Sentence Repetition

Students hear sentences and repeat them as accurately as possible, testing comprehension through recall ability.

Procedure

1. Read out (or play recordings of) a series of sentences. Students repeat each one as accurately as they can. Sentences can target specific grammar points, functional language, or vocabulary.
2. Vary sentence length from one word (Hello!) to 15-20 words. Sentences above this length are rare in natural speech and difficult even for advanced speakers.

Tips

• Score simply: mark each sentence right or wrong, count correct repetitions out of 10-12 sentences. No special assessor training needed.
• Research shows this correlates well with other assessment types — we cannot accurately repeat sentences we don't understand.
• At higher levels with longer sentences, consider rewarding meaningful paraphrases (same meaning, different words) as acceptable repetitions. This adds validity but requires more assessor judgement.
• Progressive difficulty variation: start with 1-2 word utterances and increase length by one word at a time. If two consecutive sentences at the same length are repeated incorrectly, stop. The word count of the last successful sentence is the score.
• Can be used as a quick diagnostic, a practice activity, or a formal assessment tool.