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Ideal pre-proficiency material for classes on course for Michigan ECPE, IELTS or similar EFL exams with an academic focus.

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Our featured article:

Inside the new Michigan ECPE speaking test

Teachers of classes aiming for the University of Michigan ECPE will doubtless know that a new format for the ECPE interview is to be introduced in June 2009. Apparently preparations for the new speaking test got under way in Michigan in 2005, meaning that there were three years for the English Language Institute (ELI-UM) to get it right. But did they?

Here we take a close look at the plans as posted on the University of Michigan website: http://www.lsa.umich.edu/

The first significant change is that henceforth there will be two candidates. A good idea. It makes a wider range of speaking activities possible in the speaking test, making it easier to achieve the stated aim of allowing "candidates to demonstrate the full range of their speaking ability." But what exactly will the candidates do in the interview to demonstrate their abilities?

The first stage is a familiar conversation about the students' lives, but with two twists. Here is the key sentence from the official description of the new ECPE speaking test: "Candidates are expected to actively participate in the conversation by providing expanded responses and also by asking each other and [the] examiner questions." The demand for expanded responses goes without saying but I suspect some students will have trouble with the demand to ask questions that effectively interrupt the examiner's enquiry into the fairly personal life of the other student. That's the first twist. The second may cause more trouble. The students must turn the tables on the examiner, which is a complete break from previous speaking test protocol, unless I am mistaken. How will this pan out? Is the following exchange the sort of thing that the University of Michigan have in mind?

Examiner: So, Angelos, what do you like doing in your spare time?
Angelos: I'm really into extreme sports. In fact, most weekends I'm off bungee jumping.
Nafsica: Bungee jumping! Wow! I've always wanted to go bungee jumping but my uptight Dad won't let me. He says it's too dangerous. What would you say? Is it really as dangerous as it looks?
Angelos: Well, as long as you do all the safety checks and you are really careful to get the right match between the height of the jump, the weight of the person and the elasticity of the rope, there really is no more risk than crossing the road.
Nafsica: If it's as safe as that, I should definitely be allowed to have a go. (Turns to the examiner) What do you think, Mr Examiner? If you had a daughter ... Do you have a daughter?
Examiner: No.
Nafsica: But if you had a daughter, would you let her go bungee jumping?
Examiner: Well,...

Is that the sort of thing they have in mind? Or do they expect someone in Nafsica's position to go even further and start asking the examiner about his spare time activities? He doesn't go bungee jumping but he does have a habit of drowning his sorrows in a very deep glass of cheap ouzo. But surely we don't want to go down that street.

My suspicion is that interviewees need clearly defined roles, but the demand for a three-way conversation about personal issues seems to me to blur those roles just a little too much. (People from other cultural backgrounds could see it differently, though.) If I were an interviewee, I wouldn't welcome the expectation that I begin prying into the personal life of the examiner. It is just too much of a role reversal.

Anyway, blurred or not, that "small talk" constitutes stage one of the ECPE speaking test and is meant to last 3-5 minutes. Then comes the new four-stage oral marathon (not the description used by ELI-UM) which could last a total of a whopping 32 minutes. (The entire ECPE interview is meant to have a duration of between 25 to 35 minutes, and 35 minus 3 is 32.)

In a nutshell, the two candidates are given an imaginary situation in which a selection must be made from a choice of four options - a familiar sort of activity in a foreign language interview/speaking test. Not a bad idea, but what does the new ECPE version of this familiar activity actually involve?

Let's go through the stages one by one (beginning with stage two, since stage one was the small talk).

Stage 2: Summarizing and Recommending (5-7 minutes)


Read the rest of the article HERE.

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