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January 2017 - present
January 2017 - December 2022
November 2008 - December 2016
Publications
Publications (69)
In second language (L2) research and testing, measures of oral fluency are used as diagnostics for proficiency. However, fluency is also determined by personality or speaking style, raising the question to what extent L2 fluency measures are valid indicators of L2 proficiency. In this study, we obtained a measure of L2 (Dutch) proficiency (vocabula...
This paper compares the distribution of silent and filled pauses in first (L1) and second language (L2) speech. The occurrence of pauses of 52 L2 and 18 L1 Dutch speakers was evaluated with respect to utterance boundaries and word frequency. We found that L2 speakers paused more often than L1 speakers within utterances; but not between utterances....
Many researchers use Cronbach’s alpha to demonstrate internal consistency, even though it has
been shown numerous times that Cronbach’s alpha is not suitable for this. Because the intention of
questionnaire and test constructers is to summarize the test by its overall sum score, we advocate
summability, which we define as the proportion of total te...
This article considers the construct of fluency in second language assessment and how it might be informed by research in applied linguistics. It briefly describes the way fluency is conceptualized in four language tests, as embodied in their respective assessment criteria, to show where the field is at present. The article then takes into account...
In today's global economy, most people all over the world need to speak a second language (L2) for study, work, or social purposes. Assessment of speaking, either in the classroom or as an external exam, is therefore an important task. However, because of its fleeting nature, the assessment of speaking proficiency is difficult. For valid assessment...
In our presentation, we will report on the development and use of a fluency rating scale for Swiss German Sign Language (Deutschschweizerische Gebärdensprache, DSGS). The rating scale was developed by analyzing annotated productions of nine deaf L1 DSGS users, 10 L2 advanced DSGS users (interpreters), and 11 L2 DSGS beginning learners. The annotate...
In current research into second language (L2) speaking, aspects of fluency are measured as static constructs. Averaged over a complete speaking performance, for instance, syllables per minute is calculated. Similarly, the number of pauses is calculated per minute, averaged over a complete speaking task. This paper argues, however, that we need to i...
Although the debilitative effect of foreign language anxiety (FLA) on second-language (L2) performance and L2 speaking has repeatedly been shown, it is unclear in what way FLA affects L2 fluency and the speech production processes that lead to (dis)fluency. The current study investigates the effect of FLA on the utterance fluency of Dutch learners...
Gepubliceerd in Levende Talen Magazine:
Jong, N. de, Berns, J., & Mearns, T. (2023). Toetsing als vertrekpunt voor vernieuwing. Levende Talen Magazine, 110(3), 30–35. https://lt-tijdschriften.nl/ojs/index.php/ltm/article/view/2336
De vakvernieuwingscommissie moderne vreemde talen (mvt), ingesteld door SLO, werkt in opdracht van het ministerie van...
This study examines correlations between the prosody of infant-directed speech (IDS) and children's vocabulary size. We collected longitudinal speech data and vocabulary information from Dutch mother-child dyads with children aged 18 (N = 49) and 24 (N = 27) months old. We took speech context into consideration and distinguished between prosody whe...
This study examines (1) whether infant-directed speech (IDS) facilitates children’s word learning compared to adult-directed speech (ADS); and (2) the link between the prosody of IDS in word-learning contexts and children’s word learning from ADS and IDS. Twenty-four Dutch mother-child dyads participated when children were 18 and 24 months old. We...
Fluency in terms of speed of speech and (lack of) hesitations such as silent and filled pauses (‘uhm’s) is part of oral proficiency. Language assessment rubrics therefore include aspects of fluency. Measuring fluency, however, is highly time-consuming because of the manual labour involved. The current paper aims to automatically measure aspects of...
The ability to learn a foreign language, language aptitude, is known to differ between individuals. To better understand second-language learning, language aptitude tests, tapping into the different components of second-language learning aptitude, are widely used. For valid conclusions on comparisons of learners with different language backgrounds,...
Studies of motivation in bilingual education settings often address questions of differences between learners in bilingual programmes and those in mainstream education. Problematic in this respect is our increasing awareness of the inherent differences between these two learner groups, as learners in bilingual programmes have often chosen or been s...
