ELPAC Speaking Test: Task Types & Rubrics

Many students who read and listen comfortably in English hesitate when they have to produce spoken English on demand. The Speaking domain checks how clearly and accurately a student can put ideas into spoken English, from short answers about a picture up to a summary of an academic presentation.

Speaking is one of the two domains in the Oral Language composite; the other is Listening. The Oral Language composite then feeds into the overall score. In kindergarten the overall score weights oral language at 70 percent and written language at 30 percent, and from grade 1 through grade 12 the two composites count equally. A weak speaking result therefore pulls down the oral composite and, through it, the overall level, though no single domain decides the overall level on its own.

Unlike a classroom discussion, where gestures and a teacher's prompting fill the gaps, the test is listening for how much of the meaning the student can carry in words.

The Summative ELPAC uses six speaking task types. Not every student sees all six: which ones appear depends on the grade or grade span, as the table below shows.

1. Talk About a Scene: The student looks at a picture of a familiar scene, such as a classroom or a park. The examiner first asks short who, what or when questions about it, then asks questions that need longer answers.

2. Speech Functions: The examiner describes a situation, for example needing to ask a teacher for help or offering to help a classmate, and the student says the words they would actually use.

3. Support an Opinion: The student hears about two choices, such as two class activities, picks one and gives a reason for the choice.

4. Retell a Narrative: The student listens to a short story told alongside a series of pictures, then retells the story using the pictures.

5. Present and Discuss Information: The student looks at a graph, chart or image, summarizes what it shows, then says whether a claim about it is supported by the information.

6. Summarize an Academic Presentation: The student listens to a short academic presentation while looking at related pictures, then summarizes the main points. In kindergarten through grade 2 the examiner reads the presentation aloud; from grade 3 it is played as a recording.

There is no single speaking rubric. Each task type has its own, and the number of score points depends on how much the task asks for, from a simple right-or-wrong point on the short Talk About a Scene questions up to a five-level rubric (0 to 4) for retelling a story or summarizing a presentation. The official rubrics and scored sample answers are published in the practice test scoring guides on the CAASPP and ELPAC website, caaspp-elpac.org.

Across task types the rubrics look at similar things: whether the answer does what the question asked, how much relevant detail it gives, and whether errors in grammar, word choice or pronunciation get in the way of meaning. Higher scores on the longer tasks also look for ideas that are connected and speech that is fairly smooth and sustained rather than isolated words.

A score of 0 on any task generally means the answer did not address the question, contained no English, or there was no answer at all. Small mistakes that do not interfere with meaning are not penalized as such; the question is always whether a listener can follow what the student means.

The speaking prompts on this site come with practice rubrics written to follow the published scoring guides. They are a guide for discussing an answer with a student, not the official rubrics, and a score given with them is not an ELPAC score.

At every grade, from kindergarten to grade 12, Speaking is given one to one: a trained test examiner sits with a single student, even in grades where the other domains are taken in a group. The examiner presents each question, listens to the answer, and scores it in the moment using the rubric for that task type. The scores are then entered into the state's online scoring system.

In grades 3 through 12 the testing system also makes an audio recording of the student's answers. The score still comes from the examiner's judgment of what the student said during the test. Ask your school how speaking will be set up for your child, including whether headsets are used.

Answer in full: On the longer tasks, a one-word answer leaves most of the points on the table. If asked what is happening in the library, 'Students' answers the question; 'Two students are sitting at a table and reading the same book' shows much more English. On the short Talk About a Scene questions, a brief correct answer is all that is needed.

Use linking words: Practice connecting ideas with 'because', 'for example', 'first', 'then' and 'so'. Linked ideas are what the higher rubric levels describe on Retell a Narrative and Summarize an Academic Presentation.

Keep going after a mistake: If a verb comes out wrong, a quick fix ('She runned—she ran to the bus') and carrying on is far better than stopping. The rubrics ask whether errors get in the way of meaning, not whether there are any.