Oral Exams: How to Automatically Grade Them with the Remarkable Speakable Platform

Oral Exams: How to Automatically Grade Them with Speakable. Woman working on a computer

Oh. My. Gosh! Did you know there is a web-based platform that automatically corrects and grades your oral exams for you? I’m agog! Amazed! Overjoyed!

And peeved.

Yes, peeved because I spent all those years correcting oral assessments in class while trying, unsuccessfully, to monitor the other students. Remember those stressful days? An individual student is at your desk. You position yourself strategically so you can pretend to keep an eye on the scholars who are working independently while trying to evaluate an oral response to a prompt or question. Should you focus on the quality of the response, or make sure no one is burning down the building?

You can’t do both.

And how do you know you’ve graded the oral exam accurately? Hmmm. Well—did the best I could.

Imagine this scenario instead: You give students a prompt and half of them answer it on their devices while the other Spanish or French students do a related reading exercise. You walk around and monitor all students to ensure no one is reading from a script, talking, or cheating. Then, students submit their answers and the remaining students record.

And …you’re done! No correcting! No grading.

It gets better.

Not only does this platform grade the Spanish or French speaking assessments; it tells the students their proficiency level based on the ACTFL proficiency guidelines, or your own rubric if your prefer, and provides detailed feedback and guidance to the students.

I know!!! Are you astounded? What is the name of this wonderful platform you may ask? I’ll tell you.

It’s Speakable.

HOW TO USE SPEAKABLE

Set up an account. Choose the native language of your students. In my case, I would choose, “English.”
In settings, click the language you want to use and that you want your students to use.
Give a written or audio prompt in the target language or L1, the students’ native language. The students answer orally or in writing.
Click, “Grammar, Suggested response, and/or ACTFL Level.” (You can also choose WIDA for your ESL learners.) Choose the language you would like the feedback to be in.
Click, “Autograding,” and then choose your grading options: pass/fail or rubric-based grading. The pass/fail grading criteria instructs AI how to evaluate and score students’ responses. Here are the instructions for AI: The student’s response is clear and concise AND answers the teacher’s prompt. Grammar errors aren’t sufficient to detract from the overall meaning of the response.

RUBRICS

You can use Speakable’s Standard World Language Rubric, or other rubrics, which can be found in the rubric library. You can also import your own or your school’s rubric, and the program will grade the presentations according to the rubric you are using. Copy the rubric and paste it into the “Create New Rubric” feature. In that way, you can create different rubrics that align with your specific goals. For example, some learning targets you might use are: completeness, reading comprehension, listening comprehension, use of the stem-changing verbs, fluency, etcetera.

Here’s another example: If you would like to evaluate students’ competence in the use of the past tense (el pretérito or le passé compose), or any other Spanish or French verb tense, you may wish to create and use your own rubric for that speaking or writing task.

THE EVALUATION

Wow! Why have I been killing myself all these years grading oral exams? This program spit out the assessment immediately, and it was so detailed, thorough, and aligned with the ACTFL standards. Boom! The instant grade (I don’t have to grade anything) and immediate feedback of the student’s strengths and areas of weakness were displayed. Take a look for yourself!

I would never have the time to give students such a detailed analysis. But Speakable did all of the following in one second: Highlighted the student’s mistakes; gave feedback on grammar, relevance to the prompt, completeness of the task; and a summary that told the student what he did well, what he could improve on, and what he needed to do to enhance his presentation. It also informed him of his proficiency level based on the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines. Truly amazing!

OTHER FUN FEATURES OF SPEAKABLE:

HIGHLIGHTED WORDS

When the student clicks on the highlighted word or words, an explanation of the error and how to correct it pops up. Make sure to tell students to scroll down in the “answer,” so they can see all the corrections.

THE SUGGESTED RESPONSE

The student clicks on “Suggested Response,” to hear or read what an ideal response would be. This is an essential feature!

However, students need to have language modeled for them before they can produce it themselves. In addition, they need to see what is expected of them when assigned a task. For that reason, before I let students loose to perform, I hand out the rubric so they understand the criteria they need to meet.

Then, I show them a model of what a proficient response looks like. If I were to assign an oral presentation, for example, I’d give myself a prompt, and answer it myself, or hand out an ideal written presentation before assigning the task. Then, after students have completed the task, they can look at the ideal response provided by Speakable.

MULTIPLE QUESTIONS FEATURE

To create multiple questions or prompts (the audio version of Google Forms, yay!), click on the plus sign in Content (on the left).

If you click on “Media,” you have the option to insert an image, a video, a block of text, or a podcast.

Speakable has an image library. Just type in the word of the image you are looking for and it pops in! Voilà !

A possible prompt might be, “Describe la imagen,” in Spanish or, “Décris l’image,” in French.

WAYS TO USE IMAGES AND VIDEOS IN THE SPEAKABLE PLATFORM

You can access tons of images using the media feature in Speakable. I typed in, “living room,” and nine beautiful photographs popped up. You can also upload your own image or paste in an image url. Then, give a prompt related to the image.

