Oral Proficiency Interview Research Articles

Assessing Speaking Proficiency in the Undergraduate Curriculum: Data from French

ABSTRACT With increasing use of the ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview, especially in conjunction with college foreign language requirements and teacher certification, it is imperative that we understand how well our students currently function in speaking a foreign language. This article presents research rating the speaking proficiency on the ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview of University of Wisconsin French students at four levels of study: end of first year, end of second year, third year or minor, and end of fourth year or major. The data show a significant, positive relationship between level of proficiency and level of study. Each level of study includes a range of overlapping proficiency levels. Findings are discussed in detail for each level of study, and the UW data are compared with available data and related proposed requirements nationwide. The conclusion calls for an extended data base and acceleration of test development in other skill areas, in order to provide for realistic and comprehensive proficiency testing in our foreign language programs.

Prioritizing Selected Modern Language Teaching Skills

ABSTRACT: Modern language classroom goals and processes are enjoying new attention and increased scrutiny as a result of recent political and professional factors including: (1) the recommendations of the President's Commission report in 1979, (2) various national studies and local follow‐up assessments of the effectiveness of secondary schools and educational programs, and (3) the recent development of ACTFL provisional guidelines and the training of examiners in the use of the oral proficiency interview. This article describes a research study of existing priorities of teachers as a step in analyzing their compatibility with changing directions in modern language education, especially in relation to the emerging focus on proficiency.

Zertifikat Deutsch als Fremdsprache and the Oral Proficiency Interview: A Comparison of Test Scores

Two of the profession's most widely known measures of individual language skills are the Zertifikat Deutsch als Fremdsprache (ZDaF) and the Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI), developed respectively by the Goethe Institute/Deutscher Volkshochschulverband and the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL)/Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR)/Educational Testing Services (ETS). Since both tests provide valuable feedback regarding the facility and quality of spoken expression in German, we felt that a study which might shed light on possible score correlations between the two examinations seemed timely and in order. It was our intention, therefore, to investigate what correlations might exist between an individual's ZDaF score and OPI rating. To begin, we wish to describe briefly the ZDaF and OPI instruments themselves.

Degree of Difficulty in Basic Writing Courses: Insights from the Oral Proficiency Interview Testing Program

Degree of Difficulty in Basic Writing Courses: Insights from the Oral Proficiency Interview Testing Program

Degree of Difficulty in Basic Writing Courses: Insights from the Oral Proficiency Interview Testing Program

Degree of Difficulty in Basic Writing Courses: Insights from the Oral Proficiency Interview Testing Program

Towards Improving Second-Language Pronunciation

Over two decades ago the spoken message was characterized as the most prized of the four language skills. The emphasis on communicative competence in recent years where second-language (L2) instruction has focused on the primacy of speech from the very onset of instruction would seem to indicate that priorities have not changed. Entire chapters, even volumes, have been written on this topic.2 With the Report of the President's Commission on Foreign Language and International Studies advocating that second-language instruction should concentrate on speaking and understanding before other skills are developed, and with the advent of methodologies such as the natural approach to L2 acquisition, it is likely that a strong emphasis on speaking will continue in our classrooms for years to come.3 Furthermore, the notion of proficiency-based foreign language teaching, which stresses the importance of the productive skills, is rapidly gaining momentum.4 Although the goal of producing a comprehensible spoken message has remained the same, discussions of this topic rarely devote much attention to the teaching of pronunciation. (The rating scales developed for the ACTFL-ETS oral proficiency interviews are a notable exception, since they attempt to provide a graduated sequence of learning goals for teachers and learners, including the quality of sounds produced at the various levels of proficiency.5) This is ironic, since the comprehensibility of a message depends, to a large degree, on the speaker's mastery of the prosodic features of a language. Encounters with persons who have mastered the structure and lexicon of a second language, yet produce all but unintelligible speech due to inadequacies in pronunciation, are not rare. With appropriate training, such speech habits could certainly be improved. The same holds true for our L2 classrooms. Clearly, if we expect reasonable accuracy in structure and vocabulary, then our expectations should be no lower in pronunciation. Apparently, little or no time is devoted to the creative teaching of pronunciation in many classrooms today.6 One way to remedy this problem might be to spend a minimal amount of time (even as little as five minutes daily) on the improvement of pronunciation in four-skills courses at the elementary and intermediate levels. On the post-secondary level, a solution to the problem might be a course devoted to the teaching of pronunciation, such as the one described here.7

Oral Proficiency Interviews at Amherst Regional High School: Report of a Pilot Project

