PURPOSE To examine how age of immersion and proficiency in a 2nd language influence speech movement variability and speaking rate in both a 1st language and a 2nd language. METHOD A group of 21 Bengali-English bilingual speakers participated. Lip and jaw movements were recorded. For all 21 speakers, lip movement variability was assessed based on productions of Bengali (L1; 1st language) and E...

OBJECTIVE To determine whether augmentation of the Spanish interpreter's role to include cultural education of residents can improve the satisfaction of Latino patients. DESIGN We assessed parent satisfaction during 4 sequential 2-month periods between June 1, 2004, and February 11, 2005, using different interpretation methods: telephone interpretation (n = 91 patient encounters), trained in-...

This research was designed to look at World English textbook evaluation and its effects on EFL pre-intermediate Iranian learners' speaking skill. Thirty male students were selected randomly in Eshtehard language school. They took a pre-test as a proficiency test first to determine their proficiency. To gain this aim, a language proficiency test, i.e., Nelson test was given to the total particip...

Studies on language proficiency of foreign teachers have evoked considerable interest in recent decades. However, only mainstream core skills been propounded line with the framework conventional approaches that ignored critical perspectives. Although theory emanating from ideas Marx has produced pedagogy aims to enable individuals approach any subject or issue a socio-political perspective, its...

This work reports on the construction of a rated database of spontaneous speech produced by second language (L2) learners of English. Spontaneous speech was collected from 28 L2 speakers representing six language backgrounds and five different proficiency levels. Speech was elicited using formats similar to that of the TOEFL iBT and the Speaking Proficiency English Assessment Kit (SPEAK) test. ...

The purpose of this experiment was to explore whether listening positions (close or distant location from the sound source) in the classroom, and classroom reverberation, influence students' score on a test for second-language (L2) listening comprehension (i.e., comprehension of English in Swedish speaking participants). The listening comprehension test administered was part of a standardized n...

This study explores the construct validity of speaking tasks included in the TOEFL iBT (e.g., integrated and independent speaking tasks). Specifically, advanced natural language processing (NLP) tools, MANOVA difference statistics, and discriminant function analyses (DFA) are used to assess the degree to which and in what ways responses to these tasks differ with regard to linguistic characteri...