Paired Oral Tests: A Literature Review

Abstract

This paper reviews the studies on paired oral tests in the last ten years (2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015)(2016)(2017). Using the search facilities in Iowa State University's library, nine articles from some journals in the field of applied linguistics were chosen based on the inclusion criteria. Those journals are Language Testing, Language Assessment Quarterly, Applied Linguistics, and Procedia -Social and Behavioral Science. Three reasons why paired oral tests are better than interview test or individual format test are then discussed. Those are promoting and improving students' interactional competence, creating students' co-constructed discourse, and providing insights for better scale development and rater training. Paired oral tests provide opportunities for students to interact with peers in the tests, enable them to practice and improve their interactional competence. Paired oral tests also enable students to co-construct their discourse, even though there is an issue of grading the scores individually or collaboratively. The last is, more information about students' and raters' perception were gained that helps improve the rating scale and inform rater training. This paper is concluded with the call for more studies on paired oral tests to provide more insights into this complex process of creating co-constructed discourse and how to validly and reliably test both its process and product.

Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) for the Assessment of Speaking

“…As has been noted by Malone and Montee (2010), though OPIs are implemented by trained and certified testers, "…human error is inevitable and can be limited but not eliminated" (p. 978). In this regard, pairing or even grouping the test-takers and asking them to interact with each other may help remedy this weakness (Brooks, 2009;Brown & Abeywickrama, 2018;Green, 2021;Hırçın Çoban, 2017;Jankowska & Zielińska, 2015;Louma, 2004;Prasetyo, 2018;Sandlund et al, 2016) because, as has been reported by Ahmadi and Sadeghi (2016) and Brooks (2009), positive washback, more natural discourse and more various language functions can be attained and the workload of the rater in terms of time, effort and cost may be reduced. Moreover, when test-takers are paired or grouped, they tend to feel less anxious in comparison to the traditional OPI (Hırçın Çoban, 2017).…”