Benoît Guilbaud, Language Pathways Convenor, Associate Professor in French 

Oral assessment is embedded across Modern Languages teaching at Sussex, spanning eight languages within the 15-credit undergraduate modules offered through both a two and three-year beginners’ pathway and a post A-level pathway. Across these programmes, oral assessments typically account for 30–50% of the overall grade. 

Rather than treating spoken communication as an add-on, the Modern Languages curriculum positions oracy as a core academic capability. Assessments are intentionally scaffolded across years of study, moving from structured, supported speaking tasks towards more complex, fluid and autonomous communicative performances. This blog post outlines the oracy assessment structure in Modern Languages with the aim of inspiring other educators to embed oracy skills in their own assessments, whatever their discipline.

Assessment structure for the beginner’s pathway 

Year 1 

Semester 1 – Semi-prepared conversations (3 mins per student) 
A low-stakes, student to student format encourages early confidence and reduces anxiety. These conversations draw on familiar topics and build the ability to sustain dialogue rather than recite memorised content. 

Semester 2 – 1-minute presentation + 3-minute class questions (linked to a writing task) 
Students present an organised event and respond to peer questioning. This task deliberately integrates oral and written assessment, reinforcing that ideas must be transferable across modes. 

Year 2 

Graduate job interview (5 mins with tutor) 
Slides emphasise the shift to professional-facing interactions, requiring students to respond spontaneously and manage the pragmatics of interview communication. 

Visitor guide presentation (1 min + 4 mins questions) 
Students simulate guiding visitors through a cultural site. This requires clarity, structure, and responsiveness, all key to authentic communicative competency. 

Year 3 

Group discussion of a seen article (7 mins per student) 
Here students are assessed on their ability to sustain a group conversation, negotiate meaning, and demonstrate comprehension of source material and summarise the meaning of their allocated section of the text to the rest of the group. 

Book/film review presentation (3 mins + 4 mins questions) 
Students develop critical argumentation orally, not just descriptive recounting. 

Liaison interpreting task – post-A-level – (10min with two tutors)  

Students have to spontaneously relay meaning, tone and pragmatics back and forth between speakers of two languages. 

Accents and identity 

While comprehension and intelligibility remain central, awareness of how accent bias may shape students’ confidence, as well as markers’ perceptions, is vital. This applies equally to disciplines such as Law, Business, or Education, where students are expected to perform orally in ways that may amplify concerns about identity and belonging. 

Benefits of oral assessment  

• Improved self-confidence and greater tolerance for ambiguity 

• Reduced academic misconduct risk, spontaneous speech is harder to fabricate 

• Development of authentic, in-demand communication skills 

• Opportunities for deliberate practice and responsive feedback 

• Immediate relevance to each students’ chosen discipline of study, plus relevance to job interviews to professional dialogue 

• Development of intercultural and intersectoral communication skills 

• Better coping with anxiety when assessments are well structured and scaffolded 

Challenges and constraints 

Despite the benefits, implementing oral assessments at scale brings real challenges: 

• Resource intensive delivery (staff time, timetabling, moderation) 

• The persistent myth that oral skills are innate rather than teachable 

• Resit logistics, currently possible through recorded submissions, though this is not ideal 

• Managing student anxiety, although scaffolding can significantly reduce this 

• Balancing oral assessments with learning outcomes and avoiding overassessment 

Adopting a similar approach in other disciplines 

Given the push across the sector, largely in response to AI, for more oral assessments and oracy teaching it is important to recognise that oral communication is a skill than can, and should, be systematically developed across a curriculum, not merely observed. This requires intentional scaffolding. As the assessment structure above demonstrates, oracy is embedded into the curriculum, and skills are purposefully developed over time. This is an approach that can be readily adopted by other disciplines. Oral communication can be developed when supported by intentional scaffolding, explicit criteria that value communicative behaviours (not just content knowledge), and assessment designs that mirror life beyond the university. Whether your discipline involves debates, committee discussions, public engagement, research defence, or teamwork, integrating structured oral tasks that become more challenging over time can bring authenticity to assessment and equip students with the confidence and versatility they will need long after graduation.