Learning to speak fluently and acquiring oracy in a foreign language is an extremely challenging task, as Claudia Riemer (2014: 186) explains:

"Sprechen gilt [...] als wichtigste und schwierigste fremdsprachliche Fertigkeit, da unter zeitlichen und konzeptuellen Zwängen der Sprachproduktion aktive Sprachverwendung gelingen soll. Aber Mündlichkeit umfasst mehr als die (isoliert betrachtete) Sprechfertigkeit: Lernenden sollen sich sprachlich angemessen und verständlich sowohl im Hinblick auf sprachstrukturelle Korrektheit wie auch pragmatische Akzeptabilität ausdrücken können, sich dem Gesprächspartner mitteilen, zuhören und kompetent an Gesprächen teilnehmen können - und dies flüssig und funktional ausdifferenziert." (Riemer 2014: 186)

The same is true for teaching and assessing oracy. This seminar will take on this challenge as it explores how speaking competences can be effectively developed and assessed in the context of English language education. It will provide an insight into the features of oral discourse, key aspects of teaching and learning speaking as well as issues of formative and summative assessment of speaking competences. The course will provide a sound theoretical understanding of the subject matter, but will also take a hands-on approach to teaching and assessing speaking as it is embedded into a current research project on oracy. If the circumstances (CoViD, etc.) permit, we will visit the Digitallabor Münster, where we will observe a group of school students of the upper secondary level, who will record their own podcasts for use in an oral exam. We will also use authentic video footage of these oral exams to practice summative oral assessment and to discuss assessment criteria and strategies. A visit to the school is planned for a micro-teaching experiment focusing on formative assessment. Moreover, we will exchange with members of a parallel course on listening competences (Mr Folkerts) to gain a deeper understanding how these two competences interact. 

Note: This course is going to be intense, since we will only have a short period of time to become experts on speaking competence, its assessment, and how it should be taught to put our knowledge into action. Therefore, the first weeks will require extensive reading. Furthermore, this seminar expects some flexibility on your side when it comes to the cooperation part, as the school's lessons do not necessarily align with ours. This however provides you with a unique opportunity to apply what you are going to learn in this seminar in a realistic setting.

Kurs im HIS-LSF