Abstract
AbstractBy empirically zooming in on oracy as an area of educational reforms, this chapter illuminates how a new oral assessment phenomenon that has been observed in practice meets, overlaps, and, more recently, challenges educational policy in the Norwegian educational context. Conducted in three lower secondary schools, the study draws on audio-recorded materials capturing authentic teacher–student dialogues in group subject talk tests. By exploring authentic assessment practices, the chapter analyzes (1) which aspects of competence students are made accountable for and (2) how the introduction of learning outcomes and oracy as one of five core skills can challenge the interactional exercise of oral assessment in educational practice. The results illustrate how subject talk evaluation practices through the organization in social groups go beyond assessing students in terms of assessment criteria or scales. The oral assessment situation becomes a setting where teachers share professional judgments and approve specific oral initiatives for groups of students. In this nexus of group subject talks and recent policy on learning outcomes and oracy as a core skill, students become competent contributors through retrospective evaluations of their own performance, making themselves accountable for the group’s community, subject-specific knowledge, and the norms and rules of reasoning in the group’s subject talks. The findings raise several questions about how we understand actors as the coconstructors of educational policy when certain educational practices seem to be in front of policy uptake in the nexuses where policy and practice conflict, overlap, and meet.
Publisher
Springer International Publishing
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