ERIC Number: EJ1152391
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2017
Pages: 13
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0192-401X
EISSN: N/A
Perceptions of University Instructors When Listening to International Student Speech
Sheppard, Beth; Elliott, Nancy; Baese-Berk, Melissa
ORTESOL Journal, v34 p4-16 2017
Intensive English Program (IEP) Instructors and content faculty both listen to international students at the university. For these two groups of instructors, this study compared perceptions of international student speech by collecting comprehensibility ratings and transcription samples for intelligibility scores. No significant differences were found between the two groups, suggesting that the perceptions of these two groups are reasonably well-matched. Seven linguistic features were assessed, and grammatical accuracy was found to have the strongest effect on content faculty's ratings of comprehensibility. None of the linguistic features correlated significantly with intelligibility. These results raise questions about IEP assessment practices for speaking. Rankings of speech samples based on comprehensibility, intelligibility, and linguistic features all yielded different pictures of who was most understandable, highlighting the implications of using different criteria to assess student speech.
Descriptors: Foreign Students, College Students, College Faculty, Teacher Attitudes, Second Language Learning, English (Second Language), Intensive Language Courses, Pronunciation, Comparative Analysis, Grammar, Accuracy, Student Evaluation, Scores, Speech Communication, Correlation, Teacher Surveys, Likert Scales, Language Teachers
Oregon Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages. PO Box 15148, Portland, OR 97293. e-mail: journal@ortesol.org; Web site: https://ortesol.wildapricot.org
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A