A Preliminary Study on Classroom Based Assessment for English Speaking Performance Among Year 5 Pupils in An Urban School
Assessing learners’ spoken language can be a complex process especially in assessing a second or foreign language. Appropriate assessment tools are vital as the language is not their mother tongue and the use of the language is also limited. This article presents a preliminary study on the use of Classroom Based Assessment (CBA) with the purpose of identifying young learners’ speaking performance to help teachers determine the interventions needed in the teaching and learning process. The study involved 199 Year 5 pupils at an urban school in Bintulu, Sarawak. Data were collected through document analysis of students’ CBA Speaking Evaluation Form. Findings revealed that 122/199 students (61%) were at low proficiency levels (Band 1-3) and only 28/199 (14%) were at levels 5 and 6. This implies that the CBA managed to determine learners’ proficiency as it is an ongoing assessment. This also implies that CBA is more relevant than the national examination, whereby the assessment was limited to only reading and writing skills.