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This study examines&nbsp;the interaction effect between rater groups and tasks on evaluating EFL&nbsp;learners’ written performances. Fifty raters took part in this study. The experienced&nbsp;rater group (n=25) and the novice rater group (n=25) judged sixty essays (30 narratives and 30 argumentative writing modes) written by third-year English&nbsp;students. Raters’ decision-making behaviours, in terms of scores assignment and&nbsp;written comments, were diagnosed based on different quantitative and&nbsp;qualitative tools. Scores were analysed based on FACETS to examine the effects&nbsp;of rater-task&nbsp; interaction on raters’ severity and internal consistency and the&nbsp;analytic scale’s functionality. Qualitative data were also analysed to diagnose&nbsp;which aspects of writing were deemed more important than others across rater&nbsp;groups and task types. The analysis revealed that both raters and tasks were&nbsp;substantially influential factors. The majority of expert raters displayed more&nbsp;severity in assessing narrative essays than argumentative essays. Different&nbsp;qualitative judgments are also detected across raters and tasks due to rating&nbsp;experience and task requirements. The findings of this study reflected&nbsp;implications not only for testing learners’ writing proficiency but also for&nbsp;test validation research in the task-based writing performance assessment&nbsp;field.

ltf.2021.04.03.pdf

Original Research 

ltf.2021.04.03.xml

Rater-task interaction effects on testing EFL learners’ written performances

Fossilization is said to be a distinctive characteristic of second language (L2) learning (Selinker, 1972, 1996; Han, 2004). It is the most pervasive among adult L2 learners (Han and Odlin, 2006). This linguistic phenomenon has been characterized by cessation of learning, even though the learner is exposed to frequent input.&nbsp; Based on the findings of the MA dissertation of the first researcher which is about ‘phonetic fossilization’ and where she conducted a longitudinal study, Han’s Selective Fossilization Hypothesis (SFL) is used to analyze the obtained fossilized phonetic errors in relation to L1 markedness and L2 robustness with a particular focus on fossilized vowel sounds. This is an analytical model for identifying both acquisitional and fossilizable linguistic features based on learners’ first language (L1) markedness and second language (L2) robustness. The article first gives an overview of the theory of Interlanguage and the phenomenon of fossilization. Then, it introduces SFL. This is an attempt to study fossilization scientifically. In other words, it tests the predictive power of a developed L1 Markedness and L2 Robustness rating scale based on Han’s (2009) model. The present study has pedagogic implications; it is an opportunity to raise teachers’ awareness on this common linguistic phenomenon.

LTF_Submission_00114.pdf

ltf.2020.02.01.xml

Assessing the Role of Selective Fossilization Hypothesis in Determining Fossilizable Phonetic Errors in Tunisian EFL Learners’ Oral Output