Introducing Second Language Assessment

In Chapter 10, the author introduces performance assessments: test activities that require test takers to use language in a manner similar to how they use language in the target language use situation. The chapter describes and discusses the appropriate uses of several types of tasks: prepared oral presentation, knowledge-based, retell, summary, synthesis, roleplay, interview, paired oral discussion, group oral discussion, elicited imitation, and picture tasks. The chapter also discusses the delivery of performance assessment tasks, including face-to-face, virtual, and computerized delivery models. The author compares and contrasts oral communication assessments in video-mediated and virtual environments. The chapter compares spoken dialog systems, electronic systems that can orally interact with humans, to complex language-processing models, such as ChatGPT, that generate language from large databases. The chapter includes an appendix for using ChatGPT to help create a performance assessment.