A Preliminary Study on Classroom Based Assessment for English Speaking Performance Among Year 5 Pupils in An Urban School
Atika Eli1*, Hamidah Yamat1
1 Faculty of Education, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia
*Corresponding Author: [email protected] Accepted: 15 December 2021 | Published: 31 December 2021
DOI:https://doi.org/10.55057/ijares.2021.3.4.5
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Abstract: Assessing learners’ spoken language can be a complex process especially in assessing a second or foreign language. Appropriate assessment tools are vital as the language is not their mother tongue and the use of the language is also limited. This article presents a preliminary study on the use of Classroom Based Assessment (CBA) with the purpose of identifying young learners’ speaking performance to help teachers determine the interventions needed in the teaching and learning process. The study involved 199 Year 5 pupils at an urban school in Bintulu, Sarawak. Data were collected through document analysis of students’ CBA Speaking Evaluation Form. Findings revealed that 122/199 students (61%) were at low proficiency levels (Band 1-3) and only 28/199 (14%) were at levels 5 and 6. This implies that the CBA managed to determine learners’ proficiency as it is an ongoing assessment. This also implies that CBA is more relevant than the national examination, whereby the assessment was limited to only reading and writing skills.
Keywords: speaking skills, classroom-based assessment, English as a Second Language (ESL) _________________________________________________________________________
1. Introduction
English has increasingly become the choice of language for communication in many areas;
both locally and globally. It is also one of the basic knowledge expertise highlighted as very important for employment (Paneerselvam & Mohamad, 2019). However, despite learning English language in both primary and secondary school, students still face challenges to speak the language confidently (Nadesan & Parilah, 2020). To add, the speaking skill is not given adequate attention in the teaching and learning process as its assessment is not included in the overall measurement of the national examination. Hence, students may score a distinction (A) in the national examination for English subject but this may not reflect their speaking competency. In other words, the national examination does not reflect students’ holistic language competency. In line with this, the Classroom-Based Assessment (CBA) was introduced for teachers to assess and evaluate pupils’ progress regularly (Norhasim &
Mohamad, 2020). This includes assessing students’ speaking skills.
This paper aims to demonstrate the use of CBA as a tool to assess speaking skills by presenting the preliminary findings of a study on good second language (L2) learners’ speaking skill practices in a Sarawak urban school. The purpose of the preliminary study was to measure the Year 5 pupils’ performance in speaking skills prior to determining the good learners. Details of the methodological concerns of the preliminary study are presented in the section after a
brief review of relevant literature. The discussion presented focuses on the use of CBA as an appropriate tool to assess speaking skill.
2. Literature Review
Teaching and Learning of Speaking Skills in Malaysia’s Classroom
Hymes (1971) believes that L2 learners are required to know both the linguistic knowledge and the culturally appropriate ways to interact with others in diverse situations. He further believes that communicative competence is composed of grammatical, psycholinguistic, sociolinguistic, and language components. Similarly, speaking skill is influenced by several components which are grammatical competence, discourse competence, sociolinguistic competence, and strategic competence. Firstly, grammatical competence concerns the ESL learners’ knowledge of syntax, vocabulary, and letter and syllable sounds, as well as intonation, and stress (Scarcella & Oxford, 1992; Derakhshan et al., 2016). Knowledge on this feature helps speakers to use English language structures accurately and immediately (Richards &
Renandya, 2002). Secondly, discourse competence involves the application of rules of cohesion and coherence. Hence, an effective speaker would be able to perceive and process stretches of discourse and to formulate representations of meaning from referents in both previous sentences and following sentences (Richards & Renandya, 2002). Thirdly, sociolinguistic competence concerns the familiarity of ESL learners with the culture of native speakers. Thus, this would enable them to use the target language with the acceptance by native speakers. Lastly, strategic competence means the ability of appropriate use of language whereby learners manipulate language to meet communicative goals (Brown, 2006).
