The assessment of speaking skills: Perceptions and reported practices of secondary school teachers

Speaking is a core skill that is fundamental regarding learning English as a second language. Mastering the speaking ability in the target language (TL)is considered a must; thus, the assessment of the speaking skills is highly sought after to ensure the development of the English language learners. In Turkey, there is a perception that even the learners with an adequate and even excellent competency in reading, listening, writing, and a high-level proficiency in English grammar rules have a hard time mastering the speaking skill and implementing it into their everyday life. However, considering students start learning English as early as second grade, the incompetency or inability to speak fluently in the target language indicates a problem that needs to be addressed. A considerable amount of research concerning English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in Turkey has disclosed numerous issues encountered by English language learners and teachers regarding assessing and evaluating the speaking skill. This study aims to scrutinize Turkish secondary school EFL teachers' perceptions and reported practices regarding the assessment of speaking in TL. This research also focuses on problems EFL teachers encounter and their recommendations on the solutions concerning the evaluation of the speaking skill. This paper seeks its answers through the EFL teachers' responses who work at EFL departments in a Turkish context. The qualitative data in this study was derived within two phases. In the first phase of the research, a questionnaire with open-ended and "yes or no" questions completed by 42 participants, and a focus group interview conducted with seven volunteers. Based on the thematic analysis of the participants' answers who contributed to the questionnaire and the focus group interview, the following results have been revealed. EFL teachers reported that they encounter several setbacks during the implementation of the speaking assessment process such as class size, time restrictions, the objectivity of assessment, finding the right tools for evaluation, focusing on the proper assessment criteria, speaking and test anxiety students go through and making sure that the assessment is fair, valid and reliable. Diversity in activities, personalization of assessment tools and activities according to the student differences, effective use of corrective feedback to prepare students for speaking assessment, focusing on the right grading criteria and use of target language in the classroom to ensure students get substantial exposure was deemed as solutions to make the English speaking assessment process more efficient. Lastly, EFL teachers stated that for the assessment of the speaking to be effective, the professional development of the educators is also required.