Testing L2 Talk: A Review of Empirical Studies on Second-Language Oral Proficiency Testing <s> Conclusion <s> Several recent studies have investigated the nature of interaction in oral proficiency exams and have concluded that the interview format obscures differences in the conversational competence of the candidates. The present paper examines what opportunities test takers have to display their knowledge of managing conversations in the L2 in two types of tasks: non-scripted interviews and guided role-play activities. The data for the study consists of 30 interviews and 30 role-play activities between near-native examiners and intermediate learners used in language exams in Hungary. The interviews and role-plays have been analysed for the number of topics introduced and ratified by the examiner and the candidate respectively, as well as for the number of interruptions, openings and closings produced by the examiner and the candidate. The findings show that the conversational interaction is more symmetrical in the guided role-play activity with the candidates introducing and ratifying approximately the same number of topics as the examiners. In addition, the examinees have the opportunity to interrupt and hold the floor more effectively during the role-play activity and can demonstrate their knowledge of how to open and close a conversation. These findings suggest that guided role-play activities used in the study exhibit several characteristics of real-life conversations and therefore can be used for assessing the candidates’ conversational competence. <s> BIB001 </s> Testing L2 Talk: A Review of Empirical Studies on Second-Language Oral Proficiency Testing <s> Conclusion <s> Conversation Analysis (CA) as a mode of inquiry is addressed to all forms of talk and other conduct in interaction, and, accordingly, touches on the concerns of applied linguists at many points. This review sketches and offers bibliographical guidance on several of the major relevant areas of conversation-analytic work—turn-taking, repair, and word selection—and indicates past or potential points of contact with applied linguistics. After covering these areas, we include a brief discussion of some key themes in CA's treatment of talk in institutional contexts. Finally, we discuss several established areas of applied linguistic work in which conversation analytic work is being explored—native, nonnative, and multilingual talk; talk in educational institutions; grammar and interaction; intercultural communication and comparative CA; and implications for designing language teaching tasks, materials, and assessment tasks. We end with some cautions on applying CA findings to other applied linguistic research contexts. <s> BIB002 </s> Testing L2 Talk: A Review of Empirical Studies on Second-Language Oral Proficiency Testing <s> Conclusion <s> Abstract This study aims to discuss role-play activity in oral proficiency interviews (OPIs) in terms of its construct validity; that is, whether it correlates with what it is supposed to measure. The data for the analysis were obtained from 71 role-play activities conducted during an OPI. The analysis is based on conversation analytic (CA) methodology and invokes the analytic frameworks of interactive footing and interactional competencies. Conversational analyses performed on the data revealed that candidates executed not only the role-play instructions but also the interviewers’ explicit and implicit requirements of the next desirable action. In doing so, candidates employed and displayed their interactional competencies in role-play interactions. The role-play activity in the OPI being managed by the interviewer created an asymmetrical relationship between the interviewers and the candidates in terms of speaking rights (i.e., turn-taking and topical organization). Nevertheless, competencies that candidates displayed in performing a role-play activity did not seem different from those employed in ordinary conversations. Thus, role-play activity in OPIs, if recognized as an interactional phenomenon co-constructed by participants’ display of their turn-by-turn practical evaluation of each other's actions, seems to be a valid instrument for assessing the candidates’ performance of the given tasks. <s> BIB003 </s> Testing L2 Talk: A Review of Empirical Studies on Second-Language Oral Proficiency Testing <s> Conclusion <s> i DECLARATION iii PREFACE iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS v TABLE OF CONTENTS vi LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES x LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS xi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS xi CHAPTER 1 1 1. <s> BIB004 </s> Testing L2 Talk: A Review of Empirical Studies on Second-Language Oral Proficiency Testing <s> Conclusion <s> Testing of second language pragmatic competence is an underexplored but growing area of second language assessment. Tests have focused on assessing learners’ sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic abilities but the speech act framework informing most current productive testing instruments in interlanguage pragmatics has been criticized for under-representing the construct. In particular, the assessment of learners’ ability