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Discourse competence across band scores: an analysis of speaking performance in the General English Proficiency Test

  • Yen-Liang Lin EMAIL logo , Yu-Chan Tsai and Chen-Yu Chester Hsieh
Published/Copyright: May 12, 2023
International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching
From the journal International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching Volume 62 Issue 4

Abstract

While discourse competence (DC) has been identified as the core competence in English as a foreign language (EFL) learning and communication, only a few empirical studies have focused on DC in speaking assessments. This study investigates the discourse features (i.e., cohesion and coherence) of Taiwanese candidates’ performances in an argumentative exposition task in the General English Proficiency Test (GEPT) by analyzing the construction of cohesion and coherence across four band scores (i.e., Bands 2, 3, 4, and 5). Cohesion analysis showed that all the three types of cohesion devices (i.e., grammatical, logical, and lexical) develop linearly with increasing band score levels. The higher-score test-takers (Bands 4 and 5) adopted grammatically and semantically more appropriate references to establish an accurate relation with the referents. They also tended to use a higher frequency of overall conjunctions (particularly additive) and repetition to promote logical and lexical cohesion. Coherence analysis found that high-score candidates were more equipped to produce a response that complies with the expected generic structure of argumentative tasks. While more complex theme-rheme patterns appeared more frequently in the discourse of higher-score candidates, theme reiteration patterns were only observed in Band 2. These results illustrate how Taiwanese EFL learners demonstrate DC with cohesive and coherence strategies in speaking test performance across band scores. Pedagogical implications for language teaching and learning are then discussed.

Keywords: coherence; cohesion; discourse competence; general English proficiency test (GEPT); speaking test performance
Corresponding author: Yen-Liang Lin, Department of English, National Taipei University of Technology, Taipei, 10608, Taiwan, E-mail:

Funding source: The Language Training & Testing Center (LTTC)

Award Identifier / Grant number: LTTC_Grants 20-03

  1. Research funding: This research was supported by the LTTC’s Teaching and Research Grants (LTTC_Grants 20-03). Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or suggestions expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the LTTC, its related entities or its partners.

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Received: 2022-08-02
Accepted: 2023-04-05
Published Online: 2023-05-12
Published in Print: 2024-11-26

© 2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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  1. Frontmatter
  2. Research Articles
  3. “Am I really abroad?” The informal language contact and social networks of Chinese foundation students in the UK
  4. Comprehension of English articles by Korean learners of L2 English and L3 Spanish
  5. Motivation and growth in kanji proficiency: a longitudinal study using latent growth curve modeling
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  21. Strategic reading comprehension in L2 and L3: assuming relative interdependence within Cummins’ linguistic interdependence hypothesis
  22. Incidental collocational learning from reading-while-listening and the impact of synchronized textual enhancement
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  24. The use of interlanguage pragmatic learning strategies (IPLS) by L2 learners: the impact of age, gender, language learning experience, and L2 proficiency levels
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  27. Investigating the effects of varying Accelerative Integrated Method instruction on spoken recall accuracy: a case study with junior primary learners of French
  28. Testing a model of EFL teachers’ work engagement: the roles of teachers’ professional identity, L2 grit, and foreign language teaching enjoyment
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https://doi.org/10.1515/iral-2022-0154
Keywords for this article
coherence; cohesion; discourse competence; general English proficiency test (GEPT); speaking test performance

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Research Articles
  3. “Am I really abroad?” The informal language contact and social networks of Chinese foundation students in the UK
  4. Comprehension of English articles by Korean learners of L2 English and L3 Spanish
  5. Motivation and growth in kanji proficiency: a longitudinal study using latent growth curve modeling
  6. The impact of textual enhancement on the acquisition of third person possessive pronouns by child EFL learners
  7. Domain-general grit and domain-specific grit: conceptual structures, measurement, and associations with the achievement of German as a foreign language
  8. The different effects of the ideal L2 self and intrinsic motivation on reading performance via engagement among young Chinese second-language learners
  9. Image-schema-based-instruction enhanced L2 construction learning with the optimal balance between attention to form and meaning
  10. Investigating willingness to communicate in synchronous group discussion tasks: one step closer towards authentic communication
  11. Investigating willingness to communicate vis-à-vis learner talk in a low-proficiency EAP classroom in the UK study-abroad context
  12. Functions, sociocultural explanations and conversational influence of discourse markers: focus on zenme shuo ne in L2 Chinese
  13. The impact of abdominal enhancement techniques on L1 Spanish, Japanese and Mandarin speakers’ English pronunciation
  14. Discourse competence across band scores: an analysis of speaking performance in the General English Proficiency Test
  15. Videoed storytelling in primary education EFL: exploring trainees’ digital shift
  16. Competing factors in SLA: how the CASP model of SLA explains the acquisition of English restrictive relative clauses by native speakers of Arabic and Korean
  17. Factors behind L2 English learners’ performance of oppositional speech acts: a look at pragmatic-related episodes (PREs) during thinking aloud
  18. Revisiting after-class boredom via exploratory structural equation modeling
  19. Exploring aural vocabulary knowledge for TOEIC as a language exit requirement in higher education in Taiwan
  20. Grammatical gender assignment in L3 versus L4 Swedish: a pseudo-longitudinal study
  21. Strategic reading comprehension in L2 and L3: assuming relative interdependence within Cummins’ linguistic interdependence hypothesis
  22. Incidental collocational learning from reading-while-listening and the impact of synchronized textual enhancement
  23. Learnability of L2 collocations and L1 influence on L2 collocational representations of Japanese learners of English
  24. The use of interlanguage pragmatic learning strategies (IPLS) by L2 learners: the impact of age, gender, language learning experience, and L2 proficiency levels
  25. “They forget and forget all the time.” The complexity of teaching adult deaf emergent readers print literacy
  26. Exploring the learning benefits of collaborative writing in L2 Chinese: a product-oriented perspective
  27. Investigating the effects of varying Accelerative Integrated Method instruction on spoken recall accuracy: a case study with junior primary learners of French
  28. Testing a model of EFL teachers’ work engagement: the roles of teachers’ professional identity, L2 grit, and foreign language teaching enjoyment
  29. The combined effects of a higher-level verb distribution and verb semantics on second language learners’ restriction of L2 construction generalization
  30. Insights from an empirical study on communicative functions and L1 use during conceptual mediation in L2 peer interaction
  31. On the acquisition of tense and agreement in L2 English by adult speakers of L1 Chinese
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