Instant.
Accurate.
Reliable.

How the Dynamic Speaking Test works

Speaking is the hardest skill to test well – and usually the most time-consuming. The Dynamic Speaking Test was built to change that. In about 30 minutes, each of your students sits a speaking test in your lab or on their own computer or phone, and you get back a CEFR level you can trust, along with a clear picture of where their strengths and challenges lie.

Here’s how it works.

1. Test design you can rely on

The tasks have been written by specialists who've spent decades building language exams. Every task is mapped to the CEFR, every level has been trialled with real learners, and the whole test has been refined over years of use in schools, universities and language centres around the world.

One test, every level.

Traditionally, placement tests need you to know roughly where a student sits before you give them the right paper – which means a rough-and-ready levelling exercise before the real test even starts. The Dynamic Speaking Test does away with that. The instructions are clear enough for an A1 beginner to follow, but the tasks open out as the student progresses, giving more able speakers room to show what they can really do.

Read the full Test Construct (PDF) →

Test designers working together around a table of charts and level data

2. Real speaking, not recitation

The tasks reflect the kind of speaking your students need in real life:

  • Talk about themselves (A1–A2)
  • Speak about familiar matters and someone’s lifestyle or character (A2–B1)
  • Report information and offer advice (B1–B2)
  • Give opinions and make suggestions (B1–B2)
  • Develop an argument (B2–C1)
  • Give a personal interpretation of a piece of art (C1–C2)
A student taking a speaking task on a laptop

The test moves through these levels in order, getting gradually more demanding as it goes. But within each stage, the specific task a student gets is drawn at random from a bank of equivalent tasks. That means two students sitting side by side won’t be answering the same questions – and pre-prepared responses won’t get them very far.

A student taking a speaking task on a laptop

3. What you and your students get at the end

As soon as the test is finished, you’ll find the results waiting in the Admin Panel. You can view your whole cohort at a glance, sort and filter, or export everything to your student management system. And for each student, there’s a certificate you can download and share. It tells them:

Relative Numeric bands from 1 to 120 across CEFR levels A1 to C2

Their CEFR level, from A1 to C2, with a Relative Numeric from 1 to 120 showing where within that level they sit. Useful when you need to split a B1 group into a higher and lower half.

About CEFR levels →

A spidergram showing the five speaking sub-skills

Where their strengths lie – a simple spidergram showing how they performed across pronunciation, grammar, fluency, vocabulary, and task achievement.

How to read the scores (PDF) →

A Dynamic Speaking Test certificate with CEFR level and spidergram

What they can do at this level – an overview of the CEFR ‘can do’ statements for speaking, so students leave with a real sense of what they’ve achieved and what comes next.

Download a sample certificate (PDF) →

Ready to see it in action?

The Dynamic Speaking Test is made by ClarityEnglish, who’ve been building digital English learning and testing tools since 1992. If you’d like to try the test with your own students, we’d love to hear from you.

Request a demo → Read about the AI behind the test →