Fundamental Considerations in Developing ESL Speaking Tests for under Graduate Students of Engineering Colleges in Tamil Nadu: Approaches, Development and Implementation

This paper presents the natural evolution of language teaching and testing in Indian sub-contexts with particular emphasis to speaking tests in Tamil Nadu. While the area of language testing has been receiving a lot of attention in other countries, concurrent changes in methods of testing are still archaic with respect to the ELT methods employed here. This paper investigates the evolution of language testing with particular reference to testing speaking skills. The testing process depends on many key factors and these factors impact testing, training, material production as well as teacher orientation. This paper is an attempt in understanding the testing environment as well as the procedures that are needed to assess speaking and to quantify the success of any training method or material in a standardized manner.