In the context of the learning, teaching, and assessment of second language (L2) speaking skills,... more In the context of the learning, teaching, and assessment of second language (L2) speaking skills, L2 fluency has been regarded as one of the important constructs. However, L2 fluency research has witnessed a long debate over the definition and measurements of L2 oral fluency; scholars have interchangeably used the term, "fluency", with different connotations, such as speakers' ability, speech features, and listeners' perception. In order to distinguish different conceptualizations of fluency, Segalowitz (2010) proposed three subconstructs of fluency: utterance fluency (i.e., observable temporal features of speech), cognitive fluency (i.e., speaker's ability to manipulate L2 knowledge efficiently), and perceived fluency (i.e., listener's subjective judgements of fluency). However, it is still unclear how these three subconstructs of L2 fluency are interrelated with each other. The overarching goal of the thesis is to examine the construct of L2 oral fluency,...
Hu and Nation's (2000) study, which stipulated that second language (L2) readers need to be f... more Hu and Nation's (2000) study, which stipulated that second language (L2) readers need to be familiar with 98% of lexical items for adequate text comprehension, has become highly influential in L2 vocabulary research and pedagogy. This research has since been the foundation for numerous lexical coverage studies (e.g. Nation, 2006; Schmitt, 2010). However, the 98% critical threshold figure is based on findings from a research project in which a regression analysis was conducted with 66 university students in New Zealand. The present study replicates Hu and Nation's research in a context different from a typical Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) context with a sample of 105 Sri Lankan adult L2 learners in a non-academic context. They will each take two different Vocabulary Levels Tests and read one of five versions of two reading texts at different levels of density of unknown words, before answering comprehension questions.
Supplemental material, Supporting_Information_ed for How does longitudinal interaction promote se... more Supplemental material, Supporting_Information_ed for How does longitudinal interaction promote second language speech learning? Roles of learner experience and proficiency levels by Kazuya Saito, Shungo Suzuki, Tomoko Oyama and Yuka Akiyama in Second Language Research
The current study examined the extent to which cognitive fluency (CF) contributes to utterance fl... more The current study examined the extent to which cognitive fluency (CF) contributes to utterance fluency (UF) at the level of constructs. A total of 128 Japanese-speaking learners of English completed four speaking tasks—argumentative task, picture narrative task, reading-to-speaking task, and reading-while-listening-to-speaking task—and a battery of linguistic knowledge tests, capturing vocabulary size, lexical retrieval speed, sentence construction skills, grammaticality judgments, and articulatory speed. Their speaking performance was analyzed in terms of speed, breakdown, and repair fluency (i.e., UF), and scores on linguistic knowledge tests were used to assess students’ L2 linguistic resources and processing skills (i.e., CF). Structural equation modeling revealed a complex interplay between the multidimensionality of CF and UF and speaking task types. L2 processing speed consistently contributed to all aspects of UF across speaking tasks, whereas the role of linguistic resource...
Listener-based judgements of fluency play an important role in second language (L2) communication... more Listener-based judgements of fluency play an important role in second language (L2) communication contexts and in L2 assessment. Accordingly, our meta-analysis examined the relationship between different aspects of utterance fluency and listener-based judgements of perceived fluency by analyzing primary studies reporting correlation coefficients between objective measures of temporal features and subjective ratings of fluency. We analyzed 263 effect sizes from 22 studies (N = 335-746) to calculate the mean effect sizes of the links between utterance and perceived fluency. We also investigated the moderator effects of 11 methodological factors, such as speech stimuli, listeners' background, rating procedure, and computation of utterance fluency measures, on the relationship between utterance and perceived fluency. Perceived fluency was strongly associated with speed and pause frequency (r = |.59-62|), moderately with pause duration (r = |.46|), and weakly with repair fluency (r = |.20|). Composite measures showed the strongest effect sizes (r = |.72-.76|). Moderator analyses revealed that the utterance-perceived fluency link is influenced by methodological variables related to how speech samples are prepared for listeners' judgements and how listeners' attention is directed in evaluations of fluency. These findings suggest future directions for L2 fluency research and implications for language assessment.
