Discourse Analysis in Second Language Signing Assessment: Sign Language Proficiency Interviews

The Sign Language Proficiency Interview (SLPI) was modeled on the Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) in the 1980s in North America and has been adapted for various national signed languages. To date, there has been no published analysis of interview discourse in the SLPI. This chapter examines accommodative question strategies used by deaf interviewers in New Zealand SLPI interviews. Findings reveal that interviewers use interlocutor support strategies that parallel accommodative question types described for OPI interviews and features of spontaneous interaction between fluent and novice signers. Sixty-six percent of questions had accommodative features, which were more frequent with lower proficiency candidates. Evidence of interviewer “helping” strategies is useful for training interviewers and refining the construct of the SLPI.

Policy in Practice: Teachers’ Conceptualizations of L2 English Oral Proficiency as Operationalized in High-Stakes Test Assessment

Assessment of foreign/second language (L2) oral proficiency is known to be complex and influenced by the local context. In Sweden, extensive assessment guidelines for the National English Speaking Test (NEST) are offered to teachers, who act as raters of their own students’ performances on this high-stakes L2 English oral proficiency (OP) test. Despite guidelines, teachers commonly construct their own NEST scoring rubric. The present study aims to unveil teachers-as-raters’ conceptualizations, as these emerge from the self-made scoring rubrics, and possible transformations of policy. Data consist of 20 teacher-generated scoring rubrics used for assessing NEST (years 6 and 9). Rubrics were collected via personal networks and online teacher membership groups. Employing content analysis, data were analysed qualitatively to examine (i) what OP sub-skills were in focus for assessment, (ii) how sub-skills were conceptualized, and (iii) scoring rubric design. Results showed that the content and design of rubrics were heavily influenced by the official assessment guidelines, which led to broad consensus about what to assess—but not about how to assess. Lack of consensus was particularly salient for interactive skills. Analysis of policy transformations revealed that teachers’ self-made templates, in fact, lead to an analytic rather than a holistic assessment practice.

PRONUNCIATION ERRORS AMONG MALAYSIAN UNDERGRADUATES IN ENGLISH FOR ORAL COMMUNICATION COURSE

In a country where there is a diverse range of races and cultures, the influence of the first language comes almost naturally when using English as a second language. This influence has created a negative transfer which has affected learners’ communicative competence as well as performance. This study intends to investigate the pronunciation errors among undergraduates in a Malaysian university and explain the mispronunciations by comparing the phonetic system of English and Malay It is hoped that the results of this study will eventually provide some insights to producing effective strategies for teaching pronunciation that can help ESL learners to improve their oral proficiency skills and thus meeting their personal and professional needs.

Mind Your Gap between Entry English Proficiency and Graduation Expectation

In recent years, the trend of teaching and learning English as a foreign language in Thai universities have changed drastically. This can be seen by the changes in the English as a foreign language curriculum and the manner it is being taught in schools as well as in the universities. The main objective of these changes is to prepare students to participate more aggressively in the ASEAN community, where English is the universal language. Thai universities launched a new policy about English graduation requirements aligned with the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR). One area of interest is whether there is a gap between the entry English proficiency and English graduation expectation. Thus, this study sought to gauge the gap between English oral proficiency among the Thai 1st year undergraduates and the expected exit proficiency level (B2 CEFR). Results suggest that almost all 1st-year university students in Thailand have a tremendous gap between the real entry English oral proficiency level and the high expectations exit proficiency level. This information about the gap would allow the universities to prepare their students accordingly.

Fluency development in an EFL setting: A one-semester study

Language learning activities involving time-pressured repetition of similar content have been shown to facilitate improvements in fluency. However, concerns have been voiced about whether these gains might be offset by reduced levels of grammatical accuracy. This descriptive study tracked the oral proficiency of 32 Japanese university students enrolled in English as a foreign language (EFL) classes over one academic semester during which they regularly completed 3/2/1 fluency development activities. Measures of complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) were analysed to investigate whether any developmental patterns could be identified. The results indicated that over the semester, the students made small, but significant gains in two fluency measures, the mean length of pause and the phonation/time ratio. Despite the relatively small size of the gains, expert ratings of perceived fluency suggested that these fluency improvements were detectable to the human ear. Furthermore, a significant relationship emerged between three of the four CAF measures over the semester. These results suggest that the activities moderately impacted students’ speaking fluency without negatively affecting accuracy or complexity levels; however, further longitudinal research is needed to determine which factors might influence this development, as class performance measures did not account for any of the variation detected.

Effects of Bilingualism on Reading Fluency: An Analysis of Pausing Patterns of Iranian Learners of English as a Third Language

Fluency is one of the most important components of oral proficiency, which can be affected by a number of variables including frequency, duration, and place of pause phenomena. The present study aimed at investigating the effect of bilingualism on learning a foreign language from the angle of fluency and pausing patterns by comparing the pausing patterns of monolingual (Persian speakers) and bilingual (Iranian Turkish speakers; L1: Turkish and L2: Persian) EFL learners. To this end, a sample of 40 male and female advanced EFL learners were selected from Yazd University and several English-language institutes. An English reading passage test was used to measure students’ fluency in terms of their pausing patterns in prepared mode of speech. As learners started to read the passage, their speeches were recorded. The collected data were analyzed by Praat software. The statistical analyses revealed a significant difference between monolingual and bilingual learners in the frequency, duration, and placement of the pauses they had produced while they were reading the English passage. The results showed that bilingual learners outperformed monolingual participants, suggesting the superiority of bilinguals in their pausing patterns. The implications are discussed.

