Talking and testing : discourse approaches to the assessment of oral proficiency / [edited by] Richard Young, Agnes Weiyun He.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Young, Richard, 1948-

He, Agnes Weiyun.

Series:

Studies in bilingualism ; v. 14.

Studies in bilingualism, 0928-1533 ; v. 14

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Language and languages--Ability testing.

Language and languages.

Conversation--Ability testing.

Conversation.

Oral communication--Ability testing.

Oral communication.

Physical Description:

viii, 360 p. : ill.

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Amsterdam ; Philadelphia : J. Benjamins Pub. Co., 2001.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This book brings together a collection of current research on the assessment of oral proficiency in a second language. Fourteen chapters focus on the use of the language proficiency interview or LPI to assess oral proficiency. The volume addresses the central issue of validity in proficiency assessment: the ways in which the language proficiency interview is accomplished through discourse.Contributors draw on a variety of discourse perspectives, including the ethnography of speaking, conversation analysis, language socialization theory, sociolinguistic variation theory, human interaction research, and systemic functional linguistics. And for the first time, LPIs conducted in German, Korean, and Spanish are examined as well as interviews in English.This book sheds light on such important issues as how speaking ability can be defined independently of an LPI that is designed to assess it and the extent to which an LPI is an authentic representation of ordinary conversation in the target language. It will be of considerable interest to language testers, discourse analysts, second language acquisition researchers, foreign language specialists, and anyone concerned with proficiency issues in language teaching and testing.

Contents:

Talking and Testing

Editorial page

Title page

Copyright page

Table of contents

Preface

Language Proficiency Interviews: A Discourse Approach

1 Introduction: Assessing Second Language Speaking Ability

2 Interactional Competence

3 Authenticity

3.1 LPIs as Interviews

3.2 LPIs as Institutional Discourse

3.3 LPIs as Cross-Cultural Encounters

4 Interdisciplinary Orientation

4.1 Conversation Analysis/Ethnomethodolögy

4.2 Ethnography of Speaking

4.3 Speech Acts and Gricean Pragmatics

5 Overview of the Book

Notes

References

Part 1: Language Proficiency Interviews and Conversation

Re-analyzing the OPI: How Much Does It Look like Natural Conversation?

1 Introduction

2 The Oral Proficiency Interview

2.1 Overview

2.2 Structure of the Oral Proficiency Interview

2.3 Elicitation Techniques

2.4 Principles of the OPI Rating Procedures

3 Literature Review

3.1 Critical Analysis of the OPI

3.2 Typical Features of Everyday Conversation

4 Analysis

4.1 Data Description

4.2 Turn-Taking

4.2.1 Distribution and Content of Turns

4.2.2 Order of Turns

4.2.3 Length of Turns

4.2.4 Selection of Next Speaker

4.3 Adjacency Pairs

4.4 Topic Nomination

4.5 A Final Note on Assessment and Face

5 Conclusion

Acknowledgments

Evaluating Learner Interactional Skills: Conversation at the Micro Level

2 The LPI as a Data Source

3 Learner Conversation as a Data Source

4 Data Collection Procedures

5 Conversation Data Sample and Analysis

6 Discussion: Assessing Language-in-Conversation

7 The Oral Language Portfolio

What Happens When There's No One to Talk to? Spanish Foreign Language Discourse in Simulated Oral Proficiency Interviews

2 Background

3 Research Questions.

4 Methodology

4.1 The SOPI

4.2 The OPI

4.3 Testees

4.4 Data Collection and Analysis

5 Analysis of Results

5.1 General Comparison of the Two Contexts

5.2 Results by Task

5.3 Specific Categories of Discourse Features

5.3.1 Errors

5.3.2 Propositions and Supporting Statements

5.3.3 Range of Speech Acts

6 Conclusions

Appendix: OPI and SOPI Test Stimuli

Part 2: Turns and Sequences in Language Proficiency Interviews

Answering Questions in LPIs: A Case Study

1 LPI Interaction: Focusing on Questions and Answers

2 An Interactional Approach to Answers

3 Data and Methods

4 Problems in Answers

4.1 "Yeah " Exhibiting Not-understanding

4.2 Problematic Next Turn After the Question

4.2.1 Elicited Elaboration

4.2.2 Problematic Responses

5 Concluding Remarks

Framing the Language Proficiency Interview as a Speech Event: Native and Non-Native Speakers' Questions

1 Interviews and Conversation

2 Methods: Turns and Questions

3 Results

3.1 Distribution and Length of Turns

3.2 Question Frequency

3.3 Interviewees' Question Types

3.3.1 Information-seeking Questions in Context

3.3.2 Clarification Questions in Context

3.3.3 Information-checking Questions

3.4 Interviewer's Question Types

4 Discussion

5 Conclusions

Note

Miscommunication in Language Proficiency Interviews of First-Year German Students: A Comparison with Natural Conversation

2 Analysis

2.1 Sequential Structure of the LPIs

2.2 Instructions for Repair

2.3 Types of Other-Initiated Repair Used by Learners

2.3.1 Understanding-Checks and Partial Repeats

2.3.2 Interrogates and Partial Repeats with Question Words

2.3.3 Non-Specified Trouble.

2.4 Interviewer 's Response to Student-Initiated Repair

3 Summary and Conclusions

Part 3: Knowledge and Communication in Language Proficiency Interviews

Knowledge Structures in Oral Proficiency Interviews for International Teaching Assistants

