Assessing interactional competence : the case of school-based speaking assessment in Hong Kong
In recent decades, the field of assessing speaking has seen an increasing emphasis on âinteractionâ. In defining the construct of interactional competence (IC), both the theoretical formulation and empirical evidence suggest that the competence is coconstructed and context-specific. This poses a multitude of conundrums for language testing practitioners and researchers, one of which is the extent to which we can extrapolate candidatesâ performance in the target non-testing context from their performance in a test. This thesis considers these questions in the case of the Group Interaction (GI) task in the School-based Assessment (SBA) for the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education Examination (HKDSE). Validation studies on the SBA Group Interaction task to date have generated somewhat contradictory results as to whether the task elicits authentic oral language use. Moreover, studies to date have not compared studentsâ interactions under different task implementation conditions (such as the amount of preparation time), or have investigated in detail what exactly students do during preparation time and how that might impact on their subsequent assessed interaction. This study explores what kinds of
Lam, Ming Kei
interactional competence ; language testing and assessment ; Conversation Analysis
Assessing interactional competence : the case of school-based speaking assessment in Hong Kong. In recent decades, the field of assessing speaking has seen an increasing emphasis on âinteractionâ. In defining the construct of interactional competence (IC), both the theoretical formulation and empirical evidence suggest that the competence is coconstructed and context-specific. This poses a multitude of conundrums for language testing practitioners and researchers, one of which is the extent to which we can extrapolate candidatesâ performance in the target non-testing context from their performance in a test. This thesis considers these questions in the case of the Group Interaction (GI) task in the School-based Assessment (SBA) for the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education Examination (HKDSE). Validation studies on the SBA Group Interaction task to date have generated somewhat contradictory results as to whether the task elicits authentic oral language use. Moreover, studies to date have not compared studentsâ interactions under different task implementation conditions (such as the amount of preparation time), or have investigated in detail what exactly students do during preparation time and how that might impact on their subsequent assessed interaction. This study explores what kinds of
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