The Exchange Student Who Won't Speak
Marco, a Year 12 Italian (beginners) student, has strong reading and writing scores (averaging 80 percent) but freezes in oral tasks. In the first oral assessment he produced two short sentences in five minutes and scored 1 out of 5 on Interaction. His teacher suspects anxiety rather than lack of knowledge, because Marco answers written questions about the same topics accurately. The school's internal assessment program requires at least one interactive oral task. Marco's parents have asked for the oral task to be replaced with a written task on the same topic so his grade is not 'unfairly' lowered. The teacher has one more oral task scheduled in Week 6 and a moderation deadline in Week 8.
1. Should the school replace Marco's interactive oral with a written task? Justify your answer with reference to assessment principles.
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No. Replacing the interactive oral with a written task would breach the principle that assessment tasks must assess the intended skill. An interactive oral measures spoken interaction, which a written task cannot evidence, so substituting it would make Marco's result non-comparable with his peers and would not demonstrate the required oral communication.
The parents' concern about fairness is understandable, but fairness means consistent conditions and valid evidence, not equalising scores across modes. Marco's strong writing does not compensate for an unassessed oral skill, and allowing substitution would advantage him over students who completed the oral under the same conditions.
The appropriate response is to address the barrier (anxiety) through support and reasonable adjustments that preserve the task's demands, not to change what is being assessed.
2. Identify reasonable adjustments the teacher could make for Marco while preserving the validity of the interactive oral.
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Adjustments should reduce anxiety without removing the requirement to interact in spoken Italian. Options include: giving Marco advance notice of the topic and question types so he can prepare vocabulary; pairing him with a supportive, patient partner rather than a dominant one; allowing a short warm-up conversation before the assessed task; offering a quieter room or a recorded rather than live-audience format where the rubric permits; and breaking the task into two shorter exchanges rather than one long one.
What must not change: the criteria, the weighting, the expectation of spontaneous interaction, and the level of language demanded. Providing a script or allowing written answers would invalidate the task. The teacher should document the adjustments and the rationale so a moderator can see that the assessment remained comparable.
3. The teacher has one oral task left in Week 6 and moderation in Week 8. Propose a timeline and evidence strategy.
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Weeks 1 to 4: implement adjustments (advance topic notice, partner selection, warm-up routine) and run low-stakes practice orals so Marco builds fluency and the teacher gathers formative evidence.
Week 5: confirm the Week 6 task conditions and brief Marco and his partner on format and timing.
Week 6: conduct the assessed interactive oral, record it if policy allows, and score immediately against the rubric with annotated notes on Marco's contributions.
Week 7: compile the moderation sample, including Marco's task sheet, rubric, annotations, and a note on the adjustments made and why they preserved validity.
Week 8: attend moderation and be ready to justify the score with specific evidence (for example, counting Marco's initiations and repairs). The recording and notes are the strongest defence if the score is questioned.