Previous research indicates that infant-directed speech (IDS) is usually slower than adult-directed speech (ADS) and mothers prefer placing a focused word in isolation or utterance-final position in (English) IDS, which may benefit word learning. This study investigated the speaking rate and word position of IDS in two typologically-distinct langua...
Fluency is an important part of research on second language learning, but most research on language proficiency typically has not included oral fluency as part of interactions even though natural communication usually occurs in conversations. The present study considered aspects of turn‐taking behavior as part of the construct of fluency and invest...
What should teachers do to facilitate students' learning to speak a second language? This entry introduces speaking as a skill under time pressure; it describes how scholars have defined the speaking ability and looks at what knowledge and skills they deem necessary for successful speaking. It goes on to present what researchers have said about tea...
This study investigates the pitch properties of infant-directed speech (IDS) specific to word-learning contexts in which mothers introduce unfamiliar words to children. Using a semi-spontaneous story-book telling task, we examined (1) whether mothers made distinctions between unfamiliar and familiar words with pitch in IDS compared to adult-directe...
This chapter explores relationships between vocabulary knowledge and fluent speech. The reporting of multiple vocabulary task scores is an emerging trend in vocabulary research (Clenton et al., 2019; Fitzpatrick & Clenton, 2017) and while fluency papers (De Jong et al., 2013; 2015) report significant relationships with vocabulary measures, these ar...
Samenvatting Een nieuwe didactiek voor de lespraktijk zal alleen succesvol worden geïmplementeerd als deze niet alleen leerzaam voor leerlingen, maar ook praktisch uitvoerbaar voor docenten is. In deze bijdrage stellen we een adaptieve aanpak voor spreekvaardigheidsonderwijs in moderne vreemde talen voor, de zogenoemde SpeakTeach-didactiek, die, om...
Little is known about the effect of diverging pedagogies on the development of interactional oral skills in a foreign language. In a controlled study, we evaluated three newly developed instructional programmes that were situated in the same training context, but that differed in instructional focus and type of task. These were compared to the effe...
Little is known about the effects of different instructional approaches on learner affect in oral interaction in the foreign language classroom. In a randomized experiment with Dutch pre‐vocational learners (N = 147), we evaluated the effects of 3 newly developed instructional programs for English as a foreign language (EFL). These programs differe...
When speaking in any language, speakers must conceptualize what they want to say before they can formulate and articulate their message. We present two experiments employing a novel experimental paradigm in which the formulating and articulating stages of speech production were kept identical across conditions of differing conceptualizing difficult...
Course materials play a vital role in the foreign language classroom. Relatively little attention has been paid, however, to analyzing the activities that foster oral interactional ability in course materials for English as a foreign language (EFL). For the purpose of this study, a coding scheme was designed that focuses specifically on the develop...
Significance
When we speak, we unconsciously pronounce some words more slowly than others and sometimes pause. Such slowdown effects provide key evidence for human cognitive processes, reflecting increased planning load in speech production. Here, we study naturalistic speech from linguistically and culturally diverse populations from around the wo...
Tonal information is essential to early word learning in tone languages. Although numerous studies have investigated the intonational and segmental properties of infant-directed speech (IDS), only a few studies have explored the properties of lexical tones in IDS. These studies mostly focused on the first year of life; thus little is known about ho...
It has been widely accepted that infant-directed speech (IDS) has a slower speaking rate than adult-directed speech (ADS) (e.g., Cristia, 2013), which is assumed to facilitate language development. This study aims at finding out whether this finding holds for Dutch and Mandarin Chinese and whether mothers slow down speaking rate to highlight unfami...
Speaking fluently requires three main processes to run smoothly: conceptualization, formulation, and articulation. This study investigates to what extent fluency in spontaneous speech in both first (L1) and second (L2) languages can be explained by individual differences in articulatory skills. A group of L2 English learners (n = 51) performed thre...
This article explores ways to assess interactional performance, and reports on the use of a test format that standardizes the interlocutor’s linguistic and interactional contributions to the exchange. It describes the construction and administration of six scripted speech tasks (instruction, advice, and sales tasks) with pre-vocational learners ( n...
