Second-language (L2) testing researchers have explored the relationship between speakers' overall speaking ability, reflected by holistic scores, and the speakers' performance on speaking subcomponents, reflected by analytic scores (e.g., McNamara, 1990; Sato, 2011). These research studies have advanced applied linguists' understanding of how…

Multilingualism in education is encouraged in South Africa, and children are expected to become bilingual and biliterate during the early primary grades. Much focus has been placed on measuring literacy in children's first language, often the medium of instruction (MOI), and English, the language typically used as MOI from fourth grade. However,…

Various examinations are administered at universities across the US as a means of assessing bilingual/multilingual international teaching assistants' (ITAs') proficiency in spoken English before they are permitted to teach. While such exams are taken by students in a range of academic disciplines, recent research suggests that communicative…

This study aimed to examine the effects of combining task repetition with immediate post-task transcribing (TRIPT) on L2 learners' immediate and delayed oral repetitions of the same task in terms of complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF). For this purpose, 38 intermediate Iranian learners were randomly assigned to two groups: TRIPT and task…

English language development is a critical component for young children's school readiness. In this study, we examined the effect of "Read it again-Pre-K!" (Justice and McGinty in Read it again!-Prek: a preschool curriculum supplement to promote language and literacy foundations, Crane Center for Early Childhood Research and Policy,…

Oracy skills are considered as a problematic area for Thai students. Despite years of learning, students could not improve the skills at a satisfactory level due to internal and external hindrance such as cognitive load while communicating and insufficient practice time in class to achieve their communication (Flavell, 1979). In addition, to…

This study assessed the extent to which captions, textually unenhanced and enhanced, can draw learners' attention to and promote the acquisition of a second language (L2) grammatical construction. A pretest-posttest-delayed posttest experimental design was employed. Seventy-two Korean learners of English were randomly assigned to an enhanced…

This study aims at investigating the relationship between student's second language lexical fluency and their C-test performance. Using cluster sampling procedure,75 undergraduate students of Engineering and Basic Sciences studying general English at Shahrood University of Technology were randomly selected to participate in this study. Controlled…

Background: Syntax is a language skill purported to support children's reading comprehension. However, researchers who have examined whether children with average and below-average reading comprehension score significantly different on spoken-syntax assessments report inconsistent results. Aims: To determine if differences in how syntax is…

This article provides an overview and evaluation of the uses--actual and potential--of automatic speech recognition (ASR) and spoken dialogue systems (SDS), related technologies that can be applied to second language speaking assessment, given particular definitions of the construct. Both technologies have only gradually moved in the direction of…

The purpose of this study is to find out if there is a correlation between the anxiety of a foreign language in nursing students and their performance in an oral examination, and if it exists, how strong is that correlation. It also aims to examine the effect that different levels of anxiety have on students' oral test scores and how students feel…

Pronunciation is an essential aspect in the teaching of the English language, especially those aspects of pronunciation such as stress and vowel quality as they are crucial elements to ensure intelligibility in communication. The general objective of this study is to investigate whether the theoretical-practical instruction on pronunciation has a…

This investigation explores oral proficiency outcomes in short-term study abroad programs, as well as the interaction of those outcomes with the type of second language (L2) courses involved. For three years, speaking ability gains were measured in a study abroad setting among intermediate learners of Spanish under two different course conditions:…

Despite the benefits of performance-based oral communication tests, a plethora of variables, as illustrated in Ockey and Li's (2015) model of oral communication assessment, can create construct-irrelevant variance in test scores. In relation to human participants in the oral communication tests, previous studies mostly focused on the direct effect…

This study explored the relationship between the period of Turkish EFL (English as a Foreign Language) graduates' not using English as well as their ages with the attrition of their oral communicative ability. The study also indicated the language maintenance strategies the Turkish EFL graduates pursue to prevent the attrition of their oral…