Characteristics of Group Oral Interactions Performed by Japanese Learners of English
Characteristics of Group Oral Interactions Performed by Japanese Learners of English A doctoral dissertation submitted for the degree of Doctor of Education Graduate School of Education Waseda University Junko Negishi 2011 Abstract Group oral test formats have recently been added to the types of oral performance tests. This is because the assessment of second language (L2) learners’ authentic conversational competence is considered important in the current era of globalization. However, only a few studies dealing with group oral interaction have been carried out to date. This study aimed to identify some characteristics and developmental phenomena of Japanese learners of English by investigating what happened when they underwent group oral interactions in groups of three. Participants comprised of 145 students from junior high schools, senior high schools, and universities. Ten Japanese raters assessed the participants utilizing criteria of the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR; Council of Europe, 2001) which is currently being used throughout the world. In order to explore the feasibility of employing Japanese raters and adopting the CEFR criteria, first, three facets—the severity of raters, the difficulty of rating categories, and participants’ speaking ability—were examined by means of multi-faceted Rasch measurement, which analyzed sources of variation and estimated “measures” from the raw scores given by raters. Secondly, the participants’ discourse was investigated from various points of view based on five subcategories in the CEFR criteria: Range, Accuracy, Fluency, Interaction, and Coherence. The analysis was carried out ii on 82 discrete items that might have the potential to explain speakers’ development. Next, participants’ characteristics which exhibited developmental features and had relationships to the CEFR criteria were identified and further explored.
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