A methodology for initial oral testing as a tool for external differentiation of first-year language students based on their levels of foreign language communicative competence when organizing English language instruction at the university

The aim of the research is to develop a methodology for initial oral testing of language students in order to form homogeneous learning groups for optimizing the learning process (using English as an example). The article examines approaches to external differentiation of students by levels of foreign language communicative competence. Based on a literature review, the principles and characteristics of tasks that allow distinguishing levels A2-C1 are defined. As a result of the theoretical analysis of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, features of monologic and dialogic speech with diagnostic potential are identified. Initial testing tasks were constructed, responses at different levels were modeled, and their analysis was performed, confirming the effectiveness of the proposed tasks. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the integration of theoretical approaches, modern neural network technologies, and practical methods to create an effective system for initial testing of foreign language oral speech, capable of differentiating students by level of communicative competence with high accuracy and objectivity, which was previously incompletely realized in existing methods. As a result of the research, a methodology for initial testing was developed, covering both monologic and dialogic speech, and providing differentiation of levels from A2 to C1. Analysis of speech examples confirmed the diagnostic value of the tasks for identifying features of utterance structuring, depth of argumentation, and level of interactive skills.