Role of Alternative Assessment Techniques In Improvement EFL learners’ Speaking Skill (Iranian EFL Setting)

Research into language assessment is central to any agenda that seeks to address the problems of language teaching and learning. A great deal of research in language testing has developed the technical aspects of measuring language ability for the purposes of informing decisions about individuals, as well as evaluating language programs (Bachman, 2000). The aim of the present study was to investigate the relationship between employing alternative assessment techniques and Iranian EFL learners’ speaking ability. To achieve this goal, 60 upper intermediate Iranian EFL learners were selected to participate in this study. Throughout the whole semester, the techniques of self-assessment combined with peer-assessment and teacher-assessment were put into practice in the experimental group. It was in the form of a checklist with five items. All participants received a pre-test containing oral interview and written questions. The written test consisted of 80 items, based on learners' previous book New Interchange 2, as well as a post-test, which was in the form of oral interview. An F-test was employed to compare the variances of the two groups in order to check the homogeneity of the two groups, and also a t-test was used to check the homogeneity of the two groups. Inter-rater reliability was calculated in order to check the ratings of the two raters in the oral interview both in pre-test and post-test. Repeated measures of ANOVA were also used to check the differences in the performance of participants within the experimental group on the 5 self-assessments. Oral Interview was used as a pre-test and also post-test for assessing the learners’ speaking ability.