Oral Testing in the High School Classroom: Some Suggestions

Author(s): John R. Gutirrez

Source: Hispania, Vol. 70, No. 4 (Dec., 1987), pp. 915-918
Published by: American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese
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PEDAGOGY: SECONDARY SCHOOLS 915

Oral Testing in the High School

Classroom: Some Suggestions
U John R. Gutierrez, University of Virginia
For many years it has seemed that the foreign

language teaching profession has been engaged in a series of "revolutions" most of

which have had their origins in an attempt
to reach a consensus as to the best way, i.e.,
"the one true way" to teach foreign language.
Yet despite a few short-lived rallies around a
common flag, the history of language teach-

colleagues become trained in the procedures

involved in administering the OPI, more

workshops will be held, and consequently

more foreign language teachers who want this

training will have the opportunity to receive

it. But, in the meantime, what can those

is based on the concept of proficiency. Instead

teachers who do not have this training, but

want it, do? The following suggestions illustrate how the basic principles of oral proficiency testing can be used to begin assessing
the speaking skills of students in a high school
setting.

of searching for one definitive approach to

language teaching, a search that Omaggio

Many teachers are already familiar with

the Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR)

says has consistently ended in frustration and

a sense of failure, we should be identifying
an "organizing principle," by which our various methods, approaches, materials and cur-

Definitions, the standard used to measure language proficiency for employees in government agencies. In order to better define the
ranges of the ILR scale to reflect the level of
language proficiency at which most language

ing has been marked more by controversy

than by consensus (Diller 1-2).
The latest attempt at reaching consensus

ricula might begin to make collective sense

("Methodology" 330). During the decade of
the eighties the term proficiency has become
ubiquitous in foreign language circles and it
is likely that it will remain so. Patricia Cum-

mins, in a recent issue of Foreign Language

Annals, writes that "during the 1990s it is
likely that proficiency will play an even
greater role in the preparation of foreign lan-

guage teachers and other professionals who

need a given level of proficiency to perform
their jobs. Uniform standards have long been

needed, she adds" (477).

This recent focus on proficiency and uniformity has surfaced in response to a report

issued in 1979 by the President's Commis-

sion on Foreign Languages and International

Studies in which one of the recommendations
specifically stated that "language proficiency

learners in an academic setting perform,

ACTFL and ETS recognized the need to modify the ILR. The juxtaposition of the ILR scale

and the ACTFL/ETS scale in Figure 1 below

ILR Scale ACTFL/ETS Scale
5

Native or bilingual proficiency

4+
4

Professional proficiency Superior

3+
3

Professional proficiency

2+ Advanced plus
2

Limited working proficiency Advanced

achievement goals for the end of each year

1 + Intermediate high

of study at all levels of study" should be estab-

lished (38). Since February of 1982, when

the first workshop on oral proficiency testing

1 Intermediate mid

Elementary proficiency Intermediate low

was held in Houston, a number of language

teachers have been trained to assess the level

of oral proficiency in speakers of foreign lan-

guages using the ACTFL/ETS Oral Proficiency Interview (henceforth OPI).

It is likely that as more and more of our

0+ Novice high
0

No practical proficiency Novice mid

Novice low

Figure 1. Juxtaposition of ACTFL/ETS and ILR Scales.

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916 HISPANIA 70 DECEMBER 1987

depicts the latter's modifications.

situation card, they can be asked a series of

Lately there have been numerous advances in the area of language testing and

questions or they can be asked to discuss a

certain topic. These features can also be incorporated into the speaking component of

certainly indicative of this. It is not, however,

the solution to oral testing, for there are several limitations to using this assessment pro-

any high school assessment program. In order

the OPI developed by ACTFL and ETS is

cedure in an academic setting. First of all,

the test is not valid if the teacher administers

it to his/her students. Secondly, because of

the time involved in the interview (from 10

to 20 minutes), it is not feasible to use in

most high school settings. However, this does
not mean that one should not test the speaking skills of high school students. Paper and

pencil tests are good indicators of the student's linguistic competence (their mastery
of inflections, conjugation, syntactic rules,
etc.), however they really do not tell much

about the students' proficiency, i.e., their ability to speak the language in a real-life situation. Thus we must explore innovative methods and alternatives for testing these skills.
Recently many states have rewritten their
curriculum guidelines for every level of study
of all subjects taught to include exit objectives
for the various levels and incorporate guide-

lines for assesssing these objectives. Be-

cause of this new focus on proficiency, many

of the curriculum guides for foreign languages are couched in jargon that is taken,

verbatim, from the ACTFL Guidelines. In Virginia, for example, the document is part of
the Standards of Learning Program, and has
intermediate high as the exit requirement for
speaking at the end of the fourth year of high

school language study (55). This may pose

a problem for the teacher who may not be

abreast of the latest developments in foreign

language pedagogy and who is suddenly faced
with a new state mandate to test for proficiency.

To address this issue, I would like to

suggest that high school teachers begin adapting the principles inherent to the OPI to begin

assessing the speaking skills of their stu-

dents.

While semester exams are typically written, a component that addresses the speaking
skills can also be developed by incorporating
some of the characteristics of the OPI. When

someone is trained to administer the OPI,

numerous techniques are taught to elicit
speech samples from the person being tested.

Among these, interviewees can be given a

to begin creating these tests, however, one

must first become familiar with the guidelines upon which the OPI is based, especially

keeping in mind the function, content and

accuracy of these.
The simplest way to begin testing the student's speaking skills so that the assessment

has some meaning vis-a-vis curriculum

guides that use the ACTFL Guidelines as a

base, is for the teacher to develop a repertoire

of stimuli in the form of situation cards that

will aid in the elicitation of the content and
function of the various levels of the ACTFL/
ETS Scale. To determine whether a student

can perform at the intermediate level, the

teacher could create a situation card that

would combine content and functions that are

characteristic of that level. For example, it

could resemble the situation depicted in Fig-

ure 2.

