TEACHERS PERCEPTION ON ASSESING PUPILS ORAL SKILL (READING ALOUD) IN RURAL PRIMARY SCHOOL.

CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEWS

TEACHERS PERCEPTION ON ASSESING PUPILS ORAL SKILL (READING ALOUD) IN RURAL PRIMARY SCHOOL.

2.0 INTRODUCTION
This chapter will be discussing on the related literatures that previously done by other researchers.

2.1 Related literatures

2.1.1 Perceptions on Reading Aloud Nowadays, according to Norul (2013), the UCSI Assistant Dean in School of Social Science & Liberal art, many students especially in East-Coast state; Kelantan, Terengganu and etc. cannot communicate well in English. They are good in writing and mostly pass the target mark for excellence, but when it comes to interview conducted in English, most of them fail. She found this problem when she handled an interview of STARs Scholarship in Kuala Lumpur this year. She assumed that this situation happen because these students do not have enough exposure in communicating in English. It is because English is viewed as the third language in their society. The first language is their mother-tongued and their second language is the formal Bahasa Melayu. Their social environment is too different from students in West-Coast State especially in Kuala Lumpur, Johor and Selangor. Sometimes, the West-Coast State students used English language as their daily communication. The first thing to do in order to solve this problem is to find some good strategies to expose them to English communication proficiency. It must be implemented at their early age which is in kindergarten and primary school.

Reading aloud is one of good strategy to teach students on how to communicate well and be more confident in using English language. When the students think they are able to pronounce certain word correctly, then only they will be more confident to talk in English. Dont laugh at me, a song by Mark Wills is one of the song to describe the students fear in doing something new. Reading itself is described as ...a psychological process by which the reader reconstruct as best as he can, a message which has been encoded by the writer as a graphic display (Goodman, 1971:135). Grellet (1981:3) defined a reading comprehension as, Understanding a written text means extracting the required information from it as

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efficiently as possible. According to Nutall (1982), he explained that the most important thing in reading is the exchanging the messages between the writer to the reader. Reading in a second language is seen as a thinking exercise thats not only concerned on reading words, sentences and pages only but it is on developing language as a whole. Reading is the main reason to build the personality of a person and it is the main thing that teaching and learning stands on because it is a communicative way between the learner and the academic culture in the schools. The students should be able to use reading for study, for pleasure, to understand and to interact with what they learning. (Kuehn, 2012)

'In practice, the phenomenon of reading aloud is a pragmatic necessity.... There is often a strong theoretical and practical case for reading aloud in intermediate foreign language classrooms' (Davies of Whitney, 1985:71). Kolarek (2011) claimed that reading aloud is planned oral reading of a book or any print citation, which is related to a theme or topic of certain issues. Reading aloud sometimes is used to attract the students to listen attentively while building background knowledge, increasing comprehension skills and nurturing critical thinking. It can be used to show the use of reading strategies that help comprehension and it also can became a tradition and one of the favourite activity in the classroom. A good book or a story can encourage the student to involve in this activity more. Teachers conduct reading aloud activity to motivate their students to read and to build their topical knowledge about a specific subject (Hoffman, Roser, & Battle, 1993). Reading aloud texts, which are typically more difficult for children than their independent reading texts, are often followed by a brief discussion of the events and themes. The "oohh" sound that follow when the session is over and the promise of more tomorrow demonstrate the joy associated with a good reading aloud activity (Fisher, et. al., 2004)

D. Blau (2003) supports above idea by arguing that reading aloud, which is the most powerful ways of rereading, is active, per formative and engaging, the incredibly rewarding strategy for understanding difficult texts. By reading aloud, the students will focus on certain words and notice more and more how the details of the text were joined to give the meaning to the sentences. The students maybe do not have the technical vocabulary to analyze the sentence, but successfully reading a sentence aloud represents the first important steps toward producing a close reading (Jones, 2008).

TEACHERS PERCEPTION ON ASSESING PUPILS ORAL SKILL (READING ALOUD) IN RURAL PRIMARY SCHOOL.