For example, when teaching prepositions, you can show a photograph of your cat or dog, or an item and ask, “¿Dónde está el gato?” in Spanish or, “Où est le chat?” in French.

You can show a video and ask students comprehension questions about the video. Give EdPuzzle a run for their money by inserting clips of videos and asking questions after each clip, making the video interactive and a great resource for comprehensible input.

STUDENT PORTFOLIO

The Student Portfolio gives the teacher instant access to student information. Here’s how to use it.

Click on General Settings >Members>Students. Click on a particular student and synch students. Speakable will show the student’s language proficiency level according to ACTFL standards in either writing, speaking, or both.

You will see a graph of all the student’s recordings and their level according to ACTFL standards. (See how ACTFL is clicked in the top right.) The graph shows the student’s trend over time, highlighting his or her improvements and areas of struggle.

Below you can see all the recordings and the ACTFL level for that student.

If you click on the level, the ACTFL description of that level will be revealed.

Click on the level for details.

SHARE SCORES WITH STUDENTS OR PARENTS

You can then download the information and share it with the students or parents.

CHANGE THE GRADE

If you disagree with a grade, you can change it. Just click and modify. For example, you can change the grade from “beginner,” to “intermediate.”

HOW I SET UP AN ASSIGNMENT

I experimented with several of the Speakable features to get an idea how to use it. Here is how I created a speaking assignment.

I clicked the red plus sign on left next to “Content.”
I chose from one of the six choices: Respond, Repeat, Multiple Choice, Media Page, Import Vocab List, or Create with AI.” I chose “respond,” because I wanted students to respond to an oral or written prompt by speaking into the microphone. However, as you can see, Speakable allows you to create many language activities, not just oral exams. It would be fun to insert videos for comprehensible input and extra listening practice. It may become your favorite online platform for world language assignments.

I clicked on, “Add media,” button. (So cool!)
I clicked, “audio” to record the prompt instead of writing it.
I listened to ensure my prompt sounded clear and natural.
I published and assigned it.
I clicked, “practice,” because it was a practice. For a test, I would click, “assessment.”
I clicked on the classroom and scheduled the assignment.
I completed the assignment myself as a student to test it. (Speakable sent the link to the assignment to my email. Your students can access the task via their emails or the school’s LMS.)
I submitted my response and Speakable corrected and graded it according to the ACTFL rubric, and gave helpful feedback.

HOW MUCH DOES IT COST?

The subscription is priced on a per student per year basis and offered to schools or districts. The price depends on the total number of students. Since our school has approximately 360 Spanish learners, 108 French students, and 144 ESL learners, the cost would be $18.24 per student. So that would be a total of … gulp—$11,162.00.

When I told the CEO I thought that was pricey, he said, “I understand some schools work with a tight budget, so we offer a Lite subscription at $2.16 per student, which still includes feedback on free responses. It’s a great way to give students structured speaking practice while keeping things budget-friendly.

The full subscription includes rubrics, grammar insights, and all the tools we offer that larger programs find helpful.”

WHAT CAN I GET WITH THE LITE VERSION?

The lite version does not include grammar insights, a suggested response, or ACTFL or WIDA estimated levels. You get only the pass/fail criteria. When setting up your assignment, you would choose only one single goal for each assignment. However, the platform still provides good feedback.

The lite version integrates with Google, Google Classrooms, and Clever. Canvas, Schoology, Blackboard, and other learning management systems are only available with the full subscription.

CAN I USE IT WITH GOOGLE CLASSROOM?

Yes! Speakable integrates seamlessly with your classroom’s Google Classroom, Canvas, and other learning management systems, making it easy to assign, track, and assess student progress.

So …are you ready to try it? Are you ready to save time and make your teaching day easier? Ask your school to buy it! Tell your principal it’s an indispensable tool that will enhance world language instruction and lighten the burden of the second-language teachers.

In case you missed the blog post about how to assess speaking proficiency, click the following link: SPEAKING ASSESSMENTS FOR WORLD LANGUAGE: WHAT’S THE BEST WAY TO TEST PROFICIENCY?

READY-MADE SPEAKING ACTIVITIES

Below are a few of my most popular speaking activities and assessments. Click on the images to learn more.

Preterite Eight Stations Speaking Activity

Les vêtements Paired Speaking Activity French Clothing

La familia Spanish Family Speaking Activities

Get all in the Spanish 1 and 2 speaking
and listening activities in one bundle.

Spanish One and Two Speaking and Listening Paired and Group Activities

If you’d like to get more tips and f-r-e-e resources in your email, subscribe to my newsletter. Just click this link and scroll to the bottom to subscribe: Best PowerPoints for Spanish and French by Angie Torre. You’ll also get a F-R-E-E 122-slide PowerPoint on Spanish verbs and infinitives.