Volume 6, 2006, Paper 4
4. The impact on candidate language of examiner deviation from
a set interlocutor frame in the IELTS Speaking Test
Author
Barry O’Sullivan
University of Roehampton, UK
Yang Lu
University of Reading, UK
This paper shows that the deviations examiners make from the
interlocutor frame in the IELTS Speaking Test have little
significant impact on the language produced by candidates.
ABSTRACT
The Interlocutor Frame (IF) was introduced by Cambridge ESOL in
the early 1990s to ensure that all test events conform to the
original test design so that all test-takers participate in
essentially the same event. While essentially successful, Lazaraton
(1992, 2002) demonstrated that examiners sometimes deviate from the
IF under test conditions. This study of the IELTS Speaking Test set
out to locate specific sources of deviation, the nature of these
deviations and their effect on the language of the candidates.
Sixty recordings of test events were analysed. The methodology
involved the identification of deviations from the IF, and then the
transcription of the candidates’ pre- and post-deviation output.
The deviations were classified and the test-takers’ pre- and
post-deviation oral production compared in terms of elaborating and
expanding in discourse, linguistic accuracy and complexity as well
as fluency.
Results indicate that the first two parts of the Speaking Test
are quite stable in terms of deviations, with relatively few noted,
and the impact of these deviations on the language of the
candidates was essentially negligible in practical terms. However,
in the final part of the Test, there appears to have been a
somewhat different pattern of behaviour, particularly in relation
to the number of paraphrased questions used by the examiners. The
impact on candidate language again appears to have been
minimal.
One implication of these findings is that it may be possible to
allow for some flexibility in the Interlocutor Frame, though this
should be limited to allowing for examiner paraphrasing of
questions.
