Measuring L2 Proficiency

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.

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.

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.

With contributions from an international team of leading experts, this volume offers new ways to explore and measure language dominance.

With contributions by leading European, North American and Asian scholars, this volume offers a comprehensive anthology of conceptual and empirical papers describing the latest developments in L2 motivation research that involves the reframing of motivation in the context of contemporary notions of self and identity.

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.

The study of bilingualism has charted a dramatically new, important, and exciting course in the 21st century, benefiting from the integration in cognitive science of theoretical linguistics, psycholinguistics, and cognitive psychology (especially work on the higher-level cognitive processes often called executive function or executive control). Current research, as exemplified in this book, advances the study of the effects of bilingualism on executive function by identifying many different ways of being bilingual, exploring the multiple facets of executive function, and developing and analyzing tasks that measure executive function. The papers in this volume (21 chapters), by leading researchers in bilingualism and cognition, investigate the mechanisms underlying the effects (or lack thereof) of bilingualism on cognition in children, adults, and the elderly. They take us beyond the standard, classical, black-and-white approach to the interplay between bilingualism and cognition by presenting new methods, new findings, and new interpretations.

Second/foreign language (L2) speech production is a complex process requiring individuals’ combined efforts to utilize various processing components such as conceptualiser, formulator, and articulator. Since the publication of Pim Levelt’s book Speaking – From Intention to Articulation in 1989, a considerable number of studies have examined L2 speech production in the field of neuroscience with a particular focus on the link between speech perception and speech production. Undeniably, a neurolinguistic examination of speech production can enrich our understanding of how human brains compute linguistic information at a cognitive level. However, it is insufficient by only focusing on the neurocognitive dimension of speech production, given that individuals’ speech production can be subject to various individual differences factors, either cognitively, affectively, or socio-culturally. It is, therefore, necessary to move beyond the neurocognitive understanding of speech production by taking every possible perspective into consideration. Individual difference, as an umbrella term, covers psychological traits, personal characteristics, cognitive and emotional components that distinguish learners from each other. Given that individual difference factors can reveal disparities in L2 learning and performance among learners, such factors have attracted researchers’ growing interest concerning their influences on L2 speech processing, their relationships with L2 speech performance, and their contributions to L2 speech development. Nevertheless, our understanding of L2 speech production is not only insufficient compared to other L2 skills such as writing and reading, but also limited to the neurocognitive account of L2 speech production. More research, therefore, is in urgent need to uncover the influence of various individual differences factors on L2 speech production from multidisciplinary perspectives.