Assessing and Grading Presentations
Using presentations for assessment By Judith Mader by Judith Mader © Cambridge University Press 2012 © Cambridge University Press 2012
This article deals with how learner presentations can be used for assessment. By 'presentation' I mean a structured monologue of any length on one subject. It can be as simple, at low levels, as a personal introduction at a meeting, or as complex, at high levels, as an academicstyle lecture. The skills learners will need are basically the same for all the different types.
Why are presentations useful assessment tools?
Presentations are a useful way of assessing learners’ spoken language skills as they: • allow for individual assessment • do not seem like interrogations • assess authentic skills which many learners will need. Depending on the focus of the teaching context, emphasis can be placed on linguistic, communicative or other aspects. Individual oral assessment is important in many high-stakes contexts, where grades given for group assessment tasks are felt to be too heavily dependent on how others in the group perform. Oral assessment through individual interviews is often felt (by candidates and teachers) to be more like an interrogation than a real-life communicative task. In addition, time (often at a premium for oral assessment) is taken up by the examiner’s questions or prompts. A prepared monologue can allow individual assessment under time constraints.