The role of response effects (tendencies to respond to factors other than item content) in the self-assessment of second language ability was investigated through a split-ballot procedure using positively-and negatively-worded questions and graded (i.e. level-specific questions). Results indicate that both an acquiescence effect (a tendency to respond positively regardless of item content) and overestimation were present. Although both effects were present at all levels of subjects, they were most evident for less experienced learners. Discussion focuses on explanation of these effects and implications for both test construction and pedagogy.

This study investigates the determinants of adult usage of various syntactic and semantic cues in sentence interpretation. Native French speakers and advanced English/French bilinguals were tested for the strength of usage of word order, clitic pronoun agreement, verb agreement, and noun animacy cues in the assignment of the actor role in French sentences. Native speakers showed strong use of clitic pronoun agreement, followed by much weaker use of verb agreement, an even weaker use of noun animacy, and negligible use of word order. This ranking reflects the importance of these cues in naturally occurring French sentences involving conflicts among cues in conjunction with a learning-on-error model. The English/French bilinguals did not manifest English-like strategies of word order preference on the French sentences; rather, they showed a cue ranking very similar to that of native speakers, although detectability may have played a role in their use of verb agreement. The failure of English word order strategies to correctly interpret many naturally occurring French sentences may be responsible for the adaptation of strategies appropriate to the second language.

This article reports a study gauging the average oral proficiency as measured by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) of college students ( N = 20) studying German at the end of their fourth semester. All OPIs were official ACTFL double-rated interviews. Proficiency, as measured by the OPI, ranged between Novice High and Intermediate Mid. Discussion centers on reasonable expectations for high school graduation and for college language requirements.

This study compared the comprehension processing strategies of 15 monolingual English native speakers and 8 bilingual French native speakers to 112 second language (L2) learners of French, using stimuli containing word order and clitic pronoun (type and agreement) cues in French. Results indicated differential dependence on cue use by the two native speaker groups, with English native speakers depending more on word order for interpretation and French native speaker depending more on clitic pronoun agreement. Interpretations produced by L2 learners of French indicated an immediate abandonment of LI word order strategies with a much later onset of clitic pronoun agreement strategies. Results are discussed within the framework of the Competition Model.

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