A Sociolinguistic-Discourse Alternative for Language Proficiency Assessment

Findings from an interdisciplinary research project, Methods of Analyzing Samples of Elicited Discourse in English and Spanish for Determining Student Language Proficiency, are presented. The research project was designed to develop a unified framework for the analysis of audiotaped discourse sample...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors Slaughter, Helen B, Bennett, Adrian T
Format Report
LanguageEnglish
Published 01.03.1982
Subjects
Discourse Analysis
Elementary Education
Elementary School Students
Language Acquisition
Language Proficiency
Language Research
Language Tests
Measures (Individuals)
Sociolinguistics
Spanish Speaking
Verbal Communication
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Summary:Findings from an interdisciplinary research project, Methods of Analyzing Samples of Elicited Discourse in English and Spanish for Determining Student Language Proficiency, are presented. The research project was designed to develop a unified framework for the analysis of audiotaped discourse samples elicited from Spanish/English bilingual students that is directly applicable to assessing oral language proficiency. The framework for analysis integrated and applied recent research in a variety of fields including sociolinguistics, language acquisition, developmental pragmatics, the ethnography of communication and the philosophy of language. The paper summarizes information about the linguistic features, interactional communicative strategies, and discourse structures used by kindergarten through grade five students in conversation with an adult interlocutor and when telling narratives from wordless books. Criteria distinguishing communicative strategies used by students displaying a range of proficiency from high to low are described in terms of multiple co-occurring variables across lexical, clause, prosodic and discourse levels. As elicitors' discourse styles strongly influenced the complexity and coherence of language produced by students, criteria were developed to describe and evaluate the quality of the elicitation process. Problems and recommendations in the application of a sociolinguistic discourse analysis approach to language proficiency assessment in school districts is discussed. (Author)