DISTINGUISHING FEATURES IN SCORING
L2 CHINESE SPEAKING PERFORMANCE:
HOW DO THEY WORK?
By: TAN JIN AND BARLEY MAK,
CUHK, CHINA
PRESENTED BY:
PRIYA AHLUWALIA ( 坡
亚）
CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION
2. HYPOTHESIS
3. METHODOLOGY
4. RESULT
5. LIMITATIONS OF THIS STUDY
6. CONCLUSION
INTRODUCTION
THIS STUDY INVESTIGATES THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE
DISTINGUISHING FEATURES OF L2 CHINESE SPOKEN PERFORMANCES
AND THE SCORES AWARDED BY RATERS TO THE PERFORMANCES
USING HOLISTIC (RELATED TO) SCORING.
7 DISTINGUISHING FEATURES – REPRESENTING 4 MAJOR CATEGORIES
OF: PRONUNCIATION, FLUENCY, VOCABULARY AND GRAMMAR IN L2
CHINESE SPEAKING CONSTRUCT – WERE EMPLOYED.
L2 CHINESE = SECOND LANGUAGE CHINESE
A L2 CHINESE SPEAKING TEST WAS DEVELOPED TO ACCESS THE
OVERALL COMMUNICATIVE ABILITY IN L2 SPOKEN CHINESE WITHIN
AN ACADEMIC CONTEXT.
• SPEECH SAMPLES OF 66 CANDIDATES
• 9 MINUTES SPEECH LENGTH FOR EACH CANDIDATE
• THIS SPEECH TEST BEING ANALYZED IN TERMS OF THE 7
DISTINGUISHING FEATURES.
HYPOTHESIS
THE MAIN OBJECTIVE IS TO VALIDATE THE DISTINGUISHING
FEATURES WIDELY IN SCORING CANDIDATE’S SPOKEN
PERFORMANCE IN THE CONTEXT OF L2 CHINESE.
FEW STUDIES WERE CONDUCTED EARLIER, TO EXAMINE THE
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE DISTINGUISHING FEATURES OF L2
CHINESE SPOKEN PERFORMANCES AND THE SCORES AWARDED.
BUT THE CURRENT STUDY, AIMS TO CONTRIBUTE TO 2 ASPECTS OF
THIS CONCERN- 1: INVESTIGATING RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EACH
INDIVIDUAL DISTINGUISHING FEATURE & SCORES.
2: EXAMINING THE CONTRIBUTION OF DISTINGUISHING FEATURES
TO SCORES.
RESEARCH QUESTIONSIN EXAMINING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE
DISTINGUISHING FEATURES AND THE SCORES IN SCORING L2
CHINESE SPEAKING PERFORMANCES, 2 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
ARE ADDRESSED:
1. IN WHAT WAY DOES EACH OF THE DISTINGUISHING
FEATURES RELATE TO THE SCORES?
2. HOW DO THE DISTINGUISHING FEATURES CONTRIBUTE TO
THE SCORES?
1. PRONUNCIATION :
THE STANDARD PRONUNCIATION OF MODERN SPOKEN CHINESE IS
BASED ON NATIVE SPEAKERS OF THE BEIJING DIALECT, KNOWN AS
PUTONGHUA.
THIS HAS ALSO BEEN ADOPTED AS THE CRITERION FOR TESTING L2
CHINESE PRONUNCIATION IN MAINLAND CHINA, FOR EXAMPLE:,
HSS AND SCP.
EXAMPLE:
CHINESE PRONUNCIATION OF ‘I’ IS ‘WO’. IN THE SYLLABLE ‘WO’,
W IS THE INITIAL, O IS THE FINAL AND
IS THE TONE.
* THE CURRENT STUDY THEREFORE MEASURES TARGET-LIKE
SYLLABLE PER 10 SYLLABLES IN THE CATEOGRY OF PRONUNCIATION.
2. FLUENCY:
IN ASSESSING THE FLUENCY OF L2 CHINESE LEARNERS, A NUMBER
OF FEATURES HAVE BEEN EMPLOYED, WHICH ARE CONSISTENT
OVERALL WITH THOSE FOR L2 ENGLISH LEARNERS. GIVEN THE
FEASIBILITY OF THE STUDY, 2 WIDELY ACCEPTED FEATURES OF
SPEECH RATE AND PAUSE TIME WERE INCLUDED AS
DISTINGUISHING FEATURES UNDER CATEGORY OF FLUENCY IN THE
CURRENT STUDY.
3. VOCABULARY:
WORD TOKENS AND WORD TYPES HAVE BEEN WIDELY ACCEPTED AS
EFFECTIVE MEASURES FOR ASSESSING THE VOCABULARY OF L2
SPOKEN ENGLISH AND L2 SPOKEN CHINESE.
WORD TOKENS AND WORD TYPES WERE COUNTED IN TERMS OF
SEGMENTED WORDS. CONSIDER THE EXAMPLE OF SEGMENTED
CHINESE WORDS BELOW, THERE ARE 5 TOKEN WORDS, AND 4
WORD TYPES.
WO
我
I
JUEDE
WO
觉得
THINK
我
I
XIHUAN
SHANGHAI
喜欢
上海
LIKE
SHANGHAI
4. GRAMMAR:
IN THE CATEGORY OF GRAMMAR, 2 DISTINGUISHING FEATURES
OF GRAMMATICAL ACCURACY AND GRAMMATICAL COMPLEXITY
WERE ADOPTED.
THE CURRENT STUDY THUS APPLIED THESE 2 CRITERIA FOR THE
SENTECE SEGMENTATION. THE SEGMENTED SENTENCES WERE
SUBSEQUENTLY COUNTED IN TERMS OF THE PERCENTAGE OF
ERROR-FREE SENTENCES AND THE MEAN SENTENCE LENGTH.
INSTRUMENTS NEEDED FOR THE TEST:
1. SPEAKING TEST-
TO ELICIT SPOKEN PERFORMANCES OF ADVANCED L2 CHINESE
LEARNERS, A SPEAKING TEST WAS DEVELOPED FOR THE CURRENT
STUDY. THE PURPOSE OF THE TEST WAS TO ASSESS THE OVERALL
COMMUNICATIVE ABILITY IN L2 SPOKEN CHINESE FOR ADVANCED
LEARNERS WITHIN AN ACADEMIC CONTEXT.
TASK TYPES
TASK DETAILS
TASK I – INTEGRATED TASK
LISTEN TO A CONVERSATION, OBTAIN
THEME AND THEN EXPRESS AN OPINION.
