Masoomeh Estaji; Reza Morad Sahraee; Monire Shahbaz
Abstract
The present study investigated repair fluency, one of the three main aspects of fluency in Skehan’s model (2003; 2009), across different proficiency levels using the giver test-taker data in a speaking test. There are three main aspects of fluency in the model: Speed fluency, breakdown fluency, ...
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The present study investigated repair fluency, one of the three main aspects of fluency in Skehan’s model (2003; 2009), across different proficiency levels using the giver test-taker data in a speaking test. There are three main aspects of fluency in the model: Speed fluency, breakdown fluency, and repair fluency. To date, there is no research aiming to measure the speech fluency of foreign Persian test takers. Therefore, this study sought to achieve an appropriate rating scale for speech fluency. The study, in particular, has examined some parts of the repair fluency construct in the mentioned model, specifically repetition and false starts, and attempted to determine the extent to which repetitions and false starts varied across different Persian proficiency levels of foreign Persian test-takers. This study transcribed, rated, and labeled repetitions and false starts of 23 foreign Persian language learners taking a speaking test. The spoken data were classified into four proficiency levels according to the Persian Teaching Standard Reference (PTSR), namely pre-intermediate, intermediate, upper-intermediate, and advanced. The duration of recordings was 44 minutes in total (11 minutes for each level). The results were analyzed, using the Kruskal-Wallis test, and revealed that false starts and repetitions did not make a distinction across Persian proficiency levels. The findings imply that raters and rating scale designers do not need to consider repetitions and false starts for identifying or describing different Persian proficiency levels.
Reza Morad Sahraee; Mina Hamedi
Abstract
Testing is an important part of teaching any language and an important part of learning a language. Vocabulary size test is one of placement tests that is used to determine the level of lexical knowledge of language learners .This test is designed in many languages and its vacancy was felt in the Persian. ...
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Testing is an important part of teaching any language and an important part of learning a language. Vocabulary size test is one of placement tests that is used to determine the level of lexical knowledge of language learners .This test is designed in many languages and its vacancy was felt in the Persian. To design a vocabulary size test, one must pay attention to the frequency of the words used and linguistic corpus. The corpus used in this research is including paper texts in seven different fields. To design this test for each group of words, 80 questions were designed and arranged from high-frequency to low-frequency. The questions were computerized and the link was sent to the language learners. 130 people answered the test. 45 language learners also participated in the retest. Analysis showed that the mean test scores increased with the language level of the language learners. Skewness and Analysis of variance also showed that the data distribution was normal and the difference between the mean scores of different groups of novice, elementary, intermediate and advanced in this test was significant. Calculation of the correlation between test scores and retest scores indicates a strong correlation and test reliability. The interpretation of the scores of different language levels was also done and it was determined that each language level of the score can determine which language level. Based on this research, it can be said that the vocabulary size test can determine the language level of language learners as a placement test.
Reza Morad Sahraee; GholamHossein Rezapour
Abstract
One of the key features of a successful test is to have an appropriate reliability. This study determined the validity and reliability of the Persian language placement test of Sa’adi Foundation. This test consists of three main sections: language knowledge, writing and speaking. The language knowledge ...
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One of the key features of a successful test is to have an appropriate reliability. This study determined the validity and reliability of the Persian language placement test of Sa’adi Foundation. This test consists of three main sections: language knowledge, writing and speaking. The language knowledge section consists of three sub-sections: grammar, vocabulary, and reading. The statistical population of the test consisted of 140 language learners from 41 countries. To calculate the reliability and the construct validity, Cronbach's alpha coefficient and Pearson correlation coefficient was used respectively. The reliability index in the language knowledge sub-sections’, grammar was 0.71, vocabulary was 0.817, reading was 0.861 and for the whole language knowledge was 0.916. The reliability of the two sections of speaking and writing was 0.749 and the total test was 0.895. Considering that the acceptable reliability index in Cronbach's Alpha method was at least 0.7, it was found that the test in various sections and sub-sections, and the test overall, had an acceptable reliability. The correlation coefficients obtained from the test sections, between language knowledge and speaking were 0.175, language knowledge and writing 0.186, and writing and speaking 0.602. Perhaps at first glance, test validity is not acceptable, but by comparing the correlation between the sub-sections of the language knowledge and the skills of speaking and writing, it can be concluded that the students have acted poorly in the productive skills, and this shows that in their educational background, they are concerned only with language knowledge or declarative knowledge, not the procedural knowledge.one of the application of this article is that Persian curriculum should focused on improving procedural knowledge of the Persian learner.
