Assessing Speaking in Context

Expanding the Construct and its Applications

M. Rafael Salaberry, Alfred Rue Burch, M. Rafael Salaberry, Alfred Rue Burch

• Publisher: Multilingual Matters
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781788923835
• Topic: Sprachen & Linguistik
• Subtopic: Psycholinguistik

This edited volume investigates the nature and possible applications of an expanded and reconceptualized theoretical construct of speaking as a dynamic socially-constructed endeavour. It addresses both theoretical perspectives and methodological procedures to define and circumscribe the assessment of contextualized speaking. The chapters focus on the complexity brought about by actual interactional competence in speaking tasks and discuss how testing and assessment models and practices can incorporate recent research findings on the inherently dynamic and situated nature of language use. The volume presents research on language assessment in a variety of languages other than English, including French, Chinese and Japanese. It also examines the role that embodied action (gaze, gesture, orientation to materials and texts in the environment) plays in assessment practices, an area that has heretofore remained under-explored.

Chapter 6 is free to download as an open access publication. You can access it here: https://zenodo.org/record/5163340#.YQvJ0IhKjcs

Part 1

Conceptual and Theoretical Issues

1Assessing Speaking in Context: Expanding the Construct and the Applications

M. Rafael Salaberry and Alfred Rue Burch

This edited volume, based upon the Rice University Center for Languages and Intercultural Communication’s conference of the same name held in May 2018, draws together research that takes a critical eye towards assessing speaking in second/foreign languages, with special attention given to reconceptualizing or adapting existing approaches and frameworks. The main contribution of this volume is the explicit focus on and analysis of the effect of an expanded sociolinguistic definition of speaking that incorporates recent research findings on interactional dynamics of conversations, interviews, etc.

1 Background

Over the last three decades, the field of second language acquisition (SLA) has witnessed two major turning points that have influenced the way we define a second language: the social turn (e.g. Block, 2003; Duff, 2015; Eskildsen & Majlesi, 2018; Firth & Wagner, 1997, 2007; Lantolf, 2011; Norton, 2000); and the multilingual turn (e.g. Cook, 1992; Douglas Fir Group, 2016; García & Flores, 2014; May, 2011, 2014; Norton, 2014; Ortega, 2014). A common concern of both the social and the multilingual turn has been the expansion of an outdated definition of language (confined until rather recently to the realm of individual cognition) to incorporate, among other new constructs, the notion of interactional competence and the concept of the multilingual learner and speaker.

This critical reconceptualization of language needs to be reflected in the redesign of testing instruments that properly assess this broad definition of second language proficiency (e.g. Chalhoub-Deville, 2003; Lantolf & Poehner, 2011; McNamara & Roever, 2006; Roever & Kasper, 2018; Shohamy, 2011; Valdés & Figueroa, 1994). The potential opportunities to redesign testing instruments aligned with the new conceptualizations of language are limited, however, by the prevailing institutional infrastructure of testing instruments, testing standards and testing policies that were developed around narrow definitions of language. In effect, despite their avowed focus on the interactional dynamics of speaking in context, current assessment models used in institutional settings (e.g. ACTFL in the USA, CEFR in Europe) largely eschew the complexity brought about by actual interactional competence in speaking tasks (e.g. Brown, 2003; Fulcher, 2004; Galaczi, 2008, 2013; Johnson, 2001; Kormos, 1999; Patharakorn, 2018; Plough, 2018; Roever & Kasper, 2018; Weir, 2005; Youn, 2015; Young, 2011).

For instance, paired speaking test formats introduced to the assessment profession in the 1990s (Stansfield & Kenyon, 1992; McNamara, 1996) have been deemed problematic to assess the L2 proficiency of individual students due to the effect of interlocutors’ differences in proficiency, familiarity, gender and other factors (e.g. Brown, 2003; Davis, 2009; Ducasse & Brown, 2009; Lazaraton, 1996). Similarly, in contrast with scripted interview questionnaires, unguided informal conversations have been regarded as detrimental to the collection of relevant language samples to perform a fair assessment of proficiency across a large number of students due to the lack of standardization of the procedures used to collect language samples (e.g. Bachman, 2007; Young, 2011). Finally, there have been few attempts at expanding the realm of assessment of language ability to include paralinguistic and nonlinguistic facets of interactional settings of communication (Plough et al., 2018; Roever & Kasper, 2018; Ross, 2018).

