Most people make little distinction between an oral conversation and an oral interview (cf Underhill, 1987: 45-46 and 54), and in universities, in practice, there is not usually a great difference since the two approaches tend to merge. Interviews, with their more closely defined list of specific questions and with less continuity, are perhaps more appropriate for lower- to intermediate-level learners. At higher levels, such tightly controlled approaches to question and answer do not allow students to display their oral ability to the full, therefore the examiner needs to withdraw a little from the exchange. As Underhill says (1987: 56): 'Filling conversational pauses naturally and correcting one's errors […] are two of the features that distinguish higher-level from intermediate-level learners. Ultimately, the interviewer must be prepared to yield the initiative to the learner.'

Activity 15

While no one would want to put a straitjacket on examiners' questions, it is only fair to ensure that students are asked a comparable number and range of questions and that the questions are of a broadly comparable level of difficulty. It is all too easy, especially if you are on candidate number 20 and are getting bored or tired, to allow a conversation to drift into (narrow) areas you may not have covered with other candidates, or to allow questions to follow your own areas of interest. Of course, if a challenging topic is allowing a student to demonstrate his/her linguistic ability to the full, it is only right to allow such a student to show what he or she can do, but the topic should not dominate the whole oral and you should bring the conversation back to the broadly common agenda.

If you are doing an oral for the first time, it is sensible to prepare a list of sample questions in advance: it is surprisingly difficult to focus on accurate assessment, while also keeping track of the conversation and checking you have covered all the relevant areas of a topic. In any case, all oral examiners will find it helpful to have in front of them a checklist to ensure they do not omit any key use of language they are aiming to assess. For example, the following is a list I have used with an intermediate IWLP group:

This is not as prescriptive as a list of set questions and allows flexibility to cater for differences in individual candidates, but it does mean each student is prompted to produce the same sort of language and it thus ensures you are testing the same things and increasing the reliability of your marking.

Given the difficulty we all have in focusing on several tasks at once, it is advisable to have two examiners involved, preferably one native- and one non-native speaker. Although this may be a little more daunting for the student and makes it even more important that the interlocutor appears friendly and supportive to the student, it means he/she is sitting opposite at least one familiar face (ideally his/her tutor) and is therefore likely to be a little more relaxed than with a stranger. The second person can either be the assessor who does not get involved in the exchange, thus allowing the colleague to focus solely on asking questions and keeping the conversation going, or else both can take it in turns to ask questions and both can be involved in reaching a mark. While it is clearly more staff-intensive, this approach increases reliability in marking since, at any one time, one of the examiners can give undivided attention to the student's performance.

If staffing levels do not permit the above approach, it is important to record all orals, either on video or audio tape. This means you have something tangible to support your decisions, in case a student queries a mark, for example. It also provides evidence for external examiners or for QA purposes. Furthermore, it allows you to review any interviews in case of uncertainty over, say, borderline marks, where memory may prove unreliable. Tapes can be especially important with large numbers of oral exams, when fatigue can set in and consistency across the cohort may be less certain; a quick review of earlier tapes can provide reassurance or act as a corrective.

Question technique is obviously crucial in an oral. You should avoid so-called 'closed' questions requiring simple yes/no or equally brief answers, and employ as wide a range of open questions as possible. These can be any one of the following types:

(Module 8, section 8.4.6, illustrates the use of these different types of question.)

Generally speaking, who?/when?/what?/where? questions are more straightforward to answer than 'how?' questions. The aim is to get the students to talk, to show what they are capable of, and your role is to ask appropriately framed questions that prompt a full response, provoke thinking and, hopefully, set up an intelligent exchange of views. You must therefore keep yourself under control: the oral is not about you talking or demonstrating your knowledge, nor is it about nit-picking. As a rule of thumb, with anything other than the weakest candidates, if you are talking as much as the student, you are not doing your job properly.

It is also important to elicit questions from the students themselves - asking questions is a key skill in learning a language and surviving abroad. As an examiner, you might simply include a section where you say: 'Now I'd like you to ask me a few questions (eg about my job, my holidays, my views on the EU, etc)'.