<p> This study looked at (1) motivation, (2) anxiety, (3) perception of the learning community, and (4) oral proficiency of beginner learners of French in two online sections: one on-campus section with 15 students located on campus or in the same state who could participate in synchronous class zoom, and one distance section with 13 students located all over the world who could only participate in small-group zoom meetings. At the end of the semester, participants filled surveys evaluating their motivation, level of anxiety, and connection with other students in the section. Qualitative and quantitative data from the surveys were collected and analyzed in terms of motivation, anxiety, and perception of the learning community. Participants also completed oral production assignments (individual speech and group conversation on a given topic) throughout the semester, which were collected, and analyzed in terms of complexity, accuracy, and fluency. Results showed that both sections were successful in creating a learning community and allow a progression in oral proficiency. A qualitative and statistical comparison between the sections’ results showed that the distance section had a lower sense of self confidence, enjoyment, motivation, as well as a higher course-related anxiety, whereas the on-campus online section had a higher level of language anxiety. In terms of learning communities, the on-campus section had a higher sense of community, but the distance section had a stronger connection with their groupmates. Finally, the on-campus section had a lower accuracy rate than the distance section in both the individual and group productions, which was due to a higher pronunciation errors rate.   </p>

The purpose of this study has been to examine how Swedish teachers of English encourage the development of students’ oral proficiency in the English language. By interviewing six Swedish teachers of English at upper secondary school, the study addresses which methods are mostly used by the teachers in order to encourage the improvement of students’ oral proficiency. The results of the study indicate that all the teachers tried in different manners to encourage students’ self-confidence, which would help them develop their oral proficiency. Furthermore, it was possible to conclude that the teachers shared the notion that insecurity is detrimental to the development of students’ oral proficiency. Another method that was used by the teachers was allowing students to work in either pair or groups. Even though most teachers used this method, they did point out different things that were important to think about in terms of group work. For the teachers, it was important that the students had fun during oral exercises, and thus, most teachers used different games when conducting oral activities in order to inspire a more relaxed or comfortable environment. The last concept that the teachers talked about was the usage of the target language in the classroom. Here the teachers’ ideas were not in alignment with each other. Some thought that it was good to force the students to use the target language throughout the lessons when communicating, whereas others only believed that students had to communicate orally in the target language during speaking activities. If students were insecure, it did not, according to these teachers, help the students to force them to speak English throughout the lessons. Most of the concepts that were introduced by the teachers were similar to those found in previous studies on Swedish teachers of English. Furthermore, the results of this paper could also be tied to previous research concerning oral development for L2 learners. / Syftet med denna studie har varit att studera hur svenska engelskalärare främjar utvecklingen av elevers muntliga färdigheter i engelska. Genom att intervjua sex svenska engelskalärare på gymnasieskolan undersöker studien vilka metoder som används mest av lärarna för att utveckla elevernas muntliga färdigheter. Resultaten av studien visar att de flesta lärare som intervjuades på olika sätt uppmuntrar elevernas självförtroende, vilket i sin tur hjälper dem att utveckla deras muntliga färdighet. Tanken om att osäkerhet är skadligt för elevers utveckling av muntlig färdighet delades av alla lärare som intervjuades. En annan metod som användes av lärarna var att tillåta elever att arbeta i par eller grupper. Även om de flesta lärare använde den här metoden pekade de på olika saker som var viktiga att tänka på när det gällde grupp- och pararbeten. Nästa metod som lärarna använde berörde inspirerandet av en mer avslappnad eller bekväm miljö som möjliggör utvecklingen av elevers muntliga färdigheter. För lärarna var det viktigt att eleverna hade kul under muntliga övningar, och sålunda använde de flesta lärare olika spel när de utförde muntliga aktiviteter. Det sista konceptet som lärarna talade om var användningen av målspråket i klassrummet. Här var lärarens idéer inte i linje med varandra. Vissa trodde att det var bra att tvinga eleverna att använda målspråket under hela lektionen medan andra inte trodde det hjälpte elevernas utveckling av sitt muntliga språk. Om en student var osäker, hjälpte det inte, enligt dessa lärare, att tvinga studenten att tala engelska under lektionerna. De påpekade dock att eleverna var tvungna att under talaktiviteter och muntliga presentationer interagera på målspråket. De flesta av de koncept som lärarna introducerade liknade dem som hittades i tidigare studier om svenska engelskalärare. Dessutom kan resultaten av denna uppsats kopplas till tidigare forskning kring oral development for L2 learners.

