Student-student discussion
Activity 16
| In what way do you think the role of the examiner in an oral group task differs from his/her role in a one-to-one oral exam? |
A useful variation on the traditional oral exam is the oral group task, a discussion between students in which the examiner is not involved. This is a good all-round assessment of the ability to communicate in a foreign language in a realistic setting. It is the responsibility of the students themselves to develop the discussion and to reach agreement on some outcome. Ideally, the task will have no single 'right' answer and the topic will involve various possibilities. To avoid the situation where students have to depend on general knowledge or their own inventiveness, they might be asked in advance to look through relevant source material to help inform the discussion. Such stimulus material needs to be succinct and straightforward to ensure it does not become a test of reading, and it should offer sufficient options which must all be equally feasible. Underhill (1987: 49) suggests some likely tasks:
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Choosing a suitable educational course for a person with specified interests from a range of possible courses. Choosing a suitable holiday for a particular person or family from brochures. Choosing the best bid for a contract from a number of bids. Choosing the best candidate for a job from several applicants. Deciding which applications for bank loans should be granted, when the total number of loans requested exceeds the amount of money available. Discussing a proposal for a company (real or imaginary) to launch a new product or enter a new field of operation. |
Although the examiner here can sit back and focus on assessment, without being worried about keeping the exchange going, it can be very challenging to assess up to five people simultaneously. Partly because of this and of the need to ensure all candidates have the same opportunity to contribute, the exam needs to be longer than the traditional oral but it should still prove more economical than conducting one-to-one interviews.
To avoid the danger of students not contributing enough to the discussion, a structured approach might be adopted, as for example in The Open University's speaking test, where each member of a group of four has to make a brief initial 'pitch', in which he or she outlines a view or position on the topic, prior to a general discussion to which all group members are expected to contribute. Even with this approach, however, some performances may still prove easier to assess than others, so it is a good idea to award a mark first to the candidates who contribute most, before devoting most of the marking time to the individual contributions of the least talkative.
It is particularly important in such group tasks that in advance of the test students are made fully aware of the criteria against which they are to be assessed, ie that they know it is not just their presentation of facts or information that count but how they justify their position in relation to that of others.
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