As in almost any other discipline, foreign language teachers have the need of providing an assessment of students' progress at the end of a learning period. To obtain data to support such assessment, teachers on all levels measure student progress periodically through tests and quizzes. Chapter/unit tests provided with textbooks and standardized tests are designed to measure primarily achievement in the skills of reading, writing, and listening. Descriptions of many foreign language courses state as another learning objective the development of speaking skills. However, only very few tests are available to the average teacher for measuring speaking proficiency. The Oral Proficiency Interview (01) is an assessment of an individual's foreign language speaking ability. The 01 measures what an individual is able to do with and in a foreign language by sampling the person's speech production on various topics and at different levels rather than determining what a person may know about a foreign language. The focus of the 01 is on overall language competence rather than on achievement in any specific course or program. In order to conduct an Oral Proficiency Interview, the tester must have appropriate professional training. I was trained in oral proficiency testing and related curriculum design at the ACTFL/ETS Oral Proficiency Summer Institute at Haverford College, Pennsylvania in the summer of 1983. I participated in the institute because of two decades of interest and involvement in the assssment of students' abilities to communicate in a

The ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines and Materials for the German Classroom

Much has been written within the last few years about the proficiencybased language classroom.' Beginning with the recommendations proposed by the MLA-ACLS Language Task Forces,2 later reiterated by the President's Commission on Foreign Language and International Studies,3 the toward proficiency-oriented teaching has played a prominent role in recent efforts to strengthen foreign language education in this country. This movement has encouraged the development of curricular goals articulated by levels of instruction, and the creation of classroom materials, teaching styles and testing instruments which focus on communicative uses of language, and stress both functional proficiency and structural accuracy. The first major initiative in this direction was taken in the late 1970's by the Foreign Service Institute when it sponsored workshops for a limited number of language educators from the academic community. The purpose of these workshops was to introduce nongovernmental language professionals to concepts of oral proficiency testing and to train them in the use of government's oral proficiency interview. This work was subsequently expanded through the joint efforts of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) and the Educational Testing Service (ETS). Funded by a series of grants, ACTFL and ETS worked together to adapt the goverment's proficiency standards and tests to the needs of the academic community. Their collaborative efforts culminated in the 1982 publication of the ACTFL Provisional Proficiency Guidelines.4

The ACTFL Proficiency Projects: An Update

One year ago in this journal, Lowe described the oral proficiency interview and traced its origins in government to its initial applications in academia.' The oral interview and modified rating scales discussed by Lowe has served as the springboard for the ACTFL projects highlighted in this report. Oral Proficiency From the first oral proficiency testing workshop in Houston in February 1982, ACTFL has conducted numerous testing workshops with public and private support from a variety of funding sources. The training program is intensive and has two components. During the four-day workshop, participants learn the theory and practice of oral proficiency interviewing and work in language-specific groups conducting live practice interviews with student candidates. In the post-workshop phase of the training, participants conduct a total of twenty-five cassette-recorded interviews and submit them to their trainers who carefully critique one third of the interviews in two cycles. These training procedures are essential to establish a clear understanding of the testing procedure and to achieve rating accuracy and maintain interrater reliablity. Demand for these intensive four-day workshops has grown steadily, and ACTFL has initiated a tuition-supported workshop program to afford access to training to a greater number of individuals. To date, ACTFL has conducted testing workshops in nine different languages for both secondary and postsecondary audiences. From the outset, great care has been taken to ensure the high quality of the ACTFL tester training program. Collaboration with Educational Testing Service and with various government language training agencies in the planning and conducting of these programs has facilitated the training of academic proficiency testers whose skills are commensurate with those of trained government testers. In this vein, an important development in 1984 has been the launching of the ACTFL tester certification

DIRECT EVALUATION OF SECOND‐LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY: THE EFFECT OF RATER AND SCALE IN ORAL INTERVIEWS

Oral interviews have frequently been used as a means of testing speaking proficiency and are considered a supplement to the standard paper‐and‐pencil tests of second language proficiency, of which the TOEFL is an example. Although a properly conducted interview is a suitable means for examinees to demonstrate their ability to use the rules of the language effectively and proficiently, methods for evaluating such performances rest on scales and judgments. This paper reports the results of a study in which the same two judges used the same four scales in evaluating the performances of two different groups of subjects. It was found that there was no significant difference between the mean performance of the two groups, between the two judges, or among the four scales. It was also found that the greatest source of variation in scores was attributable to differences among subjects. It was also found that interaction effects between judge and scale and between judge and subject exist. Such results suggest that 1) oral proficiency interviews ought to be conducted by at least two judges at the same time so that scores are independent of a single judge; 2) the four scales ought not to be considered separate and distinct measures of oral proficiency if the same judges evaluate a performance on all four scales; 3) the procedure is capable of distinguishing the more proficient speakers from the less adept ones.