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"Language fluency"
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Refugees, Social Capital, and Labour Market Integration in the UK
This study examines the relationship between social capital and labour market integration of new refugees in the UK using the Survey of New Refugees (SNR). Our findings suggest that length of residency and language competency broaden one's social networks. Contacts with religious and co-national groups bring help with employment and housing. The mere possession of networks is not enough to enhance access to employment. However, the absence of social networks does appear to have a detrimental effect on access to work. The type of social capital appears to have no significant impact on the permanency or quality of employment. Rather, language competency, pre-migration qualifications and occupations, and time in the UK are most important in accessing work. Our findings also have clear implications for both asylum and integration policy. The unequivocal importance of language ability for accessing employment points to a clear policy priority in improving competency.
Journal Article
The Relationship Between Utterance and Perceived Fluency: A Meta-Analysis of Correlational Studies
Listener-based judgements of fluency play an important role in second language (L2) communication contexts and in L2 assessment. Accordingly, our meta-analysis examined the relationship between different aspects of utterance fluency and listener-based judgements of perceived fluency by analyzing primary studies reporting correlation coefficients between objective measures of temporal features and subjective ratings of fluency. We analyzed 263 effect sizes from 22 studies (N= 335-746) to calculate the mean effect sizes of the links between utterance and perceived fluency. We also investigated the moderator effects of 11 methodological factors—such as speech stimuli, listeners' background, rating procedure, and computation of utterance fluency measures—on the relationship between utterance and perceived fluency. Perceived fluency was strongly associated with speed and pause frequency, r = |.59-.62|; moderately with pause duration, r = |.46|; and weakly with repair fluency, r = |.20|; while composite measures showed the strongest effect sizes, r = |.72-.76|. Moderator analyses revealed that the utterance-perceived fluency link is influenced by methodological variables related to how speech samples are prepared for listeners' judgements and how listeners' attention is directed in evaluations of fluency. These findings suggest future directions for L2 fluency research and implications for language assessment.
Journal Article
Developing fluent readers : teaching fluency as a foundational skill
\"Viewing fluency as a bridge between foundational skills and open-ended learning, this book guides teachers through effective instruction and assessment of fluent reading skills in the primary grades. Fluency's relationship to phonological awareness, phonics, and print concepts is explained, and practical methods are shared for integrating fluency instruction in a literacy curriculum grounded in the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Classroom examples, weekly lesson plans, and extensive lists of recommended texts add to the book's utility for teachers\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Native Speakers and Native Users
'Native speakers' and 'native users' are terms traditionally used to differentiate between speakers who have acquired a language from birth and speakers who have learnt a second language. This book highlights the problems associated with making such a clear cut distinction. By analysing a range of literature, language uses and proficiency tests, Davies argues that there is no significant difference between native speakers and native users, and emphasises the importance of the Standard Language. Whilst individual native speakers may vary considerably, the academic construct of the native speaker is isomorphic with the Standard Language which is available to both native speakers and native users through education. In this book, Davies explores the 'native user', as a second language speaker who uses language with 'native speaker' competence. This book will be of significant interest to students and researchers working in the fields of second language acquisition and applied linguistics.
eBook
Exploring EFL fluency in Asia
\"While individual teachers interpret fluency differently, most working in EFL agree that it has a considerable influence on the success or failure of students' language learning. In EFL contexts, the absence of fluency-based practice opportunities can lead to low self-confidence, low language learning motivation, and limitations in learners' productive skills. This volume explores fluency in all fours skills (speaking, writing, reading and listening) and through a number of different perspectives to build upon existing research and to expand the fluency discussion to include consideration of classroom strategies for fluency development in EFL contexts. The definition of fluency as a trait of speaking is expanded to encompass all four language skills in an effort to illustrate its importance to all aspects of language learning. This volume includes a mixture of literature review chapters outlining the research paradigm for ongoing fluency research and empirical investigations into fluency development and measurement in the EFL classroom, making it relevant to both researchers and practitioners of EFL\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Aspects of Fluency Across Assessed Levels of Speaking Proficiency
Recent research in second language acquisition suggests that a number of speed, breakdown, repair, and composite measures reliably assess fluency and predict proficiency. However, there is little research evidence to indicate which measures best characterize fluency at each assessed level of proficiency and which can consistently distinguish one level from the next. This study investigated fluency in 32 speakers’ performing 4 tasks of the British Council's Aptis Speaking Test, which were awarded 4 different levels of proficiency (Common European Framework of Reference for Language levels A2–C1). Using PRAAT, the performances were analyzed for various aspects of utterance fluency across different levels of proficiency. The results suggest that speed and composite measures consistently distinguish fluency from the lowest to upper‐intermediate levels (A2–B2), and many breakdown measures differentiate between the lowest level (A2) and the rest of the proficiency groups, with a few differentiating between lower (A2, B1) and higher levels (B2, C1). The varied use of repair measures at different levels suggests that a more complex process is at play. The findings imply that a detailed micro‐analysis of fluency offers a more reliable understanding of the construct and its relationship with assessment of proficiency.
Journal Article
Language Matters: Status Loss and Achieved Status Distinctions in Global Organizations
How workers experience and express status loss in organizations has received little scholarly attention. I conducted a qualitative study of a French high-tech company that had instituted English as a lingua franca, or common language, as a context for examining this question. Results indicate that nonnative English-speaking employees experienced status loss regardless of their English fluency level. Yet variability in their self-assessed fluency—an achieved status marker—was associated with differences in language performance anxiety and job insecurity in a nonlinear fashion: those who believed they had medium-level fluency were the most anxious compared with their low- and high-fluency coworkers. In almost all cases where fluency ratings differed, self-assessed rather than objective fluency determined how speakers explained their feelings and actions. Although nonnative speakers shared a common attitude of resentment and distrust toward their native English-speaking coworkers, their behavioral responses—assertion, inhibition, or learning—to encounters with native speakers differed based on their self-perceived fluencies. No status differences materialized among nonnative speakers as a function of diverse linguistic and national backgrounds. I discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings for status, achieved characteristics, and language in organizations.
Journal Article