to produce extended monologic and dialogic discourse is a missing component in existing assessments. This paper reviews existing tests and argues for a discursive re-orientation of pragmatics tests. Suggestions for tasks and scoring approaches to assess discursive abilities while maintaining practicality are provided, and the problematicity of native speaker benchmarking is discussed. <s> BIB005 </s> Testing L2 Talk: A Review of Empirical Studies on Second-Language Oral Proficiency Testing <s> Conclusion <s> This quasi-experimental study is aimed at (a) teaching learners how to provide corrective feedback (CF) during peer interaction and (b) assessing the effects of peer interaction and CF on second language (L2) development. Four university-level English classes in Japan participated ( N = 167), each assigned to one of four treatment conditions. Of the two CF groups, one was taught to provide prompts and the other to provide recasts. A third group participated in only peer-interaction activities, and a fourth served as the control group. After one semester of intervention, the two CF groups improved in both overall accuracy and fl uency, measured as unpruned and pruned speech rates, whereas the peer-interaction-only group outperformed the control group only on fl uency measures. This study draws on monitoring in speech-production theory and the declarative-procedural model of skill-acquisition theory to interpret these results, thus contributing a new theoretical approach to CF research in the context <s> BIB006 </s> Testing L2 Talk: A Review of Empirical Studies on Second-Language Oral Proficiency Testing <s> Conclusion <s> Paired speaking tasks are now commonly used in both pedagogic and assessment contexts, as they elicit a wide range of interactional skills. The current study aims to offer an investigation of the interaction co-constructed by learners at different proficiency levels who are engaged in a paired speaking test, and to provide insights into the conceptualization of interactional competence and key distinguishing interactional features across levels. The findings suggest that our understanding of interactional competence both in the classroom and as a construct underlying tests and assessment scales needs to broaden to include not just interactional features such as topic development organization, but also listener support strategies and turn-taking management. A more comprehensive understanding of interactional competence has the potential to complement available descriptions of interactional skills in assessment scales of speaking and aid learners and teachers in communicative classrooms. <s> BIB007
This review article has examined empirical studies on L2 oral proficiency testing published between 2004 and 2014 with a particular focus on studies on discourse and social interaction in such tests. Interestingly, a majority of the studies examined did not include discourse data at all, which might be a ref lection on authorship; that is, whether authors come from the field of measurement or applied linguistics (cf. McNamara 2011). Searches also revealed that studies on OPIs were much more frequent than studies on paired or group tests. There was an increase of paired/group studies over the last few years of our set time frame, possibly mirroring the social turn within the broad field of second-language acquisition research (see  . A number of hits in the database searches had key terms, such as interaction and oral proficiency, in the paper titles, but a closer look revealed that many of them did not, in fact, include any reproduced segments of conversation (e.g., BIB004 May 2011a; BIB006 . Thus, they did not set out to provide knowledge on interaction, but rather about interaction. Another bulk of studies did use discourse data, but mainly for validating rating scales or developing descriptions of interactional patterns to be compared to ratings BIB007 . As a result, the number of hits that turned out to be directly relevant to the review decreased greatly. In fact, relatively few studies (2004) (2005) (2006) (2007) (2008) (2009) (2010) (2011) (2012) (2013) (2014) explored specific features or the sequential development of L2 testing interaction. However, from those that do, it is evident that interaction patterns vary a lot between test conditions as they set up very different frames (cf.  . Frames for the testing context, then, would represent different ways of structuring and interpreting the social context in which an individual participates. In the context of L2 OP testing, being tested in a structured interview or in a more peer-driven conversation format presents different challenges for the test-taker depending on the conceptions inherent in the test frame. OPIs leave little maneuver space for test-takers as the interviewer is in charge of the sequential development, which in turn discursively defines the role of an interviewer (cf. e.g.,  . For this reason, raised awareness regarding the specific constraints permeating the interaction in OPIs is desirable (cf.  . When L2 oral proficiency is the construct, the OPI is an unsuitable context since candidates' interactional space is restricted in terms of actions, topic initiation, and turn-taking management. The OPI interaction pattern can be compared to a circle, where the interviewer sets the course by means of the question type, which is being responded to by the candidate. When the interviewer is satisfied with a response, a new circle is initiated, and the test-taker is locked into a discursive frame. Consequently, some advocate role-play tasks in OPIs in which discursive roles are less fixed, leaving room for a wider range of conversational practices. It is safe to say that the more conversation-like the context, the more dynamic the interaction, leading to more opportunities for the candidates to demonstrate interactional competence. Instead, problems for the standardization of test procedures arise. Finally, we would like to comment brief ly on some methodological aspects of the studies examined here. It was noticeable that descriptions of data and analytic approaches at times were conspicuously brief or lacked relevant information, for example, on testtakers' first language. Further, while a number of studies claim an interest in interactional patterns, relatively few conduct the type of sequential analysis characteristic of CA, and some of those that claim a CA framework do not adhere to the emic focus that distinguishes CA from other discourse-oriented approaches (see, for instance, BIB003 critique of BIB001 and BIB005 ) comments on Walters (2007 ). The fact that CA may productively inform the design of L2 assessment tasks and offer insights into particular testing formats, for example role-plays and group discussions, has been argued by BIB002 . A final observation, then, is that interdisciplinary collaboration as well as cross-fertilization between different discursive approaches may bring current knowledge of L2 oral testing forward. such as academic seminars, performance appraisal interviews, classrooms, and second-language speaking tests. Analytic interests include affect displays, task management, question design, code switching, and reported speech enactments. Through her work on performance appraisal interviews, she has been affiliated with the Center for Gender Studies at Karlstad University and has taught several graduate courses on language, gender, and interaction and co-edited a special issue of Economic and Industrial Democracy on gender and sustainable regional development. Currently, she coordinates a 4-year research project on the speaking part of the national test of English in Sweden (Swedish Research Council Reg. no 2012-4129) , Testing Talk, in which interaction in and assessment of L2 oral proficiency tests is the focus. Together with her co-authors, she has published a number of papers on paired test interaction and on performance appraisal interviews as an arena for the management of organizational norms. As a graduate student, she was a visiting scholar at the School of Communication, San Diego State University. Pia Sundqvist is an Associate Professor in English Linguistics. She received her PhD degree from Karlstad University (2009) with the doctoral dissertation Extramural English Matters: Out-of-School English and Its Impact on Swedish Ninth Graders' Oral Proficiency and Vocabulary. Her research is focused on second-language acquisition, in particular computer-assisted language learning (CALL), and education. She has authored papers in these areas for journals such as ReCALL, Novitas-ROYAL, The European Journal of Applied Linguistics and TEFL, and Apples. Furthermore, she has contributed with book chapters in recent publications in the field of informal learning of languages in out-of-school contexts: Beyond the Language Classroom Sundqvist has extensive experience from teaching English, Swedish, and Spanish in secondary and upper-secondary school. As a graduate student, she studied applied English linguistics at the University of Houston, Texas. Lina Nyroos has a PhD degree from the Department of Scandinavian Languages at Uppsala University, Sweden. Her dissertation (2012), The Social Organization of Institutional Norms: Interactional Management of Knowledge, Entitlement and Stance, focused on institutional traits in interaction in two different settings: group tutoring sessions at university level and performance appraisal interviews in organizations, using conversation analysis. She currently holds a postdoctoral position at Uppsala University and is one of the researchers in a 4-year project on the speaking part of the national test of English in Sweden (Swedish Research Council Reg. no. 2012-4129) , Testing Talk, which targets interaction in and assessment of L2 oral proficiency tests. She is also a member of a Swedish think tank for the humanities, HumTank, which aims to promote, debate, and make visible research in the humanities. In a project on parliamentary discourse in the European Union, she has studied interaction patterns in parliamentary debates. Among her research interests are questions and their design in social interaction, and together with Sandlund, she recently published a paper on the interactional management of standardized question items in performance appraisal interviews (Pragmatics & Society 5:2, 2014) . From 2016, she is the Director of Studies at the Department of Scandinavian Languages, Uppsala University.