Despite an emphasis on oral communication in most foreign language classrooms, the resource-intensive nature (i.e. time and manpower) of speaking tests hinder regular oral assessments. A possible solution is the development of a (semi-) automated scoring system. When it is used in conjunction with human raters, the consistency of computers can…

For Chinese as a second language (L2 Chinese), there has been little research into "distinguishing features" (Fulcher, 1996; Iwashita et al., 2008) used in scoring L2 Chinese speaking performance. The study reported here investigates the relationship between the distinguishing features of L2 Chinese spoken performances and the scores…

This paper reports an investigation into how the prompt may influence the discourse of group oral tests. The group oral test, in which three or four participants are rated on their ability to discuss a prompt, is a format for assessing the spoken ability of language learners. In this study, 141 Japanese university students were videoed in 41 group…