Download or read book Measuring Spoken Language Proficiency written by James Robert Frith and published by . This book was released on 1980 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Measuring L2 Proficiency written by Pascale Leclercq and published by Multilingual Matters. This book was released on 2014-06-23 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together concrete ideas on identifying and measuring second language (L2) proficiency from different branches of SLA. The chapters introduce a range of tools for the evaluation of learners' language level with respect to both productive and receptive skills and provide a variety of answers to the question of how to assess L2 proficiency in a valid, reliable and practical manner.

Download or read book THE MEASUREMENT OF THE ABILITY TO UNDERSTAND SPOKEN LANGUAGE written by Paul Tory Rankin and published by . This book was released on 1926 with total page 998 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Second Language Speech Fluency written by Parvaneh Tavakoli and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-12-17 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Second language (L2) fluency is an exciting and fast-moving field of research, with clear practical applications in language teaching. This book provides a lively overview of the current advances in the field of L2 fluency, and connects the theory to practice, presenting a hands-on approach to using fluency research across a range of different language-related professions. The authors introduce an innovative multidisciplinary perspective, which brings together research into cognitive and social factors, to understand fluency as a dynamic variable in language performance, connecting learner-internal factors such as speech processing and automaticity, to external factors such as task demands, language testing, and pragmatic interactional demands in communication. Bringing a much-needed multidisciplinary and novel approach to understanding the complex nature of L2 speech fluency, this book provides researchers, students and language professionals with both the theoretical insights and practical tools required to understand and research how fluency in a second language develops.

Download or read book Spoken English TESOL and Applied Linguistics written by Rebecca Hughes and published by Springer. This book was released on 2005-12-15 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leading researchers in the field of spoken discourse and language teaching offer an empirically informed, issues-based discussion of the present state of research into spoken language. They address some of the complex and rewarding opportunities offered by these emerging insights for language education and, specifically, for TESOL. They ask whether new data and evidence that spoken discourse is a distinctive genre will challenge existing language theories and teaching. What could be the practical outcomes for curriculum, teaching approaches, materials and assessment? A stimulating resource for researchers and for professional and student language teachers.

Download or read book Talking and Testing written by Richard Young and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 1998-01-01 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of papers that document various dimensions of the ways in which the language learner and the language proficiency interviewer use language to accomplish oral language assessment tasks.

Download or read book Handbook of Second Language Assessment written by Dina Tsagari and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2016-03-07 with total page 462 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Second language assessment is ubiquitous. It has found its way from education into questions about access to professions and migration. This volume focuses on the main debates and research advances in second language assessment in the last fifty years or so, showing the influence of linguistics, politics, philosophy, psychology, sociology, and psychometrics. There are four parts which, when taken together, address the principles and practices of second language assessment while considering its impact on society. Read separately, each part addresses a different aspect of the field. Part I deals with the conceptual foundations of second language assessment with chapters on the purposes of assessment, and standards and frameworks, as well as matters of scoring, quality assurance, and test validation. Part II addresses the theory and practice of assessing different second language skills including aspects like intercultural competence and fluency. Part III examines the challenges and opportunities of second language assessment in a range of contexts. In addition to chapters on second language assessment on a national scale, there are chapters on learning-oriented assessment, as well as the uses of second language assessment in the workplace and for migration. Part IV examines a selection of important issues in the field that deserve attention. These include the alignment of language examinations to external frameworks, the increasing use of technology to both deliver and score second language tests, the responsibilities associated with assessing test takers with special needs, the concept of 'voice' in second language assessment, and assessment literacy for teachers and other test and score users.

Download or read book Measuring Oral Proficiency Through Paired task Performance written by Ildikó Csépes and published by Peter Lang. This book was released on 2009 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book intends to provide a theoretical overview of examining candidates' oral abilities in different examination formats. In particular, it explores specific partner effects on discourse outcomes and proficiency ratings in the framework of paired-task performance. Two investigations, both set in the context of a proposed Hungarian school leaving examination in English, were carried out in order to contribute to a better understanding of the assumed impact of the chosen variables. Study One investigates discourse differences between examiner-to-examinee interaction and peer-to-peer interaction. Study Two explores the impact of the peer partner's proficiency. The results show that partner effects related to this variable cannot be predicted as either harmful or beneficial since no statistically significant difference was found between 30 candidates' scores in different examination conditions.

