Conversations as a Holistic Assessment Tool : An Action Research Report

As Japanese educational policy places greater emphasis on spoken communication skills (MEXT, 26 September 2014), a greater need arises for appropriate assessments that can provide meaningful information to all stakeholders. This paper presents data collected from student performances on an experimental spoken English assessment task conducted at a Japanese university. Designed as the foundation for a reconstructed English communication curriculum for first-year university students enrolled in compulsory English classes (Tempest, 2018), the assessment task elicited free-form conversation, which was then transcribed and analyzed for specific metrics of spoken L2 output. Data deriving from student-generated transcriptions of recorded conversations included total words spoken, total turns taken, average turn length, and longest turn length. Preliminary analysis of the data indicates positive student gains over the course of the semester. As an investigative report of the assessment task trial period, few claims can be made at this point. However, future studies are forthcoming with support from JSPS KAKENHI grant number 19K13309