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Article published In: International Journal of Learner Corpus Research
Vol. 9:2 (2023) ► pp.155–179

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Research article

Oral reading tasks as proficiency indicators

Insights from a learner corpus study

ORCiD logo with link | Charles UniversityPrague
ORCiD logo with link | National Pingtung University
ORCiD logo with link | University of Siena
Published online: 8 February 2024
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ijlcr.22013.gra
Abstract
This study aims to explore the potential of oral reading tasks to establish learners’ proficiency when compiling learner corpora. Informed by research on oral reading fluency, we selected a text containing a variety of linguistic features and submitted it to 68 English learners in Taiwan, who were interviewed for the construction of a large spoken corpus of L2 English across proficiency levels. Their proficiency was rated by trained Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR; Council of Europe. (2001). Common European framework of reference for languages: Learning, teaching, assessment. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, . (2018). Common European framework of reference for languages: Learning, teaching, assessment companion volume with new descriptors. Council of Europe Publishing.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, . (2020). Common European framework of reference for languages: Learning, teaching, assessment companion volume. Council of Europe Publishing.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) raters and ranged from A1 to B2. The performances in the reading passage were analyzed for reading rate and reading disfluencies. The relationship between reading measures and language scores was analyzed using spine plots, revealing a strong association between reading rate and language level. The number of disfluencies did not show a significant association with language level when all disfluencies were counted together. However, when different types of disfluencies were treated separately, false starts were found to be associated with language level (even though the relationship was less clear than the one reported between reading rate and language level). The study demonstrates that including a carefully selected reading passage among the tasks when compiling spoken learner corpora may be an efficient way of collecting data relating to learner performance in speech.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Reading rate and disfluencies as potential measures of L2 proficiency
  • 3.Data and method
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Reading rate – descriptive statistics
    • 4.2Disfluencies – descriptive statistics
      • 4.2.1Skipped words
      • 4.2.2Repeats
      • 4.2.3False starts
      • 4.2.4Self-corrections
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
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