Assessing Spoken Interaction,

 Why Use Online 

        Firstly, i think that these tools are easily accessible these days and it could be used as a strong support in the ESL teaching and classroom especially when it comes to oral and listening interaction. Many teachers are reluctant to have a proper oral assessment because of the time constrain enforced upon them without even having to do oral assessment in the first place. And if the teachers do perform oral assessment, the number of assessment and method of assessing students' oral skills and spoken interaction are limited. Therefore, with the availability of these tools in picture, the types and number of oral assessment could be enhanced. For instance, teachers could use these online tools to get students to do task that would be assessed at the end of the day. By so saying, it does not imply that in class oral assessment could be rid off entirely. There is still the need for teacher to perform in class oral assessment in order to maintain the authenticity of the spoken discourse and interaction. However, due to the limited amount of time, these online tools are useful equipment in getting students to speak both as a practice and also for assessment purposes.

        Secondly, students feel at ease when they are asked to speak through the use of online tools as compared to speaking it in class. In a way, some students could hence speak more naturally when the element of fear is removed. Moreover, the use of online tools such as Voki and Voice thread allows real-time oral speeches and even interaction among participants to be carried out. Thus, these tools could also provide a near authentic interaction to a certain extend.

   Thirdly, the use of online tools is in itself encouraging. When students are asked to perform a task, regardless of what skills or tasks, they are encouraged just by the fact that they are using (advance) ICT tools for the assigned tasks. Hence, using these current and interactive online tools such as xtranormal and Voki is a great help in getting students to be motivated and start believing that they could indeed speak in English. Besides, these tools could also help students to realize the correct pronunciation of certain words when they use the 'text to speech' function. With their self-esteem build up, they would be on their way to set a goal towards their learning and hence on the track towards speaking better English. After all, the best way to learn a language is through speaking the language (Nuttall, 1996).