9. Assessing the Four Skills
Assessment Brown, 2004: 4 means an on-going process that covers the wider domain such as when students respond to the questions, offer
comments, or try out the new words and structures. In those domains, the teacher usually makes an assessment on the students’ performances. In this
case, tasks can be one of the forms of assessment that the teacher can make. However, not every tasks and teaching activities in the classroom involve
assessment. Students in the classroom have to have the freedom to experiment and try out the language without feeling that their competence is
being judged in terms of trials and errors. In assessing the four skills, teachers have to think about the two
interacting concepts of performance and observation Brown, 2004: 117. When students perform the acts of listening, speaking, reading, and writing,
they rely on their underlying competence in order to accomplish their performance. In addition, when the teachers propose to assess the students’
ability in one of the combination of the four skills, teachers assess the students’ competences but they observe the students’ performances.
Below are the descriptions in assessing the four skills of the language.
a. Assessing Listening
In assessing listening, teachers can provide some tasks to the students. The assessment tasks Brown, 2004: 122-135 can be in the form of
intensive listening
minimal phonic pair recognition or paraphrase recognition,
selective listening
listening cloze, information transfer, or sentence
repetition, or
extensive listening
dictation, communicative stimulus- response tasks, or authentic listening tasks.
In scoring the listening tasks, one of the approaches in scoring method can be used. The score is defined as the number of the students successfully
completed, so that the number of the correct responses added up. For example, there are ten numbers in a task and the teacher gives ten points each
for the correct number and then summed up.
b. Assessing Reading
Teachers can design some assessment tasks for reading. According to Brown 2004: 190-215, the tasks can be in the form of
perceptive reading
reading aloud, written response, multiple-choice, or picture-cued items,
selective reading
multiple-choice for form-focused criteria, matching tasks, editing tasks, picture-cued tasks, or gap-filling tasks,
interactive reading
cloze tasks, impromptu reading plus comprehension questions, short-answer tasks, ordering tasks, etc., or
extensive reading
skimming tasks, summarising and responding, or note-taking and outlining.
The scoring method for assessing reading is similar with the scoring method for assessing listening. The teacher decides the score of each item in a
task and then summed up.
c. Assessing Speaking
In designing tasks for assessing speaking, teachers can use
imitative speaking
simple repetition tasks,
intensive speaking
directed response tasks, read-aloud tasks, sentence dialogue completion tasks and oral
questionnaires, etc.,
responsive speaking
question and answer, giving instructions and directions, or paraphrasing,
interactive speaking
interview, role-play, discussions and conversations, or games, or
extensive speaking
oral presentations or picture-cued story telling. For the scoring method, the scoring rubric can be used to define the
speaking score. The table below is the example of the speaking’s scoring rubric adapted from the oral proficiency scoring categories proposed by
Brown 2001, in Brown, 2004: 172-173.
Table 2.4: Scoring Rubric of Speaking. Aspect
Description Score
Grammar Errors in grammar are quite rare. Able to use
the language accurately. 25
Control of grammar is good. Able to speak the language with sufficient structural
accuracy. 20
Does not have confident control of the grammar.
Able to
handle elementary
constructions quite accurately. 15
Errors in grammar are frequent but still can be understood by the other speakers.
10 Vocabulary
Can understand and participate in any conversation with a high degree of precision
of vocabulary. 25
Able to speak the language within sufficient vocabulary to participate in the conversation.
Vocabulary is broad enough. 20
Has speaking vocabulary sufficient to express himself simply with some circumlocution.
15 Speaking vocabulary inadequate to express
anything but the most elementary needs. 10
Fluency Able to use the language fluently. Can
participate in any conversation with the high degree of fluency.
25 Can participate in any conversation with
minimum hesitation. Rarely to grope for words.
20 Can handle with confidence but not with
facility most social situation. Sometimes, 15
continued
speak with hesitation. Speak with hesitation. Not confidence in any
conversation. Usually grope for words. 10
Pronunciation Errors in pronunciation are quite rare.
25 Errors never interfere with understanding.
20 Errors in pronunciation sometimes occur.
15 Errors in pronunciation are frequent.
10
d. Assessing Writing
The tasks that can be used by the teachers to assess writing are varied. Those include
imitative writing
tasks in hand writing letters, words, and punctuation, spelling tasks, etc.,
intensive controlled writing
dictation and dicto-comp, grammatical transformation tasks, picture-cued tasks, vocabulary
assessment tasks, ordering tasks, short-answer and sentence completion tasks,
responsive and extensive writing
paraphrasing, guided question and answer, paragraph construction tasks, etc..
The scoring rubric can be used in defining the score for assessing writing. The example of scoring rubric for writing adapted from Brown and
Bailey 1984, in Brown, 2004: 244-245 is presented in a table below.
Table 2.5: Scoring Rubric for Writing. Aspects
Description Score
Content Can follow the assigned topic. The ideas
developed thoroughly. 25
Can follow the assigned topic but some points are missed. Ideas could be more fully
developed. 20
The development of the ideas is incomplete. Sometimes off the topic.
15 The ideas incomplete. Cannot consider the
topic carefully. 10
Grammar Advance proficiency in English grammar.
Some grammar problems don’t influence communication.
25
continued
continued