Thesis (MScEng (Electrical and Electronic Engineering))--University of Stellenbosch, 2010. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The assessment of oral proficiency forms an important part of learning a second language. However, the manual assessment of oral proficiency is a labour intensive task requiring specific expertise. An automatic assessment system can reduce the cost and workload associated with this task. Although such systems are available, they are typically aimed towards assessing students of American or British English, making them poorly suited for speakers of South African English. Additionally, most research in this field is focussed on the assessment of foreign language students, while we investigate the assessment of second language students. These students can be expected to have more advanced skills in the target language than foreign language speakers. This thesis presents a number of scoring algorithms for the automatic assessment of oral proficiency. Experiments were conducted on a corpus of responses recorded during an automated oral test. These responses were rated for proficiency by a panel of raters based on five different rating scales. Automatic scoring algorithms were subsequently applied to the same utterances and their correlations with the human ratings determined. In contrast to the findings of other researchers, posterior likelihood scores were found to be ineffective as an indicator of proficiency for the corpus used in this study. Four different segmentation based algorithms were shown to be moderately correlated with human ratings, while scores based on the accuracy of a repeated prompt were found to be well correlated with human assessments. Finally, multiple linear regression was used to combine different scoring algorithms to predict human assessments. The correlations between human ratings and these score combinations ranged between 0.52 and 0.90. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die assessering van spraakvaardigheid is ’n belangrike komponent van die aanleer van ’n tweede taal. Die praktiese uitvoer van sodanige assessering is egter ’n arbeids-intensiewe taak wat spesifieke kundigheid vereis. Die gebruik van ’n outomatiese stelsel kan die koste en werkslading verbonde aan die assessering van ’n groot aantal studente drasties verminder. Hoewel sulke stelsels beskikbaar is, is dit tipies gemik op die assessering van studente wat Amerikaanse of Britse Engels wil aanleer, en is dus nie geskik vir sprekers van Suid Afrikaanse Engels nie. Verder is die meerderheid navorsing op hierdie gebied gefokus op die assessering van vreemde-taal sprekers, terwyl hierdie tesis die assessering van tweede-taal sprekers ondersoek. Dit is te wagte dat hierdie sprekers se spraakvaardighede meer gevorderd sal wees as di´e van vreemde-taal sprekers. Hierdie tesis behandel ’n aantal evaluasie-algoritmes vir die outomatiese assessering van spraakvaardighede. Die eksperimente is uitgevoer op ’n stel opnames van studente se antwoorde op ’n outomatiese spraaktoets. ’n Paneel van menslike beoordelaars het hierdie opnames geassesseer deur gebruik te maak van vyf verskillende punteskale. Dieselfde opnames is deur die outomatiese evaluasie-algoritmes verwerk, en die korrelasies tussen die beoordelaars se punte en die outomatiese evaluerings is bepaal. In kontras met die bestaande navorsing, is daar gevind dat posterieure waarskynlikheidsalgoritmes nie ’n goeie aanduiding van spraakvaardighede gee vir ons datastel nie. Vier algoritmes wat van segmentasies gebruik maak, is ook ondersoek. Die evaluerings van hierdie algoritmes het redelike korrelasie getoon met die punte wat deur die beoordelaars toegeken is. Voorts is drie algoritmes ondersoek wat daarop gemik is om die akkuraatheid van herhaalde sinne te bepaal. Die evaluerings van hierdie algoritmes het goed gekorreleer met die punte wat deur die beoordelaars toegeken is. Laastens is liniˆere regressie gebruik om verskillende outomatiese evaluerings te kombineer en sodoende beoordelaars se punte te voorspel. Die korrelasies tussen hierdie kombinasies en die punte wat deur beoordelaars toegeken is, het gewissel tussen 0.52 en 0.90.