Study Of Scoring Reliability In Oral English Test Of Grade 9

Oral English test can, in an effective way, examine and evaluate students' competence of using oral English with high validity. But the assessments for students' oral English are mainly from examiners' subjective judgments, so the discrepancy of scorers' professional skills, testing experiences and personality inevitably influence their judgments, reflected on the examinee's scores. It is very difficult for the scorers to reach an absolute agreement in grasping the evaluation standard.This thesis expounds the theories of language test and oral English testing reliability, then studies the relevant research results in China. It is written after studying the literature review, doing the oral English test experiment and questionnaire. The research on promoting scoring reliability of oral English test carries out in Grade 9 of Jiangsu Province Suzhou No.10 Middle School and it tries to find out ways of making the highly subjective test more objective and scientific.The experiment analyses the correlation coefficient, paired-samples t-test, Cronbach reliability coefficient and compares the variances of scoring reliability among examiners in different groups. The results show that having a normative training before scoring is important for promoting scoring reliability and decreasing the variances among examiners in different groups. The results also show that the four parts of the oral test, which have the same score, have different impacts on the total score.The assessment of students' oral English is an important part of evaluation for English teaching. Promoting scoring reliability of oral English test can bring in a positive washback for English teaching. The analysis of four-part score results can make oral English teaching more focused.