THE USE OF RUBRICS IN THE EVALUATION OF ORAL PRESENTATIONS IN GALICIAN

In the Humanities degrees one of the most infamous changes that the implementation of the Bologne reforms has brought along it has been the use of common exams and oral presentations for students finishing their undergraduate or Master’s degrees.

In relation to this, it must be taken into account that new study programs, especially in the area of the Humanities, assign great importance –greater than ever before– to the acquisition and development of student’s oral production.

To be able to evaluate these competences the use of rubrics is necessary since these offer the teacher a series of common parameters (presentation; expositive clarity; pronunciation, fluidity and intonation; body language; structuring; discourse coherence and cohesion; multimedia resources, etc.) that allow for an exhaustive evaluation of each of the skills that students must have.

Meanwhile, since the appearance of the Common European Framework Reference for Languages, the use of rubrics as an instrument of oral evaluation is as frequent in the Official Language Schools as it is in the official placement exams for foreign and co-official languages, as is the case for the “Certificado de Estudos de Lingua Galega” (CELGA). In our opinion, the use of rubrics can be easily adapted to the study programs of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA).

Thus, in this article we present a reflection on the advantages and disadvantages of using rubrics in the evaluation of oral presentations in Galician, based on our experience in the elaboration of didactic material and evaluations for secondary education, language centers and universities. We also formulate a rubric model divided into five levels: excellent, good, satisfactory, low, deficient.