Reviewing the FCE and CAE Speaking tests

4 | CAMBRIDGE ESOL : RESEARCH NOTES : ISSUE 30 / NOVEMBER 2007differences in goal orientation and task completion.Researchers found that candidates in the sample either didnot address both parts of the current Part 3 task, or did soonly partially. It was found that candidates worked together,but they often did not achieve task completion. In the ‘split’task, on the other hand, candidates tended to achieve bothcollaboration and task completion and it was found thatseparating the rubric into two parts provided candidateswith two manageable tasks to concentrate on one at a time,allowing their discussion to be more task-focused. It shouldbe noted, however, that task achievement per se is notdirectly assessed in the FCE and CAE Speaking tests, sothese findings would not affect the assessment of this task,and that, as in the Part 2 study, the tasks were of thecurrent type which do not include written question promptson the picture sheets.Consultation phase 2Throughout the trialling phase, consultation with externalstakeholders continued. As trialling findings were knownand further proposals were made as a result, thisinformation was presented at consultation meetings withkey external stakeholders so that their opinion could besought. With regard to the Speaking tests, some Chairsagreed that the issue of some candidates only partiallyaddressing the Part 2 and Part 3 tasks was the one thatthey would most like to see addressed.The option of basing the long turn in Part 2 on writtenpromptselicited mixed opinions from stakeholders. Somefelt strongly that the current picture tasks work very welland should be retained, maintaining that candidates likethem and that they provide support for younger, or lesssophisticated candidates, who may find it daunting to givea topical presentation such as is elicited by the writtenprompttask. In addition, some of those consulted pointedout that apart from YLE Speaking tests, the picture-basedtasks are unique to Main Suite within Cambridge ESOL andthat for this reason it would be worth retaining them.However, those in favour of the written-prompt tasks feltthat these were more authentic than the picture tasks andwould allow candidates to produce more complex andcoherent language.The proposal to separate the task instructions for Part 3also elicited a great deal of discussion. However, there wasa minority of supporters for the ‘split’ task, who believedthat in testing as in teaching, it is unwise to set two tasks atthe same time since it is hard to focus on both at once. Themajority of stakeholders were not keen on the ‘split’ task asthey felt that it would make Part 3 disjointed, with theexaminer intervening in the middle of the interaction tosupply the second task. In addition, some of thoseconsulted felt that knowing the goal of the whole task,which is only apparent on hearing the second part of theinstruction, is essential to give a reason for doing the firstpart of the task. They felt that candidates could not carryout the discussion without knowing from the outset whatthe final goal is.Most stakeholders agreed that providing task prompts onthe picture sheets in both Part 2 and Part 3 would be a wayto support candidates in fully addressing the tasks.Final decisionsAt the end of the consultation and research process, all thefeedback and findings were taken into consideration tomake final decisions about the content and format of theSpeaking tests from December 2008.Despite some of the findings from the small-scaleresearch conducted by the University of Limerick into thewritten-prompt Part 2 task, it was finally decided thatpictures should be retained at both FCE and CAE levels. Therationale for this decision takes into account the functionsand topics of this task. The functions which form the basisof the testing focus of the long turn, i.e. comparing,describing, and in the case of CAE, speculating, areeffectively elicited by the current picture task. Thesefunctions are not so effectively elicited by the writtenprompts.Thus, replacing the picture tasks with writtenpromptsin Part 2 would have involved a considerablechange to the underlying construct of one part of theSpeaking test.The topics that could be used to form the basis of thewritten-prompts are similar to those that are already in usein the Part 3 collaborative task, e.g. lifestyle, the worldaround us, our working lives. Had the written-promptsbeen adopted for Part 2, candidates could have foundthemselves talking about similar topics in two parts of thetest and also making use of similar lexis and languagefunctions to do this. Such linguistic and topic overlapwould have reduced opportunities to elicit a variedsample of language for assessment. It would thereforehave been necessary to re-think the focus and design ofthe collaborative task to avoid this potential overlap.In the final analysis, introducing written-prompts for Part 2appeared to necessitate a much greater change to theSpeaking tests than the review process had shown to benecessary or desirable. Similarly, for Part 3, whilst there wasevidence from the research conducted by the University ofLimerick that indicated that the proposed ‘split’ task hadsome benefits over the current format in terms of goalorientation and encouraging candidates to address bothparts of the task, there were other more compelling reasonsto retain the current Part 3 format in the Speaking test. Theproposed change to a ‘split’ task would have resulted in agreater focus on task achievement than is desirable sincetask achievement is not assessed in the Speaking tests and,furthermore, some stakeholder and internal feedbackindicated strong resistance to the idea of separating thetask into two parts.In the face of these conflicting messages regardingPart 3, decision makers returned to the original issue raisedby the Chairs of the papers and also by centre andcandidate survey respondents, which focused on enablingcandidates to fully address the tasks set, and determinedon a course of action that would both address the issue andtake account of stakeholders’ views.It was therefore decided that as the picture tasks wereessentially popular and working well, they should beretained in both Parts 2 and 3. However, to address theissue of task focus in both parts, picture sheets shouldinclude task prompts, which candidates could refer to,allowing them to deal fully with the task set. Trialling had©UCLES 2007 – The contents of this publication may not be reproduced without the written permission of the copyright holder.