6 Assessing productive and interactive skills Personal refl ection

Assessment design
The challenges facing assessment designers who wish to assess speaking 
and writing abilities are rather different from those involved in assessing 
reading and listening. First, it 
is
possible to observe people speaking 
and to look at their writing. On this basis, Hughes (2003, p. 75) argues 
that ‘the best way to test people’s writing ability is to get them to write’ 
and in similar vein, He and Young (1998, p. 1) suggest that to assess a 
learner’s speaking abilities, assessors have to ‘get him or her to speak’. 
Unfortunately for the designer, this cannot not be quite as 
straightforward as turning to an assessee and issuing the command 
‘Speak!’ or ‘Write!’
While it is possible to assess some aspects of writing and speaking 
through grammar and vocabulary exercises and pronunciation drills, 

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