Whereas many scholars have emphasized the relative importance of "comprehensibility" as an ecologically valid goal for L2 speech training, testing, and development, eliciting listeners' judgments is time-consuming. Following calls for research on more efficient L2 speech rating methods in applied linguistics, and growing attention toward…

This study compared holistic and analytic marking methods for their effects on parameter estimation (of examinees, raters, and items) and rater cognition in assessing speech act production in L2 Chinese. Seventy American learners of Chinese completed an oral Discourse Completion Test assessing requests and refusals. Four first-language (L1)…

This study explores which features of Spanish as a foreign language (SFL) pronunciation most impact raters' evaluations. Native Spanish speakers (NSSs) from regions with different pronunciation norms were polled: 147 evaluators from northern Mexico and 99 evaluators from central Argentina. These evaluations were contrasted with ratings from…