It is often said that the best way to understand something is to try to explain it to someone else. Based on this, would asking our students to explain important course concepts in their own words be an effective learning technique? To test this hypothesis, a few years ago I introduced oral exams as an alternative assessment method in some of my upper-division courses. In this talk, I will describe how I conduct oral exams in my Real Analysis and Abstract Algebra courses, giving examples of the types of questions I ask, criteria for evaluation, strategies for alleviating student anxiety, and some benefits of assessing students using this method.