Mini-seminar project: An authentic assessment practice in speaking class for advanced students

Abstract

This paper reports one best-practice in assessing the public speaking performance of advanced students at an Indonesian public university. The study involves an English course for an advanced class which was primarily related to public speaking skills. Considering that speaking is a productive skill that should be assessed through authentic assessment principles, the lecturers decided to assign the students with a mini-seminar project as part of their final examination. This project required the students to conduct a reallife contextualised seminar in which the organisers, speakers, and audience are composed of the students themselves. This paper discusses the rationale behind the planning and implementation of this successful project which involved a synthesis of assessment of, for, and as learning and critically evaluates the procedures of the assessment, the rubric developed therein, and the challenges experienced by the lecturers within the classroom. After the implementation, it can be concluded that this mini-seminar project as a doable alternative authentic assessment model that is applcable in a speaking class which focuses on the development of students' public speaking skills. This mini-seminar project is recommended not only because it can be used as an alternative assessment model, but also it encourages students to work together in teams, and encourage them to work creatively, create something new in order to perform better.

Authentic Assessment of Speaking Skills in Junior High School

“…It showed that authentic assessment was so necessary to measure students' ability in learning English. In line with this research finding, Daud et al, (2020) also found that an appropriate way of teaching speaking can improve students' speaking ability. Besides, Putri et al, (2021) described the application of authentic assessment done by English teachers in online learning.…”

“…Based on the subject of the research, Junaedi (2019) chosen English lecturers as the source of data and Daud et al (2020) invited an English course to participate in the research. In order to find the result, Daud et al (2020) utilize an activity named a seminar. The finding also different from Putri et al, (2021).…”

Students Webinar Project: An Authentic Assesment of Speaking Skill

“…Authentic assessment is a term that is frequently used to describe non-test forms of evaluation. like what was carried out by (Daud et al, 2020); (Kamarudin et al, 2020); and (Bock et al, 2020).…”

“… Before the Webinar is done, the researchers and instructors create an evaluation rubric. The of the evaluation rubric was adapted from a previously produced rubric (Daud et al, 2020).…”

Complexities of Authentic Assessment Implementation in English Learning at Rural Areas-Based High Schools

“…Furthermore, assessment can be in the form of tests and non-tests. The assessment in the form of tests usually appears in the form of objective tests, written tests, and oral tests, while nontests one can be done in various forms, such as observation, performance, assignments, presentations, seminars, and other authentic forms (Daud et al, 2020).…”