There are many benefits of reading aloud. Hopkins and Edwards (1972) argued with Conway and Gathercole (1987) that the benefits of reading words aloud occurs in the encoding itself, leading to the suggestion of heighten the differences. Being different means that a word must be unique with respect to other words in order to be recalled or remembered and must be item-based. Murdocks (1960) theory states that the concept of differences refers to the relationship between a given stimulus and one or more comparison stimuli, and if there are no comparisons stimuli the concept of differences is simply not applicable. In other words, if differences is crucial, and without unique responses to the items, there would be no production effect (MacLeod, et. al., 2010). As results, reading aloud a word allows time elapsed for differences and processing record to occur. Therefore at the time of retrieval, the word is recognized and recalled. Reading a text aloud proved to be more effective on word recognition than reading words silently which further support studies done about generation effect. The information is processed effectively in memory by reading aloud. This leads to an interpretation that even when small samples are obtained, productions effect is proven and can occur in situations where words are read aloud.

Reading aloud as a self-generating strategy for thinking should be taught as part of an initial orientation especially in English classes where this strategy often used. It needs to be emphasized to students that reading aloud is not merely passive reading but they are free to activate their insights about particular reactions and meta-cognitive thinking on the contents of what they are reading (Magno and Sison, 2011). Research shows that reading aloud activity improves reading. Reading aloud helps students to learn to read, retell the story and improve vocabulary through sequencing activities or graphic organizers. The reading aloud activity for primary school students can help students to learn about the concepts of printed materials, such as book format, title of the book, reading left to right and so forth and the style of the author. In the English as a Second Language classroom (ESL classroom), teachers used reading aloud to help students learn the second language through puppetry, finding the "big idea" in the story and through reading out loud independently (Kellie Hayden, 2012).

Not just for the students, reading aloud also benefited the ESL teachers as well. Reading a passage aloud is a good way for a teacher to assess a student's overall reading ability, and provides a forum for guidance and feedback. This is according to a 2000 report from the

TEACHERS PERCEPTION ON ASSESING PUPILS ORAL SKILL (READING ALOUD) IN RURAL PRIMARY SCHOOL.

National Reading Panel, a project of the National Institutes of Health. That report made a comparison between silent reading and reading aloud. Silent reading in the classroom increases focus, but it may not address fluency problems in the same way that reading aloud with feedback can. The degree of fluency a student shows also gives an indication of how well he understands the text, in addition to just recognizing the words (Winston, 2011). Reading aloud also can help a teacher assess whether a student is "seeing" word endings and other grammatical features when reading (NCLRC, 2011). Kolarex (2011) list down the advantages of engaging the students in reading aloud around the class as; it affords a basic form of classroom organization and discipline, especially in dictation-type exercises where everyone has to concentrate to try and spell the words correctly (Davies and Whitney, 1985). Secondly, students can use the technique as a carrier for examining the meaning of the texts and to get the clear idea of the text (Gray, 1956). Thirdly, the students can correct each other's mistakes in pronunciation. Reading aloud also gives the opportunity for the students to communicate in the class, to develop pronunciation skills; 'To do oral reading well, a student must first speak well' (Raja Nasir, 1969:79) and to sort out relationships between continual strings of words. '...to find out how different parts may best be read to make the meaning closer to others' (Gray, 1956:139).

If there is positive, there is also negative. Some researcher view reading aloud in negative perception. Many students reluctant to engage in reading aloud activity because they are shy, lack of self-confidence, and not wanting to be embarrassed in front of their classmates (Kuehn, 2012). Peter Redpath (2011) stated that reading out loud in front of the whole class is a technique almost as old as formal education itself. And it hasnt gone away. Around the world, it remains a methodological mainstay for many teachers. Mark Sample (2011) add more to these negative perception by claiming that reading aloud is a remedial activity and is the childish activity in the classroom. Reading aloud is only suitable for kindergarten and primary school students. It does not suit for higher learner. When students read aloud individually, they are given no pause time to use reading strategies and are over-corrected for small and often insignificant pronunciation errors (Lyall, 2008).

TEACHERS PERCEPTION ON ASSESING PUPILS ORAL SKILL (READING ALOUD) IN RURAL PRIMARY SCHOOL.

....ordinary reading aloud is not merely a useless exercise for foreign language learners: it is likely to be harmful, because it tends to produce just that evil which the teacher is most anxious to prevent - parrot talking without thought of any meaning (West, 1969:90).

