Talking the talk: oracy demands in first year university assessment tasks

Doherty, C. , Kettle, M., May, L. and Caukill, E. (2011) Talking the talk: oracy demands in first year university assessment tasks. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy and Practice, 18(1), pp. 27-39. (doi: 10.1080/0969594X.2010.498775)

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Abstract

With more constructivist approaches to learning in higher education and more value on teamwork skills, students' oracy (speaking and listening) features more prominently in curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. The paper reports on a study of two first‐year Australian university courses in disciplines with explicit industry orientations and high proportions of international students. Drawing on classroom observations and interviews with the lecturers, this paper investigates their pedagogical designs on oracy and the oracy demands of their assessment tasks. The study found that talk‐based assessment tasks (a group project and a group oral presentation) featured in both courses but the two courses treated students' oracy differently: as product or process. The contrast between the two assessment designs explicates issues around EAL (English as an additional language) student needs, authentic links to industry, the provenance of criteria used to assess performance, perceptions about the relevance of talk and the ‘hidden assessment’ of oracy.

Item Type:Articles
Status:Published
Refereed:Yes
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID:Doherty, Prof Catherine
Authors: Doherty, C., Kettle, M., May, L., and Caukill, E.
College/School:College of Social Sciences > School of Education
Journal Name:Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy and Practice
Publisher:Taylor & Francis
ISSN:0969-594X
ISSN (Online):1465-329X
Published Online:25 January 2011

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