Fluency Articles

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Summary / Abstract

Correlation between STEP Bulats writing and TOEIC scores

Michihiro Hirai. Divergence and Convergence, Educating with Integrity: Proceedings of the 7th Annual JALT Pan-Sig Conference, May 10-11, 2008. Kyoto, Japan, Doshisha University, Shinmachi Campus, pp. 36-46

The author analyzed the results of STEP BULATS Writing Tests administered to a group of 559 Japanese (predominantly businesspeople) from September 2004 to December 2007 and found the correlation coefficient between their scores and the TOEIC scores to be .69 for the entire score range. The correlation coefficient for the upper end of the range (TOEIC ≧ 800) was .46, and it is noteworthy that 50.4% of the 349 test-takers in this range failed to exhibit the business English writing skills expected of competent international businesspeople as measured by the STEP BULATS. The author attributes this relatively low performance in the STEP BULATS Writing Test primarily to lack of exposure to business practice and vocabulary.

Correlations between active skill and passive skill test scores

Michihiro Hirai. Shiken: JALT Testing and Evaluation SIG Newsletter, 6 (3). September 2002. 2-8.

The correlations between speaking and receptive skils and between writing and receptive skills were studie,d using a company-internal interview test, the BULATS Writing Test, and the TOEIC test, administered to Hitachi employees who took two English courses of different levels. Results showed that the correlation coefficient between the BULATS Writing Test and TOEIC scores was 0.66, significantly lower than ETS’s data showing the correlation between writing skills and the TOEIC reading test score.

Pausology and Listening Comprehension

Theory, Research, and Practice. JALT Journal, 12, 1. 99-120. 1990. Roger Griffiths.

This paper discusses the investigation of temporal variables; it builds upon sound empirical work in L1 pausological studies and L2 input studies. A brief review of early L2 studies of temporal variables (mostly of NS-NNS speech rate) indicates them to be methodologically flawed to the extent that their findings must be discounted.

The Effects of Pre-Task Planning and On-Line Planning on Fluency, Complexity and Accuracy on L2 Monologic Oral Production

Fangyuan Yuan, Rod Ellis. Applied Linguistics, 24 (1), 1-27.

Research to date lends general support to the claim that pre‐task planning impacts positively on language production, especially where fluency and complexity are concerned. However, mixed results have been found for accurate language use (e.g. Ellis 1987; Crookes 1989). The present study was designed to investigate the effects of both pre‐task and on‐line planning on L2 oral production. The results show that pre‐task planning enhances grammatical complexity while on‐line planning positively influences accuracy and grammatical complexity. The pre‐task planners also produced more fluent and lexically varied language than the on‐line planners. These findings help to further our understanding of the interrelationship between planning and L2 oral output and are also of obvious pedagogic relevance.

Measuring Spoken Language: A Unit for All Reasons

Pauline Foster, Alan Tonkyn, Gillian Wigglesworth. Applied Linguistics 21, (3), 354-375. 2000

The analysis of spoken language requires a principled way of dividing transcribed data into units in order to assess features such as accuracy and complexity. This article discusses a reliable and comprehensibly defined unit to assist with the analysis of a variety of recordings of native and nonnative speakers of English.

The Influence of Complexity in Monologic Versus Dialogic Tasks in Dutch L2

Michel, Marije, Kuiken, Folkert, Vedder, Ineke.

This study puts the Cognition Hypothesis (Robinson 2005) to the test with respect to its predictions of the effects of changes in task complexity (± few elements) and task condition (± monologic) on L2 performance. 44 learners of Dutch performed both a simple and a complex oral task in either a monologic or a dialogic condition. The performance of the L2 learners was analysed with regard to linguistic complexity, accuracy, and fluency. As predicted by the Cognition Hypothesis, the complex task generated more accurate though less fluent speech. Linguistic complexity, however, was only marginally affected. Dialogic tasks triggered more accurate and fluent output though it was structurally less complex.

Pausology and Hesitation Phenomena in Second Language Acquisition

Michiko Watanabe: Ralph Rose.

Speech by one or more interlocutors may be described as continuous, but a moment’s reflection will reveal that it is not really continuous at all. Minimally, speakers must break off their speech to breathe. In extreme cases, their speech may become highly discontinuous, with long breaks, extraneous sounds or words, or reformulations that cause delay in message transfer. These kinds of discontinuities have been studied under the name of pausology and hesitation phenomena, (also sometimes called speech disfluencies).

Enduring Without Avoiding:

Pauses and Verbal Dysfluencies in Public Speaking Fear

Michael Lewin, Daniel McNeil, Jonathon Lipson. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, Vol 18, (4), 387-402. 1996.

