Diagnostic oral skills assessment: developing flexible guidelines for formative speaking tests in EFL classrooms worldwide

Communicative language teaching is based on the notion that involving learners in interactive tasks where meaningful dialogue and functional language is transferred will promote learning.

Curriculum development, which includes assessment, must integrate information, skills, objectives and training to meet the challenges facing the students now and in the future.

Many teachers feel ill equipped to assess spoken language though they acknowledge the importance of assessing their students' communicative competence.

This book describes comprehensive research undertaken to identify critical components of formative speaking tests, investigates whether diagnostic oral skills tests are available, and leads to the development of a framework for designing formative oral speaking tests which reflect previous teaching / learning in the classroom.

Altogether 246 teachers, trainers, and language testing experts, and 110 students participated in the study.