Assessing the Oral Proficiency of Heritage Speakers According to the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines 2012 – Speaking

2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 211-225 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cynthia Martin ◽  
Elvira Swender ◽  
Mildred Rivera-Martinez
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Oral Proficiency ◽  
Foreign Languages ◽  
Heritage Speakers ◽  
American Council ◽  
Oral Proficiency Interview ◽  
Resource Center ◽  
National Heritage ◽  
Language Resource ◽  
Heritage Speakers Of Spanish

The article discusses the preliminary findings of a joint National Heritage Language Resource Center (NHLRC)/American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) project conducted in 2010-11, Exploring Linguistic Profiles of Heritage Speakers of Spanish and Russian, that used the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines 2012 –Speaking (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, 2012b) to assess and analyze the oral proficiency of heritage speakers. The discussion of these findings follows a general discussion of what a rating based on an official ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) actually does and does not tell us about speakers, including heritage or native speakers, who fall into various ACTFL rating ranges. The joint NHLRC/ACTFL research project analyzed which features typically characteristic of heritage speakers of Spanish and Russian prevent them from receiving higher ratings on an official ACTFL OPI, and these findings are the focus of this article. Finally, some general recommendations related to instructional implications of these findings are discussed.

scholarly journals Line, please? An analysis of the rehearsed speech characteristics of native Korean speakers on the English Oral Proficiency Interview—Computer (OPIc)

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gwyneth Gates ◽  
Troy L. Cox ◽  
Teresa Reber Bell ◽  
William Eggington
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Oral Proficiency ◽  
Foreign Languages ◽  
Proficiency Tests ◽  
American Council ◽  
Oral Responses ◽  
Oral Proficiency Interview ◽  
Score Interpretation ◽  
Speaking Proficiency ◽  
Speech Characteristics

Abstract Two assumptions of speaking proficiency tests are that the speech produced is spontaneous and the the scores on those tests predict what examinees can do in real-world communicative situations. Therefore, when examinees memorize scripts for their oral responses, the validity of the score interpretation is threatened. While the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) Proficiency Guidelines identify rehearsed content as a major hindrance to interviewees being rated above Novice High, many examinees still prepare for speaking tests by memorizing and rehearsing scripts hoping these "performances" are awarded higher scores. To investigate this phenomenon, researchers screened 300 previously rated Oral Proficiency Interview-computer (OPIc) tests and found 39 examinees who had at least one response that had been tagged as rehearsed. Each examinee’s responses were then transcribed, and the spontaneous and rehearsed tasks were compared. Temporal fluency articulation rates differed significantly between the spontaneous and rehearsed segments; however, the strongest evidence of memorization lay in the transcriptions and the patterns that emerged within and across interviews. Test developers, therefore, need to be vigilant in creating scoring guidelines for rehearsed content.

scholarly journals El género gramatical en español entre los hablantes de herencia y los hablantes nativos

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew M Gill
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Production Task ◽  
Heritage Speakers ◽  
Heritage Languages ◽  
Oral Production ◽  
Spanish Speaking ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Study Support ◽  
Heritage Speakers Of Spanish

Los hablantes de herencia, es decir, las personas que hablan una lengua desde el nacimiento que acaba convirtiéndose en una lengua no dominante con el tiempo, constituyen un grupo tradicionalmente poco estudiado; sin embargo, últimamente está recibiendo mayor atención. Un área que ha emergido en los últimos años es la realización del género gramatical en las lenguas de herencia. Las investigaciones previas indican que existe una diferencia significativa entre los hispanohablantes nativos y los de herencia (Montrul, 2014; Valenzuela et al., 2012); por tanto, el propósito de este estudio es contribuir a la literatura de los hablantes de herencia. En el presente estudio, se dividió a 43 participantes hispanohablantes en grupos dependiendo de si eran nativos o de herencia. Cada participante llevó a cabo una Elicited Oral Production Task. Los resultados demuestran que los hablantes de herencia tienden a cometer un número de fallos de género significativamente mayor que los hablantes nativos y que usan ciertas estrategias, como la autocorrección, significativamente más que los nativos para evitar cometer dichos fallos. Los resultados del estudio respaldan las conclusiones de investigaciones previas, que indican que los hablantes de herencia no realizan el género gramatical de manera nativa. Heritage speakers, that is, speakers of a language that is spoken since birth but becomes a non-dominant language over time, are classically an understudied group. However, in the field of linguistics, the subfield of heritage speakers is rapidly expanding. Specifically, the realization of grammatical gender in heritage languages has not been studied extensively until just recently. Previous research indicates that a significant difference exists between native and heritage speakers of Spanish (Montrul, 2014; Valenzuela et al., 2012); thus, the purpose of this study is to contribute to the literature of this growing subfield. In the present study, 43 Spanish-speaking participants were divided into groups depending on whether they were native or heritage speakers. Each of the participants carried out an Elicited Oral Production Task. Results demonstrate that heritage speakers tend to make significantly more gender errors than native speakers and that heritage speakers also utilize certain strategies, like self-correction, significantly more than native speakers in order to avoid committing these errors. Results from this study support the findings in previous research, which indicate that heritage speakers are not native-like in their realization of grammatical gender.

