A Comparison Between Holistic Scores and Learner Oral Performance: Implications for the Development of L2 Fluency, Accuracy and Complexity

This paper investigates how improvement in accuracy, fluency and complexity of learner speech relates to holistic scores in an oral proficiency interview, the Standard Speaking Test (SST), and seeks to identify the stages of oral proficiency learners go through. The SST was developed especially for precise evaluation of oral proficiency among intermediate level learners. Transcription of the SST was coded with tags that indicate accuracy, fluency and complexity of utterances. Significant inter-correlations between these features and the holistic scores provided by SST raters were obtained; ANOVAs show that the holistic scores accurately reflect the improvement in oral performance. The results of the multiple comparison further delineate not only the course of development but also idiosyncrasies at a certain proficiency level, characterized here as communicative strategies that learners adopt under a stressful condition. Overall, the research underscores the importance in language testing as well as in the classroom of distinguishing the use of time-saving strategies from the ability to create speech by applying linguistic rules using a productive lexicon.