According Kolarek (2011), reading aloud activity can prevent successful (silent) reading, especially of long texts. It also can confuse the skills of reading and listening. Thirdly, it invites false comparisons between spelling (the printed word) and pronunciation (the spoken word) and also encourages 'bad' habits which will inhibit successful reading. The most important thing about reading aloud, like any other language skill, is that its aim is communication. To be able to communicate well, the students need to pronounce the words well enough for other people to understand. Thus, it is important to point out and practise those features of pronunciation which change when we read a written script as opposed to speaking naturally, or spontaneously. Meaning of the English language is conveyed through stress, rhythm and intonation in English. The students are assumed to have problem in communication if meaning is distracted by the wrong stress or intonation (Harsh Kadepurkar, 2012). The reading aloud activity sometimes can make a learner bored and get the teacher irritated. It is because, it is hard to view how in such situation a participant can sort out the relationship between continual strings of words (Davies and Whitney, 1985).

Fisher, et. al., 2004, in their article of The Reading Teacher, claimed that reading aloud is not a good way to help the students to become a good reader. This activities will make other learner to listen to English word that being badly pronounced with poor stress and intonation by the readers; again and again. That learner will use the same badly pronunciation of English words, adding more to their lack of communication proficiency. Listening to inaccurate English word pronunciation is a bad technique for teaching reading skill. Reading aloud requires that every word be understood not only visually but orally as well, leading to what Sheila Been, 1978 calls as Mediated Word Identification, which is the consequences of being slow down the readings speed. This issue was heat up more by Smith, 1971 who suggest that, the reader must reading fast to understand the meaning of a sentences or passage. The reader must see information in the passage as a whole to get the idea of the

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meaning. In a slow reading, the reader may lost the overall pictures due to focusing on details and unfamiliar vocabulary in the passage and it will halt any reading(Ferguson, 1973). He also concluded that reading aloud has negative effect on reading skill and inhibit the improvement in readings speed. He made a study and found that the skilled reader is able to read faster than unskilled one as he is able to chunk the material into sense units, thus affording him a higher speed than an inefficient reader who read more slowly. Skilled readers read at a speed of between 400-800 words per minutes while reading aloud read at a speed of between 120-400 words per minutes, the speed of unskilled reader. Based on above study, Christine Nutall stated that, If you think of the percentage of time most adults spend on reading aloud compared with the time spent on reading silently, you may feel you should adjust the proportion of time spent on each(1982:3).

Although there are many negatives perceptions on reading aloud, there are also some good perceptions that cover up the weakness. Without actually reading out aloud, reading can be a quite boring passive skill. By reading out aloud, the students use the language in an active manner, and English class becomes more interesting and exciting especially in reading stories. To make the class is more lively and interesting; the teacher will act while reading it aloud by using correct stress, intonation and different tone of voice. The students who read out aloud have also will improve their vocabulary and writing skills. By reciting words, expressions, and sentences, a student is more likely to remember and understand the language than by just passively glancing at it. If a student reads out aloud, he or she improves sentence structure fluency. This is done by grouping the correct number of words with both the subject and predicate of a sentence. If this is done, it will carry over to writing and assist the student in writing better sentences and paragraphs.

So, the teachers should continue to view the reading aloud as a good way to help the students in preparing them to better communication proficiency, especially to the students in kindergarten and primary school. Kuehn (2012) suggest that the students should be motivated to engage in reading aloud activity by showing attention to students by participating them in class activities. This strategy will help to solve the seeking attention students with behavioural problems. Second, the teacher should make the student feel important: by first remembering and using their names often in class; call on students when they raise their hands in class, allow students to assist in classroom routine chores, praise

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the students in front of their friends, or write comments such as "excellent" or "nicely done" when students do well on a test or homework exercises. Thirdly, instil the self confidence in the students. In reading out aloud, many students with some self-confidence will come to the front of the class to read at the urging of their classmates. If students have only a little bit of self-confidence, the teacher need to stand next to them when they read or have the students invite friends to read out aloud with them. While the students are reading, the teacher should be lavish with praise to enhance the student's self-confidence. Fourthly, there is the extrinsic reward of peer and teacher approval. After students have read aloud in class, the teacher should ask the whole class whether the students are good readers. If the students have put on a good performance, most of the class will say that the students are good readers. The teacher should then add that the students are excellent readers, and that they should be considered for entering a speaking contest. The next time the teacher asked for volunteers to read out aloud in class, these students were the first ones to volunteer.

