148 / 2018-02-05 10:20:32

Standards in Language Assessment: investigating lexical frequency profiles from vocabulary and speaking tasks.

standards, lexical, vocabulary, speaking

全体主题 > Standards in developing language assessments

This paper presents a novel investigation of the relationships between second language (L2) oral ability, vocabulary knowledge, and the extent to which these relate according to various validated descriptors. Motivation stems from three recent research strands, showing that: (i) vocabulary knowledge varies according to linguistic proficiency; (ii) vocabulary knowledge development appears under researched; and, (iii) vocabulary knowledge is multi-faceted, to the extent that different tasks appear to elicit different vocabulary knowledge.
The current paper aggregates the vocabulary knowledge and oral ability of 35 first language Japanese learners of (L2) English. Our subjects took 3 speaking tasks (DeJong et al, 2012), and two vocabulary tests (Lex30; Meara and Fitzpatrick, 2000; NVLT McLean et al., 2015). We then evaluated our speaking tasks according to two recent papers that measure fluency and vocabulary knowledge (DeJong et al, 2012; Uchihara and Saito, 2016). Our evaluation includes both subjective and objective measures, and includes the lexical frequency profiling of vocabulary produced in the speaking tasks. Following two papers, (Fitzpatrick and Clenton, 2017; Walters, 2012) we present the multifaceted nature of our subjects’ vocabulary knowledge and report ‘a lexical frequency profile of the lower frequency words, rather than a single score’ (Walters, 2012, p184) for each task. We report several significant correlations; our data indicate that lexical knowledge relates to objective indices of sophistication, articulation rate, and subjective indices of functional adequacy, comprehensibility, and accentedness.
The findings from this novel approach detail the vocabulary knowledge necessary for learners to perform well in different speaking tasks. We present these findings in terms of standards of language assessment, second language speaking development, lexical development, and implications for pedagogy and practice.
Selected references
De Jong, N. H., Steinel, M. P., Florijn, A. F., Schoonen, R., & Hulstijn, J. H. (2012).
Facets of speaking proficiency. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 34, 5-34.
Fitzpatrick, T. and Clenton, J. (2017), Making Sense of Learner Performance on Tests
of Productive Vocabulary Knowledge. TESOL Q. doi:10.1002/tesq.356
Saito, K., Webb, S., Trofimovich, P., & Isaacs, T. (2016). Lexical profiles of
comprehensible second language speech: The role of appropriateness, fluency,
variation, sophistication, abstractness and sense relations. Studies in Second
Language Acquisition, 37, 677-701
Walters, J. (2012). Aspects of validity of a test of productive vocabulary: Lex30.
Language Assessment Quarterly, 9(2), 172-185.