National State Exam. Speaking.

Speaking used to be part of our National State Exam some years ago. Students had to speak on the topic (a 1,5-2 minute monologue) and communicate with an interlocutor (a 3 minute dialogue). The other parts - Listening, Reading, Use of English and Writing were the same. It has been decided to add Speaking to the exam next year (the students of the 10th grade should be especially excited).

The format will be different, though. If you are interested in the possible types of tasks that will be included in the Speaking part of our National State Exam next year, check out this BLOG POST, which I liked a lot. There are also interesting comments representing various ideas about this coming change in the format of the exam in 2015. What is your attitude to this novelty? Do you support the idea introducing Speaking again? What are your thoughts about the types of suggested speaking activities?