Abstract:

Although most oral examinations are videotaped, usually very little is done with these tapes and they are stored away to gather dust. However, this audiovisual material is not only a valuable source of information for teachers, but a very versatile teaching tool which can help learners to develop in many different knowledge and skills areas. The availability of digital video recorders and the ease with which the resulting files can be edited, transferred and exchanged over the internet means that this type of audiovisual material can now not only be tailored for classroom use but can also be made available to students for their own study, both individually and in work groups outside class hours. Video is an enormously versatile teaching aid and the study we carried out focussed on using edited videotaped oral language exams to train students in self and peer evaluation skills and in coping with evaluation situations.
Self and peer evaluation are not only essential skills for autonomous learning and the development of critical thinking, but are now becoming an increasingly popular assessment method, particularly at university level. However, these learning skills require specific training, which is often difficult to achieve in the “on-line” situation of classroom interaction. The use of edited videotapes, however, can help train students to objectively assess their own and others’ performance in accordance with standard evaluation criteria and to critically evaluate learning progress. Video is also a teaching tool which is particularly attractive to today’s young learners, who are more and more attuned to audiovisual material (TV, DVD, You Tube) than to standard textbooks.
The results of our study with Chinese undergraduates studying English indicate that this type of training experience not only provides students with the self and peer evaluation skills that are essential for life-long learning and prepares them for oral examinations, but also reduces the degree of evaluation stress experienced in traditional oral exam situations and has positive effects on learner autonomy, self-esteem and classroom interaction.

Keywords:

self and peer evaluation skills, video, language classrooms.