It is a fact that the new English textbooks written by Pro. Hoang Van Van and co-authors have made the context of English language teaching (ELT) in Vietnam an enormous shift from teachercentered to learner-centered which focuses on communication. | Nguyễn Thị Diệu Hà Tạp chí KHOA HỌC & CÔNG NGHỆ 191(15): 245 - 250 STUDENTS AND TEACHERS' PERCEPTIONS OF SPEAKING ASSESSMENT AT UPPER-HIGH SCHOOLS IN VIETNAM Nguyen Thi Dieu Ha* School of Foreign Languages - TNU ABSTRACT It is a fact that the new English textbooks written by Pro. Hoang Van Van and co-authors have made the context of English language teaching (ELT) in Vietnam an enormous shift from teachercentered to learner-centered which focuses on communication. The introduction of the books, however, has posed many teachers of English at upper-high schools challenges, especially speaking teaching and assessment. From those backdrops, it is necessary to conduct studies to explore teachers and students perceptions of the issue aiming at providing a theoretical framework for assessing speaking. The purpose of this study is to investigate the task types of speaking and criteria for speaking assessment that teachers at upper-high schools used to assess speaking. Key words: perception; speaking assessment; language assessment; language learning; marking criteria INTRODUCTION* Speaking has an important role in human beings life because speaking is a productive skill in which the speaker produces to communicate among people in a society in order to keep the relationship going well. Speaking is the thing that we use to express ideas at the same time he/she tries to get the ideas from others. Rivers [1] says that through speaking, someone can express his ideas, emotions, attentions, reactions to other person and situation and influence other person. Therefore, through speaking, everyone can communicate well or express what he/she wants from other and responds to the speaker. The teaching of speaking has been neglected for many years in foreign language teaching, including English as a foreign language (EFL), for various reasons (. the strong influence of the grammar translation method, lack of English native speaker teachers and EFL teachers with near-native .