Codeswitching of bilingual preschoolers in Pakistan: A study of Arabic and Urdu alphabets

Urdu is the official language of Pakistan, while Arabic is the language of the Holy Quran, Muslims' sacred book. Pakistan, as a Muslim country with a religious bond, makes it obligatory for Muslims to recognize and interpret Allah's commandments, as well as to pray and recite the Holy Quran. The most effective skill is oral communication. It has become one of the fundamental language learning skills, alongside listening, reading, and writing. Pronunciation is the process of processing speech sounds to communicate. The current research study focuses on the codeswitching of bilingual preschoolers while learning the Arabic and Urdu alphabets. The study demonstrates why preschool children fail to recognize images of simple words in Arabic and Urdu at the same time and how this challenge can be tackled with the ingenuity of a committed teacher. The researcher used the Oral Proficiency Test (OPT) to assess the quality of the children's pronunciation, and he processed the data using Setiyadi’s (2020) Triangulation of method, which includes three data collection techniques: observation, interview, and questionnaire. The observation focused on how the teacher pronounced both alphabets and how the children responded by pronouncing the same at the top of their voices to make good use of articulators. Later, an interview and a questionnaire were conducted to collect data that could be used to ensure the validity of the observational results. Creswell & Baez’s (2020) Model of the Structure of Study was implemented. The research on bilingual preschoolers is significant in that it reveals that the children had difficulty in discerning resembling sounds from the Arabic and Urdu alphabets and that this difficulty caused them to deviate from one alphabet to the other. Speech therapists, pathologists, psychologists, bilingual scholars, and researchers will all benefit from the research.

The Effects of Authentic Materials Using Role-playing Activities on Oral Proficiency: A Case Study of Thai Undergraduate Students

This study investigates the effects of authentic materials and contextually developed role-playing activities on the oral proficiency of Thai undergraduate students. The study was conducted at Prince of Songkhla University, Thailand during the first semester (June to September) of 2010. The study consisted of four research instruments and the data were analyzed using Independent Samples t-test to determine whether the authentic materials and contextually developed role-playing activities had improved the students’ oral fluency and accuracy in the target language. The findings indicated statistically significant differences between the two groups, wherein the experimental group performed better on both fluency and accuracy than the control group. Therefore, based on the findings of the current study, it can be concluded that authentic materials and contextually developed role-playing activities involving a series of sequential events are effective in enhancing learners’ oral proficiency in programs of English as a foreign language in the context of Thailand English education.

Perceptions of isiZulu-speaking pre-service teachers’ classroom English proficiency

Despite less than 10% of South Africans claiming English as their home language, it has become the de facto language of instruction. Yet we cannot assume that teachers have sufficient command of this language when using it for instructional purposes. As a sub-study, in this article we report on the oral proficiency of isiZulu-speaking pre-service teachers who use English when expounding content in rural schools. The conceptual framework draws primarily on research relating to instructional communication and Classroom English. For this mixed methods case study, using questionnaire data from 52 pre-service teachers and 18 tutors, we sought to establish the perceptions that respondents had of students’ oral proficiency while teaching in situ. Responses were statistically analysed using computing software. Unedited audio recordings of lessons presented in rural KwaZulu-Natal schools during pre-service teachers’ work-integrated learning stint provided oral data from which to gauge proficiency using a self-designed rubric. Findings correspond with those of previous studies, pointing to pre-service teachers’ oral proficiency being less than ideal for effectively facilitating learning. However, what is considered adequate proficiency and what is ideal is yet to be agreed upon. We recommend that interventions which address the development of oral proficiency required for classroom use be considered. Our pilot rubric may serve as a useful data-gathering tool in future research.

Peningkatan Kemahiran Berbahasa Indonesia melalui Program Klinik Bahasa UKBI Adaptif

The Indonesian Language Proficiency Test (UKBI) is one of the Indonesian language proficiency tests that aims to measure written and oral proficiency, both by spoken and foreign speech. In its development, UKBI developed into an adaptive UKBI which can display different levels of question difficulty for each examiner, so that UKBI has a variety of questions that are not the same between participants and a different number of questions. The method used in this research is a simple qualitative and quantitative descriptive method with primary data obtained through survey results. The results in this study were that of the 51 participants who took part in the activity, 30 of them took part in the UKBI simulation activity with the lowest UKBI simulation score being 60 and the highest being 100. After attending the language clinic, the participants who were very interested in taking the UKBI test visited 15 people, interested in participating in the UKBI test. opened 16 people, and less interested in opening 2 people or 92%.