U vindt in deze bundel twee artikelen over factoren die mogelijk van invloed zijn op de begrijpelijkheid van geschreven teksten, zoals de mate van concreetheid van bepaalde woorden (Spooren e.a.), en de bertrouwdheid van de lezer met de culturele context (El Aissati & Stokmans). U vindt ook onderzoeken naar gesproken taal in interactie: over de inv...
Disfluencies, such as uh and uhm, are known to help the listener in speech comprehension. For instance, disfluencies may elicit prediction of less accessible referents and may trigger listeners' attention to the following word. However, recent work suggests differential processing of disfluencies in native and non-native speech. The current study i...
This study investigates how syntactic complexity affects speaking performance in first (L1) and second language (L2) in terms of speaking fluency. Participants (30 Dutch native speakers with an average to advanced level of English) performed two speaking experiments, one in Dutch (L1) and one in English (L2). Syntactic complexity was operationalize...
Where native speakers supposedly are fluent by default, nonnative speakers often have to strive hard to achieve a nativelike fluency level. However, disfluencies (such as pauses, fillers, repairs, etc.) occur in both native and nonnative speech and it is as yet unclear how fluency raters weigh the fluency characteristics of native and nonnative spe...
Speech comprehension involves extensive use of prediction. Linguistic prediction may be guided by the semantics or syntax, but also by the performance characteristics of the speech signal, such as disfluency. Previous studies have shown that listeners, when presented with the filler uh, exhibit a disfluency bias for discourse-new or unknown referen...
Oral fluency and foreign accent distinguish L2 from L1 speech production. In language testing practices, both fluency and accent are usually assessed by raters. This study investigates what exactly native raters of fluency and accent take into account when judging L2. Our aim is to explore the relationship between objectively measured temporal, seg...
The entry starts with a definition of speaking ability in order to identify components of speaking that learners will need to acquire to become successful speakers. Six types of knowledge, ranging from lexical knowledge to knowledge about problem solving in speaking, are identified. Alongside these types of knowledge, a learner must master the acco...
The oral fluency level of an L2 speaker is often used as a measure in assessing language proficiency. The present study reports on four experiments investigating the contributions of three fluency aspects (pauses, speed and repairs) to perceived fluency. In Experiment 1 untrained raters evaluated the oral fluency of L2 Dutch speakers. Using specifi...
Second language (L2) research often involves analyses of acoustic measures of fluency. The studies investigating fluency, however, have been difficult to compare because the measures of fluency that were used differed widely. One of the differences between studies concerns the lower cutoff point for silent pauses, which has been set anywhere betwee...
This study examined lexical and grammatical knowledge of adult learners of Dutch as a second language (L2) at the B1 and B2 speaking-proficiency levels of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. In a sample of 208 Dutch L2 learners, 80 and 30 participants were found
to be proficient in speaking at the B1 and B2 levels respectively...
This study investigated how individual differences in linguistic knowledge and processing skills relate to individual differences in speaking fluency. Speakers of Dutch as a second language (N = 179) performed eight speaking tasks, from which several measures of fluency were derived such as measures for pausing, repairing, and speed (mean syllable...
This study examines the associations between the speaking proficiency of 181 adult learners of Dutch as a second language and their linguistic competences. Performance in eight speaking tasks was rated on a scale of communicative adequacy. After extrapolation of these ratings to the Overall Oral Production scale of the Common European Framework of...
ABSTRACT This study examined the componential structure of second-language (L2) speaking proficiency. Participants—181 L2 and 54 native speakers of Dutch—performed eight speaking tasks and six tasks tapping nine linguistic skills. Performance in the speaking tasks was rated on functional adequacy by a panel of judges and formed the dependent variab...
This study investigated the effect of direct and indirect comprehensive corrective feedback (CF) on second language (L2) learners’ written accuracy (N= 268). The study set out to explore the value of CF as a revising tool as well as its capacity to support long‐term accuracy development. In addition, we tested Truscott's (e.g., 2001, 2007) claims t...
This study investigated how task complexity affected native and non-native speakers’ speaking performance in terms of a measure of communicative success (functional adequacy), three types of fluency (breakdown fluency, speed fluency, and repair fluency), and lexical diversity. Participants (208 non-native and 59 native speakers of Dutch) carried ou...
