Assessment of Oral English: Testing the Non-English Major Students at Guangxi TCM University in P.R. China

This paper intends to give a brief overview of oral English testing for non-English major students in Guangxi Traditional Chinese Medical (TCM) University, which is located in a minority autonomous province in the southern part of P.R. China. It arises from the concrete problems facing Chinese teachers of English who feel troubled when offering an oral English test to an ever increasing number of non-English major students at the end of each semester. The frustration comes not only from the labor intensive and time consuming activity but also from the surrounding ethical issues of subjectivity by the teachers and of injustice to the students to give and receive fair marks. Moreover, there is a conflicting gap between the criteria used by the foreign native English speaking teachers and Chinese teachers of English because of their different cultural background and concept of testing. Nevertheless, an oral English test was designed and the procedures were devised, adopted, and administered to assess the student’s performance. The test and procedures, based on the national course syllabus for testing non-English majors, the level of attainment in oral English of the students, and the limited number of teaching personnel in the TCM University, utilized two different approaches. The native English speakers follow their own concept of devising formats of group testing procedures and assessment criteria forms highlighting communicative interaction. Meanwhile, the Chinese teachers of English emphasize individual rehearsed presentations and ask the student to follow up questions, to make further comment, and inquire about learning experience from the passage in order to make assessment and evaluation. Final student scores were calculated by combining daily participation of the student, the assessment foreign teacher, and the evaluation of Chinese teachers.