Direct measures of overt behavior have been underutilized in speech and other social fear, anxiety, and phobia research. This study demonstrates the usefulness of such variables in the evaluation of public speaking fear. A molecular behavioral assessment methodology was used to examine pauses and verbal dysfluencies of individuals with circumscribed speech fear (n=8) or general social anxiety (n=8), as well as nonanxious control participants (n=16), during an impromptu speech behavior test. Speech fear and generally social anxious individuals paused more often and for a longer duration than the nonanxious group. Results also indicated greater increases in state anxiety during the speech in the circumscribed speech fear sample, relative to the generalized social anxiety and control groups. Taken together with other research, these findings provide evidence that circumscribed speech fear is a meaningful subtype and can be independent of generalized social anxiety. The utility of measuring pausing and verbal dysfluencies in the behavioral assessment of speech fear and other social anxiety and phobia is discussed.

Investigating the sensitivity of the measures of fluency, accuracy, complexity and idea units with a narrative task

Chihiro Inoue, 2010. Papers from the Lancaster University Postgraduate Conference in Linguistics and Language Teaching, Vol 4. Edited by Grace Bota, Helen Hargressaves, Lai Chia-Chun & Rong Rong.

This study investigates the sensitivity of commonly used performance measures with spoken narrative performance by Japanese learners and native speakers of English. Five English native speakers and 24 Japanese learners at six different levels of the Standard Speaking Test [SST] were required to look at a sequence of pictures and then produce a narrative story in the past tense. The performance measures in this paper include measures of fluency, accuracy, syntactic complexity, lexical complexity, and ‘idea units’ that quantify how detailed the narrated story is. The ‘sensitivity’ of the measures in this study is defined as being able to highly correlate with the different levels of proficiency, and to discriminate among them. Statistical tests of Spearman’s rho, Kruskal‐Wallis, and post hoc LSD reveal that the only measure that fully satisfies the two conditions is the speech rate, a temporal fluency measure.

Investigating fluency in EFL:

A quantitative approach

Lennon, P. (1990). Language Learning, 40, 387-417.

This paper investigates various easily quantifiable performance features that might function as objective indicators of oral fluency. It would be advantageous if we could assemble a set of variables that functioned as good indicators of what expert judges, such as experienced native-speaker EFL teachers, are reacting to when subjectively assessing fluency. This would advance our knowledge of what constitutes fluency and especially what makes for perceived fluency differences among learners and how an individual learner improves in fluency over time.To these ends a sample of the spoken performance of four advanced EFL learners was recorded at the start of six-months’ residence in Britain and again shortly before departure. A panel of 10 native-speaker teachers of EFL subjectively rated the recordings for global fluency and generally agreed that the second set was more fluent than was the first, though for each subject one or two panel members dissented. The implications of the study are that quantitative analysis can indeed help to identify fluency improvements in individual learners, and may have the potential to provide objective assessment of spoken fluency. Findings revealed two key areas of performance that seem to be important for fluency: (1) speech-pause relationships in performance and (2) frequency of occurrence of dysfluency markers such as filled pauses and repetitions (but not necessarily self-corrections).

Pausological research in an L2 context:

A rationale, and review of selected studies

Griffiths, R. 1991. Applied Linguistics, 12 (4), 345-364.

It is here suggested that temporal variables, such as speech rate and pause and hesitation phenomena, which are studied within the science of pausology, are of direct relevance to L2 (second language) research and ELT methodology. Examples are given, however, to demonstrate that the use of methodology conventions from this very specialized area are not evident in early L2 research, and it is only as they are increasingly observed that L2 findings can be reported with confidence.

Complexity, accuracy, and fluency in second language acquisition

Housen, A & Kuiken, F. (2009). Applied Linguistics, 30, 461-473.

Many researchers and language practitioners believe that the constructs of L2 performance and L2 proficiency are multi-componential in nature, and that their principal dimensions can be adequately, and comprehensively, captured by the notions of complexity, accuracy and fluency (Skehan 1998; Ellis 2003, 2008; Ellis and Barkhuizen 2005). As such, complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) have figured as major research variables in applied linguistic research. CAF have been used both as performance descriptors for the oral and written assessment of language learners as well as indicators of learners’ proficiency underlying their performance; they have also been used for measuring progress in language learning.

Complexity, accuracy, and fluency in second language acquisition

Housen, A & Kuiken, F. (2009). Applied Linguistics, 30, 461-473.

Many researchers and language practitioners believe that the constructs of L2 performance and L2 proficiency are multi-componential in nature, and that their principal dimensions can be adequately, and comprehensively, captured by the notions of complexity, accuracy and fluency (Skehan 1998; Ellis 2003, 2008; Ellis and Barkhuizen 2005). As such, complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) have figured as major research variables in applied linguistic research. CAF have been used both as performance descriptors for the oral and written assessment of language learners as well as indicators of learners’ proficiency underlying their performance; they have also been used for measuring progress in language learning.

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