EVALUATING SECOND LANGUAGE ORAL SKILLS IN AN ON-LINE VIDEOCONFERENCING ENVIRONMENT

To date, most oral evaluations in second language learning take place during class time (ex: Student Oral Language Observation Matrix) or in the context of formal testing (ex: Test of Oral English Proficiency). However, with on-line courses flourishing to develop oral interactions through synchronous audio-video tools (ex: Skype), new evaluation practices need to be designed to take into account these unique second-language learning environments (Nissen, Poyet et Soubrié, 2011). The aim of our study is to report how novice on-line tutors evaluate oral second language skills developed in a videoconferencing setting.

Over the course of a twelve-week program in a Master degree of Applied Linguistics at the University of Strasbourg, 12 apprentice tutors were trained to design and implement French as a second language conversational sessions (Meskill, 2009) for students registered in various fields of studies at Harvard University. These sessions were delivered through an on-line virtual classroom (Adobe Connect) which relies heavily on videoconferencing tools. Five sessions of 20 minutes each were recorded through screen captures for a total of 45 Harvard students.

A general evaluation grid was designed so that each session could be graded according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Language grid in order to assess the evolution of the students’ oral skills over the course of a semester. A task-based grid was also filled for each session. A questionnaire distributed to the on-line tutors as well as an analysis of the various grids filled out over the semester reveal that on-line tutors felt that they need to adjust their evaluation practices in order to take into account the specificities of on-line video delivery mode such as multi-tasking, multimodal (audio-video-written) exchanges, recording possibilities, etc. Proposals for new grids of evaluations will also be discussed.