四技二專統一入學測驗英文科對話題之研究 - 政大學術集成

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(1)國立政治大學英國語文學系碩士在職專班碩士論文. 指導教授：尤雪瑛博士 Advisor: Dr. Hsueh-ying Yu. 政治大四技二專統一入學測驗英文科對話題之研究立. ‧ 國. 學. A Study on the Dialogue Section of the Technological and Vocational Educational. ‧. Examination. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. 研究生：湯琦均撰 Name: Ci-Jyun Tang 中華民國一百零五年六月 June, 2016. v.

(2) A Study on the Dialogue Section of the Technological and Vocational Educational Examination. A Master Thesis. 治政 Presented to 大學. ‧ 國. 立Department of English,. National Chengchi University. ‧. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts. by Ci-Jyun Tang June, 2016.

(3) Acknowledgements. I would like first show my deepest gratitude and appreciation to my thesis advisor, Dr. Hsueh-ying Yu of the Department of English of the National Chengchi University. The door to Professor Yu’s office was always open for me whenever I ran into problems during my research or writing. She consistently steered me to the right way of being an. 政治大. independent writer and researcher. Her encouragement and patience made me possible to. 立. complete this thesis.. ‧ 國. 學. My sincere thanks also extend to my thesis committee members, Dr. Hsi-nan Yeh and Dr. Yi-ping Huang. With their insightful comments and suggestions on the. ‧. manuscript, I have the possibility to make this thesis more complete and improved.. sit. y. Nat. I would like to show my appreciation to all my classmates of ETMA, for they. io. er. created such a united and collaborative atmosphere that helped me go through the ups and. al. v i n C hassignments and the this thesis, the best partner of group e n g c h i U sweetest listener of all my jibn. downs during the entire ETMA times. My special thanks goes to Vita Hsu, the coder of. jab. I am indebted to my life partner Ming-yu Yen. He and my parents were so supportive and kept me accompanied throughout the whole research process. Life is short but love is strong, may the best be with all my beloved.. iii.

(4) TABLE OF CONTENTS. Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………iii Table of Contents……………………………………………………………………...iv List of Tables…………………………………………………………………...……..vii List of Figures………………………………………………………………………....viii Chinese Abstract………………………………………………………………………ix English Abstract……………………………………………………………………….x Chapter One: Introduction……………………………………….………….……….1 Background and Motivation ....................................................................................... 1. 政治大. Purpose of the Study .................................................................................................. 3. 立. The Significance of the Study .................................................................................... 4. ‧ 國. 學. Chapter Two: Literature Review ............................................................................... 5 The Role of Assessment in Curriculum ..................................................................... 5. ‧. The Constructs of Speaking Ability ........................................................................... 7. Nat. sit. y. Types of Spoken Language .................................................................................... 7. er. io. Knowledge Involved in Spoken Language ........................................................... 10. al. v i n C h .................................................................. Basic Types of Speaking Assessment 14 engchi U n. The Testing of Oral Ability ...................................................................................... 13. Principles of Testing Oral Ability ........................................................................ 16 Interactivity .......................................................................................... 16 Authenticity.......................................................................................... 18 Directness ............................................................................................. 19 Practice of Speaking Tests ................................................................................... 20 The Speaking Section of TOEFL ......................................................... 20 IELTS Speaking Module ..................................................................... 21 GEPT Speaking Section ....................................................................... 22 Research on English Learning in the VHSCG and the TVEE ................................. 23. iv.

(5) The EFL Learning in Vocational High School ..................................................... 23 The Technological and Vocational Educational Examination ............................. 24 Chapter Three: Methodology ................................................................................... 27 Materials ................................................................................................................... 27 The Vocational High School Curriculum Guideline ............................................ 27 Background Information ...................................................................... 27 General Introduction to the English Guideline .................................... 28 Course Objectives ................................................................................ 28 Teaching Guideline .............................................................................. 29 Teaching Material ................................................................................ 30. 政治大 Linguistic knowledge. .................................................................. 30 立 Benchmark. .................................................................................. 33 Topics. .......................................................................................... 30. ‧ 國. 學. The Technological and Vocational Educational Examination ............................. 34 Instruments ............................................................................................................... 35. ‧. Curriculum Checklist ............................................................................................ 36. Nat. sit. y. Speaking Constructs Checklist ............................................................................. 38. n. al. er. io. Data Analysis Framework .................................................................................... 42. i n U. v. Chapter Four: Results and Discussion..................................................................... 45. Ch. engchi. Inter-rater Reliability ................................................................................................ 45 Results of the Curriculum Checklist ........................................................................ 46 The First Part of the Curriculum Checklist .......................................................... 46 The Second Part of the Curriculum Checklist ...................................................... 47 Results of the Speaking Constructs Checklist .......................................................... 52 The Result of Informational Skills ....................................................................... 53 The Result of Interactional Skills ......................................................................... 57 The Result of Skills in Managing Interactions ..................................................... 62 The Application of the Three Principles .................................................................. 63 Interactivity........................................................................................................... 63 v.

(6) Authenticity .......................................................................................................... 64 Directness ............................................................................................................. 64 Chapter Five: Conclusion.......................................................................................... 67 Summary of the Major Findings .............................................................................. 67 Implications .............................................................................................................. 68 Including More Complicated Speaking Skills ...................................................... 68 Expanding the Variety of Topics .......................................................................... 69 Performing Actual Speaking Skills ...................................................................... 70 Limitations and Suggestions .................................................................................... 70. 政治大 Appendixes ................................................................................................................. 78 立 References .................................................................................................................... 72. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. vi. i n U. v.

