The process of determining whether a prospective international teaching assistant or professor has adequate oral language skills varies from university to university throughout the country. At The Florida State University oral language certification of a prospective candidate is done in either of two ways: (1) the candidate can take the Test of Spoken English (TSE) and receive a score of 220; or (2) the department chair can certify that the candidate would receive a score of 220 on the TSE if the individual took the test. This research study was undertaken to examine the validity of the policy. / Five international students who met the university's requirement to become graduate students and teaching assistants were given the SPEAK test (the institutional form of the TSE) and were also interviewed using typical interview type questions. The SPEAK tests were then scored by certified raters. The audio-taped interviews of the international students were given to 26 department chairs. The chairs were asked to state whether the individual students would receive a score of 220 on the standardized test. Also, the chairs were asked to predict the scores the students would receive on overall comprehension, pronunciation grammar and fluency after examining the TSE/SPEAK scoring guidelines. / The results of the SPEAK test showed that 3 out of the 5 students received scores of 120 or higher. The chairs were approximately 97% successful judging the students who had 220 or higher but were nearly 76% incorrect when judging the two students who did not receive the minimum score required. The range of scores given on the sub-sections indicate wide-spread disagreement or misunderstanding of the TSE scoring guidelines. The results indicate that the policy of having chairs judge oral proficiency is inconsistent and needs further examination. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 57-03, Section: A, page: 0996. / Major Professor: Frederick Jenks. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1996.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_77668 |
| Contributors | Freeman, Gregory Lee., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 104 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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