The effects of interlocutors on student performance on constructed dialogue tasks assessing primary phrase stress production

This study attempted to identify the effects that performance variation of interlocutors has on examinees in constructed dialogue tasks assessing primary phrase stress and intonation usage in American English by working with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's (UIUC) oral section of its English placement test (EPT). This study developed a comparable version of a specific section of oral section of the EPT's specification which was administered to 47 incoming UIUC students. The participants were split into two groups and tested using two different types of interlocutor performance—one which adapts features identified in studies on spontaneous into the interlocutor performance and one which requires the interlocutor to read aloud. The two groups were further homogenized through separating the participants who were required to participate in phase II of UIUC’s oral section of the EPT from the participants who were not required to participate in phase II. By calculating mean difficulty from the number of correctly produced targets out of the total number of targets for each target, linguistic focus, and task, this study found that the specific group of participants required to take phase II of the oral section of the EPT receiving the adapted performance had a lower mean difficulty overall indicating that the test was easier for them while the groups who were not required to participate in phase II performed similarly in terms of mean difficulty. This study recommends future research for the EPT to further understand these findings.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.A.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Teaching of English Sec Lang

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2013

Author dc:creator

• Boyd, Ryan

Contributors dc:contributor

• Davidson, Frederick G.

• testing
• english placement testing
• interlocutor
• interlocutor effects
• stress
• primary phrase stress
• intonation
• primary phrase stress and intonation production

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2013 Ryan Boyd

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/44119

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/44119