Download or read book Dimensions of L2 Performance and Proficiency written by Alex Housen and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2012 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Research into complexity, accuracy and fluency (CAF) as basic dimensions of second language performance, proficiency and development has received increased attention in SLA. However, the larger picture in this field of research is often obscured by the breadth of scope, multiple objectives and lack of clarity as to how complexity, accuracy and fluency should be defined, operationalized and measured. The present volume showcases current research on CAF by bringing together eleven contributions from renowned international researchers in the field. These contributions not only add to the body of empirical knowledge about L2 use and L2 development by bringing new research findings to light but they also address fundamental theoretical and methodological issues by responding to questions about the nature, manifestation, development and assessment of CAF as multifaceted constructs. Collectively, the chapters in this book illustrate the converging and sometimes diverging approaches that different disciplines bring to CAF research.

Download or read book The Way of the Linguist written by Steve Kaufmann and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2005-11 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Way of The Linguist, A language learning odyssey. It is now a cliché that the world is a smaller place. We think nothing of jumping on a plane to travel to another country or continent. The most exotic locations are now destinations for mass tourism. Small business people are dealing across frontiers and language barriers like never before. The Internet brings different languages and cultures to our finger-tips. English, the hybrid language of an island at the western extremity of Europe seems to have an unrivalled position as an international medium of communication. But historically periods of cultural and economic domination have never lasted forever. Do we not lose something by relying on the wide spread use of English rather than discovering other languages and cultures? As citizens of this shrunken world, would we not be better off if we were able to speak a few languages other than our own? The answer is obviously yes. Certainly Steve Kaufmann thinks so, and in his busy life as a diplomat and businessman he managed to learn to speak nine languages fluently and observe first hand some of the dominant cultures of Europe and Asia. Why do not more people do the same? In his book The Way of The Linguist, A language learning odyssey, Steve offers some answers. Steve feels anyone can learn a language if they want to. He points out some of the obstacles that hold people back. Drawing on his adventures in Europe and Asia, as a student and businessman, he describes the rewards that come from knowing languages. He relates his evolution as a language learner, abroad and back in his native Canada and explains the kind of attitude that will enable others to achieve second language fluency. Many people have taken on the challenge of language learning but have been frustrated by their lack of success. This book offers detailed advice on the kind of study practices that will achieve language breakthroughs. Steve has developed a language learning system available online at: www.thelinguist.com.

Download or read book Test of Language Development 2 written by Donald D. Hammill and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 54 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Measures language skills in the areas of both listening and speaking, including visual and oral vocabulary, word articulation and discrimination, grammar, and comprehension. Primary for children ages 4 to 8, intermediate for ages 8 to 12.

Download or read book Language Dominance in Bilinguals written by Jeanine Treffers-Daller and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With contributions from an international team of leading experts, this volume offers new ways to explore and measure language dominance.

Download or read book Language Proficiency in Native and Non native Speakers written by Jan H. Hulstijn and published by John Benjamins Publishing Company. This book was released on 2015-02-15 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book, written for both seasoned and novice researchers, presents a theory of what is called Basic and Higher Language Cognition (BLC and HLC), a theory aimed at making some fundamental issues concerning first and second language learning and bilingualism (more) empirical. The first part of the book provides background for and explication of the theory as well as an agenda for future research, while the second part reports on selected studies of language proficiency in native speakers, as well as non-native speakers, and studies of the relationship between literacy in a first and second language. Conceptual and methodological problems in measuring language proficiency in research on second language acquisition and bilingualism are also discussed. Further, the notion of levels of language proficiency, as rendered by the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), is critically examined, suggesting ways of empirically investigating a number of questions that the CEFR raises but is not capable of answering.