Causative verbs in the grammar of Spanish heritage speakers

2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eve Zyzik
Keyword(s):  
Argument Structure ◽  
Heritage Language ◽  
Comparison Group ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Heritage Speakers ◽  
Verb Classes ◽  
Heritage Speakers Of Spanish ◽  
Acceptance Rates ◽  
Intransitive Verbs ◽  
Spanish Heritage Speakers

This study examines argument structure overgeneralizations among heritage speakers of Spanish who exhibit varying degrees of proficiency in the heritage language. Two questions motivated the design of the study: (1) Do heritage speakers differ from native speakers in their acceptance of causative errors? And if so, (2) which classes of verbs are most susceptible to this overgeneralization? A sentence acceptability task targeting two verb classes (unaccusatives and unergatives) was administered to 58 heritage speakers and a comparison group (n = 22) of monolingually-raised native speakers of Spanish. The results confirm that heritage speakers, in contrast to native speakers, accept causative errors with a variety of intransitive verbs. Unaccusative verbs are more readily accepted in transitive frames than unergatives for all groups. Acceptance rates for individual verbs are a function of the particular verb’s compatibility with external causation as well as the possibility of being transitive in English.

Assessing Speaking

1998 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 192-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean Turner
Keyword(s):  
Oral Proficiency ◽  
Communicative Language Teaching ◽  
Language Instruction ◽  
Foreign Languages ◽  
Second Language Instruction ◽  
Functional Language ◽  
Oral Proficiency Interview ◽  
Linguistic Rules ◽  
Interview Format ◽  
Meaningful Interaction

The publication of the ACTFL (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages) Guidelines (1986) and the creation and popularization of the ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview (ACTFL-OPI) have had a profound effect on foreign and second language instruction and assessment, drawing attention to language students' abilities to use language in performing particular functions and tasks rather than to what they have learned about language. The growing interest in communicative language teaching, with its emphasis on meaningful interaction in the language as opposed to knowledge of linguistic rules, has complemented interest in the ACTFL Guidelines' descriptions of functional language ability and the interview-format oral proficiency interview.

scholarly journals Intuiciones de los hablantes patrimoniales, de segunda lengua y nativos acerca de los verbos deícticos en español: más allá de las intuiciones del lingüista

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 81-90
Author(s):  
Daniel Chui
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Experimental Research ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Heritage Speakers ◽  
To Come ◽  
Heritage Speakers Of Spanish

<p class="AbstractHead">Previous analyses of the Spanish deictic verbs <em>venir </em>‘to come’, <em>ir</em> ‘to go’, <em>traer</em> ‘to bring’ and <em>llevar</em> ‘to take’ have drawn upon Fillmore’s (1975) series of lectures on deixis in noting that speakers of Spanish forbid the use of the verbs <em>venir </em>and <em>traer</em> to express movement towards the hearer. Under this egocentric view (Beinhauer, 1940; Ibañez, 1983), the Spanish verbs <em>venir</em> and <em>traer</em> can only be used to describe movement towards the speaker’s location. Little experimental research has been done, however, to confirm the extent to which heritage and second language (L2) speakers of the language conform to this pattern. The present study gathered data on the deictic preferences of bilingual, heritage speakers of Spanish and English (HS) and compared this data with that of L2 and monolingual native speakers of Spanish (NS). 74 participants, consisting of 12 NS, 34 HS, and 29 L2 speakers, assessed the grammaticality of 20 stimulus items that contained prescriptively correct and incorrect usages of the deictic verbs <em>venir, traer, llevar</em> and <em>ir</em>. Both HS and L2 speakers made significantly more errors than NS when the direction expressed in the stimulus was oriented towards the hearer, suggesting both groups may benefit from instruction on this topic.</p>