Focusing on text summary speaking tasks, the present study investigated the effects of the activa... more Focusing on text summary speaking tasks, the present study investigated the effects of the activation of phonological representations during text comprehension (operationalized by readaloud assistance) on the subsequent retelling speech. A total of 24 Japanese learners of English completed text summary speaking tasks under two conditions: (a) reading without read-aloud assistance and (b) reading with read-aloud assistance. Their speech data were analyzed by lexical overlap indices (i.e., the ratio of characteristic single-words and multiword sequences) and by fluency measures capturing three major dimensions of fluency-speed, breakdown, and repair fluency. The results showed that read-aloud assistance directly facilitated lexical overlaps with source texts and indirectly improved speed and repair fluency. Furthermore, read-aloud assistance was found to affect the interrelationship between lexical overlaps and utterance fluency. The findings suggested that read-aloud assistance might help second language learners to store multiword sequences as a single unit (i.e., chunking) during text comprehension.
This study examined how longitudinal interaction impacts the development of second language (L2) ... more This study examined how longitudinal interaction impacts the development of second language (L2) oral proficiency in relation to learners’ different experience and proficiency levels. Japanese learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) participated in weekly conversation exchanges with native speakers (NSs) in the USA via videoconferencing tools over one academic semester (12 weeks). The participants’ spontaneous speech, elicited from a story telling task before and after the treatment, was analysed via a set of linguistic measures. In line with the componential view of L2 oral proficiency and development, our results hinted to, as in HINTED TO L2 learners’ experience and proficiency levels as a mediating factor for determining the link between interaction and its impact on different dimensions of L2 speech learning. While the longitudinal interaction equally improved the participants’ grammatical complexity and articulation rate – a fundamental component for defining L2 oral p...
ABSTRACTIn the context of 90 adult Japanese learners of English with diverse second language expe... more ABSTRACTIn the context of 90 adult Japanese learners of English with diverse second language experience and 10 native speakers, this study examined the linguistic characteristics and learner profiles of low-, mid- and high-level fluency performance. The participants’ spontaneous speech samples were initially rated by 10 native listeners for global fluency on a 9-point scale (1 = dysfluent, 9 = very fluent), and then divided into four proficiency groups via cluster analyses: low (n = 29), mid (n = 30), high (n = 31), and native (n = 10). Next, the data set was analyzed for the number of pauses within/between clauses, articulation rate, and the frequency of repetitions/self-corrections. According to the results of a series of analyses of variance, the frequency of final-clause pauses differentiated low- and mid-level fluency performance; the number of mid-clause pauses differentiated mid- and high-level performance; and articulation rate differentiated high-level and nativelike perfor...
This study examined the linguistic dimensions of comprehensibility and perceived fluency in the c... more This study examined the linguistic dimensions of comprehensibility and perceived fluency in the context of L2 argumentative speech elicited from 40 Japanese-speaking learners of English. Their speaking performance was judged by 10 inexperienced native speakers of English for comprehensibility and perceived fluency, and was also objectively analyzed in terms of complexity, accuracy, and fluency as well as pronunciation and discourse features. The results showed that comprehensibility and fluency judgments strongly correlated with each other and that native listeners were significantly more severe when they judged fluency. Furthermore, multiple regression analyses revealed that both constructs were commonly associated with a set of underlying linguistic dimensions (grammatical accuracy, breakdown fluency, and pronunciation). However, comprehensibility was best predicted by articulation rate (speed fluency) whereas perceived fluency was most strongly associated with the frequency of mi...
