The TOEIC speaking test

Recently, ETS has added TOEIC speaking and writing tests to the TOEIC product line in order to directly assess the ability to speak and write in English in a workplace setting. This addition is in response to multinational corporations’ need for employees with high-level speaking and writing.

As stated in TOEIC Speaking and Writing Examinee Handbook (2009), speaking is assessed by six different kinds of tasks requiring various types of responses, which are evaluated according to the following criteria: pronunciation, intonation and stress, grammar, vocabulary, cohesion and the contents’ relevance, and completeness. Scores are reported on a scale of 0 to 200 and proficiency levels are reported. In the first part (Question 1 and 2) of TOEIC speaking test, students are asked to read a text aloud. The second part (Question 3) asks students to describe a picture. Part 3 (Questions 4 to 6) requires students to listen to some questions and respond to them immediately. In part 4 (Questions 7 to 9), students read a text, then respond to questions about the text. Part 5 (Question 10) asks students to propose a

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solution to a problem. Finally in part 6 (Question 11), students must express their opinion toward an issue.

Communicative competence in TOEIC speaking

The TOEIC speaking test was developed to align as closely as possible with theories of Communicative Competence (Powers et al, p. 1). As a tool to evaluate communicative competence of language learners, TOEIC speaking test is designed to cover five components of communicative competence. Different scholars defined and classified communicative competence in different ways, but the description of Hedge (2000) may be considered the most elaborate. Communicative competence includes 5 main components: linguistic competence, pragmatic competence, discourse competence, strategic competence and fluency.

Linguistic competence means that learners can build a range of vocabulary in the first place. They are then required to pronounce the forms accurately, to use stress, rhythm and intonation to express meaning. It is also necessary to for them to learn the script and spelling rules. Another requirement is accuracy in the grammatical forms of language, in syntax and word formation.

To achieve pragmatic competence, learners need to use stress and intonation to express attitude and emotion. The relationship between grammatical forms and functions are also supposed to be learnt. It is essential to learn a scale of formality, to understand and use emotive tone, to use the pragmatic rules of language and to select language forms appropriately to topics, listeners, etc…..

Discourse competence shows how sentence elements are tied together. It means the ability to take longer turns, to use discourse makers and cohesive devices, as well as to open and close conversations.

Strategic competence is the ability to use language strategies to compensate for gaps in skills and knowledge. In other words, learners are encouraged to take risks in both spoken and written language, and to use a range of communication strategies.

Fluency is defined as “responding coherently within the turns of the conversation, linking words and phrases, using intelligible pronunciation and appropriate intonation, and doing all of this undue hesitation” (p. 261).

Hedge’s model of communicative competence shares some common features with other scholars’ models (Canale & Swain, 1980; Bachman, 1990). The main difference lies in the terms used for types of competence. Instead of using the terms:

linguistic competence, pragmatic competence, discourse competence, strategic competence and fluency, these scholars use sociolinguistic competence, strategic competence, discourse competence which includes cohesion and coherence, fluency and accuracy.

A striking feature which should be noticed by teachers is the confliction between fluency and accuracy. Unlike fluency, accuracy is the ability to use the correct words, grammatical structures and expressions to convey the intended meaning.

Students at lower levels of English proficiency cannot supposedly achieve both fluency and accuracy at the same time. It is because students at these levels are still on the way to learn new words and structures. If they try to speak fluently, they may make some mistakes of accuracy like incorrect use of grammatical structures or inappropriate word choice. Vice versa, if students try to speak slowly and carefully to acquire accuracy, their fluency level will be certainly very low. In other words, teachers should be aware of what extent of accuracy and fluency they expect students to get in different levels.

In short, in order to help students get better results in TOEIC speaking tests, teachers should be aware of five components of communicative competence.

The frequency of teachers choosing scales of difficulties

The difficulty of students’ low motivation level