An Experimental Study On The Effectiveness Of Oral Tests For Chinese Learners Of English

This study investigated the effectiveness of the current English speaking tests through analyzing the advantages and disadvantages of various types of English speaking tests. The test takers were the Chinese undergraduate students who studied English as the second language.Based on the previous research results, this study raised the following research questions:1) What is the preference of the Chinese learners for the following English speaking assessments: computer-assisted test, examiner/examinee test, and the oral group test? What factors influence such preference? Is there any trend? 2) What are the different performances of the Chinese learners of English in the different English speaking tests and what factors influence their performances? 3) What are the psychology activities of these Chinese learners of English when they take various English speaking tests? 4) What are the criteria of the examiners and what factors influence these criteria? 5) What types of English speaking tests have the positive effects on the Chinese learners' English learning and what types of English speaking tests have the negative effects?In order to answer these research questions, this study conducted the following experiments:1) the large sample (n=400) questionnaire; 2) the computer-assisted English speaking test experimental study (n=10); 3) the examiner/examinee English speaking test experimental study (n=10); 4) the oral group test experimental study (n=10). Qualitative and quantitative studies showed the following results:first, the group oral test was mostly preferred by the test takers while the computer-assisted test was the least preferred. Besides, the higher English proficiency the test takers had, the more preference they had for the group oral test, while the lower English proficiency the test takers had, the more preference they had for the computer-assisted oral test. Second, the rates showed that the test takers had the highest scores in the group oral test, indicating that they performed the best in that test while the test takers were rated the lowest scores in the computer-assisted oral test, indicating that their performance was the worst in such test. In terms of the quality of the performance, the test takers' mistakes were corrected the least in the computer-assisted oral test because they did not notice it, and/or they could not self-correct it due to the constraint of the limited English proficiency. In contrast, the test takers' mistakes were corrected the most in the examiner/examinee oral test by the examiners or by themselves. In terms of the quantity of the test takers' performance, they spoke the least in the computer-assisted oral test while the most in the group oral test. Third, in general, the test takers suffered the slightest anxiety in the group oral test while suffered the most anxiety in the computer-assisted oral test. Further investigation showed that the test takers with the lower English proficiency were impacted by the test anxiety in the group oral test the most while they were influenced by the anxiety in the computer-assisted oral test the least. However, the situation of the test takers with the higher English proficiency was the opposite way. Fourth, in general, both Chinese and English raters focused on the following criteria:fluency, accuracy, intelligibility (or the understandable information), grammar, and pronunciation. However, the English raters tended to rank the importance of the rating rubrics according to the types of the tests while the Chinese raters tended to keep the same rank of the importance of the rating rubrics. Fifth, the group oral test and the examiner/examinee oral test had the positive effect on the test takers' English learning because the test takers got the assistance from either the examiners or the other examinees in these two tests. In other words, the test takers were helped by others to express themselves with the appropriate English expressions so that their memory of these expressions was enhanced. However, because the computer-assisted oral test could not provide any interaction with others to the test takers, the test takers did not know the appropriate expressions during the test. In addition, it is more likely for the test takers to underestimate their English proficiency in the computer-assisted oral test and as a result, their English learning motivation would be decreased. From this point of view, the computer-assisted oral test has the negative effect on the learners' English acquisition.The innovation of this research lies in three aspects. First, the study compared three forms of English oral tests through both qualitative and quantitative analysis. Second, varieties of experimental methods. There are three methods for data gathering in qualitative research.1) open questions in questionnaires; 2) motivational recall by the test takers; 3) tape-scripts analysis. Quantitative research methods include questionnaires, statistics of the test takers' scores and quantitative data analysis. And finally, the number of variables controlled by the experiments is more than previous research of the same kind.