TEACHING, LEARNING AND ASSESSING ORAL PRODUCTION IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE. A GENERAL APPROACH

We learn to speak all the time. In our own language, firstly, and then in other languages, as well. Foreign language learning implies more and more the development of speaking skill, skills that are carefully and extensively taught and which are evaluated with equal attention and equally comprehensively by all educational systems whose object of activity is providing and assessing knowledge in and about a foreign language. One of the most delicate issues regarding the assessment process and procedure of an oral production in a foreign language is the assessment's faithfulness. Should the examining and the assessing be the exclusive responsibility of the native speaker expert or it can be done by non-native assessor's with equal correctness and, why not, correctitude? Does the preparation for such tests create the desired balance between pre-test knowledge and post-test application of that knowledge? The effort of the teachers, the test-takes, and that of the assessors is all channeled towards their being able to give a unanimously positive answer to these questions.