Authentic Assessment : How Could Authentic Assessment Benefit EFL Students' Speaking Skills in Swedish Upper Secondary School?

Abstract: The study’s intention is to research the questions of how authentic assessment could benefit EFL students’ speaking skills in Swedish upper secondary school and what some advantages and disadvantages were of doing so. To this end secondary sources were used to gather information to be able to answer the research questions. The results showed that the benefits of authentic assessment could help students’ speaking skills in improving their accuracy and fluency, their conversational skills and grammar use for communicative competency. Results also showed that authentic assessment promotes learning style diversity. Both skill and materialistic issues were found as some advantages and disadvantages of using authentic assessment when assessing EFL students’ speaking skills. Examples of advantages were authentic assessment helping students develop skills such as critical and logical thinking, interactional skills and combining cognitive objectives with attitudes and social skills. No disadvantages in favour of the students were found. However, the teacher’s lack of possible knowledge needed to use authentic assessment was noted. A final discussion expressed that authentic assessment, like any other type of assessment, has its value when used in the right context.