8 research outputs found
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Strategic Competence and L2 Speaking Assessment
Assessing second language speaking has long been an important part of language testing in both large-scale assessment settings and in smaller scale classroom-based assessments. Accordingly, researchers in the second language (L2) assessment field have made efforts to establish a better understanding of the nature of speaking ability and its underlying competences. With speaking tests increasingly involving test takers’ performances on certain tasks, test takers are required to utilize their language knowledge by means of their strategic competence (i.e., skills necessary to put language knowledge into use), which has been considered an integral component of communicative language ability (e.g., Bachman & Palmer, 1996) and L2 speaking ability (e.g., Bygate, 1987; Fulcher, 2003). However, what strategic competence in speaking entails remains unclear, as its definition has varied greatly across different theoretical models and empirical studies. This paper provides a brief overview of the varying approaches to defining strategic competence, and reports on major empirical findings related to the conceptualization of this important facet of speaking ability, surveying the extensive literature in the broader fields of applied linguistics and L2 assessment in particular. The paper starts with (1) a review of the applied linguistics literature on the major influential approaches to understanding oral strategic competence, followed by (2) an in-depth review of how the L2 assessment literature has conceptualized strategic competence in relation to different theoretical models, and lastly, (3) a discussion of empirical studies examining strategic competence in the context of speaking test performance. The paper concludes with directions for future research
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Assessing L2 Academic Speaking Ability: The Need for a Scenario-based Assessment Approach
The conceptualization of L2 proficiency has evolved to include a broader range of knowledge, skills, and abilities, prompting L2 testers to embrace new approaches to defining and assessing L2 speaking ability. This review discusses the evolution of L2 proficiency and speaking ability, and suggests scenario-based assessment (SBA) as a promising practice to designing language assessments that can provide a more comprehensive interpretation of one’s L2 speaking ability. An example of an online scenario-based academic speaking assessment is illustrated to demonstrate SBA’s efficacy and potential
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Assessing L2 Academic Speaking Ability: The Need for a Scenario-based Assessment Approach
The conceptualization of L2 proficiency has evolved to include a broader range of knowledge, skills, and abilities, prompting L2 testers to embrace new approaches to defining and assessing L2 speaking ability. This review discusses the evolution of L2 proficiency and speaking ability, and suggests scenario-based assessment (SBA) as a promising practice to designing language assessments that can provide a more comprehensive interpretation of one’s L2 speaking ability. An example of an online scenario-based academic speaking assessment is illustrated to demonstrate SBA’s efficacy and potential
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The Teacher’s Role in Classroom-based Language Assessment
Different from large-scale language tests aiming to measure general proficiency and often administered in specific highly-controlled test settings, classroom-based language assessment is embedded in the teaching and learning cycle of a classroom and has multiple “identities” (Rea-Dickins, 2001, p. 451) due to its wide range of uses or purposes. Classroom-based language assessment is an integral part of language instruction where the teachers, as “agents” (Rea-Dickins, 2004), are the ones responsible for facilitating student learning and obtaining information about their progress and achievement, hence, also earning the name teacher assessment. From planning what to assess and how, through implementing assessment procedures and monitoring students’ performances to recording students’ attainment and progress, the teacher is constantly making decisions on how to keep track of students’ progress and attainment (Rea-Dickins, 2001). Either accomplished through a formal assessment procedure or through informal daily monitoring and observation, the teacher’s knowledge of the students guides him/her to make subsequent pedagogical decisions and push learning further
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Commentaries on Validity Issues in Foreign and Second Language Assessment
In empirical applied linguistics research, the primary goal and concern is to operationalize key variables (i.e., measured constructs) in a valid and reliable way, generate scores for the measured variables through quantitative and/or qualitative means (e.g., various kinds of pre- or posttests, surveys, or coded observations), treat those scores appropriately, and allow for proper hypothesis testing of the research questions under investigation (Purpura, Brown, & Schoonen, 2015, p. 37). If the consequences of the research are “low stakes” in that the participants in the study are generally not directly impacted by the results (i.e., decisions are not made on the results to either advance or demote them in some way), the research can be published, our knowledge and understanding of the phenomenon in question deepened, and the story can essentially end there. But if there are important “high stakes” decisions to be made about the participants based on