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Widening Contexts for Processability Theory: Theories and issues
Edited by Anke Lenzing, Howard Nicholas and Jana Roos
[Processability Approaches to Language Acquisition Research & Teaching 7] 2019
► pp. 371–390

Chapter 16
The role of grammatical development in oral assessment

Tests today are usually based on a communicative view of language, with less focus on grammar. In this chapter, a study is presented that investigates whether there is a difference in terms of grammatical development between a group of test-takers who passed and a group who failed an oral language test. The study addresses theories of SLA and language testing, i.e., Processability Theory and the model of Communicative Language Ability, the construct of the test. Data from learners’ test performances were analysed using PT in order to see whether there was a consistent relationship between the PT stage analysis and the results derived from the test. The comparison shows a clear difference between the test-takers who passed and those who failed in terms of grammatical development. This implies a correlation between grammatical development and communicative competence in general which may indicate that PT constitutes a useful basis for oral assessment.

Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical background
    • 2.1Processability hierarchy of Swedish
    • 2.2Communicative Language Ability
    • 2.3Aim of the study and research questions
  • 3.Design of the study
    • 3.1The oral test
    • 3.2The test-takers
    • 3.3Methodology
  • 4.Results
  • 5.Discussion of the results
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 28 November 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/palart.7.16hei
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