Self‐assessment: How reliable is it in assessing oral proficiency over time?

Abstract

Second language (L2) learners can assess their oral skills with some accuracy. A question is whether learners can reliably use self‐assessment to track their language gains over time. During the spring of two subsequent years, 80 university L2 Chinese learners completed an oral skills self‐assessment based on the NCSSFL‐ACTFL Can‐Do Statements (ACTFL, 2015) and took the computerized Oral Proficiency Interview (OPIc). Results were compared to see how accurate the self‐assessments were and to determine if the students’ self‐assessment skills improved. Most students’ OPIc gains were reflected in their self‐assessment gains; meanwhile, learners tended to underassess rather than overassess their skills. Students at the Novice and Advanced proficiency levels were more accurate self‐assessors than were Intermediate‐level learners. There was no difference in self‐assessment rating accuracy between Years 1 and 2. The findings suggest that self‐assessment based on the Can‐Do Statements is valuable for low‐stakes assessments: for example, to monitor students’ proficiency gains and to globally track the way in which language programs promote proficiency growth.