Oral Testing and Self-Assessment- The way forward?

Traditional methods of testing which still prevail in Korea mean that there is very little time for Conversational English in the test-driven secondary classroom, despite introduction of recent advances in language teaching methodology. This paper suggests that the use of English can only be promoted in schools by incorporating an "Oral Test " into the overall testing requirements, and that self assessment by students of those tests can be a valuable additional means of improving oral abilities. A test was developed focusing on the improvement in spoken English of 1700 Freshman University students over an academic year (64 hours). This was administered and evaluated using established oral-test criteria. Grading was relative, looking at improvement rather than level of achievement, and the Conversation-English course taken by the students was the basis of the test. Results showed that: i) preparation for the test necessitated active spoken participation in lessons; ii) lessons tended to utilize task-based communicative teaching methods; iii) the means became the end- the test was not only a reason for developing oral skills, but also a means of achieving that goal. I