Attitudes and Perceptions of the Students and Instructors towards Testing Speaking Communicatively

This study aims to explore the attitudes and perceptions of the students and instructors towards the speaking test at a School of Foreign Languages. For this purpose, the data were collected through questionnaires delivered to two groups of participants. The first group was composed of 210 students who were asked to assess their perceptions and attitudes about the speaking test as pre-, while and post-tests. The second group was composed of 32 instructors who were given a questionnaire to find out their attitudes and perceptions towards the rating scale, the materials, and the procedure followed during the test and the assessment period. The students were in two levels ranging from pre-intermediate to intermediate in the preparatory program from different faculties. Our data revealed that most of the students had no experience of any speaking test before, and therefore, they had higher anxiety during the test. Among the students, the speaking test was regarded as the most difficult test when compared to the testing of other language skills. Students pointed out that they could not express themselves adequately during the test, and claimed that they needed to have more oral practice in the classroom. On the other hand, the instructors emphasized that the speaking test was the most difficult one to apply and assess, however, the scale and rubrics were adequate enough to assess the students’ oral performance.