Michel Laurier

Identifying Second Language Speech Tasks and Ability Levels for Successful Nurse Oral Interaction with Patients in a Linguistic Minority Setting: An Instrument Development Project

One of the most demanding situations for members of linguistic minorities is a conversation between a health professional and a patient, a situation that frequently arises for linguistic minority groups in North America, Europe, and elsewhere. The present study reports on the construction of an oral interaction scale for nurses serving linguistic minorities in their second language (L2). A mixed methods approach was used to identify and validate a set of speech activities relating to nurse interactions with patients and to derive the L2 ability required to carry out those tasks. The research included an extensive literature review, the development of an initial list of speech tasks, and validation of this list with a nurse focus group. The retained speech tasks were then developed into a questionnaire and administered to 133 Quebec nurses who assessed each speech task for difficulty in an L2 context. Results were submitted to Rasch analysis and calibrated with reference to the Canadian Language Benchmarks, and the constructs underlying the speech tasks were identified through exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Results showed that speech tasks dealing with emotional aspects of caregiving and conveying health-specific information were reported as being the most demanding in terms of L2 ability, and the most strongly associated with L2 ability required for nurse–patient interactions. Implications are discussed with respect to the development and use of assessment instruments to facilitate L2 workplace training for health care professionals.

Évaluation et multimédia dans l’apprentissage d’une L2

In the first part of this paper different areas where technology may be used for second language assessment are described. First, item banking operations, which are generally based on Item Response Theory but not necessarily restricted to dichotomously scored items, facilitate assessment task organization and require technological support. Second, technology may help to design more authentic assessment tasks or may be needed in some direct testing situations. Third, the assessment environment may be more adapted and more stimulating when technology is used to give the student more control. The second part of the paper presents different functions of assessment. The monitoring function (often called formative assessment) aims at adapting the classroom activities to students and to provide continuous feedback. Technology may be used to train the teachers in monitoring techniques, to organize data or to produce diagnostic information; electronic portfolios or quizzes that are built in some educational software may also be used for monitoring. The placement function is probably the one in which the application of computer adaptive testing procedures (e.g. French CAPT) is the most appropriate. Automatic scoring devices may also be used for placement purposes. Finally the certification function requires more valid and more reliable tools. Technology may be used to enhance the testing situation (to make it more authentic) or to facilitate data processing during the construction of a test. Almond et al. (2002) propose a four component model (Selection, Presentation, Scoring and Response) for designing assessment systems. Each component must be planned taking into account the assessment function.

Can computerised testing be authentic

The concept of authenticity first appeared with the development of the communicative approach. More recently, in the field of educational measurement, authentic assessment methods have been proposed. Although adaptive testing seems to be the most important application of computers in language assessment, these tests are usually not authentic. Since many real world tasks are accomplished with computers, these may be used for authentic direct testing. Computers may be also used in semi-direct testing as a way to enhance the context. Finally in authentic assessment, computers may be used as a tool to process the data when the learners use them to organise their portfolio. Using the computer, test developers can also create better authentic tests.