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2.1.2 Perceptions on assessment In every teaching and learning, assessment in any ways either formative or summative is a must to know the end results of those processes itself. According to Wikipedia.org, 2012, the word assessment derives from Latin word asidere which mean to sit beside. This simple phrase tells us a lot about the essence of assessment in the context of the primary school classroom. Its tone is non-threatening and affirming, and it suggests a partnership based on mutual trust and understanding. It reminds us that there should be a positive rather than a negative association between assessment and the process of teaching and learning in schools. Dan Brian, Paul Lively and Sunil Bhanot, 2011 in their study of The Importance of Assessment in Primary Education, claimed that an assessments are test, which can be made in any subject; specific and unspecific subject. Writing ability can be used as one of assessment methods. They also define the primary education as education that takes place in elementary school. Assessment is very important to in primary education.

The Irish Primary School Curriculum (1999) stated that an assessment is a must to the teaching and learning process. It is because an assessment interwoven with all aspects of the curriculum and encompasses the cognitive and affective domains. There are various assessment modes, which is suitable for any circumstances in education or in any subject. Assessment can play a vital role in the early identification of learning problems. The schools should implement procedures both at school and classroom levels for recording and reporting assessment outcomes. It is important to the teachers because through assessment only the teachers can identify students learning difficulties and they should know all the technical qualities of different assessment instruments to know the best instrument to suit their students ability.

Teachers need supports in the implementation of assessments, recording and reporting of assessment outcome. Assessment is the central point to the process of teaching and learning. It is used to monitor learning processes and to define achievement in each area of the curriculum. By assessment, the teacher will constructs a comprehensive picture of the short-term and long-term needs of the child and then the plans future work accordingly. Assessment is also used to identify children with specific learning difficulties so that the

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nature of the support and assistance they need can be search. The appropriate strategies and programmes will be built to enable them to cope with the particular difficulties that they are encountering. Assessment assists communication about childrens progress and development between teacher and child, between teacher and parent and between teacher and teacher It also helps to ensure quality in education. (Primary School Curriculum, 1999, page 17). Assessment play vital roles in all areas of the curriculum and it cover various aspects of learning; the cognitive, the creative, the affective, the physical and the social. In addition to the products of learning, the strategies, procedures and stages in the process of learning are assessed. Assessment includes the childs growth in self-esteem, interpersonal and intrapersonal behaviour, and the acquisition of a wide range of knowledge, skills, attitudes and values (Primary School Curriculum, 1999, page 17). The curriculum emphasises on formative classroom-based assessment and its use in providing feedback to inform the next stages in childrens learning. The wider purposes of assessment are also formally acknowledged and emphasised. The methods and tools of assessment recommended in the curriculum range on a continuum from less structured, informal methods such as teacher observation to more formal structured methods such as the use of standardised tests and diagnostic tests. These statements on assessment in the curriculum outline in general terms the principles and strategies that should govern the approaches to assessment in the curriculum (Primary School Curriculum, 1999).

Mostly, the assessment takes place in the classroom. Irish Primary School Curriculum (1999), defined classroom assessment as the process of gathering, recording, interpreting, using and communicating information about a childs progress and achievement during the development of knowledge, concepts, skills and attitudes. Assessment, therefore, involves much more than testing. It is an ongoing process that covers many formal and informal activities designed to monitor and improve teaching and learning in all areas of the curriculum.

