Purpose: Phonological processing skills, or using phoneme knowledge to process language, in preschool- and kindergarten-age children are an important indicator of children's future reading abilities. However, assessing phonological processing skills can be difficult in children with speech sound disorders because scoring often requires that…

The extrapolation of test scores to a target domain - that is, association between test performances and relevant real-world outcomes - is critical to valid score interpretation and use. This study examined the relationship between Duolingo English Test (DET) speaking scores and university stakeholders' evaluation of DET speaking performances. A…

Fluency in terms of speed of speech and (lack of) hesitations such as silent and filled pauses ('uhm's) is part of oral proficiency. Language assessment rubrics therefore include aspects of fluency. Measuring fluency, however, is highly time-consuming because of the manual labour involved. The current paper aims to automatically measure aspects of…

The "Woodcock-Camarata Articulation Battery" (WCAB) is an empirically-based instrument intended to test the speech skills of children and adults age two up to ninety plus years. Its administration requires the examinee to look at pictures of predetermined common objects and repeat English words that are associated to the pictures.…

Automatic speech recognition (ASR) technology affords language learners the ability to evaluate their pronunciation accuracy by comparing their intended spoken output with the transcribed text produced by ASR-based dictation applications. However, earlier dictation tools were criticized for producing low level recognition rates for non-native…

Introduction: At the College of Languages and Translation (COLT), the students take four speaking courses in the first four semesters of college. In each course, they take two interim tests and a final exam. Aims: The study aims to find out which speaking assessment method EFL students and instructors at COLT prefer: Face to face, or lab testing,…

EFL learners' oral proficiency plays an important role in the representation of their productive skills. Especially, English language learners' speaking skills are considered as main reflection of their proficiency in foreign languages. Speaking in L2 is accepted as a vital competence for language teachers as well, who are going to teach the…

Oral communication has been identified as an important skill by higher education institutions and by the workforce community. Despite its importance, minimal research has been conducted around the development of tasks to measure oral communication skills and behaviors. The purpose of this preliminary study is to evaluate the different factors…

Purpose: Item response theory (IRT) is a psychometric approach to measurement that uses latent trait abilities (e.g., speech sound production skills) to model performance on individual items that vary by difficulty and discrimination. An IRT analysis was applied to preschoolers' productions of the words on the Goldman-Fristoe Test of…

This study investigated whether intonation deficits were observed in 19 Cantonese-speaking adults with high-functioning autism (HFA) when compared to 19 matched neurotypical (NT) controls. This study also investigated the use of sentence-final particles (SFPs) and their relationship with intonation in both groups. Standard deviations…

This paper aims at exploring the relation between the two skills of listening and speaking. In addition, it tries to investigate the presence of any gender differences in this relation. To achieve these ends, the listening and speaking exams marks of (122) EFL students registered in the "English 102" on-line compulsory course were…

This research aimed to find out how group investigation improves the student's speaking skill of the second grade students of SMA 2 Samarinda, how group investigation improves the student's participation in speaking of second grade students of SMA 2 Samarinda, and what the obstacles are in the implementation of Group Investigation. The classroom…

In the assessment of aural skills of second language learners, the study of the inclusion of visual stimuli has almost exclusively been conducted in the context of listening assessment. While the inclusion of contextual information in test input has been advocated for by numerous researchers (Ockey, 2010), little has been said regarding the…

The Khan-Lewis Phonological Analysis (KLPA) documents and analyzes phonological process usage in children. This review examines the KLPA's 15 phonological processes and its normative data. The review concludes that the KLPA remains a user-friendly and time-efficient method of phonological analysis, though somewhat limited in analyzing speech…

Investigates the perceptual representation of speech by young infants using a modification of the high-amplitude sucking (HAS) procedure. Results demonstrate that the infants' representations preserve detailed information about both the consonantal and vocalic portions of the syllables. (Author/RWB)