Luoma And Others

Workshop 3
1. According to Luoma, what are the documents and materials that assessment developers need before they design speaking tasks? How are speaking tasks described and categorized?

According to Luoma, the documents and materials that assessment developers need before they design speaking tasks include:
*The rubric and the instructions to examinees; it defines the structure of anassessment and provides instructions to participants about what they should do. This is a tool for the assessment designers, and the past of it that is visible for the test participant is instructions and any other test information material that the developers may produce.
*Tasks materials which the examinees use while performing the tasks; it refers to any written or picture-based material given tothe examinees during a speaking assessment to provide contents, outlines or starting points for the text discourse. They are important fort the test designers because they guide the talk during the test.
*Interaction outline; whether it is an interviewer or a facilitator, instructions regarding what to do and say need to be provided beforehand. It takes the form of an outline for the test,possibly with some suggested prompts.
*Plans and instructions for administration; some resources that need to be available to ensure fairness and comparability should include: rooms, equipment, personnel and time. It will help the actual assessment situation flow smoothly.
Speaking tasks are categorized under two headings: open ended and structured tasks. They differ on the amount of structure thetasks provide for the test discourse.
Open-ended speaking tasks guide the discussion but allow room for different ways of fulfilling the task requirements. The main objective of these kinds of tasks is to get the examinees to do something with language as an indication of their skills. The longer the activity, the more potential freedom the examinees have for responding to it, tough taskinstructions may provide some content guidelines. Open-ended speaking tasks can be divided in discourse types or role play activities.
There is a semi-structured task that focuses on socially or functionally complex language called reacting in situations. The responses require the use of formulaic language but also the ability to modify expressions, as the situation often include a social twist.Structured speaking tasks specify quite precisely what the examinees should say. They typically call for limited production, and often it is possible to give an exhaustive list of acceptable responses. The expected answers are usually short, and the items tend to focus on one narrow aspect of speaking at a time. They can be scored fairly with very little training as they are exactly the same for allexaminees. Some tasks that give a little more freedom include sentence completion, factual short-answer questions and reacting to phrases.

2. What techniques for error correction in oral production are recommended? What is the efficacy of such strategies for the development of fluency and accuracy?

Some techniques recommended by Brown for error correction in oral production are:
• Vigil andOller’s model (1976) of how affective and cognitive feedback affects the message-sending process. They propose a three stage type of feedback ; one in which the learner is allowed to try to convey his message, the second one in which the learner aborts the message, and the last one, in which the learner is conscious he needs to adjust, alter or try again to deliver his message. Their model statesthat to administer error treatment, the cognitive feedback must be optimal to be effective. Too much negative cognitive feedback may lead learners not to be willing to communicate. On the other hand, too much positive cognitive feedback may be the cause of eventual fossilization of errors. Teachers should be aware to recognize the optimal point between positive and negative cognitive feedback to...