Questions of Regionalism in Native Speaker OPI Performance: The French‐Canadian Experience

Abstract

ABSTRACT The Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) has been submitted to external scrutiny and has been accepted by many foreign language educators as an accurate method of assessing speaking competence of foreign language learners. Recognizing, however, that every test has its limitations, and that the nature of all good systems of evaluation is to evolve in order to meet growing needs, an OPI is herein examined in the context of evaluating native speakers. A 1991 workshop in Quebec City and a 1989 Canadian Study on French regional speech provide the framework for an honest discussion of sociolinguistic competence and the suitability of the OPI for testing native speakers. An invitation for further dialogue on this issue follows a list of recommendations that: a) ACTFL should further define the role of the sociolinguistic element of accuracy; b) ACTFL testers should be sensitive to the issue of regional variants when testing native speakers in order to distinguish a “pattern of errors” from bona fide regionalism; c) Canadian testers should beware of the danger of overlooking errors of high frequency usage that appear acceptable by virtue of their common occurrence; and d) ACTFL needs to reexamine the notion that all compensation ceases at the superior level.Finally the author suggests that Canadian French is to European French as American English is to British English, and hence should be accepted in a North American context, as a bona fide variant of the language.