Conversations Basic 8
Conversation Analysis
Each conversation is accompanied by an analysis to give a quick evaluative summation of the students’ performance along with a recommendation of how the students could do better. Various patterns of fluency and dysfluency might be cited if the issue is relevant to the video / transcript.
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BASIC LEVEL
Session 8
Ryotaro and Toko
Ryotaro is now talking with Toko, and in this discussion is they are discussing their favorite person. As both are in space technology, the two hit it off and the discourse is animated. Again, Toko produces far more words than her male counterpart, with 473 compared to Ryotaro’s 374, so this is rather refreshing to see. Acoustic dysfluency is low, 1.0% percent silence for overall discussion, and cross-talking pausing is non-existent. Lexical dysfluency is low, but in syntactic dysfluency, there is a high level of repetition, 42, for Ryotaro and 59 for Toko, likewise there is also a high level of meaningless syllables. MLRs are average. Minimal responses were low, and this was good to see.
Ryotaro and Kaho
Ryotaro is now meeting Kaho and while cross-talk pausing is noted (16.5 seconds) Kaho seems far more comfortable talking with Ryotaro, though the overall amount of silence for the entire interaction is still high, 57.5 second, or 7.1%. Speaking rate is average for Ryotaro, but is quite low for Kaho, 50.4. Lexical dysfluency is low though some L1 is used. As for syntactic dysfluency, Ryotaro has high MLRs (14.9) but Kaho’s are average, 10.7. Again, we see, in regard to production, the males producing a far high number of words, Ryotaro’s 413 to Kaho’s 279. Meaningless syllables are slightly high. In short, both participants were more relaxed but had to think through their answers regarding their most important things in life.
Toko and Takumi
Takumi is now talking with Toko in his second gendered discussion. This one is quite different from his interaction with Kaho. The discussion is very animated and Toko is thoroughly engaged and interested, particularly when discussing music. This also is one of the few interactions that shows the female actually having more production, with Toko having 598 words compared to Takumi’s 374. Acoustic dysfluency is minimal, very little silence noted (0.3% for overall discussion!), and with lexical dysfluency only the moderate use of L1 is noted. For syntactic dysfluency, there is a high level of repetition for both participants, 45 for Toko and 59 for Takumi, and MLRs are average 12.8 for Toko but Takumi’s is rather on the low side, 8.4.
Takumi and Ryotaro
Takumi and Ryotaro have a fairly animated discussion with relatively high speaking rate, and very low acoustic dysfluency, total amount of silence is only 1.4% and with no cross-talk pausing. Similarly, lexical dysfluency is low as well, with only a high use of L1 on the part of Takumi (14 occurrences). MLRs are also approaching native use (12.9 / 13.6), and the conversation is rather balanced 274 words / 305 words, the only drawback is the high level of meaningless syllables. The conversation is some more “fluent” insofar that minimal responses are fewer.
Toko and Kaho
The conversation between the two girls is balanced and with little lexical and acoustic dysfluency and with only some syntactic dysfluency being noted, insofar as to retracing, repetition, and meaningless syllables. The number of words is bit more balanced but Kaho is roughly a 100 hundred shy of Toko’s number of words at 365. While there are longer and more informative utterances, many of them are somewhat comprehensible due to the fragmentation and level of grammatical accuracy. However, both girls share enough background about Kitakyushu and Fukuoka that an animated and successful conversation was possible, despite the dysfluency.
Takumi and Kaho
Kaho and Takumi have a rather awkward conversation with a very high rate of silence 18.7%. At times it seems that Kaho is extremely uncomfortable in talking with Takumi, and both participants have high rates of silence 62.4 for Takumi and 54.2 for Kaho. While the topic of exercise and sports is one that Takumi seems to delight in, it doesn’t seem apparent that Kaho has any knowledge or interest in the topic until later on when she does show some knowledge, in talking about her previous ballet experience and knowledge of baseball. As for acoustic dysfluency, there is high rate of cross-talk pausing 19.2 seconds, with several micropauses with Takumi. Takumi has a 12.2 second mean length pause rate as compared to Kaho, indicating that he is apparently at his wits end in trying to get responses from Kaho. Lexical dysfluency is only high with the use of L2, with Takumi having 23 occurrences.