Overall, there is a gap between the most recent research studies (e.g. Galaczi, 2008; Roever & Kasper, 2018; Youn, 2015) and the current structure of major institutional testing models of speaking. Considering the significant challenges to assessing speaking in context as described above, it is not surprising that such a gap would exist. To identify the major points of disparity between the type of testing instrument necessary to assess a socially contextualized definition of language and the features of the current models of language assessment embodied in the traditional testing instruments, we review the main features of the theoretical foundation of both assessment frameworks.1

2 Previous Theoretical Construct: Communicative Competence

The starting point to describing the concept of language proficiency enshrined in the established models of assessment is the notion of communicative competence. The latter concept, described by Hymes (1972), focused on the type of linguistic knowledge that is not only possible in a language, but that is also actually used in socially contextualized situations (Hymes also discussed the type of knowledge associated with what is feasible and what is appropriate). Notably in Hymes’ position is his early reference to a key component of the concept of interactional competence, making explicit reference to the ‘evidence for linguistic competence [that] co-varies with interlocutor’ (Hymes, 1972: 276). The theoretical framework developed by Canale and Swain (1980) almost a decade later introduced a tripartite division of the concept of communicative competence: grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence and strategic competence (a separate fourth component of discourse competence was added later by Canale, 1983). The objective of Canale and Swain’s article was to identify a series of principles that would be useful to develop a foundation (and guidelines) for second language teaching and testing, including ‘more valid and reliable measurement of second language communication skills’ (Canale & Swain, 1980: 1). For the purpose of our discussion, Canale and Swain explicitly distinguished between communicative competence and communicative performance, leading them to advocate for the inclusion of testing procedures in the context of ‘realistic communicative situations’, during which there would be ‘little time to reflect on and monitor language input and output’ (Canale & Swain, 1980: 34). Canale and Swain noted that this direct type of assessment (at the time exemplified, as stated by the authors, by the FSI Oral Proficiency Interview and communicative tests) increases the face validity of the test.

To address this newly developing focus on L2 communicative competence, and in particular the spoken components of this competence, the American Council for the Teaching of Foreign Languages-Oral Proficiency Interview (ACTFL-OPI) became an important institutional instrument for that purpose. Even though the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines claimed to be a theoretical, their professed focus on proficiency seems to be aligned with an implied communicative approach model that had been evolving during the 1970s and 1980s as described above: the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines ‘are descriptions of what individuals can do with language … in real-world situations in a spontaneous and non-rehearsed context’ (Swender et al., 2012: 3). Furthermore, the test is described as a conversation: ‘it mirrors a typical spontaneous conversation inasmuch as the interviewer’s line of questioning and posing of tasks are determined by the way in which the interviewee responds’ (Glisan et al., 2013: 267). Kormos (1999: 165), nevertheless, points out that a conversation is ‘an unplanned face-to-face interaction with unpredictable sequence and outcome … and in which speakers’ turns are reactively or mutually contingent’ (see also van Lier, 1989). Johnson (2001: 142) explained further that ‘the OPI tests speaking ability in the context of an interview, and, to be more precise, in the context of two types of interviews, sociolinguistic and survey research’. Johnson noted that:

in a survey research interview, questions and answers are regarded as stimuli and responses. All ‘extraneous material’ is suppressed in order that the finding may be generalized to a larger population. … The context is not viewed as an important factor influencing participants’ interaction. (Johnson, 2001: 59)

Thus, there are two obvious problems with the use of the ACTFL-OPI to measure general language competence: first, an interview is of limited value for extrapolating to other interactional contexts; and second, the lack of attention to bringing up contextual factors further constrains the definition of conversational interaction.2

3 Interactional Competence

The view of communicative competence described above differs in significant ways from the concept of interactional competence (IC) described in detail by He and Young (1998): interactional competence is ‘co-constructed by all participants in an interactive practice and is specific to that practice’ (He & Young, 1998: 7). Apart from linguistic resources identified in previous models of communicative competence, the construct of IC highlights the role played by identity resources such as participation frameworks and interactional resources such as turn-taking, sequence and preference organization, and repair (Young, 2011). Furthermore, the concept of linguistic resources is expanded to include not just verbal, but also embodied means of communication such as gaze, facial expressions and gestures (e.g. Burch & Kasper, 2016). Overall, interactional resources enable speakers both to design their turns for a particular recipient in a particular context to accomplish social actions (e.g. invitations, requests, rejections to invitations, etc.), and also to react appropriately to the actions produced by other participants (Pekarek Doehler & Pochon-Berger, 2015).

3.1 Two problems: Local context and co-construction of meaning

By its very definition, IC is inherently characterized by a dynamic and emergent understanding of the interaction as it unfolds in real time as part of a locally co-constructed communicative act. For the purpose of assessment, however, Bachman (2007) points out that the definition of IC brings up two problems: it is determined by the local context (thus, not generalizable) and it is based on the co-construct...