Meanwhile, there are several factors influencing learners’ speaking competence, such as cognitive factors, linguistic factors and affective factors (Derakhshan et al., 2016). Cognitive factors concern with speaking processes which consist of conceptualization, formation and articulation, whereby they are the process of selecting information to express meaning, the ability to use proper words and the speakers’ requirement to articulate the speech. These processes happen concurrently, it is contingent that learners make mistakes, especially in face- to-face communication. Linguistic factors involve features like grammar and vocabulary, in which the implementation of correct use of grammar (Larsen-Freeman, 2001), as well as vocabulary is essential yet challenging for ESL learners. Thirdly, affective factors concern with the anxiety and self-restrictions (Derakhshan et al., 2016), whereby this factor affects a learner’s oral proficiency, thus influencing their achievement in language classroom (Zhang &
Jia, 2006).
In relation to assessment, the most current move to improve teaching and learning, particularly in language teaching and learning is the alignment of the curriculum with the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR). CEFR was established in 2001 to provide international standards for foreign language education that would meet the needs of language learners, academics, and other professionals involved in language assessment, teaching, and learning. The CEFR framework, according to Göksu (2015), is designed to improve educational language in terms of reflection, communication, and networking. It outlines the processes that language learners must take in order to converse in a language. The framework includes six levels of descriptors for categorising learners' ability to use a language. Language users are divided into three categories: skilled (levels C1 and C2), independent (levels B1 and B2), and basic (levels B1 and B2) (levels A1 & A2). "Can do" statements for listening, writing, reading, and speaking skills are detailed descriptions of what children are capable of (Uri &
Aziz, 2018). Curriculum designers and policymakers should examine the existing curriculum,
which emphasises on workbook drills to develop grammatical accuracy. When it comes to real- world communication, students are being denied this type of learning. To improve students' fluency, a curriculum that gives ample opportunities for them to develop interpersonal and presentation skills is required. Fluency should be valued more than accuracy in the educational system, and students should be given multiple opportunities to present and role play. These types of activities would aid students in overcoming their fear of public speaking and improving their fluency.
Therefore, teachers play an essential influence in lowering nervousness and inhibitions in students. This will be in action while teachers are planning and executing a task, as well as assessing pupils' performance. Apart from instructors' methods for teaching speaking in school, Ansari (2015) discovered that teachers' choice of activities had a significant impact on students' anxiety levels. Misbah, Mohamad, Yunus, and Ya'acob (2017) support this idea, stating in their study that teachers should play an important part in establishing activities that would help students develop their vocabulary, which will help them enhance their speaking skills.
Classroom-based assessment (CBA)
In general, classroom assessment involves assessment of learning, assessment as learning and assessment for learning (Pattalitan Jr., 2016). The main factor which leads to the implementation of classroom assessment around the world is that too much emphasis has been given on tests and examinations to which it has overlooked knowledge acquisition, skills and values; such is also happening in Malaysia (Ilhavenil & Nor’Aidah, 2018). Classroom assessment is not seen as more convincing as teachers need to collect enough evidence on students’ achievement and their current development in order to improve their learning.
In Malaysia, classroom assessment has undergone various improvements and updates. In 2017, classroom assessment in Malaysia is more commonly known as Pentaksiran Bilik Darjah (PBD). As mentioned earlier, CBA is an ongoing process during the teaching and learning session in order to obtain information on development, progress, abilities and pupils’ mastery of the intended curriculum goals. It also follows the same dimension of assessment which are assessment for learning, assessment of learning and assessment as learning. As adhered to by the Ministry of Education, teachers are required to assess students continuously and gather information and evidence on the students’ progress in a formal or non-formal way in order to decide their level of mastery. Teachers carry out various methods of assessments such as observations, oral presentations, quizzes, question and answer, task sheets or written assignments to document pupils’ progress in learning. For documentation, teachers can keep track of students’ progress in the record book, exercise book, notebook, checklist, schedules or through other appropriate tools. The performance levels (Bands 1-6) are based on specific descriptors and learning standards and are recorded in a reporting template after the teachers have completed the Content and Learning Standards. For instance, in English language subject, performance level will be given based on the four main language skills. Thus, students’
assessment is more specific based on each language skill. Unlike the Primary School National Examination (UPSR), emphasis is only given towards reading skill, writing skill, grammar and vocabulary. Norafizah Mohd (2018) stated that writing, reading skills are given more emphasis due to the dimension and features of UPSR which uses written-form examination. Therefore, CBA is more specific yet holistic whereby all language skills are assessed continuously.