This study investigated the constructs underlying second language (L2) word association (WA) with... more This study investigated the constructs underlying second language (L2) word association (WA) with regard to three dimensions of lexical competence—size, organization, and accessibility—and the lexical performance of speech. One-hundred and thirteen Japanese learners of English completed a computer-delivered oral WA task along with three vocabulary tasks: a formrecall gap-filling task (size), a primed lexical decision task (organization and accessibility), and an oral cartoon narrative (lexical richness). Regression analyses explored how well these lexical competence and performance scores predicted two WA outcome variables: response profiles and response times. Form-recall vocabulary knowledge, (collocational) priming, and lexical richness explained a large amount of variance in WA response type profiles (Nagelkerke’s pseudo R2 = .901). Form-recall vocabulary knowledge and lexical decision time explained 28.5% of the variance of WA response times. A three-stage model of L2 WA task p...
There is conflicting empirical evidence regarding the role of awareness in second language learni... more There is conflicting empirical evidence regarding the role of awareness in second language learning. Possible explanations for the contradictory results include the modality in the exposure and assessment phases of previous experiments. Our study investigated the acquisition of a novel determiner system under incidental exposure conditions and examined the effect of modality in both exposure and assessment phases. Animacy served as a hidden regularity in the determiners, which were embedded in sentences and presented to Chinese speakers of English either in auditory or in visual mode. Learning was assessed by a two-alternative forced-choice test either auditorily or in writing. Implicit and explicit knowledge were measured using retrospective verbal reports and source judgements. Bayesian analysis provided moderate evidence for above chance level learning. Significant learning effects were observed regardless of whether participants based their accuracy judgements on explicit or imp...
In the context of the learning, teaching, and assessment of second language (L2) speaking skills,... more In the context of the learning, teaching, and assessment of second language (L2) speaking skills, L2 fluency has been regarded as one of the important constructs. However, L2 fluency research has witnessed a long debate over the definition and measurements of L2 oral fluency; scholars have interchangeably used the term, "fluency", with different connotations, such as speakers' ability, speech features, and listeners' perception. In order to distinguish different conceptualizations of fluency, Segalowitz (2010) proposed three subconstructs of fluency: utterance fluency (i.e., observable temporal features of speech), cognitive fluency (i.e., speaker's ability to manipulate L2 knowledge efficiently), and perceived fluency (i.e., listener's subjective judgements of fluency). However, it is still unclear how these three subconstructs of L2 fluency are interrelated with each other. The overarching goal of the thesis is to examine the construct of L2 oral fluency,...
Hu and Nation's (2000) study, which stipulated that second language (L2) readers need to be f... more Hu and Nation's (2000) study, which stipulated that second language (L2) readers need to be familiar with 98% of lexical items for adequate text comprehension, has become highly influential in L2 vocabulary research and pedagogy. This research has since been the foundation for numerous lexical coverage studies (e.g. Nation, 2006; Schmitt, 2010). However, the 98% critical threshold figure is based on findings from a research project in which a regression analysis was conducted with 66 university students in New Zealand. The present study replicates Hu and Nation's research in a context different from a typical Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) context with a sample of 105 Sri Lankan adult L2 learners in a non-academic context. They will each take two different Vocabulary Levels Tests and read one of five versions of two reading texts at different levels of density of unknown words, before answering comprehension questions.
Supplemental material, Supporting_Information_ed for How does longitudinal interaction promote se... more Supplemental material, Supporting_Information_ed for How does longitudinal interaction promote second language speech learning? Roles of learner experience and proficiency levels by Kazuya Saito, Shungo Suzuki, Tomoko Oyama and Yuka Akiyama in Second Language Research
The current study examined the extent to which cognitive fluency (CF) contributes to utterance fl... more The current study examined the extent to which cognitive fluency (CF) contributes to utterance fluency (UF) at the level of constructs. A total of 128 Japanese-speaking learners of English completed four speaking tasks—argumentative task, picture narrative task, reading-to-speaking task, and reading-while-listening-to-speaking task—and a battery of linguistic knowledge tests, capturing vocabulary size, lexical retrieval speed, sentence construction skills, grammaticality judgments, and articulatory speed. Their speaking performance was analyzed in terms of speed, breakdown, and repair fluency (i.e., UF), and scores on linguistic knowledge tests were used to assess students’ L2 linguistic resources and processing skills (i.e., CF). Structural equation modeling revealed a complex interplay between the multidimensionality of CF and UF and speaking task types. L2 processing speed consistently contributed to all aspects of UF across speaking tasks, whereas the role of linguistic resource...
