Your Roadmap to Speaking Exam Success

Day 3: Assessment Criteria

Welcome to Day 3 of 'Your Roadmap to Speaking Exam Success'. Hopefully you now have a clear idea what you have to do in your Speaking exam. Today we'll look at how you'll be assessed.

If you've had the chance to look at the handbook for your exam you'll know that each section of the Speaking Paper has a particular focus. For example, during the opening 'getting-to-know-you' phase the focus is usually on your ability to use language for social purposes, such as making introductions and answering questions. In the long turn section the focus will be on skills such as being able to speak at length clearly, using language to state an opinion, being able to describe, compare and contrast etc. In the discussion stage you'll need to show you're able to keep a discussion going, ask for and give opinions, agree and disagree, develop comments made by your partner or the examiner and generate new ideas.

How well you do in these tasks will depend on your proficiency in English and the examiner will use general criteria to grade you. Most exams will include the following criteria:

Grammar and vocabulary
Discourse management
Pronunciation
Interactive communication (in paired interviews)

It's important that you understand what all these criteria mean so that you have a clear idea of how you'll be assessed - which brings us to today's tasks.

Task

1) For a general idea of what these criteria mean try our quiz on exam assessment criteria:
http://www.splendid-speaking.com/exams/speaking_assessment.html
2) Once you're clear what these areas mean refer to your handbook to get an accurate picture of how the criteria apply to your exam.

Tomorrow

How do you feel you'll stand up to this assessment? Tomorrow you'll get the chance to set some personal goals to help you with your 'Roadmap to Exam Success'!

Day 3 Links

Links to external websites
CAE
CPE
Bec Higher
BULATS
IELTS
ILEC
ICFE



Yes! Tell me more about The Splendid Speaking Course

Ready to commit to really improving your fluency, accuracy and confidence in speaking English? Then sign up now for the Splendid Speaking Course Volumes 1 and 2 ....
Buy ... | Tell me more ...