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Abstract
Acquiring adequate proficiency in the spoken language is perceived as a significant achievement by most learners of English as a second language while it also remains the most formidable challenge for the learners. Hence teaching speaking demands special attention in the ELT curriculum and pedagogy. As a productive skill, speaking entails complex processes of instantaneous language generation and processing skills, in contrast to writing, that normally affords a longer time and a greater degree of flexibility and freedom in terms of correction, revision, and restructuring. Spoken discourse, as Sari Luoma observes in Assessing Speaking, is marked by vague or very common words; fixed phrases, fillers, and hesitation markers; slips and errors reflecting real time processing; joint construction of interactions; and different registers depending on speaker roles, speaking purpose, and the context (16-20).