Opportunities associated with emerging technologies and oral language assessment

Abstract In recent years, there has been a rapid increase in the use of technology to assist in the delivery of second language oral communication (OC) assessments. In particular, video mediation, virtual reality, and spoken dialogue systems (SDSs) have been employed for this purpose. These emerging technologies have helped in assessing aspects of the OC construct that have been previously neglected, such as interactional competence. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to showcase how these technologies have been incorporated into OC assessments, what aspects of the construct they can help to assess, areas where they are inadequate, and what new challenges they introduce. The paper concludes with directions for future research.