Assessed Levels of Second Language Speaking Proficiency: How Distinct?

Iwashita, Noriko; Brown, Annie; McNamara, Tim; O'Hagan, S

doi:10.1093/applin/amm017

Cited by 288 publications

(302 citation statements)

References 30 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

272

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…CAF have been evaluated across various language domains by means of a wide variety of tools, ranging from holistic and subjective ratings by lay or expert judges, to quantifiable measures (frequencies, ratios, formulas) of general or specific linguistic properties of L2 production so as to obtain more precise and objective accounts of an L2 learner's level within each (sub-)dimension of proficiency (e.g. range of word types and proportion of subordinate clauses for lexical and syntactic complexity, number and type of errors for accuracy, number of syllables and pauses for fluency; for inventories of CAF measures, see Ellis and Barkhuizen 2005;Iwashita, Brown, McNamara and O'Hagan 2008;Polio 2001;WolfeQuintero et al 1998). However, critical surveys of the available tools and metrics for gauging CAF have revealed various problems, both in terms of the analytic challenges which they present and in terms of their reliability, validity and sensitivity (Norris and Ortega 2003;Ortega 2003;Polio 1997Polio , 2001Wolfe-Quintero et al 1998).…”

Section: Operationalizing and Measuring Cafmentioning

confidence: 99%

Complexity, Accuracy, and Fluency in Second Language Acquisition

Housen

Kuiken

2009

Applied Linguistics

618

311

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Section: Operationalizing and Measuring Cafmentioning

confidence: 99%

Complexity, Accuracy, and Fluency in Second Language Acquisition

Housen

Kuiken

2009

Applied Linguistics

618

311

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…De Jong et al (in press) constructed a rating scale with task-specific descriptors for each of the speaking tasks. This scale forms a task-specific operationalization of communicative efficiency scales used in language assessment, such as the scale 'provision of main ideas and supporting details' in the study of Iwashita et al (2008). All descriptors were formulated in terms of functional speaking proficiency, distinguishing between differences in success in conveying the message.…”

Section: Speaking Tasksmentioning

confidence: 99%

Linguistic Skills of Adult Native Speakers, as a Function of Age and Level of Education

Mulder

Hulstijn

2011

Applied Linguistics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This study assessed, in a sample of 98 adult native speakers of Dutch, how their lexical skills and their speaking proficiency varied as a function of their age and level of education and profession (EP). Participants, categorized in terms of their age (18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30)(31)(32)(33)(34)(35)(36)(37)(38)(39)(40)(41)(42)(43)(44)(45)(46)(47)(48)(49)(50), and 51-76 years old) and the level of their EP (low versus high), were tested on their lexical knowledge, lexical fluency, and lexical memory, and they performed four speaking tasks, differing in genre and formality. Speaking performance was rated in terms of communicative adequacy and in terms of number of words, number of T-units, words per T-unit, content words per T-unit, hesitations per T-unit, and grammatical errors per T-unit. Increasing age affected lexical knowledge positively but lexical fluency and memory negatively. High EP positively affected lexical knowledge and memory but EP did not affect lexical fluency. Communicative adequacy of the responses in the speaking tasks was positively affected by high EP but was not affected by age. It is concluded that, given the large variability in native speakers' language knowledge and skills, studies investigating the question of whether second-language learners can reach native levels of proficiency, should take native-speaker variability into account.

show abstract

“…It is therefore no wonder that fluency in speech is used as a diagnostic in second language (L2) assessment. Indeed, human judgements on overall L2 proficiency are related to aspects of fluency (e. g., Iwashita et al 2008). Additionally, for most speakers, their L2 speech is less fluent than their L1 speech and L2 speakers progress in certain aspects of fluency over time between L1 and L2 speech and between speakers with different levels of proficiency.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Predicting pauses in L1 and L2 speech: the effects of utterance boundaries and word frequency

Jong

2016

International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching

102

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper compares the distribution of silent and filled pauses in first (L1) and second language (L2) speech. The occurrence of pauses of 52 L2 and 18 L1 Dutch speakers was evaluated with respect to utterance boundaries and word frequency. We found that L2 speakers paused more often than L1 speakers within utterances; but not between utterances. Similarly, only within utterances, L2 pauses were longer than L1 pauses. Regarding word frequency, both L1 and L2 speakers are more likely to pause before lower frequency words as compared to higher frequency words. These findings imply that L1 and L2 speakers' production processes may be similar in that (1) pauses at utterance boundaries are used for conceptual planning mostly and (2) lexical retrieval difficulties are comparable for L1 and L2 speakers. These findings furthermore imply that when using fluency for L2 testing, pause locations must be taken into account.

show abstract

Assessed Levels of Second Language Speaking Proficiency: How Distinct?

Cited by 288 publications

References 30 publications

Complexity, Accuracy, and Fluency in Second Language Acquisition

Complexity, Accuracy, and Fluency in Second Language Acquisition

Linguistic Skills of Adult Native Speakers, as a Function of Age and Level of Education

Predicting pauses in L1 and L2 speech: the effects of utterance boundaries and word frequency

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About