Differing expectations in the assessment of the speaking skills of ESOL learners

This is a study of the assessment of the speaking skills of adult learners of English for speakers of other languages (ESOL). It is prompted by a concern that participants can have differing expectations of what nature of speech event a speaking test actually is. This concern was identified during the administration and analysis of assessments carried out as part of a study into adult ESOL pedagogy in the UK. The paper employs the notions of knowledge schema and frame in discourse to draw together areas of interest in testing: whether the speaking assessment should be viewed as an interview or as a conversation; divergent interpretations of the test event by learners; and variation in interlocutor behaviour. Implications for testing the speaking skills of adult ESOL learners are discussed; these are pertinent at a time of large-scale high-stakes testing of learners who are migrants to English speaking countries.