Validating Language Proficiency Assessments in Second Language Acquisition Research

Drackert, Anastasia

doi:10.3726/978-3-653-06280-9

Cited by 9 publications

(9 citation statements)

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“…For the researchers, these low/moderate to high correlations with different subskills served as indicators that the C-test measures general language proficiency. Correlational analysis conducted specifically for a C-test of Russian also showed a rather high significant correlation (r = .79) between this test and an Elicited Imitation test that targets aural and oral skills (Drackert, 2015).…”

Section: C-test and Its Constructmentioning

confidence: 90%

“…Since the studies summarized by Eckes and Grotjahn (2006) and the study by Drackert (2015) were conducted with foreign language learners, comparable levels of L2 proficiency in both the oral and written modes were to be expected based on the instructed language acquisition which the learners had been involved in. Thus, the obtained correlations used for demonstrating that the C-test targets general language proficiency do not provide any evidence that a C-test taken by heritage language learners would target the same construct of GLP.…”

Section: C-test and Its Constructmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Participants in the study were 113 FLLs and 89 HLLs of Russian at two universities in the USA and Germany. The USA data (N = 65; N FLLs = 65) are taken from a larger test validation study conducted by Drackert (2015), whose participants attended Russian courses as an obligatory part of their studies at a private university in the USA. Most of them were native speakers of English, their ages ranging from 18 to 30.…”

Section: Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Most previous studies on the C-test format have been conducted with foreign language learners (FLLs) and have primarily focused on C-tests in English, Spanish, French, and German, with only two publications (Drackert, 2015;Steurer, 1986) dealing with a Russian C-test. In the context of Russian as a foreign language, however, a large number of students in different learning contexts are not typical foreign language learners who learn Russian exclusively in an instructional setting.…”

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confidence: 99%

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What does the analysis of C-test gaps tell us about the construct of a C-test? A comparison of foreign and heritage language learners’ performance

Drackert

Timukova

2019

Language Testing

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In view of the ubiquitous increase in the use of C-tests, which are almost unanimously believed to measure general language proficiency, this study investigates whether the aspects of language proficiency tapped into by the C-test format are the same when the test is taken by a learner population other than that of foreign language learners. Specifically, we conducted a differential functioning analysis and compared the types of mistakes that 113 foreign language learners of Russian made when completing C-test gaps, with the performance of 89 heritage language learners on the same C-test. The results showed that almost half of the C-test gaps are biased towards either learner group. In addition, the error analysis for a number of the biased items demonstrated that, although heritage language learners seem to have an advantage in reconstructing the meaning of C-test gaps, they fail to translate their recognition skills into producing the right form. Furthermore, the study reveals a possible sensitivity of the C-test construct to the traditionally used dichotomous scoring method. We conclude with a discussion that includes the implications of the results regarding the construct measured by the C-test and the possible consequences for its actual use.

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Section: C-test and Its Constructmentioning

confidence: 90%

Section: C-test and Its Constructmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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What does the analysis of C-test gaps tell us about the construct of a C-test? A comparison of foreign and heritage language learners’ performance

Drackert

Timukova

2019

Language Testing

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“…Depending on the design of the sentence stimuli, EI can be used to assess L2 general language proficiency (e.g., Ortega et al, 2002), phonological (e.g., Yoon, 2010), grammatical (e.g., Erlam, 2006), and lexical knowledge (e.g., West, 2012). Thus far, EI tests for general research purposes have been developed and validated as a measure of L2 proficiency in English, Spanish, German, Japanese, French, Russian, Vietnamese, Korean, and Mandarin Chinese (Bowden, 2016; Chaudron et al, 2005; Drackert, 2015; Gaillard & Tremblay, 2016; Kim et al, 2016; Mozgalina, 2015; Ortega et al, 2002; Tracy‐Ventura et al, 2014; Wu & Ortega, 2013). EI does not require reading or writing, thus, it can be used for all levels of learners including learners with low proficiency or low literacy of the target language, which is ideal for placement purposes when learners from different language learning backgrounds are needed to be placed into proper courses.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

A corpus‐driven, curriculum‐based Chinese elicited imitation test in US universities

Yan

Lei

Shih

2020

Foreign Language Annals

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The Challenge There is an increasing number of general language proficiency tests available for teachers and program administrators in less commonly taught languages programs. However, are these tests well linked to the language curriculum in your context? How useful are they for placement, diagnosis, and achievement purposes? This article presents a corpus-driven, curriculum-based approach to assessing proficiency development of Mandarin Chinese, a less commonly taught language (LCTL) in US universities. The full version of the test is provided, and the methodological implications of the corpusdriven, curriculum-based approach for the assessment of Chinese as well as other LCTLs are also discussed.

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Elicited Imitation as a Measure of L2 Proficiency

Wu¹,

Tio²,

Ortega³

2021

Stud Second Lang Acquis

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Elicited imitation (EI), a short-cut measure of global proficiency in second language (L2) research, requires participants to listen to sentences and repeat them as closely as possible. To support instrument sharing and assessment of L2 proficiency for longitudinal and crosslinguistic research, we created a parallel form of an EI task (EIT) for L2 English originally developed by the third author and colleagues and investigated the reliability and validity of the original and new forms. Eighty-two participants completed the two EITs, an oral narrative task, and a self-diagnostic survey. Both forms exhibited high reliability and good alignment with external criterion measures. Both distinguished well among four proficiency levels in the sample. Further, participants’ perception of EI difficulty aligned well with their EI scores. We suggest some improvements to boost forms equivalence and discuss new insights about the nature of EI as reconstructive, integrative, modality independent, and with indirect links to communicative abilities. Our study seeks to make this English EIT instrument widely useful to the L2 research community.

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Validating Language Proficiency Assessments in Second Language Acquisition Research

Cited by 9 publications

References 0 publications

What does the analysis of C-test gaps tell us about the construct of a C-test? A comparison of foreign and heritage language learners’ performance

What does the analysis of C-test gaps tell us about the construct of a C-test? A comparison of foreign and heritage language learners’ performance

A corpus‐driven, curriculum‐based Chinese elicited imitation test in US universities

Elicited Imitation as a Measure of L2 Proficiency

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