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:26:48Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2011-02-14Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:34:40Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 fernandes_am_me_sjrp.pdf: 1280522 bytes, checksum: 1122439dd5288d175ef1f99a499dd310 (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) / Neste estudo investiga-se a questão da proficiência oral de duas professoras de inglês como língua estrangeira de acordo com o seu desempenho no TEPOLI (Teste de Proficiência Oral em Língua Inglesa). A linguagem das professoras é analisada em termos da precisão gramatical e da metalinguagem por meio da comparação entre a produção oral em contexto pré-serviço e a produção oral em contexto em serviço, ou seja, em contexto de teste e em contexto de sala de aula, respectivamente. Busca-se contribuir para a validação do TEPOLI como instrumento de avaliação da proficiência oral do professor no cenário brasileiro, integrando-se aos demais estudos no escopo desse teste oral e no escopo do EPPLE (Exame de Proficiência para Professores de Língua Estrangeira). O objetivo principal desta investigação é observar se o tipo de metalinguagem produzido no teste oral condiz com o tipo de metalinguagem utilizado em sala de aula pelas professoras. Utiliza-se uma metodologia qualitativa para análise de transcrições do teste e de aulas ministradas pelas professoras-participantes formadas em Licenciatura em Letras de modo a obter-se um recorte do uso da metalinguagem em sala de aula, contexto real de uso da língua-alvo pelo professor de língua estrangeira. A precisão gramatical é analisada devido a sua importância na qualidade da produção oral do professor, cuja fala pode ser vista como a principal fonte de insumo para os alunos em sala de aula. O arcabouço teórico da investigação baseia-se em estudos sobre a avaliação de línguas por testes, os conceitos de proficiência e competência linguístico-comunicativa e competência profissional, o efeito retroativo e a fala do professor. Os resultados desta pesquisa trazem implicações para a segunda tarefa do TEPOLI especificamente, e para os descritores das faixas de proficiência do teste em relação à metalinguagem... / Neste estudo investiga-se a questão da proficiência oral de duas professoras de inglês como língua estrangeira de acordo com o seu desempenho no TEPOLI (Teste de Proficiência Oral em Língua Inglesa). A linguagem das professoras é analisada em termos da precisão gramatical e da metalinguagem por meio da comparação entre a produção oral em contexto pré-serviço e a produção oral em contexto em serviço, ou seja, em contexto de teste e em contexto de sala de aula, respectivamente. Busca-se contribuir para a validação do TEPOLI como instrumento de avaliação da proficiência oral do professor no cenário brasileiro, integrando-se aos demais estudos no escopo desse teste oral e no escopo do EPPLE (Exame de Proficiência para Professores de Língua Estrangeira). O objetivo principal desta investigação é observar se o tipo de metalinguagem produzido no teste oral condiz com o tipo de metalinguagem utilizado em sala de aula pelas professoras. Utiliza-se uma metodologia qualitativa para análise de transcrições do teste e de aulas ministradas pelas professoras-participantes formadas em Licenciatura em Letras de modo a obter-se um recorte do uso da metalinguagem em sala de aula, contexto real de uso da língua-alvo pelo professor de língua estrangeira. A precisão gramatical é analisada devido a sua importância na qualidade da produção oral do professor, cuja fala pode ser vista como a principal fonte de insumo para os alunos em sala de aula. O arcabouço teórico da investigação baseia-se em estudos sobre a avaliação de línguas por testes, os conceitos de proficiência e competência linguístico-comunicativa e competência profissional, o efeito retroativo e a fala do professor. Os resultados desta pesquisa trazem implicações para a segunda tarefa do TEPOLI especificamente, e para os descritores das faixas de proficiência do teste em relação... (Complete abstract click electronic access below)

Orientador: Matilde Virginia Ricardi Scaramucci / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-08T08:02:19Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Sakamori_Lieko_M.pdf: 4652152 bytes, checksum: 01ece6f13ebe9edd19d0975b09271a35 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2006 / Resumo: A confiabilidade é um aspecto fundamental da avaliação. Um teste é considerado confiável quando não há variáveis que possam afetar a avaliação do desempenho do candidato. Elas podem estar relacionadas às condições de aplicação do teste, ou à atuação dos entrevistadores. No entanto, no caso das avaliações orais como as interações face a face, em que o candidato interage com o entrevistador, o controle da confiabilidade se torna mais difícil, já que as interações envolvem inúmeras variáveis. Para controlar essas variáveis, formam-se entrevistadores e elaboram-se procedimentos, regras e critérios de avaliação. Mesmo assim, podem existir variáveis que não foram previstas em relação às interações. O objetivo deste trabalho é fazer uma análise da atuação dos entrevistadores na interação face a face do exame Celpe-Bras (Certificado de Proficiência em Língua Portuguesa para Estrangeiros). Esse exame, desenvolvido pelo Ministério da Educação do Brasil e em uso desde 1998, certifica os candidatos estrangeiros em quatro níveis: Intermediário, Intermediário Superior, Avançado e