Towards defining a valid assessment criterion of pronunciation proficiency in non-native English speaking graduate students

• Main Author: Isaacs, Talia.
• Format: Others
• Language: en
• Published: McGill University 2005
• Subjects: English language > Pronunciation by foreign speakers > Evaluation.; English language > Study and teaching > Foreign speakers.
• Online Access: http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=98938

This exploratory, mixed-design study investigates whether intelligibility is "enough," that is, a suitable goal and an adequate assessment criterion, for evaluating proficiency in the pronunciation of non-native English speaking graduate students in the academic domain. The study also seeks to identify those pronunciation features which are most crucial for intelligible speech. === Speech samples of 19 non-native English speaking graduate students in the Faculty of Education at McGill University were elicited using the Test of Spoken English (TSE), a standardized test of spoken proficiency which is often used by institutions of higher learning to screen international teaching assistants (ITAs). Results of a fined-grained phonological analysis of the speech samples coupled with intelligibility ratings of 18 undergraduate science students suggest that intelligibility, though an adequate assessment criterion, is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for graduate students to instruct undergraduate courses as teaching assistants, and that there is a threshold level (i.e., minimum acceptable level) of intelligibility that needs to be identified more precisely. While insights about the features of pronunciation that are most critical for intelligibility are inconclusive, it is clear that intelligibility can be compromised for different reasons and is often the result of a combination of "problem areas" that interact together. === The study has some important implications for ITA training and assessment, for the design of graduate student pronunciation courses, and for future intelligibility research. It also presents a first step in validating theoretical intelligibility models which lack empirical backing (e.g., Morley, 1994).