Students and teachers' perceptions of speaking assessment at upper-High schools in vietnam

he questionnaire was carried out first, and 
then the interviews were carried out at each 
school, first the teacher interview followed by 
the student interviews. 
RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS 
Results from questionnaires for students 
 How often do you have speaking test? 
There are 70 answers as hardly ever, that 
takes up about 55% of the total. 36 answers as 
sometimes that accounts for 28.5% of the 
total. 20 answers as once or twice a term that 
accounts for 15.8 % of the total. Data 
obtained from the first question shows that 
most of the students hardly ever have 
speaking test during the school terms. 
 What types of task you are required to do? 
There are 80 answers as questions and 
answers, which accounts for 63.5% of the 
total. 20 answers for read aloud task which 
takes up 15.8% of the total. 10 students said 
that they played in roles which accounts for 
7.9% of the total. Few answers for the other 
options. The data reveals that teachers used 
questions and answers mostly when they 
conduct speaking task types. 
 Do you know how you are assessed? 
126 responses are negative. That means 
students do not know on what criteria they are 
assessed during the speaking test. That also 
means that they do not know what to focus on 
while doing the speaking test. 
 Do you like speaking test? 
92 students said they do not like the speaking 
test, which is 73% of the total. 12 answers are 
positive. That means only 9.5% of the 
students said that they like speaking test. 24 
answers are negative which accounts for 
17.4%. The data shows that most of the 
students do not like the speaking test. 
 Do you think that speaking ability is more 
important than other language skills? 
The answers are surprising that 112 students 
said that other skills are more important 
which takes up 89% of the total. Only 3 
students said that speaking is more important 
that accounts for only 2.3%. 15 students did 
not have an idea about the importance of 
speaking. 
Results from questionnaires for teachers 
 Have you had any trainings about 
assessment? 
12 out of 15 teachers said that they have very 
limited knowledge about language 
assessment, which takes up 80% of the total. 
Only one teacher said that she had learned 
about assessment at university but did not 
remember much about it. Two of the teachers 
said that they studied English in an in-service 
program so they did not learn about language 
assessment. The data show that teachers at 
upper-high schools have very limited 
knowledge about language assessment in 
general and speaking assessment in particular. 
 What are the types of task do you use to 
assess speaking? 
Nguyễn Thị Diệu Hà Tạp chí KHOA HỌC & CÔNG NGHỆ 191(15): 245 - 250 
249 
10 teachers said that they just used questions 
and answers as the popular task type (67%). 
Three teachers said that they used role-play 
tasks (20%). Two teachers said that they used 
other types of task. The data shows that 
teachers used just few task types. Most of the 
tasks are responsive type. 
 What criteria do you use to assess speaking 
ability? 
8 out of teacher said that the speaking 
assessment criteria are on grammar and 
vocabulary (53%). Four teachers said that 
they used both macro and micro criteria when 
marking students. Three teachers said that 
they give marks holistically that means they 
combined varieties of criteria of assessment. 
The data reveals a fact that teachers take 
serious attentions on grammar when assessing 
non-grammar aspects of language. 
 Do you know about these types of speaking 
assessment? 
Only two teachers know a little bit about 
criterion assessment because they had just 
took an exam on CEFR. Most of the 
interviewers have no ideas of the listed 
speaking assessment. 
Results from interviews 
Three teachers of English at different schools 
are selected for the semi-structured interview. 
They are selected because they have just 
passed the C1 level exam and they seemed to 
have better understanding of speaking task 
types and assessing speaking criteria. The 
researcher asked the first teacher some 
questions about problems she encountered 
when conducting speaking assessment. She 
confessed that she does not do many speaking 
activities as well as speaking test while 
teaching. The reason for that is that the 
students are not interested in speaking. They 
just want to do the written test to strengthen 
grammar and reading ability. The other 
reason is that the large class size prevents her 
from doing speaking activities. She wants to 
teach a smaller class so that she can help 
students develop oral skills. 
The second teacher said that he ignores most 
of the speaking activities in class because he 
did not have enough time to do the task. 
Besides, he has limited understanding about 
language assessment. He would like to attend 
a course specified on language testing and 
assessment. 
The third teacher said that she is aware of the 
importance of speaking skill and she really 
want to help students to talk in the class but 
the constrains of the curriculum prevents her 
from doing time-consuming speaking 
activities. She said that she expect some 
changes in the way of graduation exam so that 
the focus of teaching will be on oral skills. 
CONCLUSION 
By conducting a research to investigate 
speaking practice at three upper-high schools 
in Thai Nguyen province with 126 students 
and 15 teachers of English, the conclusion is 
that: 
 Teachers do not spend much time and 
energy on the speaking skill. In other 
words, the focus of teaching is not on oral 
communication just because of the exam-
based curriculum. 
 Teachers do not have sufficient 
understanding of speaking and assessment 
as well as speaking task types. 
Implication 
The influence of the exam-based curriculum 
has had bad washback on both teaching and 
learning of oral skills at upper-high schools. 
This is the cause of unbalanced attention has 
been paid to teaching and learning of 
speaking and listening which are the main 
attentions of communicative teaching. In 
coming years, there should be alternative 
forms of assessment for those who expect to 
develop their oral skill. One of the possible 
solutions is that we can have oral exams 
through out the school year. Those who gain 
good achievement in those exams will not be 
required to take the final exam for graduation, 
or they may still sit for the exam if they want 
some plus marks for the other subjects. There 
should be changes in the way language is test 
in the final exam so that the focus of teaching 
shift from exam-based to competence based 
to develop full language ability. 
Nguyễn Thị Diệu Hà Tạp chí KHOA HỌC & CÔNG NGHỆ 191(15): 245 - 250 
250 
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TÓM TẮT 
NHẬN THỨC CỦA GIÁO VIÊN VÀ HỌC SINH TRONG VIỆC ĐÁNH GIÁ 
KỸ NĂNG NÓI TẠI CÁC TRƯỜNG THPT Ở VIỆT NAM 
Nguyễn Thị Diệu Hà* 
Khoa Ngoại ngữ - ĐH Thái Nguyên 
Thực tế cho thấy bộ sách giáo khoa tiếng Anh mới được biên soạn bởi GS. Hoàng Văn Vân và các 
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chí để đánh giá kỹ năng Nói. 
Từ khóa: nhận thức; đánh giá kỹ năng Nói; đánh giá ngôn ngữ; học ngôn ngữ; tiêu chí đánh giá 
Ngày nhận bài: 12/12/2018; Ngày hoàn thiện: 26/12/2018; Ngày duyệt đăng: 28/12/2018 
*
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