As mentioned earlier, assessment is integral part of teaching and learning, so many teachers assessed their students to know their learning ability. Assessment for learning involves an ongoing process of recognising and responding to the childs learning in order to improve his/her development. For the teacher, this process involves engaging children in their

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own learning by providing rich feedback, using effective questioning, and engaging children in peer and self-assessment. The goal of assessment for learning is to enable learners to further their own learning. It concerned with applying the information gained from the different modes of assessment to the learning and the teaching process. Planning for assessment for learning is critical to its success. Through assessment for learning, the teacher will gather extensive, continuous information about a childs progress and attainment through observing his/her performance in day-to-day learning activities participation in the classroom. In evaluating the childs response to the teachers questions, the teacher will obtain information through the quality of his/her involvement in class and group activities, and the questions he/she poses in the learning situation. Tasks and tests undertaken both in the classroom and at home will be directly related to particular learning objectives, and will add a further dimension to the picture the teacher constructs of the progress of the individual children. Correspondingly, portfolios, accumulated work samples, and projects will provide information regarding the progress the child is making over a longer period such as a month or a term. In using assessment for learning the teacher takes account of all this information about the childs progress, attainment and possible areas of difficulty in providing regular and high-quality feedback to the child, and in planning for future learning experiences. It also includes that function of assessment known as formative assessment, but is wider in scope since it would also include diagnostic assessment and evaluative assessment. Although the term evaluative assessment is usually associated with the evaluation of schools and of educational systems, the teacher can also use assessment information to evaluate the effectiveness with which he/she is mediating the curriculum. Based on this evaluative information, the teacher can make decisions regarding the sequencing of content and the choice of appropriate teaching approaches and methodologies. A crucial element in using assessment for learning is the extent to which the child is actively involved in the learning process. It is important that the child understands the purposes of his/her learning and the use of assessment to support that learning. The use of good questioning and quality feedback is important to enable the child to develop effective strategies for self-assessment. If this practice is incorporated as a consistent feature of assessment throughout the primary school, children should become reasonably good self-assessors by the time they reach sixth class. This will not only assist the child in constructing his/her learning on an on- going basis but also provides a strong motivational factor in learning (Primary School Curriculum, 1999).

TEACHERS PERCEPTION ON ASSESING PUPILS ORAL SKILL (READING ALOUD) IN RURAL PRIMARY SCHOOL.

As a part of learning, assessment provides many benefits. It assists both students and teachers to understand what skills or ideas should be emphasized in the lesson and it can guarantee that the activities in the classroom match up with what the students need to learn. Learning assessment also creates a stronger focus on the students' learning abilities, as well as opens the door for collaboration with other teachers or with the educational institution at large (Murphy, 2011).

The Irish Primary School Curriculum (1999) lists down more benefits of conducting assessment in the guidelines book. Assessments objective is to improve students learning and achievements. Through assessment, students get information about what they should learn, how much they will learn and how they would learn depends to a large extend on then assessment that is implemented. Assessment serves to stimulate the student to learn and to give him/her directions on how to learn and to increase the achievement in and out of school, and not just to state only how much the student has been successful in learning. Secondly, assessment provides complete information about student achievement by providing information of how much students know and what they can do with what they know. Assessment is used to evaluate students knowledge and skills, as well as their values, attitudes and habits that have influence on their performance and achievement at school and out of it. It also provides information about students strengths and weaknesses that are later used to provide progress in students achievements. Thirdly, assessment is a complementary part of the teaching process (of learning and of teaching). There is a clear relationship between the goals and the content of instruction and assessment (between what is learnt and taught and what is assessed). Teaching, learning and assessment are processes that are interwoven and they provide coherence in teaching; what is to be assessed depends on curriculum aims and content, how the instruction would be carried out and to what goals it is directed to, depends on assessment outcomes. The students have active role in the assessment process. Fourthly, assessment is based on making use of multiple different methods. Making use of various different methods enables minimizing the weaknesses and limitations of each individual method. When making use of different methods, the assessment takes into consideration of various learning styles of students.

Fifthly, assessment is a continuous process. Assessment involves activities of monitoring and evaluation of students performance and achievements during the entire school year. It is used to control the progress of students achievements, on the basis of which

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students are directed to the set-up teaching goals. Sixthly, assessment is fair. Fairness in assessment refers to impartiality in administering the assessment, making evaluation of achievements and interpretation and use of results. Assessment does not favour students (neither by type, nor by content) on basis of their background or on basis of their previous experience with other teachers and/or assessment method. Seventhly, assessment is transparent. Students are familiar with the instruction goals, with the standards that they are required to meet and how the achievements are assessed (what they are expected to learn, how and when they are going to be assessed). Students and parents are familiar with assessment (methods that are used and the outcomes of their use). Eighthly, assessment is valid and reliable. Assessment provides information that is relevant to the goals and content of instruction. The interpretation of the assessment results doesnt include judgments on students behaviour, skills and abilities that are not subject to the particular assessment. Assessment is consistent from one student to another, and if possible, from one teacher to another (Primary School Curriculum, 1999).

