The Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI), is a standardized procedure for the global assessment of functional speaking ability. A face-to-face or telephonic interview between certified testers and an examinee is conducted to determine how well an examinee speaks the target language through comparison of his or her performance on specific communication tasks to the Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR) Skill Level Descriptions. The Oral Proficiency Interview takes the form of a carefully structured conversation between trained and certified interviewers and the person whose speaking proficiency is being assessed. The interview is interactive and continuously adapts to the speaking abilities of the individual being tested.
The description of expected ability, the learner is to use the language to satisfy professional needs in a wide range of sophisticated and demanding tasks.The expected skills are to produce extended discourse; converse formally/informally about concrete and abstract topics; hypothesize; support opinion; handle unfamiliar situations; show strength in fluency, breadth of lexicon and discourse competence in a wide range of topics.