Photo/Illutration Students wearing earphones speak into a microphone to answer questions displayed on a tablet device. (Provided by the Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education)

Students headed to nearly 200 testing sites on Nov. 27 across Tokyo to take the first English speaking test with the results forming part of the entrance exams for metropolitan high schools.

The aim of the test conducted by the Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education is to measure proficiency in speaking English and to lead to better instruction.

The speaking test comprised eight questions, including reading English sentences aloud and expressing opinions on familiar topics.

Examinees listened to audio through earphones, looked at illustrations, and then spoke into a microphone to answer the questions. Their voices were recorded on a tablet device.

Benesse Corp., a major correspondent education company commissioned by the board, jointly administered the test.

The recorded students’ voices will be sent to the Philippines, where staff from a Benesse affiliate will grade them in pairs.

The results will be converted to a score of 20, which is included in the overall score of 1,020 in the spring’s entrance exams for Tokyo metropolitan high schools.

Around 76,000 students, or 95 percent of the third-year students at public junior high schools in the capital, applied to take the test.

About 69,000 students took the exam at 197 locations in Tokyo, including at metropolitan high schools.

The speaking test was conducted by dividing the students in the same venue into two groups. The first group answered the questions on the test, then, a little later, the second group answered the same questions.

Despite doubts whether the test could be smoothly conducted, the education board said after the test that “no major problems have been confirmed.”

The board said it had confirmed some problems, however, such as that the telephone lines for receiving a notice of absence were temporarily difficult to connect to and that multiple students arrived late because they went to the wrong venue.

After the test, one comment was also posted on social media in which a student, presumably a test taker, claimed to have heard the voices of students answering questions in the classroom next door.

However, the education board said it has not received any such reports.

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In the fiscal 2021 English speaking mock test, one of the questions asks test takers to describe each of the illustrations as if they are the depicted character. (Provided by the Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education)

Academics of exam theory have questioned the fairness of the method of scoring the nearly 80,000 answers, along with the validity of how the scores of absentees will be determined.

For those who missed the test, their scores will be calculated by averaging the speaking test results of students who get the same level as the absentee’s English score on the achievement test.

(This article was written by Yuka Honda and Soichi Tsuchidate.)

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