The Ab Initio Oral
Interactive skills: Individual oral assessment
Duration: 7–10 minutes
Weighting: 25%
The individual oral assessment is based on the course themes: identities, experiences, human ingenuity, social organization, sharing the planet. The aim of this assessment is to measure the student’s ability to understand and produce communication in the target language, and to use it for successful interaction. the teacher should signal the changes between the respective parts through the use of an appropriate phrase.
Supervised preparation time 15 min
The student is shown two visual stimuli, each relating to a different theme from the course.
Each visual stimulus must be labelled in the target language with the theme to which it
relates. The student chooses one of the visual stimuli and prepares a presentation focusing on it. During this time, the student is allowed to make brief working notes.
Part 1 Presentation 1-2min
The student describes the visual stimulus and relates it to the relevant theme and the target
culture(s).
During the presentation, the student
should:
• provide a brief description of the visual stimulus
• relate the visual stimulus to the relevant theme from the course.
The presentation must be spontaneous and relate specifically to the content of the visual stimulus provided; pre-learned presentations on generic aspects of a course theme that do not directly focus on the features of he visual stimulus provided will not score high marks.
Part 2: Follow-up discussion 3–4 minutes
The teacher engages the student on the theme that was presented, expanding on what the student has provided in the presentation
Part 3: General Discussion
The teacher and student have a general discussion on at least one additional theme taken from the five themes around which the course is based.
A “visual stimulus” may be a photo, a poster, an illustration or an advertisement. Any language
that naturally appears on the image should be minimal and must be in the target language. It must not
provide vocabulary and structures that would give a student an unfair advantage.
An effective visual stimulus is one that:
• is clearly relevant to one of the five themes in the course
• is culturally relevant to the target language
• offers opportunities for students to demonstrate their international-mindedness
• offers sufficient visual text for students to describe a scene or situation
• allows the student to offer a personal interpretation
• enables the teacher to lead the student in a wider conversation
• is relevant and of interest to the student’s age group.
The students must not see these stimuli prior to the examination.
The same five stimuli can be used for up to ten students sitting the examination. If there are more than ten students sitting the examination, two visual stimuli from each theme must be prepared.