Research Notes: Interactive Communication in the B2 First Speaking Exam

Research Notes: Interactive Communication in the B2 First Speaking Exam

Enhancing learning-oriented feedback for Cambridge English: First / paired interactions. Read this interesting article from the Research Notes of Cambridge Assessment English. 

Research Notes: Interactive Communication in the B2 First Speaking Exam

Issue 75:

This issue consists of a report by Daniel Lam of the University of Bedfordshire, from the Cambridge English Funded Research Programme (CEFRP). Under this programme, Cambridge English supports the academic language testing community and promotes independent research on its tests and services.

In a previous CEFRP project, Fumiyo Nakatsuhara and her colleagues created a detailed checklist to help teachers give feedback to students on interactional competence, an aspect of speaking ability. Their report, including the checklist, was published in 2018 as issue 70 of Research Notes. The current issue follows on from this. Daniel Lam selected notable features of interactional competence from the checklist and created a resource bank of 33 worked examples, on 15 worksheets, to illustrate those features. Each worked example is based on a video of a Cambridge English: First (now known as B2 First) Speaking test and covers one or more of the interactional competence features that arise in the candidates’ conversation. The worksheet shows a partial transcript extract, a set of questions to guide learners to notice the features and possible answers to the questions. At the end each worksheet has a section called ‘lesson learned’, which is a discussion of the conversations and advice to the learner.

This project can be read and used on its own or in conjunction with the previous report. Like that report it provides a valuable addition to research and teaching materials on interactional competence. We hope the worked examples will be widely used for classroom teaching and self-study.

Read the full article here.

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