Establishing criteria for assessing spoken interaction: from genre-based pedagogy to classroom practice

Abstract

Traditionally, assessment criteria for spoken genres have neglected their monologic or dialogic characteristics and have been unspecific on interactional skills. The aim of this paper is to propose a framework for the creation of relevant assessment criteria for spoken interaction. To do so, we start with genre-based pedagogy and apply it to spoken interactional genres. Previous studies indicate that learners do not distinguish the specific requirements of a spoken interaction task. Therefore, our proposal is to design assessment criteria based on the families of discourse genres. Our aim is twofold: on the one hand, to provide teachers with a framework that facilitates the creation of specific assessment criteria based on genres of the same discourse family. On the other hand, to highlight specific assessment criteria for spoken interaction to achieve a washback effect by including these interactional resources in the teaching.