TEACHERS PERCEPTION ON ASSESING PUPILS ORAL SKILL (READING ALOUD) IN RURAL PRIMARY SCHOOL.

2.1.2.1 Reading Aloud in Oral Assessment McNamara (1996) stated that simulating authentic communication process under test conditions is difficult. A test developer is often forced into making decisions that may involve sacrificing some degree of validity. Yet these obstacles should not be viewed as insurmountable. If it is seen that language ability comes with built-in complexities (Bachman, 2001), then it is the duty of language instructors as well as testers to capture as closely as possibly actual language use. Weir (1993:32) comments: information routines can be catered for in test tasks such as oral presentations which cater for long turns, but they may also form part of interactional routines For talking in short turns, reciprocal ability to use receptive and productive skills both in continual encoding and decoding of developing message(s) is involved. He further tells reciprocal communication involves due observance of accepted routines and the continuous evaluation and negotiation of meaning on the part of the participants.

According to SEDL.org (2010), one of common form of reading assessment is reading accuracy. In a reading accuracy assessment, a student is asked to read a passage of text clearly, without making any mistakes. Very often, a reading assessment combines two different assessments into one assessment; the reading comprehension assessment and reading accuracy assessment. The students reads a passage out loud while the teacher makes note of errors the students made, and then the students are asked some comprehension questions about the passage. However, it is worth noting that a beginning readers comprehension usually suffers when he or she is asked to read a passage of text out loud. When children read orally, they usually concentrate on reading accurately, and do not pay as much attention to comprehension of the content. Oral reading accuracy does give insights into decoding skills and strategies, but that is a separate test. A reading comprehension test is most accurate if the child is not reading for an audience. National Center Education Statistic (2006), in its report book, The Nations Report Card: Fourth-Grade Students Reading Aloud: NAEP 2002 Special Study of Oral Reading, stated that listening to children read aloud and evaluating the answers to questions about reading material are the two ways teachers can assess students reading ability. Examining students answers to questions about texts they have read may offer useful insights into their

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reading ability and their ability to think about texts. However, listening to students oral reading performance affords researchers opportunities to examine factors such as accuracy and phrasing, which are not directly observable through their answers to questions. By listening to children read aloud, it is possible to gain important clues about their reading development. Levels of automaticity (ease of word identification or unconscious decoding of words), accuracy, phrasing, apprehension of syntactical complexity, expressiveness, and even functional understanding of punctuation can be detected by carefully listening to and rating oral reading performance (Adams, 1990). For these reasons, it is important to analyze and measure oral reading ability. NAEP developed the oral reading study to provide a richer understanding of the literacy development of fourth-grade students within the constraints of a large-scale assessment.

The oral reading study was designed to examine several important components of literacy development that are integrated in proficient reading which are reading accuracy, reading rate, and reading fluency and also to compare these to overall reading comprehension as measured in the main NAEP reading assessment. The oral reading study addresses several important assessment goals widely agreed upon in the community of reading educators and others concerned about reading development (Pinnell et al. 1995). The components of oral reading; accuracy, rate, and fluency, constitute a cluster of critical literacy abilities (Snow, Burns, and Griffen 1998). Oral reading functions as a significant indicator of overall reading ability (Fuchs et al. 2001). Educational researchers recognize reading aloud as central both to comprehensive and efficacious reading instruction and to reading assessment (Fuchs et al. 2001; Nathan and Stanovich 1991; NICHHD 2000, April 13, 2000; No Child Left Behind [NCLB] Act of 2001; Rasinski 2000; Reutzel and Hollingsworth 1993; Shinn et al. 1992). This connection between oral and overall reading abilities was noted by the evidence-based report of the National Reading Panel ([NRP] 2000) as summarized in NICHHD (2000, p. 6): Fluent readers are able to read orally with speed, accuracy, and proper expression. Fluency is one of several critical factors necessary for reading comprehension. Furthermore, the NRP (2000, p. 3-3) found reading efficiency is increased by a range of instructional approaches that encourage repeated oral reading with teacher feedback, suggesting the efficacy of regular classroom assessment of oral reading fluency.