Moreover, the abolition of UPSR has put more emphasis on students’ records as the main evidence of showing their progress and to further their study especially from primary to the secondary school. CBA also would enable teachers and administrators to assess students in relation to curriculum and assessment requirements (Lewkowicz & Leung, 2021).
With regards to assessing speaking skills, CBA is perceived as more relevant than the national examination where students are assessed meaningfully and holistically (Ilhavenil &
Nor’Aidah, 2018) based on Malaysia curriculum’s learning standards. Hence, it is crucial for primary school teachers to evaluate the pupils’ performance based on CBA as it would require teachers to assess students’ language skills based on the curriculum standards and specific descriptors provided for English subject.
4. Methodology
The purpose of this preliminary study was to determine students’ speaking skills through CBA.
Due to the current pandemic situation where there was limited access to schools, the study was conducted in a school accessible to the researcher. The school is an urban primary school, located in the centre of the town in Bintulu, Sarawak. Similarly, as the researcher only has access to the Year 5 pupils, the pupils in all Year 5 classes (5B, 5I, 5D, 5N and 5Z) were involved. Hence the total number of pupils was 199. This means that the sample size (n) was also the population size (N) of this study.
Based on the diagnostic test for English language proficiency conducted by the school in Mac 2021, pupils in 5B were found to have moderate to high level (Band 4 - 6) of English proficiency while the other four classes performed at moderate to low (Band 1-3) proficiency level. As reported by the teachers teaching these classes, pupils from these four classes were observed to be reluctant to speak in English. Meanwhile, the pupils in 5B were observed conversing with each other in English all the time.
The data collection method employed in this study was document analysis where the pupils’
speaking performances recorded on the CBA Speaking Evaluation Form (Appendix A) were analysed. The analysis was done by five English subject teachers who have five to ten years of teaching experience. The quantitative descriptive analysis characterizes the phenomenon by identifying patterns in data to answer questions about who, what, where, when, and to what extent (Loeb et al., 2017). The rubrics for CBA speaking skill assessment (Appendix B) was used in conducting the descriptive analysis and the rubrics were taken from the English Year 5 DSKP (2019); that is the Curriculum and Assessment Standard Document. There are six levels of performance in speaking skills and each level has four to five aspects to be measured during the assessment. All aspects were then analysed and tabulated in a table. Any prominent insights such as the most number of levels achieved by the pupils were recorded and interpreted.
4. Findings and Discussion
The main objective of this study was to identify the levels of performance in speaking skills among Year 5 pupils in their CBA assessment. The following Table 1 shows the performance level of the pupils according to their classes.
Table 1: Analysis of Pupils’ speaking skill performance level
Class Performance level Number of
pupils
1 2 3 4 5 6
5B 1 0 0 13 21 7 42
5I 3 35 0 0 0 0 38
5N 8 24 8 0 0 0 40
5D 0 15 22 1 0 0 38
5Z 0 0 6 35 0 0 41
Number of
pupils 12 74 36 49 21 7 199
The findings show that 12 (6%) pupils achieved level 1, 74 (37%) pupils achieved level 2, 36 (18%) pupils achieved level 3, 49 (25%) pupils achieved level 4, 21 (11%) pupils achieved level 5 and 7 (3%) pupils achieved level 6. This means that majority of the students that is 122 (61%) have low speaking proficiency level as the Ministry of Education (2019) has determined the required minimum performance level for all subjects and skills is level 3. This may be due to the factors discussed earlier - cognitive, linguistic and affective factors. Some students may face difficulties to express meaning, unable to use proper words and articulate speech. Besides, these students may lack knowledge in grammar and vocabulary which may have led to difficulties in articulating speeches. Also, the lack may make them prone to have anxiety and restrictions whenever they try to converse in English (Derakhshan et al., 2016). As discussed by Zhang and Jia (2006), the difficulties faced by the students influenced their achievement in the language classroom.
