Welcome to the companion website for Testing Talk: Ways to Assess L2 Oral Proficiency! Here, readers have full access to all companion materials described in Chapters 2, 5, 6, 7, and 8. The companion website provides audio-recordings of all analytic excerpts presented in the book, and additionally, other authentic test and assessment materials. The website also offers study and research questions which complement the materials presented in the book. Furthermore, readers will find links to several well-known assessment constructs and scoring rubrics, and to our original empirical studies (open access publications). We encourage our readers to explore the website in search of examples or testing data that they can learn more from, and use in their own contexts, such as for rater training and collegial professional development, as well as for advancing their individual knowlegde base.
If readers are interested in using any of the materials for research and publication purposes, please contact the authors for permission.
We hope readers will enjoy the book and this website!
Pia and Erica
How to use the companion website
The website is divided into sections according to the different chapters. In Part One of the book, related to Chapter 2, we provide two audio excerpts from the Practical Problem, along with a full, anonymized audio recording and an accompanying rough transcript. For Part Two – the empirical chapters of the book – readers will find a description of the materials available on this website at the end of Chapters 5, 6, 7, and 8. While we offer various study questions and relevant links, we also encourage listening to the audio excerpts while reading the book.
Chapter 2
Chapter 2 presents a Practical Problem regarding how to view and assess fluency. The two audio excerpts (2:1a and 2:1b) are available. Furthermore, the full test recording, along with a rough transcript [file code: 530423031], is also available for further explorations of the test-takers’ fluency.
Chapter 5
At the companion website for Chapter 5, readers find full test recordings [file codes: 11011181, 31171142, 3101108116] along with different scoring rubrics. With this material, readers can organize collegial or research workshops where the test recordings can be assessed according to different types of scoring rubrics and test constructs that are made available. There are also discussion questions and suggestions for how to work with the materials. The website also provides DOI links to the relevant publications reported in the chapter.
Chapter 6
At the companion website, readers find all excerpts presented in Chapter 6, which can be used for collegial discussions on L2 oral proficiency and interaction in relation to task management as well as to rater conduct in test interaction. We also provide discussion questions with each excerpt.
Chapter 7
For further discussion, edited audio recordings of all data excerpts presented in Chapter 7 are available. The learner test used for the rater moderation study (Sandlund & Sundqvist, 2019) is available in its entirety, with suggestions on how it can be used for rater discussions as professional development. We also suggest that readers examine the sequence that the raters reported on—the “mom” turn—and consider why the sequence in question was brought up in all four rater groups.
Chapter 8
At the companion website for Chapter 8, readers will find materials from the workshops outlined. Specifically, templates used in Case study 2a are available, which may be used for the organization of research and development efforts targeting rater variation and rater profiles, including templates for rater feedback and scoring. We also recommend reading Sundqvist et al. (2020) for a description of the methodological steps in constructing the rater profiles. Furthermore, the companion website includes a fully anonymized recording of an oral test (one of the tests used in Case study 2b), with accompanying study questions designed to be used for local arrangements such as L2 English teachers’ conference hours, where colleagues can use the recording in working together on assessment.
The website also provides links to the authors’ publications cited in the book.
