A corpus-based analysis of grammatical complexity as a measure of international teaching assistants' oral English proficiency. (January 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Thirakunkovit, Suthathip; Rodríguez-Fuentes, Rodrigo A.; Park, Kyongson; Staples, Shelley
• Is Part Of: English for specific purposes. Volume 53(2019)
• Page Start: 74
• Page End: 89
• Publication Date: 2019-01
• Subjects: Corpus linguistics -- Oral assessment -- International teaching assistants -- Grammatical complexity; English language -- Study and teaching -- Foreign speakers -- Periodicals; English language -- Business English -- Study and teaching -- Periodicals; English language -- Technical English -- Study and teaching -- Periodicals; Anglais (Langue) -- Étude et enseignement -- Allophones -- Périodiques; Enseignement professionnel -- Périodiques; Anglais (Langue) -- Anglais commercial -- Étude et enseignement -- Périodiques; Anglais (Langue) -- Anglais technique -- Étude et enseignement -- Périodiques; English language -- Business English -- Study and teaching; English language -- Study and teaching -- Foreign speakers; English language -- Technical English -- Study and teaching; Periodicals; 428.007
• DOI: 10.1016/j.esp.2018.09.002
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0889-4906

Abstract

Abstract: Oral English proficiency is one among several crucial factors to help determine the eligibility of international teaching assistants (ITAs) for various tasks associated with teaching undergraduate students at U.S. universities. The oral English proficiency test (OEPT) is a test used to screen prospective ITAs whose TOEFL speaking scores were below the cutoff required for admission and to determine whether they need additional support courses. Drawing on previous studies conducted in the context of oral assessment and university settings, ten grammatical features were selected to investigate grammatical complexity in the responses of the OEPT test takers. Our study explores which grammatical features are more frequently used by the test takers who passed and failed the test. The results show that the OEPT tasks elicited grammatical features commonly found in academic university registers (e.g., classroom teaching). Highly proficient test takers also used grammatical features commonly found in written texts and more extended spoken discourse (e.g., relative clauses) more frequently than lower proficiency ones. We hope that the findings of this study will inform the ongoing rating scale validation for ITA contexts by providing test developers and raters with specific evidence of grammatical features used by test takers at particular scores. Highlights: Speech used in an academic speaking test presents itself as a unique register. Spoken features are not reliable variables to differentiate examinees. Written features have more potential to be used as the score predictors. Grammatically complex features e.g., relative clauses are shown to have significant relationships with test scores.