Scoring procedure for an oral test
Let us now look at the following table which tells us about both, holistic or global impression band scale and the criteria which are followed during the assessment in analytical scoring system.
Interview assessment scale: global impression marking scheme Band
9 Excellent Speaker: Speaker with good confidence level and is able to initiate new topic and theme without any external help.
8 Very Good Speaker: The speaker is able to maintain the necessary part of discussion; basically his/her own part and is able to read the attitudinal ups and downs.
7 Good Speaker: Is able to present ideas and thoughts clearly and logically and also is able take on to the discussion. Not as flexible as the previous band performer in terms of change in tone and attitude, but seems to understand it. Some tinge of hesitation and sometime also seems to be repetitive but is an effective communicator.
6 Competent Speaker: The speaker is good enough to maintain the theme of the topic and also is able to stick to the main attitude of the topic. Seems bit hesitant and reluctant in terms of fluency, but otherwise is good. Some errors and mistakes in terms of use of inappropriate language, but not such to influence the exchange of ideas. Also seems to be independent in terms of idea and discussion.
4 Marginal Speaker: The speaker is able to maintain the conversation but not in active manner. Not very active in taking initiative. He is not fluent and shows some problem with natural flowing language. Not very accurate while speaking. Seems that wants to speak more but does not, perhaps because is scarred of making mistake. Gives an impression that has idea in his/her mind but not able to give them words.
3 Extremely Limited Speaker: Speaks with lots of pauses and often creates misunderstanding. Not fluent at all. Not able to go on with the continuous discussion. Just able to understand the gist of the dialogue tries to stick to it. Does not get the whole of the dialogue but a part of it.
2 Intermittent Speaker: Now working facility. An occasional speaker, with very little ability to understand or speak.
1 Non-speaker: Cannot speak or understand at all.
Analytic Marking Scheme
Criteria of Assessment
Appropriateness
0 – Not able to play any function in the spoken language.
1 – The speaker is capable to function with very limited movement. The responses of the speaker are marked by the socio-cultural inappropriateness.
2 – The speaker seems to developing in terms of his/her understanding of role, setting, responses, etc. But sometimes misunderstanding may arise due to the inappropriateness of the language used.
3 – The speaker is almost error free. Or even if there are errors, they are not likely to cause any sort of sociocultural misunderstanding.
Adequacy of Vocabulary for Purpose
0 – The speaker uses inadequate vocabulary even for the most simple and basic communication.
1 – The speaker makes uses of limited vocabulary. Lack of vocabulary in way does not allow the discussion to move on to the different topics. The speaker tend to make frequent lexical mistakes and also tend repeat him/herself.
2 – There is a risk of some misunderstanding due to the inadequacy of lexical use. The speaker also seems to hesitate and repeat a lot though there are clear signs of improvements.
3 – The speaker does not make any mistakes in terms of vocabulary uses.
Grammatical Accuracy
0 – The speaker is almost immobile in the language. Makes almost every possible grammatical mistake in his/her spoken speech.
1 – Speaker’s use of syntax is fragmented and also makes frequent grammatical mistakes. Seems to have mastered some specific pattern of syntax, but not sure about the others and thus fails to take on those.
2 – Speaker seems to make some grammatical mistakes, but shows clear signs of improvement in grammatical correctness. The speaker has started to gain control over the structure, but still sometimes loses control over the sentence when the sentence is larger than usual.
3 – The speaker is almost perfect. Have no grammatical mistake. But sometime shows some imperfection in some specific patterns.
Intelligibility
0 – The speaker is almost completely unintelligible. The problem is with everything, pronunciation, rhythm and intonation.
1 – The speaker has strong influence of mother- tongue in terms of pronunciation and intonation. Is only somewhat intelligibly that too after constant repetition.
2 – Speaker has started the track of the language. The listener needs to concentrate on the pronunciation and intonation of the speaker, but otherwise is able to understand. Some-times confusion is caused or repetition is required.
3 – Every word uttered can be understood by the native speaker of the language. The speaker may seem to have a foreign language, but there is no difficulty in comprehensibility.
Fluency
0 – Not fluent at all. Lots of pauses and stam-mering.
1 – The speaker is hesitant and is not able complete his/her remark, with few exceptions. Every sentence uttered is almost not complete and fragmented.
2 – Shows a clear sign of development in terms of using cohesive devices. Still may seem to use fragmented utterance, but going very fast on the cohesiveness of the speech and also speed and command.
3 – While seems to be little hesitant, but speaks without any stops or unnecessary pauses. Is very efficient in making use of cohesive devices, and also very skilled in the art rephrasing. Thus avoid any breaking of sentence or unnecessary fragmentation.
Relevance and Adequacy of Content
0 – The speaker seems to be completely irrelevant to the task set. Complete inadequate in his/her responses.
1 – The speaker seems to be little relevant to the task set and little adequate in the reponses, with unnecessary repetitions.
2 – To most of the part, the speaker responses adequately. There may be some gaps and redundancy.
3 – The speaker is quite relevant and adequate to the task assigned.
