communication repair (e.g. asking for and giving clarification). In spoken interaction language users make use of these strategies in order to successfully participate in the conversation. As a result, they create meaning(s) together with their partner(s). The language assessment procedure, however, is influenced not only by the candidates’ individual characteristics, their strategic competence and the characteristics of the task that are responsible for the performance. It is just as important to consider the other participants in the interpretation of performance: the interlocutor whose job is to facilitate the elicitation of the performance and the
Chapter 2: What May Influence Candidates’ Oral Performance? 29 assessor who marks the performance in the light of his/her interpretation of the pre-specified assessment criteria. The following diagram shows a visual representation of the possible interactions between the variables that may influence the interpretation of candidates’ oral test performance. Strategic competence Individual characteristics Examiner Training Strategic competence Individual characteristics: Topical knowledge Personal characteristics Affective schemata Language knowledge Training Assessor Interlocutor Candidate Strategic competence Individual characteristics: Scale criteria Performance Task Topical knowledge Personal characteristics Affective schemata Language knowledge Figure 1. An extended model 1 of oral performance testing 1 Based on Bachman & Palmer (1996) and McNamara (1996) Candidate Strategic competence Individual characteristics: Score Topical knowledge Personal characteristics Affective schemata Language knowledge
Page 1 and 2: INTO EUROPE The Speaking Handbook
Page 3 and 4: Into Europe The Speaking Handbook I
Page 6: To János, Ágika and Zsófika
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Page 15 and 16: PART ONE GENERAL INTRODUCTION Intro
Page 17 and 18: Chapter 1 To the Teacher This handb
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Chapter 4: The Individual Long Turn
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