Testing Interactional Speaking - A workshop
Alun Roger
Alun Roger briefly touched on the history and evolution of this "small-talk" testing program; his immediate concern was training his audience in the step by step process of how to administer it-- hoping for argument and disagreement from us to facilitate understanding.
First clarifying the distinction between transactional and interactional speaking, Roger stressed the emphasis is upon the latter—to develop and maintain social bonds rather than simply exchange information successfully. In this mode speakers tend to jump from topic to topic quickly and frequently (high topic turnover) with conversational listening (confirmation and engagement) overlapping the conversation.
In small groups, we simulated a "norming" session, critical to the test's reliability, where we watched a couple of videos of paired-student conversations, discussed how to rate them and then compared with our total group. This "socialization period" develops inter-rater reliability and rater orientation. Step two is getting the candidates into the test room that has been set up to ensure they are accurately identified and scored. They talk together for eight to ten minutes, followed by quietly closing the test, and evaluation.
Our attempts at cooperative, relative ratings gave us a good taste of the criteria involved in this essential type of assessment.
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