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THE DIFFICULTIES IN ASSESING WRITING AND SPEAKING TESTS

THE DIFFICULTIES IN ASSESING WRITING AND SPEAKING TESTS (MS BAO YEN)

During the assessment, I had a lot of difficulties in assessing some tests.

Firstly, the difficulty which made me waste much time is the scoring scale. Within levels for school students, criteria in speaking test format of level 1 for school students, the maximum points for each criteria is 5 while in speaking test format of level 2 for school students, the criteria in part 1 are not divided separately, but the score of each sentence is given used on scoring table with the maximum score of 1 point. In part 2 and 3 of speaking test format for school students, each criterion has the maximum of 10. In other test formats, there are such differences which made me difficult to catch up and remember. From my point of view, the format test of levels for school students should have the same criteria’s score scale. Of course, the suggestion helps examiners feel easier to remember and follow.

The second difficulty I have met is that descriptors are common to all 2 or 3 parts as well as there is no score scale for each part. I suggest that each part should have its own descriptors and criteria with specific score scale.

The third difficulty is that descriptors in the criteria are not specific. For example, for speaking level 3-5/VSTEP, to achieve 9 points for the criteria “pronunciation”: the test taker must meet three descriptors, but in case, she/he only meets two descriptors and the left descriptor is at 6 points. Therefore, I think it is necessary to give the rule “deduction” for each descriptor which is not met.

The last difficulty is that each test format has criteria with different names in spite of the same skill. It is sure that with so many different criteria, examiners are difficult to master all without documents. In my opinion, levels for school students should have the same number of criteria in one skill, similarly, levels for adults also have the same number of criteria in one skill. I really wish the system of descriptors should be logic and have linkages among levels.