Such a Nice Gesture: Paired Spanish Interaction in Oral Test Discourse

Abstract

The problem faced by researchers regarding the construct of 'interaction' in paired peer-peer tasks in oral language proficiency testing is addressed by analysing verbal protocols of raters watching candidates in a videoed paired speaking task in a test in Spanish as a foreign language context. The aim is to investigate any correspondence between observable nonverbal features in the candidates' videoed speech sample that raters claim to attend to while observing paired interaction and those features of body language that candidates are aware of while performing the test. This study is different to previous studies because the task is for paired beginner foreign language students of Spanish. The data is drawn from 17 transcribed paired speech samples, transcribed Verbal Protocols collected from 12 Spanish teacher/raters and 25 candidates Stimulated Verbal Recalls. The analysis is guided by non verbal communication performance features already identified in two previous studies: a previous rater cognition study where raters comment on their observation of candidate performance through Verbal Protocols (Ducasse and Brown, 2009) and a candidate Stimulated Verbal Recall where candidates comment on their interaction in a test performance (Ducasse, 2007). Findings indicate that of the non verbal communication features gaze and gesture are equally important to candidates during performance and to raters during rating process. These findings support findings in Conversation Analysis and Gesture studies and have implications for rating peer-peer language proficiency and for the 'interaction' construct.