6 Assessing productive and interactive skills Personal refl ection

 Part 
II
another, or participate in a three-way interaction with the examiner, 
to discuss a topic or solve a problem. Swain (2001) outlined the 
arguments in favour of paired speaking tests. They elicit a wider 
variety of talk from the assessees who do generally initiate and take 
turns in the interaction. They have the potential for positive washback, 
encouraging interactive classroom activities, and they are more 
practical than individual interviews as more assessees can be tested by 
fewer assessors. 
On the other hand, assessees cannot all be trained and controlled in 
the same way as examiners: assessees may have a very different 
experience according to the language level, personality and other 
characteristics of their partner. As He and Young (1998) and others 
have argued, scoring any interactive assessment of speaking is especially 
problematic because the outcome is always a product of both (or all)