Investigating Oral Presentation Assessment in LSP: Practices, Demands and Challenges

Giving an oral presentation is a widely used assessment task in higher education, and is very efficient in preparing LSP students for future professional contexts. Empirical studies have made significant contributions to revealing students’ attitudes towards the benefits of oral presentations, but very few studies have investigated LSP teachers’ attitudes regarding the assessment of such presentations. This paper aims to provide deeper insights into LSP teachers’ assessment practices, needs, demands and challenges when evaluating oral presentations. For that purpose, 103 LSP teachers in Serbia and Croatia were asked to indicate the greatest challenges in the assessment process and the most suitable solutions for improving evaluations. The results show that the teachers have difficulty defining the significance level of each rating criterion that describes a student’s performance. In line with this, developing a unique rating scale specifically for LSP oral presentation assessment is recognized as the most helpful strategy in dealing with the challenges they face. Ocenjevanje govornih nastopov predstavlja sestavni del poučevanja jezika stroke (LSP) v visokem šolstvu, za študente pa predstavlja pomemben del priprav na poklicno kariero. Odnos študentov do govornih nastopov obravnavajo številne empirične raziskave, le redke pa stališča učiteljev jezika stroke o ocenjevanju govornih nastopov. Namen pričujočega prispevka je prikazati izkušnje učiteljev z ocenjevanjem govornih nastopov, njihove potrebe, pričakovanja in izzive pri ocenjevanju govornih nastopov. V raziskavi so sodelovali 103 učitelji jezika stroke v Srbiji in na Hrvaškem in izpostavili največje težave pri ocenjevanju ter predlagali rešitve za izboljšanje ocenjevanja govornih nastopov. Rezultati so pokazali, da imajo učitelji težave z določanjem stopnje pomembnosti vseh posameznih kriterijev ocenjevanja govornih nastopov. Učitelji menijo, da je najboljša strategija za ocenjevanje govornih nastopov priprava enotne ocenjevalne lestvice.