Interactional Competence and the Role 'Role Play' Plays: The LanguageCert Perspective

Abstract

This article describes the importance of including the construct of interactional competence in speaking assessments, drawing mainly from the literature in the field of language testing. The coconstruction of meaning and the shared nature of the interaction are seen to be operationalised in an optimal manner using the role play task. The effect of the task is explored through the perspective of the LanguageCert International ESOL Speaking exams, which are used as examples to demonstrate the issues of scalability, discriminability, score separability issues, and the so-called interlocutor effect. Further research and technological innovations will assist in defining and scrutinising the aspects of interactional competence that can be reliably measured.

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