This paper discusses the approach to the CET (college English test) oral test based on automatic essay marking (AEM). The reliability and validity arouses a dispute on Internet-based CET (iB-CET) oral test in Ch...This paper discusses the approach to the CET (college English test) oral test based on automatic essay marking (AEM). The reliability and validity arouses a dispute on Internet-based CET (iB-CET) oral test in China, leading to the penetration into oral test contents in dialogue, description or comment, and question answering. Then, a probe into transformation from a spoken document into a textual document is touched on a conversion ratio of 72% adopted at the present time, AEM to be carried forward being a necessary hypothesis for Afterwards, this paper focuses on the pipeline in AEM with the content features and the language itself, which is established in two different models in marking for extraction and detection. Through experiments, this paper reveals the fact that an iB-CET oral test can be performed perfectly in the pipeline of spoken documents transformed into textual documents which can be automatically marked. Hence the design of the iB-CET oral test reaches its reliability and validity.展开更多
This study investigates how raters make their scoring decisions when assessing tape-mediated speaking test performance. 24 Chinese EFL teachers were trained before scoring analytically five sample tapes selected from ...This study investigates how raters make their scoring decisions when assessing tape-mediated speaking test performance. 24 Chinese EFL teachers were trained before scoring analytically five sample tapes selected from TEM4-Oral, a national EFL speaking test designed for college English major sophomores in China. The raters' verbal reports concerning what they were thinking about while making their scoring decisions were audio-recorded and collected during and immediately after each assessment. Post-scoring interviews were used as supplements to the probe of the scoring process. A qualitative analysis of the data showed that the raters tended to give weight to the content, to punish both grammar and pronunciation errors and to reward the use of impressive and uncommon words. Moreover, the whole decision-making process was proved to be cyclic in nature. A flow chart describing the cyclic process of hypothesis forming and testing was then proposed and discussed.展开更多
This paper reports an empirical study on the intelligibility of English spoken by Chinese University students, aiming to identify the factors that hamper intelligibility and suggest the pedagogical priorities in pronu...This paper reports an empirical study on the intelligibility of English spoken by Chinese University students, aiming to identify the factors that hamper intelligibility and suggest the pedagogical priorities in pronunciation teaching. The participants were 45 university sophomores, whose recorded data were transcribed and evaluated correspondingly by 45 educated listeners from 22 different countries. The results reveal that although the speakers' English may have strong accents, it is intelligible to international listeners to a great extent. Phonological problems that hamper intelligibility are vowel length and quality, simplification of diphthongs, voiced and voiceless plosives, dental fricative, word ending nasals, consonant clusters as well as stress, rhythm and intonation.展开更多
基金The Humanities and Social Sciences Project granted from the Ministry of Education in China(No.10YJA740061,11YJA740121)the Teaching Reform Key Project under Educational Section of Jiangsu Province(No.2011JSJG453)+3 种基金Southeast University Teaching Reform Project for Graduates(No.2010-54)Southeast University Teaching Reform Project for Post-Graduates(No.KJGKT12-06)the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province(No.BK2008354)the National Natural Science Foundation of China(No.6550181821,60975017)
文摘This paper discusses the approach to the CET (college English test) oral test based on automatic essay marking (AEM). The reliability and validity arouses a dispute on Internet-based CET (iB-CET) oral test in China, leading to the penetration into oral test contents in dialogue, description or comment, and question answering. Then, a probe into transformation from a spoken document into a textual document is touched on a conversion ratio of 72% adopted at the present time, AEM to be carried forward being a necessary hypothesis for Afterwards, this paper focuses on the pipeline in AEM with the content features and the language itself, which is established in two different models in marking for extraction and detection. Through experiments, this paper reveals the fact that an iB-CET oral test can be performed perfectly in the pipeline of spoken documents transformed into textual documents which can be automatically marked. Hence the design of the iB-CET oral test reaches its reliability and validity.
文摘This study investigates how raters make their scoring decisions when assessing tape-mediated speaking test performance. 24 Chinese EFL teachers were trained before scoring analytically five sample tapes selected from TEM4-Oral, a national EFL speaking test designed for college English major sophomores in China. The raters' verbal reports concerning what they were thinking about while making their scoring decisions were audio-recorded and collected during and immediately after each assessment. Post-scoring interviews were used as supplements to the probe of the scoring process. A qualitative analysis of the data showed that the raters tended to give weight to the content, to punish both grammar and pronunciation errors and to reward the use of impressive and uncommon words. Moreover, the whole decision-making process was proved to be cyclic in nature. A flow chart describing the cyclic process of hypothesis forming and testing was then proposed and discussed.
基金supported by the Human and Social Sciences Foundation of Ministry of Education entitled "The International Intelligibility of English Spoken by Chinese University Students"(Grant No.11YJC740142)the Fundamental Research Funds for National UniversityChina University of Geosciences(Grant No.CUG130105)
文摘This paper reports an empirical study on the intelligibility of English spoken by Chinese University students, aiming to identify the factors that hamper intelligibility and suggest the pedagogical priorities in pronunciation teaching. The participants were 45 university sophomores, whose recorded data were transcribed and evaluated correspondingly by 45 educated listeners from 22 different countries. The results reveal that although the speakers' English may have strong accents, it is intelligible to international listeners to a great extent. Phonological problems that hamper intelligibility are vowel length and quality, simplification of diphthongs, voiced and voiceless plosives, dental fricative, word ending nasals, consonant clusters as well as stress, rhythm and intonation.