Know Any Good Speaking Tests?

Do you know of any good English speaking / listening tests?

Although I don’t usually like tests, they are necessary when we go into a new country and the people in charge want to see results. So far we’ve been using the standard Genki English test (here’s an example) which works great in evaluating students and their teachers after the first 6 months to a year of study.

But what I really need now is an internationally recognised speaking and listening test. Same age group for kids who’ve been studying 6 months to a year. Ideally it would also be easy to administer. But I can’t find any! They all seem to rely on students being able to read, which is of course a totally different skill.

If you have any recommendations I’d love to hear them!

Richard Graham

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7 Responses to “Know Any Good Speaking Tests?”

  1. Gumby

    Hi Richard,
    Have you taken a look at the Kodomo eiken? Here are some sample questions:
    http://www.eiken.or.jp/jr_step/sample/exam/index.html
    I’ve never used it, but it is based more on listening with minimal reading.
    I don’t know if speaking is part of the test.

    As for your GE test, you could take it a step further and see if they could answer based on non-GE pictures. Students may be able to respond with the correct answer based on the GE card, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that they understand the question.

    I would also be interested in seeing how others test speaking. I usually have them do some conversation activity and I walk around to hear how much and how accurate the students are. Usually it is more for my benefit than to give an “grades” to the students.

  4. richard

    Many thanks! Plus also to everyone who emailed me with suggestions!

  7. patrizia bini

    Hi, have you never heard of the Trinity GESE tests? I’m surprised! They are internationally recognised and only take a few minutes per child. They are individual oral tests, in Grade 1 students are asked very simple questions about their ,count up to 20, about animals, classroom objects, the body , clothing and expected to follow very simple commands, in Grade 2 they talk about their house, rooms and objects in the house, possessions, describe physical appearance, talk about the family, pets, count up to 50 and use ordinal numbers for dates, give days and months. As you can see just about all of the items are also included in the Genki curriculum, the only one which is not covered very much is household objects and possessions, but a new module could be included! Their is a nice progression from Grade 1 to Grade 2 and any child who has been well prepared in Genki could easily pass it and probably get a good mark, because it is based on speaking ability, communicability and ability to comprehend questions. The exam takes about five minutes and is one on one, or maybe even less. I would like to report that my latest student, a seven year old boy who was having problems with English in school, and has been doing Genki for about 3 months just recently was awarded a 7/10, the teacher said he was doing much better!!yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    a

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