Author : Pascale Leclercq
Publisher : Multilingual Matters
Page : 245 pages
File Size : 36,39 MB
Release : 2014-06-23
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 1783092289
This volume brings together concrete ideas on identifying and measuring second language (L2) proficiency from different branches of SLA. The chapters introduce a range of tools for the evaluation of learners' language level with respect to both productive and receptive skills and provide a variety of answers to the question of how to assess L2 proficiency in a valid, reliable and practical manner.
Author : Alex Housen
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing
Page : 318 pages
File Size : 43,35 MB
Release : 2012
Category : Foreign Language Study
ISBN : 9027213054
Research into complexity, accuracy and fluency (CAF) as basic dimensions of second language performance, proficiency and development has received increased attention in SLA. However, the larger picture in this field of research is often obscured by the breadth of scope, multiple objectives and lack of clarity as to how complexity, accuracy and fluency should be defined, operationalized and measured. The present volume showcases current research on CAF by bringing together eleven contributions from renowned international researchers in the field. These contributions not only add to the body of empirical knowledge about L2 use and L2 development by bringing new research findings to light but they also address fundamental theoretical and methodological issues by responding to questions about the nature, manifestation, development and assessment of CAF as multifaceted constructs. Collectively, the chapters in this book illustrate the converging and sometimes diverging approaches that different disciplines bring to CAF research.
Author : Alessandro G. Benati
Publisher : A&C Black
Page : 392 pages
File Size : 41,78 MB
Release : 2011-10-27
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 1441188398
Benati provides clarity about the characteristics and notion of language proficiency in the field of second language acquisition. He looks at four areas of research paradigmatically related to the role of proficiency: theorizing and measuring second language proficiency; the dimensions of L2 proficiency; factors contributing to the attainment of L2 proficiency and attaining L2 proficiency in the classroom. It also contains a variety of research accounts about the specific factors which have an effect on proficiency together with a theorised measurement of proficiency in second language research. It will be required reading for researchers in applied linguistics and second language acquisition.
Author : Rebekah Hoy
Publisher :
Page : 216 pages
File Size : 23,9 MB
Release : 2011
Category : Language and languages
ISBN :
Research in vocabulary size and depth in a foreign language has gained popularity since the 1980s, and efforts at developing reliable measures of FL vocabulary continue today as placement tests such as the Eurocentres vocabulary tests (Meara and Jones, 1990, 1998) remain subject to revision and improvement. In an attempt to investigate a possible relationship between vocabulary size and language ability, this study developed two measures: a cloze-passage test (recognized as a valid predictor of overall proficiency) and an adaptation of Meara and Buxton's (1987) Yes/No vocabulary test, which purports to estimate learners' vocabulary size. Scores on the two tests were correlated, yielding a weak positive correlation of .36; however, this finding was not statistically significant. Further testing with a larger sample is necessary for improving the behavior of the tests.
Author : Jeanine Treffers-Daller
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 315 pages
File Size : 30,6 MB
Release : 2016
Category : Education
ISBN : 1107044499
With contributions from an international team of leading experts, this volume offers new ways to explore and measure language dominance.
Author : Alex Housen
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing
Page : 319 pages
File Size : 48,71 MB
Release : 2012-10-17
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 902727326X
Research into complexity, accuracy and fluency (CAF) as basic dimensions of second language performance, proficiency and development has received increased attention in SLA. However, the larger picture in this field of research is often obscured by the breadth of scope, multiple objectives and lack of clarity as to how complexity, accuracy and fluency should be defined, operationalized and measured. The present volume showcases current research on CAF by bringing together eleven contributions from renowned international researchers in the field. These contributions not only add to the body of empirical knowledge about L2 use and L2 development by bringing new research findings to light but they also address fundamental theoretical and methodological issues by responding to questions about the nature, manifestation, development and assessment of CAF as multifaceted constructs. Collectively, the chapters in this book illustrate the converging and sometimes diverging approaches that different disciplines bring to CAF research.
Author : James Milton
Publisher : Multilingual Matters
Page : 287 pages
File Size : 27,96 MB
Release : 2009-10-06
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 1847693784
Measuring Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition provides an examination of the background to testing vocabulary knowledge in a second language and in particular considers the effect that word frequency and lexical coverage have on learning and communication in a foreign language. It examines the tools we have for assessing the various facets of vocabulary knowledge such as aural and written word recognition, the link with word meaning, and vocabulary depth. These are illustrated and the scores they produce are demonstrated to provide normative data. Vocabulary acquisition from course books and in the classroom in examined, as is vocabulary uptake from informal tasks. This book ties scores on tests of vocabulary breadth to performance on standard foreign language examinations and on hierarchies of communicative performance such as the CEFR.
Author : Eun Hee Jeon
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing Company
Page : 402 pages
File Size : 47,52 MB
Release : 2022-08-04
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9027257698
This edited volume is a collection of theoretical and empirical overviews of second language (L2) proficiency based on four skills: reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Each skill is reviewed in terms of how it has been conceptualized, measured, and studied over the years in relation to relevant (sub-) constructs of the language skill under discussion. This is followed by meta-analyses of correlation coefficients that examine the relationship between the L2 skill in question and its component variables. Unlike most meta-analyses that have a limited range of variables under investigation, our meta-analyses are much larger in scope to better clarify such relationships. By combining theoretical and empirical approaches, the book is helpful in deepening the understanding of how subcomponents or various variables are related to a particular L2 skill.
Author : Shiyu Wu
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 162 pages
File Size : 16,20 MB
Release : 2016-05-20
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 1317538714
This book focuses on the effects of L1 cognitive resources on L2 reading e.g. the effects of L1 reading ability, the ability in L1 mental-structure building, L1 cognitive use in L2 reading, and other related cognitive mechanisms and capacities of EFL learners in China. It integrated test-based and product-oriented as well as VPA-based (verbal protocol analysis) and process-oriented experiments to address the problems of reading in a second language. This book provides several theoretical, methodological and pedagogical insights, including the multidimensional nature of L2 reading and Vygotskyan sociocultural theory as a suitable L2 reading framework, combined approaches on L2 studies, and the rewarding active use of L1 cognitive resources in L2 learning.
Author : Agnieszka Leńko-Szymańska
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 264 pages
File Size : 48,15 MB
Release : 2019-11-05
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 100071179X
This comprehensive account of performance-based assessment of L2 lexical proficiency analyzes and compares two of the primary methods of evaluation used in the field and unpacks the ways in which they tap into different dimensions of one model of lexical competence and proficiency. This book builds on the latest research on performance-based assessment, which has most recently pointed to the application of more quantitative measures to L2 data, to systematically explore the qualitative method of using human raters in assessment exercises and the quantitative method of using automatic computation of statistical measures of lexis and phraseology. Supported by an up-to-date review of the existing literature, both approaches’ unique features are highlighted but also compared to one another to provide a holistic overview of performance-based assessment as it stands today at both the theoretical and empirical level. These findings are exemplified in a concluding chapter, which summarizes results from an empirical study looking at a range of lexical and phraseological features and human raters’ scores of over 150 essays written by both L2 learners of English and native speakers. Taken together, the volume challenges existing tendencies within the field which attempt to use one method to validate one another by demonstrating their capacity to indicate very different elements of lexical proficiency, thereby offering a means by which to better conceptualize performance-based assessment of L2 vocabulary in the future. This book will be of interest to students and researchers working in second language acquisition and applied linguistics research, particularly those interested in issues around assessment, vocabulary acquisition, and language proficiency.
