Evaluating intermediate Spanish students\u27 speaking skills through a taped test: A pilot study

A pilot study used the Spanish Oral Proficiency Test (SOPT)-a taped oral test to evaluate oral proficiency level of students of Intermediate Spanish. Based on the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines (1986), the Intermediate-Mid was the appropriate level of oral proficiency for students at the end of two years of college- level language study. The study also examined what variables might affect the development of students\u27 oral skills. The results showed that foreign language learning experience in academic settings or outside of class, such as study abroad and travel abroad, might affect students\u27 overall speaking proficiency. In addition, lin- guistic inaccuracy from informal training may keep speakers to lower levels of proficiency. Learners should be more aware of the need to speak correctly to maintain a balance between function, content, and accuracy

LEXTALE_CH: A quick, character-based proficiency test for Mandarin Chinese

Research in second language acquisition suggests that objective performance-based assessments may provide more reliable and valid measures of second language proficiency than subjective self-ratings. To measure proficiency in English as a second language, a quick, vocabulary-based test called LexTALE (Lexical Test for Advanced Learners of English) was developed and shown to be able to differentiate between various levels of English proficiency. Following in the line of adaptations of this test for other languages, we created a character-based adaptation for Mandarin Chinese: LEXTALE_CH. In this paper, we discuss the development and validation of LEXTALE_CH in detail. In short, LEXTALE_CH can discriminate between high and low levels of Mandarin proficiency and is sensitive to the significant differences in vocabulary size between native speakers and second language learners of Mandarin; further, it takes only a few minutes to administer and is simple to score, making it a practical tool for low-stakes estimation of Mandarin proficiency.http://www.lingref.com/bucld/42/BUCLD42-09.pdfPublished versio

DESIGNING WRITING TEST

Language testing is a field of study related to the assessment of one's proficiency in the mastery of language that includes 4 (four) basic competencies such as listening, speaking, reading, and writing. The assessment toward the four basic competencies of language will determine the level of one’s ability to master a specific language. Writing is one of the language skills that have been considered as necessary in proficiency language testing. In designing a writing task, one needs to carry out three steps, namely: defining the task, exploring the expectations for the task, and providing support and explanatory materials

Destination-Language Proficiency in Cross-National Perspective: A Study of Immigrant Groups in Nine Western Countries

Immigrants’ destination-language proficiency has been typically studied from a microperspective in a single country. In this article, the authors examine the role of macrofactors in a cross-national perspective. They argue that three groups of macrolevel factors are important: the country immigrants settle in (“destination” effect), the sending nation (“origin” effect), and the combination between origin and destination (“setting” or “community” effect). The authors propose a design that simultaneously observes multiple origin groups in multiple destinations. They present substantive hypotheses about language proficiency and use them to develop a series of macrolevel indicators. The authors collected and standardized 19 existing immigrant surveys for nine Western countries. Using multilevel techniques, their analyses show that origins, destinations, and settings play a significant role in immigrants’ language proficiency.

A Preliminary Study on Why Second Language Learners Accept Ungrammatical Sentences: Its Theoretical Implications

Why do second language learners sometimes accept ungrammatical sentences in the target language? In the present study, we focus on Japanese-speaking learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) and investigate whether such “grammatical illusion” effect would be observed in them and whether the effect could be dependent on their proficiency.　The results of one acceptability judgment questionnaire experiment and of one preliminary self-paced reading experiment are reported.　The results of the questionnaire experiment showed that the lower-proficiency Japanese EFL learners were more likely to accept ungrammatical sentences in English compared to the higher-proficiency learners.　The results of the self-paced reading experiment indicated that the reading time difference between ungrammatical sentences and their grammatical counterparts was significant for one native English speaker but not for two Japanese EFL learners.　It is suggested that the “grammatical illusion” effect (i.e., erroneous acceptance of ungrammatical sentences) in second language learners is more likely to be observed when their proficiency is lower, and possibly that second language learners can accept ungrammatical sentences during their real-time processing.　We discuss a new approach to second language acquisition from the perspective of the grammatical illusion phenomenon

Language Usage, Participation, Employment and Earnings: Evidence for Foreigners in West Germany with Multiple Sources of Selection

Language proficiency may not only affect the earnings of the individual, but the probability to participate in the labor market or becoming employed as well. It may also affect selection of people into economic sector and occupation. In this paper, the effects of language proficiency on earnings are analyzed for foreigners in Germany with joint consideration of up to four types of selection. The results show that language proficiency significantly increases participation and employment probability and affects occupational choice. When selection into economic sector and occupation is regarded, we do not find an impact of language ability on earnings thereby implying an indirect effect. --Foreigners,Participation,Employment,Language Ability,Multiple Selection

The Economics of Language: An Introduction and Overview

This paper provides an introduction and overview of my research on the Economics of Language. The approach is that language skills among immigrants and native-born linguistic minorities are a form of human capital. There are costs and benefits associated with this characteristic embodied in the person. The analysis focuses on the economic and demographic determinants of destination language proficiency among immigrants. This is based on Exposure, Efficiency and Economic Incentives (the three E’s) for proficiency. It also focuses on the labor market consequences (earnings) of proficiency for immigrants and native-born bilinguals. The empirical testing for the US, Canada, Australia, Israel and Bolivia is supportive of the theoretical models.immigrants, language, bilingualism, human capital, earnings

Measures of narrative performance in Spanish-speaking children on the test of narrative language-Spanish

textIn the field of speech-language pathology, there is an increasing need for valid and appropriate assessment measures for Spanish-speaking students that can reliably be given by examiners with a wide range of Spanish knowledge and scoring experience. In order to determine the level of detail needed to reliably score a standardized measure of Spanish narrative ability, 15 participants, ranging in Spanish proficiency and experience levels, scored six samples of the experimental version of the Test of Narrative Language-Spanish (TNL-Spanish). Consistency and accuracy of scores were compared with Spanish proficiency levels, comfort levels, and presentation method (written transcript and audio-recorded samples). Results indicated no significant effect for any factor, indicating that examiners of varying levels of Spanish proficiency and experience level can reliably and efficiently score an assessment in Spanish when provided with clear and specific scoring procedures and information regarding the kinds of errors present in language disorders in Spanish.Communication Sciences and Disorder

Ethnicity, Language, and Workplace Segregation: Evidence from a New Matched Employer-Employee Data Set

We describe the construction and assessment of a new matched employer-employee data set (the Decennial Employer-Employee Dataset, or DEED) that we have undertaken as a part of a broad research agenda to study segregation in the U.S. labor market. In this paper we examine the role of segregation by Hispanic ethnicity and language proficiency, contributing new, previously unavailable descriptive information on segregation along these lines, and evidence on the wage premia or penalties associated with this segregation. The DEED is much larger and more representative across regional and industry dimensions than previous matched data sets for the United States, and improvements along both of these dimensions are essential to isolating the importance of segregation by language and ethnicity in the workplace. Our empirical results reveal considerable segregation by Hispanic ethnicity and by English language proficiency. We find that Hispanic workers, but not white workers, suffer wage penalties from employment in a workplace with a large share of Hispanic workers, and even more so a large share of Hispanic workers with poor English language proficiency. In addition, we find that segregation of Hispanic workers among other Hispanics with similar English language proficiency does not reduce the penalties associated with poor own language skills.