The private institute in mainland China in which I'm currently teaching has instructed me to give my students an eight-minute oral examination one after the other. There are 30 students in almost every class, and I've 9 classes, each scheduled for 90 minutes a week with me. I've 2 classes in a row in the morning on 3 days of each week. The obvious time problem giving the exam as specified above has been disregarded or not even identified by the powers that be, and there's no extra time to continue the exam as students have the classes of their native teachers to attend. Also,there wouldn't be extra pay for the 40 clock-hour week that would be necessary. And there's a fine of 500 RMB for handing in grades late. The other oral FT's here teaching oral English will also be expected to give 8-minute oral exams to their students one by one. Exam in the corridor, students within eyeshot of me, in a staggered seating configuration! But most have electronic dictionaries and cellphones, rich kids, ugh!
Anyone else out there having to do so, and how will you do so while trying to deny your students the opportunity to cheat, given there's no language lab available?