Media

HKDSE Chinese Language oral examination made easy:
secure the decisive 11% of the total scores in 15 minutes
Findings from the research project of Quality Education Fund

25 Oct 2012

Funded by the Quality Education Fund, the Faculty of Education has successfully completed a project - “Assessment for Learning - Enhancing Students’ Speaking Skills through Peer-assessment and Self- assessment” commenced in 2010. The Project attempted to make use of the positive backwash effect of public examination, Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education Examination (HKDSE) by adopting the small group discussion approach which is the focus of Paper 4 of the Chinese Language examination. Paper 4, i.e. a 15-miniute oral examination, takes up a total of 11% of the entire subject scores. The “Problem-Based” approach was adopted in developing the experimental curriculum. In order to identify the problems and barriers to learning and teaching, the project team assessed over 800 students’ oral communication skills as well as the teaching curriculum of over 20 schools covering nearly 100 teachers. Based on the data, the project team developed and piloted a student-centered skills development programme which incorporated Peer-assessment amongst students and Self-assessment. The post-test results as well as students’ achievement in HKDSE have confirmed the validity and effectiveness of this training programme.

Research findings covered the following issues:

1.     Importance of Communication Skills Training in Mother Tongue

The data derived from analyzing over 800 students’ performance in the joint-school HKDSE Mock Speaking Events helped to identify the 3 major obstacles: 1. Students were weak at coming up with group consensuses; 2. Students demonstrated insufficient knowledge and understanding of traditional Chinese culture and values and thus were incapable of commenting on their values and validity; and 3. There was no correlation between students’ academic achievement and their oral communication proficiency. Moreover, the survey showed that over 60% of the students lacked the concepts of the keys to the effectiveness of oral communication and in turn the requirements of HKDSE. Most of the teachers indicated that the lack of appropriate teaching resources including teaching material, teaching approach and lesson time was the major barrier to enhance students’ communication skills during the interview. The study further revealed that students’ oral proficiency could be enhanced through guiding them to understand the communication purposes and the HKDSE’s requirements. To change the role of teachers to be the facilitators of students’ peer-assessment and self-assessment activities, not only teachers’ workload could be reduced, their burden could also be released by seeing students’ improvement in the examination as well as daily communication.

2.     Change in the Mode of Communication Training

Oral communication skills require spontaneous responses which can hardly be improved merely by infrequent examination driven drills. The study demonstrated that students have benefited greatly by reflecting their own as well as their peers’ performance through the review with video-tape or comments on worksheets. This approach not only helped to enhance the effectiveness of oral communication in general but also proved to have direct advantages to the performance at HKDSE. Over 93% of the interviewed teachers indicated that they would adopt this teaching approach and commended the validity and effectiveness of the teaching resources which they considered as appropriate to help students meet the HKDSE requirements.

3.     Catering for Different Students’ Needs

In order to cater for students of different capabilities, the current study also developed a teaching kit with 3 different entry levels, different teaching and assessment strategies as well as teaching resources. Teachers who made use of the teaching kit at schools of different bandings found it invaluable for both class teaching and self learning.

Dr Winnie Lai, Associate Professor, Faculty of Education, HKU (left) and Mr Alain Lo, Teaching Consultant, Faculty of Education, HKU (right).

For media enquiries, please contact Dr Winnie Lai, Associate Professor (Tel: 2859 2538 ), Ms Benise Wu (Tel:  2219 4709) or Ms Queenie Wong, Development and Communications Manager, Faculty of Education, HKU (Tel: 2219 4270 / mobile: 9220 5840 / fax: 2540 6360 / email: qlpwong@hku.hk).  Please visit http://web.edu.hku.hk/media.php to view the e-version of the press release.  The photo and power point can be downloaded at http://web.edu.hku.hk/press/20121025/ .