1 Knowledge Structures

2 Systemic Functional Linguistics

3 The OPI

4 Knowledge Structure Analysis

4.1 Sequence as a Knowledge Structure

4.1.1 Schedule

4.1.2 Procedures

4.1.3 TA Talk

4.1.4 Interviewer's Interaction with TA

4.1.5 TA Talk

4.1.6 Interviewer's Interaction with TA

4.2 Principles as a Knowledge Structure

4.2.1 Rules

4.2.2 Cause-Effect Relations

4.2.3 TA Talk

4.2.4 Interviewer 's Interaction with TA

4.2.5 TA Talk

4.2.6 Interviewer's Interaction with TA

5.1 The OPI as Elicitation

5.2 The OPI as Interview

Acknowledgment

The Use of Communication Strategies in Language Proficiency Interviews

2 Definition of Communication Strategies

3 A Taxonomy of Communication Strategies

3.1 Reduction Strategies

3.1.1 Topic Avoidance

3.1.2 Message Abandonment

3.1.3 Semantic Avoidance

3.2. Achievement Strategies

3.2.1 Approximation

3.2.2 Paraphrase

3.2.3 Restructuring

3.2.4 Interlingual Strategies

3.2.5 Cooperative Strategies

3.2.6 Non-linguistic Strategies and Multiple Strategy Use

3.3 Other Strategies

3.3.1 Repair Strategies

3.3.2 Telegraphic Strategies

3.3.3 Fillers

3.3.4 Change of Role

4 Communication Strategies and Proficiency

5 The Study

5.1 Methodology

5.1.1 Oral Proficiency Interview Test

5.1.2 Samples

5.2 Procedures

5.2.1 Identification Procedure

5.2.2 Classification Procedure

5.2.3 Classification of Communication Strategies

6 Results and Discussion.

6.1 Proficiency-Related Differences in the Use of Communication Strategies

6.1.1 Overall Frequency of Strategy Use

6.1.2 Percentages of Different Strategies

6.2 Methodological Implications

Appendix 1. Transcription Conventions (adapted from van Lier 1988 and Maynard 1989)

Appendix 2. List of Communication Strategies

Meaning Negotiation in the Hungarian Oral Proficiency Examination of English

1 Review of Previous Research

1.1 Communication Strategies

1.2 Foreigner Talk

2 Background to the Study

3 Method

3.1 Subjects

3.2 Materials

3.3 Procedure

3.4 Analyses

4 Results and Discussion

4.1 Help-Requesting Strategies

4.2 Meaning-Evoking/Approximating Strategies

4.3 Survival Strategies

4.4 Non-negotiated Strategies

4.5 Descriptive Framework for the Analysis of Negotiated Communication

4.6 Discourse Moves and Acts

4.6.1 Initiation

4.6.2 First Response

4.6.3 First Follow-up

4.6.4 Second Response

4.6.5 Second Follow-up

4.7 Negotiation Sequences

4.7.1 The Helping Sequence

4.7.2 The Eliciting Sequence

4.7.3 The Clarifying Sequence

4.7.4 Frequency of Negotiation Sequences

4.7.5 Combination and Frequency of Sequence Types

4.8 Instances of Miscommunication

5 Summary and Conclusions

Transcription Notation

Part 4: Language Proficiency Interviewsas Cross-Cultural Encounters

Maintaining American Face in the Korean Oral Exam: Reflections on the Power of Cross-Cultural Context

2 Data

4 Analytic Perspective

5 The Oral Exam as Speech Event

5.1 Scene/Setting

5.2 Participants

5.3 Ends

5.4 Act Sequence

5.5 Key

5.6 Instrumentalities

5.6.1 Summary of Use of English by Participants

5.7 Norms

5.8 Genre.

6 The Oral Exam as an Emergent, Cross-Cultural Process

6.1 Frames, Laminations, and Footings

6.2 Code Switching as a Contextualization Cue

7 The Creation of Laminations in the Emergent Process

8 Attempts to Renegotiate Context

9 Face

9.1 The Dimensions of Face of an American Examinee

10 Footings, Aspects of Face, and the Co-construction of Situated Sociocultural Identities

11 Developing and Assessing Interactional Competence

12 Conclusion

Confirmation Sequences as Interactional Resources in Korean Language Proficiency Interviews

2 Methodology and Data

3 Background

4 IR's Confirmation Request as Third-Turn Assessment

4.1 Question-Answer Sequences in the LPIs

4.2 NNS's Confirmation as a Collaborative Response

4.3 Confirmation Sequences as Constitutive Features of Asymmetry

4.4 Orientation to Asymmetry as Sociolinguistic Competence

5 NNS's Confirmation Request: Repair as Politeness Strategy

Divergent Frame Interpretations in Language Proficiency Interview Interaction

1 Interviews

2 Minimalism in Interviews with Japanese

3 Self-Disclosure

4 Conclusions

Let Them Eat Cake!" or How to Avoid Losing Your Head in Cross-Cultural Conversations

2 Rich Points in Cross-Cultural Interviews

2.1 Topic Elaboration as a Rich Point in English Conversational Style

3 Culture and Conversational Style: Comparing Mexicans and Japanese

3.1 Organization of the Interview and Timing

3.2 Topical Structure Analysis

Index of Names

Index of Topics.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN:

90-272-4120-1

1-283-05128-1

9786613051288

90-272-8554-3

OCLC:

707924772