Lexical access in English-Spanish bilinguals

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 372-392
Author(s):  
Irina A. Shport ◽  
Dorian Dorado ◽  
María Gabriela Puscama
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Lexical Access ◽  
Early Onset ◽  
Oral Proficiency ◽  
Naming Task ◽  
Word Recall ◽  
Behavioral Measures ◽  
Heritage Speakers ◽  
Dominant Language ◽  
Heritage Speakers Of Spanish

Abstract Does early onset age of language learning in an informal setting always have a long-term advantage? We compared lexical access in adult heritage speakers of Spanish and late learners of Spanish in two word-production tasks, while also considering the speakers’ oral proficiency in their non-dominant language. In all speakers, word recall in the picture-naming task was less accurate and slower than in the translation task. Heritage speakers and late learners of high Spanish proficiency level were different only in the translation task, where learners were faster than heritage speakers, which may be explained by their experience with translation of visual input. These findings suggest that for a non-dominant language, an early onset of learning does not provide an advantage, at least when high-proficiency bilinguals, high-frequency words, and behavioral measures are concerned. Oral proficiency matters most, as it correlates with frequency of language use.

Expressing Causation in Spanish: A Functional Analysis of Heritage Speakers’ Written Production

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-97
Author(s):  
Eve Zyzik
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Language Transfer ◽  
Heritage Speakers ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Linguistic Differences ◽  
Causative Constructions ◽  
Spanish Word ◽  
Baseline Group ◽  
Heritage Speakers Of Spanish

The current study examines the various linguistic means that heritage speakers of Spanish use to express the concept of causation. In Spanish causation can be expressed lexically with verbs such as tirar ‘knock over’ or syntactically via two distinct constructions with the verb hacer ‘to do/make’: hacer-infinitive and hacer que-subjunctive. The data set consists of over 1,400 causative sentences produced on a written task by heritage speakers from different proficiency levels (n=58) and a baseline group of native speakers (n=22). The results reveal that heritage speakers and native speakers produced the same range of causative constructions, although there were significant differences in frequency and conventional patterns of usage. The native speakers showed an overwhelming preference for the hacer-infinitive construction whereas the heritage speakers did not. A secondary aim of the study was to examine word order in the hacer-infinitive construction given cross-linguistic differences between English and Spanish causatives. This analysis revealed that 89% of heritage speakers’ causative sentences reflected Spanish word order, suggesting a limited role for dominant language transfer.

The Administration of Heritage Language Programs: Challenges and Opportunities

2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 281-293
Author(s):  
Elabbas Benmamoun ◽  
Olga Kagan
Keyword(s):  
Language Learners ◽  
Heritage Language ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
University Graduates ◽  
Advanced Level ◽  
Language Programs ◽  
Resource Center ◽  
National Heritage ◽  
Language Resource ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities

This paper grew out of a presentation given by Elabbas Benmamoun at the Sixth Heritage Language Research Institute held at UCLA in June, 2012. On the last day of the institute, Benmamoun participated in a panel entitled Lessons Learned: The Implications for Flagship Programs. The Language Flagship, which co-sponsored the 2012 institute together with the National Heritage Language Resource Center (NHLRC), aims to prepare a cohort of university graduates who have studied a language deemed critical to U.S. competitiveness and security in sufficient depth such that they achieve an advanced level of mastery. An “advanced level” is usually defined with reference to proficiency level descriptors used by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) and the Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR), namely ACTFL Advanced or ILR 2. The question then arises: outside the 26 Flagship programs established in American universities, how can the general population of language learners be supported and motivated to achieve this level of proficiency?

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