LISTENING AND SPEAKING TEST ESSAY

At the moment we talk about assessment in education we think that is an ongoing process
that encompasses a wide range of methodological techniques. A good teacher never ceases to
assess students, whether those assessment are incidental or intended and one of the techniques is
assess students is through tests. For students listening and speaking tests are the more difficult
part because they don’t practice listen and speak part and the most of the time they misunderstand
instructions and guidelines. In this essay we are going to explain about planning the test,
administration, evaluations analysis and teacher experience .Finally, we are going to show what
we got from this experience.
Firstly, at the moment we planned the tests we have consider the English level of the
students, then we considered to reinforced students in listening and speaking skill and we applied
a test of units 3 and 4 from the “English Book” at Unidad Educativa Agropecuaria “Luis A.
Martinez” in which there are 45 students from eight year “B”. But for the analysis we have taken
12 students as a sample. Those 5 were women and 7 men, they are among 12 to 13 years old.
None of them have any special ability. They all can write, read, listen, and normally speak. The
classroom was quite comfortable. The exam lasted 90 minutes over 10 points.
Regarding to the statistical analysis we have obtained the following report, which is based on a
grade scale that contains number grades, percentages, and grade definitions.

The test was applied to 12 students. According to the table, six students got 7 points in
listening test that represent 50% and the grade definition shows us that the students’ marks are in
a normal range. These students will manage to get through the level as long as they keep studying
and brushing up on the second language, English. Then, four students got 6 points that represents
33% and the grade definition shows us that the student´s grade is not enough. The students could
pass the level if they devote more time to English language. And two students got 5 points that
represents 17% and the grade definition shows us that the student’s grades are low. They have
inadequate grates to could fail the level and it reflects that they need to improve their listening
skill.
According to the table four students in the speaking test got 6 points that represent 33%
and the grade definition shows us that the students´ marks are not in a normal range but this range
is the higher grade. Students’ mistakes are related with pronunciation and fluency errors are
acceptable because the pauses are not interfere with intelligibility. Then, five students got 5 points
that represents 42% and the grade definition shows us that the testers are not able to communicate
because they give incomprehensible ideas and they make a lot of pauses when they are talking.
The students must improve the level if they practice speaking in class to pass the level. And just
three students got 4 points that represents 25% and the grade definition shows us that the student’s
grades are terrible and worried and it reflects that needs to learn how to speak by some extra
activities. They were in silence, they spent a lot of time thinking before saying nothing, and they
had seriously incorrect pronunciation.

As a result of this analysis, we reached a conclusion that listening and speaking tests are
difficult for students because it takes too much time to develop and understand the test. In
addition, students didn´t have a previous background of English because they didn´t have an
English teacher two months ago. Furthermore, we realized that students aren´t familiarize with
speaking and listening activities in the class because the teacher´s planning is not focus in those
skills. Students need to listen more activities and speak in class since they will enhance their skills.
Even though, in some questions they failed because of the lack of practice in vocabulary. Or just
because of nervousness.

At the moment of designing the speaking test, we focused on intensive in dialogue

complete tasks, the students were not able to answer correctly because the complexity of
developing the language, despite of the guidelines were clear, they could not performance this
question. As the same time, in question number 4, students did not get in how we expected by the
reason of map-cued elicitation of giving directions are not the students’ strengths because they
didn’t identify the preposition of places. On the other hand by designing listening test, we focused
on selective listening with cloze technique, students can not recognize the present continuous.

Finally, this experience has been marvelous since we approached the listening and
speaking part in the students and they had an evidence that they must improve their listening and
speaking assessment in order to make them more engaged with the test, and to know what the
objective of the tests were. Their doubts at the end of the test were clarified. Then, according our
point of view, types of questions and instructions the students had troubles in understanding.
Furthermore, after making an outcome analysis we felt worried because the average of the results
are not acceptable because they are low, as a fact students got less than 6 and 7 is the minimum
grade. Also, in order to contribute with the students´ welfare we gave feedback to each student
after the test with their own rubric.

In conclusion, everybody wants to communicate in English. It is how we discover new

things. Movies, songs, conversations, role plays, debates, discussions and so on and even the
internet are great learning tools which require the ability to listen and speak. With listening and
speaking a person can go anywhere in the world or even out of it.