Complement to the purpose of the study, the results above show that there were 28 pupils achieved levels 5 and 6. Based on the Performance Standards Guide for Speaking Skills from DSKP English Year 5 (2019), those who achieve levels 5 and 6 are able to communicate simple information about themselves clearly by providing a lot of relevant details, managing interaction and classroom tasks appropriately by sustaining communication most of the time, describing people, places and things clearly using suitable statements with some relevant details and narrating short basic stories and events with clear diction and articulation. Hence, these pupils are regarded as good language speakers of English especially those who have achieved level 6, where they are able to sustain communication naturally and confidently then also display an exemplary model of language use and guide others. Table 2 below shows a sample of the teachers’ notes in assessing a pupil who has achieved performance level 6 based on the CBA Speaking Evaluation Form.
Table 2: Sample of Teachers’ Notes on a Student who has Achieved Performance Level 6 (CBA Speaking Evaluation Form)
Pupil’s Name: Ali (pseudonym)
SPEAKING EVALUATION FORM
Part Vocabulary Pronunciation Interaction
Does the speaker use the vocabulary required to deal with the task?
Does the speaker produce simple utterances?
Does the speaker respond at word or phrase level but may also produce some longer utterances?
Does the speaker produce utterances which are somehow intelligible?
Does the speaker show limited control of word stress?
Does the speaker respond appropriately to instructions, questions, and visual prompts?
Is the speaker able to ask for support if required?
Does the speaker need prompting or support?
I Scene picture
- able to correct words to describe the picture. (eg.
lake, fishing, swimming, boat).
- able to pronounce words with correct intonation and stresses.
(eg. lake - /leɪk/)
- able to respond to instructions and questions with relevant information.
- able to relate with personal experience. (eg. fishing experience)
- able to speak fluently without
prompt or support from teacher.
- able to speak confidently with ease
Comments: The student was able to fulfil learning standard 2.1.2 and 2.1.5 (Find out about and describe experiences up to now/ Describe people, places and objects using suitable statements) by describing his personal experience about fishing with his father which is related to the given picture.
Overall, student showed good language competency with accurate pronunciation, correct grammar, and suitable use of words and phrases.
Based on the teacher’s comments in Table 2 above, it was shown that the pupil assessed has very good speaking skills whereby he has shown the ability to use words and grammar correctly as well as pronounce accurately. The teacher noted that the pupil was able to respond to instructions and questions, relate to his personal experience as well as speak fluently and confidently. Overall, the pupil has shown good language competency as stated by the teacher in the comments. Based on the comments also it can be concluded that the pupil assessed may not face difficulties in speaking, unlike those who obtained performance levels 1, 2, and 3 who were influenced by the cognitive factors, linguistic factors and affective factors (Derakhshan et al., 2016). Additionally, based on the teachers’ comments in the evaluation form above, it is shown that the learning standards were included in assessing the pupil’s speaking skills. This example has demonstrated that CBA is a holistic assessment and meaningful carried out by teachers. In addition, the speaking components, learning standards, as well as the Performance Standards Guide for Speaking Skills were the basis to assess students’ speaking skills. It also shows that the assessment task was related to the pupils’ experiences. As mentioned before, CBA is perceived as more relevant than the national examination where students are assessed meaningfully and holistically (Ilhavenil & Nor’Aidah, 2018) based on the Malaysian curriculum’s learning standards.
5. Conclusion
The use of CBA was proven relevant in assessing speaking skills in Malaysian ESL classrooms.
Assessment of speaking skills of CBA was found to be holistic and meaningful, whereby, learning standards, Performance Standards Guide for Speaking Skills as well as speaking components were used as the basis to assess students. Besides, the tasks used to assess the students’ speaking skills were meaningful in which the tasks were related to students’ personal experiences. The findings of this study have shown that CBA could be used in assessing students’ speaking skills as well as determining their performance level based on the Performance Standards Guide for Speaking Skills. It was found that there were 122/199 students (61%) were at low proficiency levels (level 1-3) and only 28/199 (14%) were at levels 5 and 6. This implies that the CBA managed to determine learners’ proficiency as it is an ongoing assessment. Hence, this study has served its purpose in measuring the Year 5 pupils’
performance in speaking skills prior to determining the good speakers. In this study, the pupils who obtained performance level 6 in the CBA were categorised as good language speakers.
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