This study was conducted t o assess English oralrnperformanc e of Bahir - Dar Teachers ' College students.rnTo do so, twenty - .e lt ght s tudents (out of 100) wererns ystema tically se l ected from the depa rtment of Physics,rnMathematics a nd Chemistry.rnTo assess the stu1ents' oral performance, two communioativerntasks (picture' . ased story - telling and picture description)rnwere prepared.rnGeneral orientation was first given to the stu_cen'os inrnorLler to get them f amiliarized with the t es t conditions.rnMoreover, model oral production exercises were given to them.rnThe ora l production t es t s wer e given to the students onrntwo different days . Their oral performances were thenrntape - r ecorded and transcrib ed Â· As the aim of the s~udyrnwas to assess the students' communicative performance, r equired ~rninformat i on bits of the two test - tasks were identifiedrnand listed.rnThe s tudents ' per fo rmanc e was determined in t erms of thernpositive number of points of r equired - information - bitsrnencoded.rnThe study showed tha t the stUdents ' communica tivernperformance Was below the minimum exp ec t ed aver age (50%).rnOn the basis of this finding, it was r ecommended that t,h erns tudents nGod int ens iv e or al pro duction exe rci ses. Moreover.rnit was r ecommended tha t stUdents ' oral performanc e should bernassessed at di Â·ff.er ent intervals in order to check the s tudents'rnweaknesses and s treng.tbes so that tea chers could devise waysrnand means to up gra de the students~ctTanicative performance.