Avançado Superior. Ele é composto de duas partes, uma prova escrita e outra oral. A avaliação oral é uma interação face a face, com duração de 20 minutos. O candidato é avaliado por um entrevistador e um observador. Os resultados do estudo mostraram que houve variações em relação à atuação dos entrevistadores, podendo ser consideradas colaborativas e/ou não colaborativas. Espera-se que este trabalho possa contribuir para um maior entendimento das avaliações orais em geral, e mais especificamente, servir de subsídio para o aprimoramento do Manual do Entrevistador do exame Celpe-Bras / Abstract: Reliability is a fundamental concept in assessment. A test is considered to be reliable when there are no variables that can affect the candidate¿s performance assessment. They can be related to the conditions of test application or interviewer¿s performance. However, in the case of oral assessments such as face to face interactions, in which the candidate interacts with an interviewer, the control of reliability becomes more difficult, since the interactions will involve many variables. In order to control those variables, interviewers are trained and test procedures, rules and criteria are elaborated. Even though, there can be variables that were not predicted to the interactions. The aim of this work is to analyze interviewers¿ performance in face to face interaction of Celpe-Bras examination (Proficiency in Portuguese as a Foreign Language). This examination, developed by the Ministry of Brazilian Education and in use since 1998, certifies foreign candidates in four levels: Intermediate, High Intermediate, Advanced and High Advanced. It has two parts, a writing test and a speaking one. The oral test is a 20 minutes face to face interaction. The candidate is evaluated by an interviewer and an observer. The results of this study pointed that there were variations concerning interviewers¿ performance, which could be considered collaborative and/or non-collaborative. It is expected that this work can contribute to a better understanding of oral evaluations in general, and more specifically, to serve as subsidy to the improvement of Interviewer¿s Manual of Celpe-Bras examination / Mestrado / Lingua Estrangeira / Mestre em Linguística Aplicada

This study investigates how a group of English teachers in Sweden teach and assess pronunciation to ninth graders as a part of oral skills. The method applied in the study is qualitative semi-structured interviews with six teachers from different cities and schools in Sweden. The results show that teaching English pronunciation is included in different speaking and listening contexts and is not taught separately. However, the teachers do formative pronunciation assessments in almost every lesson, but summative assessment is rarely given in each semester. This case study views how the participants teach English pronunciation to ninth graders and concludes that communicative language teaching methods have an overwhelming role in the teaching of pronunciation, as pronunciation is included in other language skills and happens mostly without direct focus, which is typical in a communicative approach.

This comparative study aims to discover and demonstrate the potential relationship between foreign language speaking anxiety and course level among 183 students from three consecutive courses of English as a foreign language, i.e. English 5, 6, and 7, at three upper secondary schools in the South of Sweden. Accordingly, a survey was distributed in order to account for demographic information about the students, such as course level, age, and sex, to determine the students’ oral proficiency levels, and to assess the students’ anxiety levels in relation to 33 anxiety-provoking classroom situations. The results showed that Swedish upper secondary students are not particularly anxious regardless of course level, save that the students in English 5 would feel less comfortable around native speakers of English, although not to an extent which would indicate anxiety, and that the students in English 7 would, in contrast to the other course levels, experience high levels of anxiety when volunteering answers and being called on in class. However, the most notable differences were found between the genders and between the students with high and low oral proficiency levels. Female students generally showed higher levels of anxiety than male students did. Yet, in most cases, the difference did not suggest that one of the genders was anxious while the other one was not. In terms of oral proficiency levels, the students with low oral proficiency showed higher levels of anxiety, often to the extent that they would be anxious while the ones with high proficiency would not. Thus, the levels of anxiety seem to depend on gender and oral proficiency more than the students’ course levels.