Two students would be provided with the

situation that appears in Figure 2, i.e., one

is assigned the role of A and the other that
of B. They are given a few minutes to prepare
and then present their conversation based on
the information contained in the cards. Ide-

ally, the teacher would tape the conversation

in order to grade it later. The resultant speech
Student A;
You are a 16-year-old student from Lynchburg, Vir-

ginia. There are three people in your family and you

like to play baseball. You would like to get to know a
Chilean foreign exchange student who has recently enrolled in your school. You ask him/her:
what his/her name is
how old he/she is
where he/she lives

how many people there are in his/her family

what the names of his/her family members are
what his/her hobbies are
Student B:

You are a 17-year-old Chilean student. You live in

Santiago and come from a big family (there are 8 people

in it). You like to play tennis. You speak with another

student in your school. You ask the other student:
what his/her name is
how old he/she is
where he/she lives

how many people there are in his/her family

what the names of his/her family are

what his/her hobbies are

Figure 2. Sample situation cards.

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PEDAGOGY: SECONDARY SCHOOLS 917

sample would tell the teacher whether the

student is able to provide biographical information, ask and answer questions, and participate in a short conversation, all of which are
part of the proficiency description for the intermediate level.

Student A:
You are in a restaurant and wish to order dinner. You

are waiting for a friend but want to order for both of

you. You place the following order for both of you with

the waiter/waitress:

For you:

in Omaggio ("Teaching" 350-52) that reflects

the research carried out by Higgs and Clifford. In discussing the Relative Contribution
Model, the latter show that the contributions
of the subskills of vocabulary and grammar
to the global proficiency of speakers at the
novice and intermediate levels (where virtually all high school language students would
be) is higher than for the other subskills, i.e.,

pronunciation, fluency, and sociolinguistic

factors play a smaller role in these levels of
proficiency (69-70). To facilitate assigning a

chicken and rice

grade to the speech sample obtained, the

salad

teacher might use a sheet similar to the one

found in Figure 4.

coffee with cream and sugar

chocolate ice cream

For your friend:

steak
french fries
black coffee

Pronunciation 1 2 3 4 5 x 4 =

Vocabulary 1 2 3 4 5 x 7 =
Grammar 1 2 3 4 5 x 6 =

apple pie

Fluency 1 2 3 4 5 x 3 =

Student B:

Total =

You are a waiter/waitress in a restaurant. A customer

is seated at a table for two. You ask him/her if he/she is

Figure 4. Sample grading sheet for oral test.

waiting for someone. Tell the customer what the specials

are and their prices, and what drinks the restaurant

serves. You take his/her order.

The specials:

Two chicken enchiladas served with rice, $5.75

Fresh fruit salad, $2.85
Apple pie, $1.50
Chocolate or vanilla ice cream, $.95

Refreshments:
Iced tea
Lemonade
Coke

Red or white wine

Figure 3. Sample situation cards.

Another sample situation is contained in

Figure 3. This one would help the teacher

ascertain whether the student could handle

a simple, everyday survival situation in a restaurant, again part of the proficiency description for the intermediate level. The process
discussed for eliciting the speech sample for
the situation in Figure 2 would be repeated.
A possible variation might have the teacher
play one of the roles, with the caveat however,

that this will entail spending twice the

amount of time than if two students are tested

simultaneously. These are but two sample

situations that teachers can create to become

part of an extensive "oral test item bank"

that teachers would have at their disposal to
test the speaking ability of their students.

To grade the speech sample, I suggest

using a simplified approach of what is found

The speech sample would be rated on a

scale of 1 to 5 in each of the four categories
and multiplied by 4 for pronunciation, by 7
for vocabulary, by 6 for grammar, and by 3
for fluency. This distribution, which places

more emphasis on vocabulary and grammar

(on a scale based on 100%, vocabulary is

worth 35% of the total, grammar 30%, while

pronunciation and fluency are 20% and 15%

respectively) reflects the relative contribution of the subskills to global proficiency men-

tioned in the above reference to Higgs and

Clifford.

The suggestions discussed in this article

are obviously no substitution for the training

required to become certified by ACTFL to

administer and rate the OPI. But because of

the many limitations that the OPI has in aca-

demic settings, the use of situation cards,

based on the ACTFL Guidelines, as the
stimulus for oral achievement tests, may pro-

vide an alternative. Their use also provides

a viable solution for those high school teachers facing the urgency of a state mandate to
test for proficiency without yet having received any training to do so.
0 WORKS CITED
Cummins, Patricia. Editor's Column. Foreign Language
Annals 17 (1984): 447.
Diller, Conrad K. The Language Teaching Controversy.

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918 HISPANIA 70 DECEMBER 1987

Rowley, MA: Newbury House, 1978.

Higgs, Ted and Ray Clifford. "The Push Toward Com-

munication." Curriculum, Competence, and the

Foreign Language Teacher Ed. Ted Higgs. Lin-

colnwood, IL: National Textbook, 1982. 57-79.

Omaggio, Alice. "Methodology in Transition: The New
Focus on Proficiency." Modern Language Journal 67
(1983): 330-41.
Teaching Language in Context. Bos-

ton: Heinle and Heinle, 1986.

Standards of Learning for Modern Foreign Languages.
Richmond: Virginia Department of Education, 1986.
Strength Through Wisdom: A Critique of US. Capability.
A Report to the President from the President's Commis-

sion on Foreign Languages and International Studies.

Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office,
1979.

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