“Repeat as much as you can”: elicited imitation as a measure of global proficiency in L2 French

Tracy-Ventura, Nicole, McManus, Kevin, Norris, John M. and Ortega, Lourdes (2013) “Repeat as much as you can”: elicited imitation as a measure of global proficiency in L2 French. In, Leclercq, Pascale, Hilton, Heather and Edmonds, Amanda (eds.) Proficiency Assessment Issues in SLA Research: Measures and Practices. Bristol, GB. Multilingual Matters. (In Press)

Abstract

A variety of second language (L2) proficiency measures are used in second language acquisition (SLA) research, ranging from self-report ratings to standardized tests (see reviews by Thomas, 1994 & 2006; Tremblay, 2011; and also discussion by Hulstijn, 2011, 2012). Researchers’ purposes for measuring global L2 proficiency are varied, and often proficiency itself is just a secondary variable in SLA research programs that investigate some other central variable construct (e.g., development of grammatical subsystems, effects of interactional feedback, learners’ vocabulary size). In this chapter we describe the development of an elicited imitation (EI) test used to measure French L2 oral proficiency. This test is the newest addition in a series of EIs that are already available in five different L2s: Chinese, English, German, Japanese, and Spanish (Ortega, Iwashita, Rabie, & Norris, 1999; Zhou & Wu, 2009). We argue that Elicited Imitation offers a useful tool for systemic yet practical assessment of L2 proficiency for a variety of SLA research purposes. Among the benefits of this particular proficiency measure are that it is quick to administer, and that, with parallel versions in multiple languages, it allows for crosslinguistic SLA comparisons and accumulation of interpretable findings across a variety of L2s other than English

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