Article published in:
The Assessment of Functional Adequacy in Language Performance: Special issue of the Journal on Task-Based Language Teaching and Learning 2:1 (2022)
Edited by Folkert Kuiken and Ineke Vedder
[TASK 2:1] 2022
► pp. 60–84

Assessing writing development during study abroad

The role of task and measures of linguistic and communicative performance

| University of Antwerp
| Ghent University

In research about second language (L2) development during study abroad (SA), writing is underrepresented. This is partly due to the difficulty of designing adequate tasks and measures to gauge writing development during a short immersion period. Our study explores the applicability of a narrative task assessed in terms of both linguistic complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) and functional adequacy (FA), a novelty in SA writing research. Texts written by 30 advanced students of L2 German before and after SA were analysed. The results show moderate correlations between the measures for fluency and lexical variation and two FA dimensions. This suggests that, in the SA context, CAF and FA develop together to a certain extent, although the constructs are conceptually different.

Keywords: task-based language assessment, study abroad, writing development, functional adequacy, L2 German
Article outline
  • Writing development in study abroad and the role of task
  • The assessment of L2 text quality along CAF and FA dimensions
  • Research questions
  • Methodology
    • Participants
    • Writing task
    • Analysis measures
      • Complexity
      • Accuracy
      • Fluency
      • Functional adequacy
  • Results
  • Discussion
  • Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 20 June 2022
https://doi.org/10.1075/task.21010.str
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