Abstract
Recent research in our lab has confirmed that performance-based assessment of second language proficiency provides more useful information than subjective ratings. The objective assessment in those studies was based on the LexTALE tests published by Lemhöfer and Broersma (2012). These tests are available for English, Dutch, and German, but not for French. In the present study we report the construction of a French equivalent. Participants get a random sequence of 56 French words of varying difficulty and 28 French-looking nonwords. They have to indicate which words they know. The results showed a big difference (effect size of d = 3.6) between native speakers and speakers of French as a second language. Because the test is not at ceiling level for native speakers, it can be used for the assessment of French language proficiency both in first and second language.
Highlights
Recent research in our lab has confirmed that performance-based assessment of second language proficiency provides more useful information than subjective ratings
Given that we wanted to cover the entire range of French speakers, going from very little L2 knowledge to native speaker, we selected words going from high-frequency words known to everyone to low-frequency words known by only a few native speakers
Again the selection ranged from nonwords rejected by native speakers to nonwords often eliciting errors in speeded lexical decision
Summary
Recent research in our lab has confirmed that performance-based assessment of second language proficiency provides more useful information than subjective ratings. A number of tasks have been developed to measure language proficiency of students applying for courses These tasks consist, among other things, of (word) translation tasks, tasks assessing (word) meanings with multiple choice questions, and grammatical judgment tasks (see Deltour, 1993, for an example of such a test in French). In the English proficiency test Lemhöfer and Broersma (2012) distilled from Meara’s work, 20 nonwords were presented among 40 English words, and participants were asked to indicate which words they knew They further developed tests for German and Dutch (available at www.lextale.com), which have not been normed and validated yet
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