Listener-based judgements of fluency play an important role in second language (L2) communication... more Listener-based judgements of fluency play an important role in second language (L2) communication contexts and in L2 assessment. Accordingly, our meta-analysis examined the relationship between different aspects of utterance fluency and listener-based judgements of perceived fluency by analyzing primary studies reporting correlation coefficients between objective measures of temporal features and subjective ratings of fluency. We analyzed 263 effect sizes from 22 studies (N = 335-746) to calculate the mean effect sizes of the links between utterance and perceived fluency. We also investigated the moderator effects of 11 methodological factors, such as speech stimuli, listeners' background, rating procedure, and computation of utterance fluency measures, on the relationship between utterance and perceived fluency. Perceived fluency was strongly associated with speed and pause frequency (r = |.59-62|), moderately with pause duration (r = |.46|), and weakly with repair fluency (r = |.20|). Composite measures showed the strongest effect sizes (r = |.72-.76|). Moderator analyses revealed that the utterance-perceived fluency link is influenced by methodological variables related to how speech samples are prepared for listeners' judgements and how listeners' attention is directed in evaluations of fluency. These findings suggest future directions for L2 fluency research and implications for language assessment.
Focusing on text summary speaking tasks, the present study investigated the effects of the activa... more Focusing on text summary speaking tasks, the present study investigated the effects of the activation of phonological representations during text comprehension (operationalized by readaloud assistance) on the subsequent retelling speech. A total of 24 Japanese learners of English completed text summary speaking tasks under two conditions: (a) reading without read-aloud assistance and (b) reading with read-aloud assistance. Their speech data were analyzed by lexical overlap indices (i.e., the ratio of characteristic single-words and multiword sequences) and by fluency measures capturing three major dimensions of fluency-speed, breakdown, and repair fluency. The results showed that read-aloud assistance directly facilitated lexical overlaps with source texts and indirectly improved speed and repair fluency. Furthermore, read-aloud assistance was found to affect the interrelationship between lexical overlaps and utterance fluency. The findings suggested that read-aloud assistance might help second language learners to store multiword sequences as a single unit (i.e., chunking) during text comprehension.
This study examined how longitudinal interaction impacts the development of second language (L2) ... more This study examined how longitudinal interaction impacts the development of second language (L2) oral proficiency in relation to learners’ different experience and proficiency levels. Japanese learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) participated in weekly conversation exchanges with native speakers (NSs) in the USA via videoconferencing tools over one academic semester (12 weeks). The participants’ spontaneous speech, elicited from a story telling task before and after the treatment, was analysed via a set of linguistic measures. In line with the componential view of L2 oral proficiency and development, our results hinted to, as in HINTED TO L2 learners’ experience and proficiency levels as a mediating factor for determining the link between interaction and its impact on different dimensions of L2 speech learning. While the longitudinal interaction equally improved the participants’ grammatical complexity and articulation rate – a fundamental component for defining L2 oral p...
ABSTRACTIn the context of 90 adult Japanese learners of English with diverse second language expe... more ABSTRACTIn the context of 90 adult Japanese learners of English with diverse second language experience and 10 native speakers, this study examined the linguistic characteristics and learner profiles of low-, mid- and high-level fluency performance. The participants’ spontaneous speech samples were initially rated by 10 native listeners for global fluency on a 9-point scale (1 = dysfluent, 9 = very fluent), and then divided into four proficiency groups via cluster analyses: low (n = 29), mid (n = 30), high (n = 31), and native (n = 10). Next, the data set was analyzed for the number of pauses within/between clauses, articulation rate, and the frequency of repetitions/self-corrections. According to the results of a series of analyses of variance, the frequency of final-clause pauses differentiated low- and mid-level fluency performance; the number of mid-clause pauses differentiated mid- and high-level performance; and articulation rate differentiated high-level and nativelike perfor...
