Abstract
Topic familiarity is
an important issue for oral assessment. There may be factors (such as
readinesss through in-class activities or background knowledge of the students)
that affect students’success. Furthermore, familiarity with the ‘speaking exam’ topics before the
exams may contribute to this issue. Therefore, this study investigated if
students’ familiarity with the ‘speaking exam’ topics before the exams has a
positive effect on students’ speaking scores or not. The study was conducted at
Gaziantep University School of Foreign Languages with 245 students and 25
interviwers. The data was collected by means of interviews in three stages. The first and second stages were to examine the
difference between two different implementations about students’speaking topic
familiarity. The third stage was to investigate the opinions of the students about the implementation. The
results revealed that the students’ un/familiarity with the speaking topics
before the exams made no difference on the students’ speaking scores.
Keywords
References
- Alderson, J. C., & Wall, D. (1993). Does washback exist? Applied linguistics, 14(2), 115-129.Brown, H. D. (2000). Principles of language learning and teaching. White Plains, NY: Pearson Education.Chou Hare, V., & Devine, D. A. (1983). Topical knowledge and topical interest predictors of listening comprehension. The Journal of Educational Research, 76(3), 157-160.He, L., & Shi, L. (2012). Topical knowledge and ESL writing. Language Testing, 29(3), 443-464.Karimi, M. N. (2016). Prior topical knowledge and L2 proficiency as determinants of strategic processing in English for academic purposes multi-texts comprehension. Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, , 1-12. doi:10.1080/17501229.2016.1177058Khabbazbashi, N. (2015). Topic and background knowledge effects on performance in speaking assessment. Language Testing, 34(1), 23-48.Kitao, S. K., & Kitao, K. (1996). Testing Speaking.Mahmoudi, S., & Mahmoudi, A. (2017). Can topic familiarity override language proficiency in reading comprehension? Journal of Language Teaching and Research, 8(3), 496. doi:10.17507/jltr.0803.07Paker, T. (2013). The backwash effect of the test items in the achievement exams in preparatory classes. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 70, 1463-1471.Ruth, L., & Murphy, S. (1988). Designing writing tasks for the assessment of writing (Vol. 4). Greenwood Publishing Group.Woodrow, L. (2006). Anxiety and speaking English as a second language. RELC journal, 37(3), 308-328.
Abstract
Topic familiarity is
an important issue for oral assessment. There may be factors (such as
readinesss through in-class activities or background knowledge of the students)
that affect students’success. Furthermore, familiarity with the ‘speaking exam’ topics before the
exams may contribute to this issue. Therefore, this study investigated if
students’ familiarity with the ‘speaking exam’ topics before the exams has a
positive effect on students’ speaking scores or not. The study was conducted at
Gaziantep University School of Foreign Languages with 245 students and 25
interviwers. The data was collected by means of interviews in three stages. The first and second stages were to examine the
difference between two different implementations about students’speaking topic
familiarity. The third stage was to investigate the opinions of the students about the implementation. The
results revealed that the students’ un/familiarity with the speaking topics
before the exams made no difference on the students’ speaking scores.
Keywords
References
- Alderson, J. C., & Wall, D. (1993). Does washback exist? Applied linguistics, 14(2), 115-129.Brown, H. D. (2000). Principles of language learning and teaching. White Plains, NY: Pearson Education.Chou Hare, V., & Devine, D. A. (1983). Topical knowledge and topical interest predictors of listening comprehension. The Journal of Educational Research, 76(3), 157-160.He, L., & Shi, L. (2012). Topical knowledge and ESL writing. Language Testing, 29(3), 443-464.Karimi, M. N. (2016). Prior topical knowledge and L2 proficiency as determinants of strategic processing in English for academic purposes multi-texts comprehension. Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, , 1-12. doi:10.1080/17501229.2016.1177058Khabbazbashi, N. (2015). Topic and background knowledge effects on performance in speaking assessment. Language Testing, 34(1), 23-48.Kitao, S. K., & Kitao, K. (1996). Testing Speaking.Mahmoudi, S., & Mahmoudi, A. (2017). Can topic familiarity override language proficiency in reading comprehension? Journal of Language Teaching and Research, 8(3), 496. doi:10.17507/jltr.0803.07Paker, T. (2013). The backwash effect of the test items in the achievement exams in preparatory classes. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 70, 1463-1471.Ruth, L., & Murphy, S. (1988). Designing writing tasks for the assessment of writing (Vol. 4). Greenwood Publishing Group.Woodrow, L. (2006). Anxiety and speaking English as a second language. RELC journal, 37(3), 308-328.
Details
| Primary Language | English |
|---|---|
| Subjects | Studies on Education |
| Journal Section | Eğitim Bilimleri |
| Authors | |
| Publication Date | December 28, 2018 |
| Published in Issue | Year 2018 Volume: 2 Issue: 2 |
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.