The objective and automatic grading of oral language tests has been the subject of significant research in recent years. Several obstacles lie in the way of achieving this goal. Recent work has suggested a testing technique called elicited imitation (EI) can be used to accurately approximate global oral proficiency. This testing methodology, however, does not incorporate some fundamental aspects of language such as fluency. Other work has suggested another testing technique, simulated speech (SS), as a supplement to EI that can provide automated fluency metrics. In this work, I investigate a combination of fluency features extracted for SS testing and EI test scores to more accurately predict oral language proficiency. I also investigate the role of EI as an oral language test, and the optimal method of extracting fluency features from SS sound files. Results demonstrate the ability of EI and SS to more effectively predict hand-scored SS test item scores. I finally discuss implications of this work for future automated oral testing scenarios.

Speaking assessments for second language learners have traditionally been expensive to administer because of the cost of rating the speech samples. To reduce the cost, many researchers are investigating the potential of using automatic speech recognition (ASR) as a means to score examinee responses to open-ended prompts. This study examined the potential of using ASR timing fluency features to predict speech ratings and the effect of prompt difficulty in that process. A speaking test with ten prompts representing five different intended difficulty levels was administered to 201 subjects. The speech samples obtained were then (a) rated by human raters holistically, (b) rated by human raters analytically at the item level, and (c) scored automatically using PRAAT to calculate ten different ASR timing fluency features. The ratings and scores of the speech samples were analyzed with Rasch measurement to evaluate the functionality of the scales and the separation reliability of the examinees, raters, and items. There were three ASR timed fluency features that best predicted human speaking ratings: speech rate, mean syllables per run, and number of silent pauses. However, only 31% of the score variance was predicted by these features. The significance in this finding is that those fluency features alone likely provide insufficient information to predict human rated speaking ability accurately. Furthermore, neither the item difficulties calculated by the ASR nor those rated analytically by the human raters aligned with the intended item difficulty levels. The misalignment of the human raters with the intended difficulties led to a further analysis that found that it was problematic for raters to use a holistic scale at the item level. However, modifying the holistic scale to a scale that examined if the response to the prompt was at-level resulted in a significant correlation (r = .98, p < .01) between the item difficulties calculated analytically by the human raters and the intended difficulties. This result supports the hypothesis that item prompts are important when it comes to obtaining quality speech samples. As test developers seek to use ASR to score speaking assessments, caution is warranted to ensure that score differences are due to examinee ability and not the prompt composition of the test.

Elicited Imitation (EI) is an assessment approach that uses sentence imitation tasks to gauge the oral proficiency level of test takers. EI tests have been created for several of the world's languages, including English, Spanish, Japanese, French, and Mandarin. Little research has been conducted for using the EI approach with learners of Russian. This dissertation describes a multi-faceted study that was presented in two journal articles for the creation and analysis of a Russian EI test. The EI test was created for and tested with Russian-speaking missionaries and employees at the Missionary Training Center (MTC) in Provo, UT. The first article describes the creation of the test and analyzes its ability to predict oral language proficiency by comparing individuals' scores on the EI to their scores on the Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI). The test was found to effectively predict an individual's OPI score (R2 = .86). The second article analyzes the difference in person ability estimates and item difficulty measures between items from a general content bank and a religious content bank. The mean score for the content specific items (x̄ = .51) was significantly higher than the mean score for the general test (x̄ = .44, p < 0.001). Additionally, the item difficulties for the religious items were significantly less than the item difficulties for the general items (p < 0.05).