The oral interview (OI) is a testing procedure that measures a wide range of speaking abilities in a foreign language. Although somewhat different versions are used in different testing situations, the OI always consists of a structured, face-to-face conversation on a variety of topics between a student and one or two testers. The resulting speech…

The Simulated Oral Proficiency Interview (SOPI) is a semi-direct performance-based speaking test that emulates the face-to-face Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) as closely as practical, using a tape recording and printed test booklet. The prototypical SOPI contains simple personal background questions typical of an initial encounter (warm-up) and…

The IDEA Oral Language Proficiency Test (IPT II), an individually-administered measure of speaking and listening proficiency in English as a Second Language designed for secondary school students, is described and discussed. The test consists of 91 items and requires 5-25 minutes to administer. Raw scores are converted to one of seven proficiency…

The oral interaction examination used by Britain's Royal Society of Arts for testing communicative use of English as a foreign language is described. The underlying principles of the test, its structure, administration, issues of reliability and validity, and scoring are outlined. Three components of the test itself are included. One component is…

The manual for administration of the Chinese Proficiency Test contains an overview of the program, including: (1) its history, content, and format; (2) its primary focus and uses; (3) administration procedures, including registration, ordering the test, reporting scores, and billing; (4) the interpretation of test scores based on normative data…