Parker (2007) explains more about oral reading fluency by claiming that oral reading fluency assessments determine the number of words a student can read aloud per minute and

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how many of these words are read correctly. Students need to be fluent in order to be proficient readers. The District Assessment Plan must include assessments that substantiate student growth in standard learning. The fluency assessment will be administered to every student in a grade level in the first quarter and last quarter of the school year. Students will complete a timed oral reading of a selected on-level passage. As the student reads, the teacher follows along in a copy of the same text and notes errors. To calculate the number of words read correctly in one minute, subtract the number of errors from the total number of words read. Parker (2007) list down the errors in oral reading fluency assessment which includes, omission, substitution, misreading, insertion of word and hesitation for more than 3 seconds. He also claimed that self-correction and repetitions is not errors in this assessment. Fluency may be more than the sum of its part. Reading accurately, while critical, is not sufficient for supporting fluent reading. The ability to read a passage fluently with

awareness of syntax, phrasing, and expression undoubtedly goes beyond simply being able to read words. While fluency data can be interpreted causally, the results suggest that reading fluency may have as much to do with being able to gain meaning form text (comprehension), as it does with being highly accurate in reading words. NAEP (1992) Trends in Academic Progress.

Commonly, in reading aloud assessment, the teachers were trained not to penalize variant pronunciations, such as those arising from regional, dialectical, or non-native speech. The teachers were directed to listen to an entire oral rendering, to become familiar with the students unique speech patterns, before beginning accuracy or fluency coding. Teachers were encouraged to determine whether or not the student knew and correctly read a particular word, given his or her own unique speech characteristics. There are certain characteristic that the teachers will look upon in reading aloud assessment. Its including accuracy, rate and fluency. Accuracy refers to the degree to which a students oral reading conforms to the letter-sound conventions of printed, standard English; in other words, accuracy measures the students precision in orally presenting the words in the text. Rate refers to the speed at which the student reads aloud. It is measured and recorded as both the number of words per minute for the entire performance and the number of words in the initial minute of oral reading. Fluency is a rating of the students ability to render an appropriately phrased and syntactically coherent delivery of the passage. (NAEP, 2006)

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2.1.2.2 Oral Assessment in Rural Primary School The School-based Oral English Assessment produced beneficial backwash on the ESL teachers classroom instructions and on the performance of the students in the test. Oral Reading Fluency (ORF), one curriculum-based measure of reading, has been demonstrated as a reliable indicator of reading ability and comprehension, and a good tool to monitor reading skills progress (Allison & Whedall, 1999). The prime objective of language assessment reform is to build communicative skills that are important for performing real-life like tasks rather than to train the students on grammar rules and make them skilful in translating written texts (Eckes et al., 2005) Although the oral assessment importance has been widely spread in the education world as an integral part of teaching and learning process, still the teachers do not put emphasis on oral language assessment development. It is because oral language was viewed as do not play a part in the determination of grades, thus the development of the speaking skill was not given equal emphasis in the language classrooms. An assessment system not only affects the learning and teaching but it also affects the society as a whole. According to McNamara (2000), the impact of assessment can be complex and unpredictable. While talking about the impact of assessment, he also points out part of the impact of the reform was to open the door to abuses of the assessment process by wealthy families, who could afford to hire private tutors to coach their children through the projects they had to complete in order to gain the scores they needed to enter the university of their choice, The teachers rarely practice oral presentation or do group works which involve communication activities with the students. It will impose on them extra load of work. They claimed that it is very difficult to maintain those kinds of activities after teaching 6 to 7 periods every day. Classes usually being large, it has become an extra load for them to maintain all the categories of activities. They are in the opinion that if they try to do all those activities in the class, they will not be able to complete the syllabus throughout the year. All of them check their students home work and doing some clerical work during their off periods nevertheless they do not have enough off periods (Begum, 2008) According to Hamzah and Sinnasamy (2009), who made a study on the effectiveness of oral assessment in Sabah, they found out that most teachers are unsure of the criteria and how the School-based Oral English should be carried out. There are also cases of non-English option teachers carrying out the assessment. Ultimately how effectively the School-based

TEACHERS PERCEPTION ON ASSESING PUPILS ORAL SKILL (READING ALOUD) IN RURAL PRIMARY SCHOOL.