This study examined the linguistic dimensions of comprehensibility and perceived fluency in the c... more This study examined the linguistic dimensions of comprehensibility and perceived fluency in the context of L2 argumentative speech elicited from 40 Japanese-speaking learners of English. Their speaking performance was judged by 10 inexperienced native speakers of English for comprehensibility and perceived fluency, and was also objectively analyzed in terms of complexity, accuracy, and fluency as well as pronunciation and discourse features. The results showed that comprehensibility and fluency judgments strongly correlated with each other and that native listeners were significantly more severe when they judged fluency. Furthermore, multiple regression analyses revealed that both constructs were commonly associated with a set of underlying linguistic dimensions (grammatical accuracy, breakdown fluency, and pronunciation). However, comprehensibility was best predicted by articulation rate (speed fluency) whereas perceived fluency was most strongly associated with the frequency of mi...
This study investigated the constructs underlying second language (L2) word association (WA) with... more This study investigated the constructs underlying second language (L2) word association (WA) with regard to three dimensions of lexical competence—size, organization, and accessibility—and the lexical performance of speech. One-hundred and thirteen Japanese learners of English completed a computer-delivered oral WA task along with three vocabulary tasks: a formrecall gap-filling task (size), a primed lexical decision task (organization and accessibility), and an oral cartoon narrative (lexical richness). Regression analyses explored how well these lexical competence and performance scores predicted two WA outcome variables: response profiles and response times. Form-recall vocabulary knowledge, (collocational) priming, and lexical richness explained a large amount of variance in WA response type profiles (Nagelkerke’s pseudo R2 = .901). Form-recall vocabulary knowledge and lexical decision time explained 28.5% of the variance of WA response times. A three-stage model of L2 WA task p...
There is conflicting empirical evidence regarding the role of awareness in second language learni... more There is conflicting empirical evidence regarding the role of awareness in second language learning. Possible explanations for the contradictory results include the modality in the exposure and assessment phases of previous experiments. Our study investigated the acquisition of a novel determiner system under incidental exposure conditions and examined the effect of modality in both exposure and assessment phases. Animacy served as a hidden regularity in the determiners, which were embedded in sentences and presented to Chinese speakers of English either in auditory or in visual mode. Learning was assessed by a two-alternative forced-choice test either auditorily or in writing. Implicit and explicit knowledge were measured using retrospective verbal reports and source judgements. Bayesian analysis provided moderate evidence for above chance level learning. Significant learning effects were observed regardless of whether participants based their accuracy judgements on explicit or imp...
This study examined how longitudinal interaction impacts the development of second language (L2) ... more This study examined how longitudinal interaction impacts the development of second language (L2) oral proficiency in relation to learners' different experience and proficiency levels. Japanese English-as-a-Foreign-Language learners participated in weekly conversation exchanges with native speakers (NSs) in the US via videoconferencing tools over one academic semester (12 weeks). The participants' spontaneous speech, elicited from a story telling task before and after the treatment, was analyzed via a set of linguistic measures. In line with the componential view of L2 oral proficiency (De Jong et al., 2012) and development (Bundgaard-Nielsen et al., 2011), our results hinted L2 learners' experience and proficiency levels as a mediating factor for determining the link between interaction and its impact on different dimensions of L2 speech learning. While the longitudinal interaction equally improved the participants' grammatical complexity and articulation rate-a fundamental component for defining L2 oral proficiency, the development of less experienced/proficient learners was observed across a wide range of lexicogrammar and fluency features (lexical appropriateness/richness, grammatical accuracy, pause ratio). It was only more experienced/proficient learners that significantly enhanced phonological accuracies (segmentals, word stress) which are thought to gradually develop in the later stages of L2 speech learning. These findings add another piece of evidence for the differential effects of long-term interaction relative to L2 learners' developmental stages.
• They produced significantly more extended and accurate speech aHer the mid--tests at the expens... more • They produced significantly more extended and accurate speech aHer the mid--tests at the expense of lexical sophisDcaDon.
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