Designing a Drug-Dispensing Test Task Using the SPEAKING Grid
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Abstract
Although the ethnography of speaking is one of the approaches used to analyze discourse (Schiffrin, 1994; Cameron, 2012), its benefits and uses can be applied in the field of language assessment when designing a drug-dispensing, classroom-based test task. In this article, pharmacy specialists and students functioning as members of the pharmaceutical profession community shared their beliefs and practices on how to dispense a drug appropriately and successfully. The SPEAKING grid was subsequently used as a principle to formulate a manual for administrators, raters, and test-takers. This article discusses the elements of the SPEAKING grid as a sample framework and the subjectivity of this test task for assessing pharmacy students. The elements of the SPEAKING grid described in the manual aided not only raters when administering the task but also test-takers when preparing and practicing it. The article concludes with the idea that the SPEAKING grid can be adapted to fit classroom-based language assessment purposes even though some shared norms presented in the dispensing context may not occur as authentic as in real life.
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