Bedömning av det muntliga nationella provet : en bedömning för metaspråk om muntligheten

Sammanfattning: The starting point in this licentiate thesis is the fact that students are to do a national test in Swedish, Course B, in upper secondary school, and that their oral presentations are to be assessed by the teacher. Since the assessment of orality must be equal according to the curriculum and irrespective of the teaching preceding the assessment, questions on teacher training in orality are highlighted. This is a general didactic problem in all subjects, but it might appear more acute in oral work, depending on a number of factors. The transience of speech makes an accurate assessment of the oral presentation difficult. The complexity of the oral situation might cause uncertainty as to what is to be assessed. Consequently, the point of departure in this thesis is a practical problem, which also has theoretical relevance.This study has a didactic perspective and rests on sociocultural theory, which emphasizes that learning and development are situated, mediated, and, as a result, dependent on linguistic and intellectual tools. Rhetoric and reception theory are the theoretical perspectives that contribute analytical tools to make visible the teacher’s preparation, realization, and assessment of the oral national test and the students’ understanding of this. The assessment is both formative and summative.The purpose of this study is to examine how the tools for metacommunication in the area of orality, tools supplied by rhetoric as a resource for concepts, are implemented and conveyed by a teacher in a class, before and in the assessment of the national test.Data were collected from a Natural Science Programme class. The national test in Swedish, Course B, takes place in the autumn term in year three.The results show the importance of the teachers and students, as well as the steering documents, having a common language for orality to support assessment and learning respectively. Orality has no such base, which is obvious in the steering material in Swedish accompanying the national test.The study shows how a rhetorically trained teacher can help develop a metalanguage, as well as didactic instruments to make the work with the preparations, the carrying through, and the assessment of oral presentations work smoothly. The result, however, shows how orality is given less scope in general and before the national test in particular, despite the high ambitions of the teacher. This is apparent in a more everyday and vague metalanguage, at the same time, as the didactic instruments are inadequate. The students’ ability of reception runs the risk of getting more limited.In the same way as writing, orality requires time for practice (techné), as well as distinct instructions in comments to the test material and steering documents concerning metalanguage, genre, and copia. By using the rhetorical work process as a tool, the teachers and students obtain a working instrument for producing speech that is supported by the theory of rhetoric. It can also be used when assessing an oral presentation, which gives the students and the teachers the same instrument for both speech production and its assessment. The study points to the fact that the distinctive characteristics of orality, memoria and actio, are not considered and problematized by the teacher to the same extent, as are other steps in the rhetoric work process. Teachers’ and students’ ability of reception runs the risk of becoming too restricted, which might jeopardize the equality of the assessment.