Mimicry and free speech: A new approach to predicting ESL learners’ communicative competence.

Abstract

This paper explores the possibility of diagnosing ESL learners’ communicative competence by introducing mimicry test as an alternative measure of assessing their overall language proficiency level, which could simplify the complicated procedures of speaking tests utilized in the ESL contexts and make it feasible. Rating results of mimicry test and free speech test were compared to explore the possibility of adopting the examination of mimicry ability as an aptitude test for oral proficiency assessment. In addition, difficulty levels of two different task types used in mimicry and free speech have been weighed through the test takers’ self-assessment of their language proficiency. The spoken data analyzed in this article came from ESL classrooms at a major American university. Speech samples of participants were recorded onto computers using computer-based speaking test program, and they were rated by experienced native raters based on the holistic and analytic rating criteria. The results, by showing that ‘holistic’ scores for free speech and ‘analytic’ scores for mimicry were highly correlated, strongly advocated the viability of using mimicry as an alternative measure to assess the overall communicative language proficiency of L2 learners. Moreover, given the significant washback effect of introducing mimicry test into the ESL language classrooms, mimicry can be utilized as a means of obtaining the educational objective of teaching English to improve L2 learners’ communicative competence.