Assessing Spanish Proficiency of Online Language Learners after Year 1

Abstract

<p>Online (OL) second language (L2) courses are becoming more widely offered in the United States; however, little information exists about the effectiveness of OL L2 courses beyond one semester or course. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to assess Spanish students’ oral proficiency after completing one year of OL only L2 courses. At the end of year one, students (<em>n</em>=65) completed the Versant exam, which scored overall level of oral proficiency as well as four sub-categories: pronunciation, fluency, sentence formation, and vocabulary production. The results showed that 40% of OL Spanish students met the ACTFL benchmark of Intermediate-Low, while 49% scored Novice-High, one level below the benchmark. A portion (15%) of students not reaching Intermediate-Low scored within a few points of the benchmark. A majority of the students also met the benchmark for pronunciation and fluency, but not for sentence formation or vocabulary production. These results show that it is possible for students enrolled exclusively in online Spanish language classes to meet benchmarks. Thus, OL language students can and should be held to the same standards of oral proficiency as their peers in seated classrooms.</p>

The impact of the pandemic on student Spanish language proficiency

“…A decade later, three studies (Moneypenny & Aldrich, 2016;Moneypenny & Aldrich, 2018;Aldrich & Moneypenny, 2019) in particular supported the findings of Blake et al (2008) and took them a step further to compare fully online courses to on-ground courses. Not only did these studies also use the Versant test to specifically compare student oral language proficiency outcomes, they also largely concluded that students in fully online Spanish courses achieved equivalent oral proficiency outcomes as their peers in onground courses.…”

“…The effectiveness of online, blended, hybrid, or technology-enhanced language instruction for developing student language proficiency has been assessed in a variety of instructional contexts, including in blended/hybrid courses often with a succession of regular, ongoing technology-mediated tasks, as well as in more traditional courses that have a limited scope for technology or may not use it at all for language instruction (Plonsky & Ziegler, 2016). The field has also seen studies that compare student proficiency outcomes in fully on-ground language courses to those drawn from students in fully online courses (e.g., Aldrich & Moneypenny, 2019), the latter of which have been growing in popularity over the past decade as the technological possibilities expand. As these technologies and tech-enhanced instructional practices evolve, so too have our classrooms and students, such that a gradual incorporation of technology has seemed to become slowly but steadily more and more normalized (Bax, 2003(Bax, , 2011Goertler, 2019).…”

“…Whereas earlier research has compared student learning outcomes in blended/hybrid and on-ground courses using criterion-referenced tools, such as final exams (Chenoweth, et al, 2006), and other studies have relied primarily on oral proficiency (e.g., Moneypenny & Aldrich, 2019), additional research is needed to shed light on how overall student proficiency and sub-skill language proficiencies are impacted by the move to a fully online course modality. As mentioned, language proficiency has been defined by ACTFL as "what individuals can do with language in terms of speaking, writing, listening, and reading in real-world situations in a spontaneous and non-rehearsed context" (ACTFL, 2012, p. 3).…”