Oral English Assessment is implemented is in the hands of teachers themselves. The success or failure of any programme is in the hands of the teachers as classroom managers and implementers at grass-root level. This fact has been emphasized by former Education Director- General from 1974 to 1985, Tan Sri Dr Murad Mohammad Nor, when commenting on the New Education Blueprint (The Star, 2007), who said: The most important part in the implementation of any plan is the teachers. However good the plan, it will be of no use if the teachers do not implement it well. It was found that the assessment was not implemented according to guidelines and objectives provided by the Malaysian Examinations Syndicate (2002 & 2003). In some schools the school-based oral English assessment was carried out for the sake of fulfilling the administrative directives. According to Stern (1983) the finest and most up-to-date curriculum ideas may not be accepted if they are imposed upon the teachers concerned without having made sure that the changes to new curriculum demands are understood by them. The willing participation of the teachers in implementing the curriculum changes is recognized as an essential aspect of introducing a new curriculum. This recognition and realization will bring about positive attitude towards the School-based Oral English Assessment. In the implementation of any changes to a curriculum or programme, the teachers at grassroots level play an important role in their effective implementation. To a great extent their perception towards the change influences the way they perceive the change and implement the changes. According to Quinn (2000) perception is a process that combines both sensing and interpreting. Information comes from the outside world through our senses. Factors like past experiences, emotions, motivation, and what other people infer have a strong influence on perception. Perception also involves cognitive, affective and behavioural factors. A study made by Pillay (1995) and Fauziah (2002) show that rural area students are poor in oral or speaking skills. Basically this involves the proper implementation of various programmes and how the teachers as implementers perceive the changes that are taking place. According to a study done by Weir (1994) teachers have indicated negative feelings towards the school-based assessment. They have complained that it is being imposed on them and also about time constraints. During the preliminary study some teachers expressed the same feelings that the school-based assessment has been imposed on the teachers and also that it is too time consuming. They have to concentrate on the teaching and learning process as well as assessment at the same time. The findings from this study also show that the teachers are

TEACHERS PERCEPTION ON ASSESING PUPILS ORAL SKILL (READING ALOUD) IN RURAL PRIMARY SCHOOL.

faced with time constraints and handling large numbers of students but at the same time they have indicated a positive perception towards the implementation of the School based Oral English Assessment. Teachers should be knowledgeable, be confident and have the ability to teach students. According to Hughes (1980), in order to be an effective teacher they should be well educated and they should not only impart knowledge to students but should also be creative and innovative. According to Wier (1994), it has been found that formative assessment is not well understood by teachers and it is weak in practice. The implementation of formative assessment calls for deep changes both in teachers perception of their own role in relation to their students and in their classroom practice. By the end of the study, the teachers have understood the purpose of formative assessment and have positive perception toward oral assessment. It was after the teacher being trained and inform about the contents, guidelines and the objectives of oral assessment (Hamzah, Sinnasamy, 2009)

At the end of 2010, the new assessment system was implemented. According to the Malaysian Ministry of Education, the new assessment system promotes a combination of centralized and school-based assessment (SBA).It is also a fact that the role of teachers in the new assessment system is vital. Teachers will be given empowerment in assessing their students. There were indications that the teachers were aware about SBA. However, the respondents were uncertain about the role they needed to play in SBA. At this juncture, it is obvious that in-service trainings are much needed in order to address this urgency. As claimed by Ferguson-Patrick (2009, p. 2), ...Most staff development and school improvement activities continue to leave teachers knowledge and skills essentially untouched. In this instance, there is evidence that the teachers knowledge and skills in implementing school-based assessment is still quite poor despite the guidelines and objectives provided by the Ministry especially in rural school. More hands-on sessions such as workshops and open discussions on the challenges and issues in implementing the assessment need to be carried out. The feedback gathered from the teachers as well as the students should be able to provide relevant information to the Ministry in their attempt to decide on the necessary changes and modifications to the existing assessments policies and guidelines. It is worth noting that the teachers involved in the study also indicated their concerns in terms of the management of the assessment. (Faizah, 2011)