the results, decisions that can potentially impact their lives directly, it becomes imperative that our procedures and theoretical constructs have been thoroughly examined and are valid. That is why in the subfield of second and foreign language assessment, where high stakes decisions such as university admission or classification as an English language learner (ELL) in the U.S. K-12 public school system do take place based on the various test results, a higher standard needs to be adhered to in the development and implementation of the test instruments, potential interpretations of the results, and any possible subsequent uses of the results. Consequently, in second and foreign language testing, validation frameworks have been thoroughly developed and discussed to ensure that best measurement practices and high professional standards are followed (American Educational Research Association [AERA], American Psychological Association [APA], and the National Council on Measurement in Education [NCME], 1985, 2014), and that is why second/foreign language testers subject test scores to rigorous validity evaluation so that claims made about the measured constructs can be deemed meaningful and appropriate for their intended purpose(s), and their intended use and interpretation in decision making can also be justified (Purpura et al., 2015)
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Commentaries on Computer based Language Assessment
The rapid change and use of computer technology has had a profound influence in the field of language teaching and assessment, and the changes that computer and technology has brought to language assessment in particular are not only in the delivery method, but also in the scoring systems (Chapelle & Douglas, 2006). For instance, a wide variety of tasks be given as a test online worldwide, and scores can be available immediately to the test takers. However, along with such advances come potential problems and concerns
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An Interview with APPLE Lecture Speaker Professor James Paul Gee
On February 6, 2014, the TESOL/AL Web Journal (represented by Nadja Tadic, Di Yu, and Yuna Seong) had the opportunity to sit down with Professor James Paul Gee, guest speaker for the 2015 Applied Linguistics & Language Education (APPLE) Lecture Series, hosted annually by the TESOL/Applied Linguistics Programs at Teachers College, Columbia University. Professor Gee spoke about his thoughts on his work and advice for current and future researchers in the TESOL and Applied Linguistics fields.
Professor Gee is the Mary Lou Fulton Presidential Professor of Literacy Studies and Regents’ Professor at Arizona State University. He is also a member of the National Academy of Education. His book Sociolinguistics and Literacies (1990, Fifth Edition 2015) was one of the founding documents in the formation of the “New Literacy Studies,” an interdisciplinary field integrating language, learning, and literacy. His book An Introduction to Discourse Analysis (1999, Fourth Edition 2014) brings together his work on a methodology for studying communication in its cultural settings. More recently, his books deal with video games, language, and learning. His books What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy (2003, Second Edition 2007) and Situated Language and Learning (2004) discuss how good video games can enhance learning. Professor Gee has published widely in journals in linguistics, psychology, the social sciences, and education. We thank Professor Gee for his time in a very thought-provoking interview. We also thank Fred Tsutagawa for videotaping and Dr. Kirby Grabowski for coordinating the APPLE Lecture Series Interview
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An Interview with APPLE Lecture Speaker Professor Alister Cumming
On April 11, 2014, the TESOL/AL Web Journal (represented by Rongchan Lin, Yuna Seong, and Catherine Box) had the opportunity to sit down with Professor Alister Cumming, guest speaker for the 2014 Applied Linguistics & Language Education (APPLE) Lecture Series, hosted annually by the TESOL/Applied Linguistics Programs at Teachers College, Columbia University. Professor Cumming was kind enough to take the time, during a very busy day, to speak about his research, his work on assessing writing, his thoughts on dynamic assessment, and his advice for new scholars working in the TESOL/AL fields. Professor Cumming is professor in the Centre for Educational Research on Languages and Literacies (CERLL) at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto. His research and teaching focus on writing in second languages, language assessment, language program evaluation and policies, and research methods. His most recent books include Adolescent Literacies in a Multicultural Context (2012, Routledge), A Synthesis of Research on Second Language Writing in English (with Ilona Leki & Tony Silva, 2008, Routledge), and Goals for Academic Writing (2006, John Bejamins). Professor Cumming is currently the Executive Director of Language Learning, a journal he edited in the 1990s. For the past five years he has chaired the TOEFL Committee of Examiners at Educational Testing Service in Princeton. He received his PhD from the University of Toronto in 1988, MA and BA from the University of British Columbia in 1979 and 1975 respectively, and an honorary doctorate from the University of Copenhagen in 2009. From 2014 to 2017 he will hold a Changjiang Scholarship at Beijing Foreign Studies University. We thank Professor Cumming for his participation in a lively interview. We also thank Fred Tsutagawa for videotaping and Dr. Kirby Grabowski for coordinating the APPLE Lecture Series Interview