Challenges and Proposals for new Spanish universities pre-entry exam: evaluating oral skills in foreign languages

Abstract

The Spanish Ministry of Education has recently passed the new legislation that regulates the university entry exam and the introduction of a foreign language test which would include the evaluation of oral and written comprehension and production skills. The evaluation of oral skills is a new component in the foreign language university entry exam. Therefore, the education professionals are expressing their doubts and worries and are already thinking about the way in which these changes would affect or change their current educational methodology. Several projects and studies developed in the Region of Valencia confirm that the introduction of the evaluation of oral skills in the university entry examination (PAU) is possible. This paper presents a series of possibilities which would permit the evaluation of these skills, which is especially feasible through computer assisted systems. This article concludes by mentioning that the positive aspects exceed the negative ones and that teachers change their point of view and show a positive attitude after working with computer assisted exam interfaces.