The purpose of this study is to establish measures of language dominance in bilinguals who speak structurally different languages, in our case German and Turkish, with tools that are based on fluency and oral proficiency. A ‘balanced’ bilingual with equal proficiency in two (or more) languages is hardly ever found (e.g. Grosjean, 1982; Olsson, & Su...
In this article, we describe a method for automatically detecting syllable nuclei in order to measure speech rate without the need for a transcription. A script written in the software program Praat (Boersma & Weenink, 2007) detects syllables in running speech. Peaks in intensity (dB) that are preceded and followed by dips in intensity are consider...
Among scholars there is disagreement on the benefits of corrective feedback on second language learners’ written output. While some researchers advocate the usefulness of corrective feedback, Truscott claims that all error correction is unnecessary, ineffective, and even harmful, in that it diverts time and energy away from more productive aspects...
Two picture naming experiments, in which an initial picture was occasionally replaced with another (target) picture, were conducted to study the temporal coordination of abandoning one word and resuming with another word in speech production. In Experiment 1, participants abandoned saying the initial name, and resumed with the name of the target pi...
The question if second language learners can benefit from corrective feedback has been a fiercely debated topic in the academic field for over a decade. Until now, research outcomes cannot settle this discussion since only short-term effectiveness of corrective feedback could be demonstrated. Due to methodological shortcomings, results from studies...
Among scholars there is disagreement on the benefits of corrective feedback on second language learners’ written output. While some researchers advocate the usefulness of corrective feedback, Truscott claims that all error correction is unnecessary, ineffective, and even harmful, in that it diverts time and energy away from more productive aspects...
The question if second language learners can benefit from corrective feedback has been a fiercely debated topic in the academic field for over a decade. Until now, research outcomes cannot settle this discussion since only short-term effectiveness of corrective feedback could be demonstrated. Due to methodological shortcomings, results from studies...
In this paper, we describe a method to automatically measure speech rate without the need of a transcription. A script written in the software program PRAAT detects syllables in running speech. Peaks in intensity (dB) that are preceded by dips in intensity are considered as potential syllable nuclei. The script subsequently deletes peaks that are n...
This study uses the morphological family size effect as a tool for exploring the degree of isomorphism in the networks of morphologically related words in the Hebrew and Dutch mental lexicon. Hebrew and Dutch are genetically unrelated, and they structure their morphologically complex words in very different ways. Two visual lexical decision experim...
When speakers repair speech errors, they plan the repair in the context of an abandoned word (the error) that is usually similar in meaning or form. Two picture-naming experiments tested whether the error's lexical representations influence repair planning. Context pictures were sometimes replaced with target pictures; the picture names were relate...
Words occur as morphological constituents in other words. The number of complex words (e.g., great-ness, great-ly, …) in which a base word (e.g., great) occurs, its morphological family size, is a strong co-determinant of response latencies in visual lexical processing. Words that occur in many other words are responded to faster than words that oc...
In this study, we use the association between various measures of the morphological family and decision latencies to reveal the way in which the components of Dutch and English compounds are processed. The results show that for constituents of concatenated compounds in both languages, a position-related token count of the morphological family plays...
This chapter addresses the balance of storage and computation in the mental lexicon for fully regular and productive inflectional
processes in Dutch. We present evidence that both regular inflected nouns and regular inflected verbs show clear and robust
effects of storage, but that at the same time on-line parsing also plays a role. We argue that t...
Words can occur as constituents of other words. Some words have a high morphological productivity, in that they occur in many complex words, whereas others are morphological islands. Previous studies have found that the size of a word's morphological family can co-determine response latencies in lexical decision tasks. This thesis shows, using lexi...
It has been reported that in visual lexical decision response latencies to simplex nouns are shorter when these nouns have large morphological families, i.e., when they appear as constituents in large numbers of derived words and compounds. This study presents the results of four experiments that show that verbs have a Family Size effect independen...
We report an experiment that unambiguously shows an effect of full-form frequency for fully regular Dutch inflected verbs falling into Clahsen's “default” category, negating Clahsen's claim that regular complex words in the default category are not stored.