Download or read book Allocating Federal Funds for State Programs for English Language Learners written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2011-06-20 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the United States continues to be a nation of immigrants and their children, the nation's school systems face increased enrollments of students whose primary language is not English. With the 2001 reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) in the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), the allocation of federal funds for programs to assist these students to be proficient in English became formula-based: 80 percent on the basis of the population of children with limited English proficiency1 and 20 percent on the basis of the population of recently immigrated children and youth. Title III of NCLB directs the U.S. Department of Education to allocate funds on the basis of the more accurate of two allowable data sources: the number of students reported to the federal government by each state education agency or data from the American Community Survey (ACS). The department determined that the ACS estimates are more accurate, and since 2005, those data have been basis for the federal distribution of Title III funds. Subsequently, analyses of the two data sources have raised concerns about that decision, especially because the two allowable data sources would allocate quite different amounts to the states. In addition, while shortcomings were noted in the data provided by the states, the ACS estimates were shown to fluctuate between years, causing concern among the states about the unpredictability and unevenness of program funding. In this context, the U.S. Department of Education commissioned the National Research Council to address the accuracy of the estimates from the two data sources and the factors that influence the estimates. The resulting book also considers means of increasing the accuracy of the data sources or alternative data sources that could be used for allocation purposes.

Download or read book Elicited Imitation Testing as a Measure of Oral Language Proficiency at the Missionary Training Center written by Sara Moulton and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This research study aimed to create an alternative method of measuring the language proficiency of English as a Second Language (ESL) missionaries at the Missionary Training Center (MTC). Elicited imitation (EI) testing was used as this measure of language proficiency and an instrument was designed and tested with 30 ESL missionaries at the MTC. Results from the EI test were compared with an existing Language Speaking Assessment (LSA) currently in use at the MTC. EI tests were rated by human raters and also by a computer utilizing automatic speech recognition technology. Scores were compared across instruments and across scoring types. The EI test correlated highly with the LSA using both scoring methods providing initial validity for future testing and use of the instrument in measuring language proficiency at the MTC.

Download or read book Automated Speaking Assessment written by Klaus Zechner and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-11-28 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Automated Speaking Assessment: Using Language Technologies to Score Spontaneous Speech provides a thorough overview of state-of-the-art automated speech scoring technology as it is currently used at Educational Testing Service (ETS). Its main focus is related to the automated scoring of spontaneous speech elicited by TOEFL iBT Speaking section items, but other applications of speech scoring, such as for more predictable spoken responses or responses provided in a dialogic setting, are also discussed. The book begins with an in-depth overview of the nascent field of automated speech scoring—its history, applications, and challenges—followed by a discussion of psychometric considerations for automated speech scoring. The second and third parts discuss the integral main components of an automated speech scoring system as well as the different types of automatically generated measures extracted by the system features related to evaluate the speaking construct of communicative competence as measured defined by the TOEFL iBT Speaking assessment. Finally, the last part of the book touches on more recent developments, such as providing more detailed feedback on test takers’ spoken responses using speech features and scoring of dialogic speech. It concludes with a discussion, summary, and outlook on future developments in this area. Written with minimal technical details for the benefit of non-experts, this book is an ideal resource for graduate students in courses on Language Testing and Assessment as well as teachers and researchers in applied linguistics.

Download or read book The Handbook of Language Assessment Across Modalities written by Tobias Haug and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The identification of language problems and subsequent evaluation of interventions depend in part on the availability of useful and psychometrically robust assessments to determine the nature and severity of their problems and monitor progress. The purpose of these assessments may be to measure a child's language proficiency, that is, how they perform relative to other children and whether they have the language level expected and needed for schooling, or they may have a specifically clinical purpose, to identify the occurrence and nature of a disorder. The purpose of assessment is key to the aspects of language targeted in an assessment and the methods used to target these. In the case of spoken English, there are many language assessments ranging from broad language tests to more narrowly focused measures, reflecting the complexity of the language system and its use"--