(7) LIST OF TABLES. Table 2.1. The Types of Operations and the Content Specification of Spoken Language .......................................................................................................... 8. Table 2.2. Microskills and Macroskills of Oral Production............................................. 12. Table 3.1. The Content of the Three-year Curriculum of the Vocational High School ...... ........................................................................................................................ 32. Table 3.2. The Test Types of TVEE from 2010 to 2015 ............................................... 35. Table 3.3.1 The First Part of the Curriculum Checklist................................................... 37. 政治大. Table 3.3.2 The Second Part of the Curriculum Checklist ............................................. 37. 立. Speaking Constructs Checklist ..................................................................... 40. Table 4.1. The Result of the First Part of the Curriculum Checklist ............................. 46. Table 4.2. The Result of the Second Part of the Curriculum Checklist ......................... 48. Table 4.3. The Numbers of the Test Items in the Content Description of Daily Life. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. Table 3.4. y. Nat. sit. ........................................................................................................................ 49. Table 4.5. The Informational Skills of the Speaking Constructs Checklist .................... 54. Table 4.6. The Informational Skills not Tested in the TVEE ......................................... 57. Table 4.7. The Interactional Skills of the Speaking Constructs Checklist...................... 58. Table 4.8. The Interactional Skills not Tested in the TVEE ........................................... 61. Table 4.9. The Skills in Managing Interactions of the Speaking Constructs Checklist. n. al. er. The Item Distribution of Three Major Speaking Constructs ......................... 52. io. Table 4.4. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. ........................................................................................................................ 62. vii.

(8) LIST OF FIGURES. Figure 2.1. Systematic Design of Language Curriculum………………………………6. Figure 2.2. Types of Oral Language…………………………………………………...9. Figure 2.3. The Constructs of Oral Ability in a Teaching Context……………………13. Figure 3.1. Analysis Process of the Study……………………………..………………42. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. viii. i n U. v.

(9) 國立政治大學英國語文學系碩士在職專班碩士論文提要. 論文名稱：四技二專統一入學測驗英文科對話題之研究指導教授：尤雪瑛博士研究生：湯琦均. 立. 論文提要內容：. 政治大. ‧ 國. 學. 在臺灣的技職教育體系中，職業學校群科課程綱要是教材編撰及課程設計的參考基準；而四技二專統一入學測驗是高職學生升學的重要依據。其中，. ‧. 統測共同科目英文考科中的對話題，採用了間接測驗來評量學生的口語能力。. y. Nat. al. er. io. sit. 本研究旨在討論統測英文科對話題與高職英文課綱之吻合程度，及統測對話題. n. 的內容效度。為了達成此研究目的，本研究分析統測英文考科對話題型以及高. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. 職英文課程綱要，同時參考與測驗口說能力之相關教學研究及論文，發展出課綱檢核表及口說能力檢核表做為研究工具。研究結果顯示，統測對話題與高職課綱中口說能力相關指標大致符合，但主題分佈不甚平均，主要強調日常生活情境下的溝通能力。就內容效度而言，其檢驗之能力多為基礎口語技巧，並且偏重測驗考生如何傳遞訊息及維持互動，並沒有包含處理互動的技巧。根據本研究之發現，筆者針對未來研究方向及測驗實務提出了建議。關鍵字：對話題、口說能力、間接測驗、四技二專統一入學測驗、職業學校群科課程綱要 ix.

(10) Abstract In the vocational education system in Taiwan, the Vocational High School Curriculum Guideline (VHSCG) is the basis of teaching materials and curriculum design, and the Technological and Vocational Educational Examination (TVEE) is an important reference for students to enter college. In the English test of the TVEE, an indirect speaking test was applied in the dialogue section. This research aims to. 政治大. investigate: (1) the correspondence between goals of speaking ability in the VHSCG. 立. and the dialogue section of the TVEE; and (2) the construct validity of the dialogue. ‧ 國. 學. section. To achieve the purpose, this research analyzed the current curriculum guideline and the English tests of the TVEE, and studied the previous literature about. ‧. assessing speaking ability to develop two checklists as instruments to analyze the. io. sit. y. Nat. targeted test items.. n. al. er. Results indicated that the dialogue section of the TVEE generally. Ch. i n U. v. corresponded with the speaking ability index in the VHSCG, but the topic distribution. engchi. was imbalanced. The test items primarily focused on the communicative ability in daily-life contexts and was lacked of items that examine descriptive ability. For the construct validity, the dialogue section of the TVEE mostly examined fundamental speaking skills. Informational and interactional skills were strongly emphasized, while the skills in managing interaction were completely absent. Based on the findings of this research, the researcher yielded suggestions for future research and implications for the test developers. Key words: dialogue section, indirect speaking test, Technological and Vocational Educational Examination, Vocational High School Curriculum Guideline. x.

(11) CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION Background and Motivation Vocational high schools primarily prepare their students for future job market and they are expected to enter into workplace after graduation. However, according to the Educational Statistical Digest (MOE, 2014), 81.1% of vocational high graduates still apply for universities. One of the major ways to apply for a university is to take the Technological and Vocational Educational Examination (TVEE, hereafter) developed by. 治政大 exact accuracy and guideline. It is a large-scale high-stakes exam that emphasizes 立. the Testing Center of Technological and Vocational Education based on the curriculum. requires a large amount of preparation time for both test designers and test takers. The. ‧ 國. 學. validity of the TVEE is therefore receiving attention from both teachers and students of. ‧. vocational high schools.. sit. y. Nat. In order to understand this college entrance exam, it is essential to focus attention. io. er. on the nature and the purpose of the TVEE. As for the purpose of the TVEE, it is a. al. summative achievement test, which aims to evaluate whether students have learned what. n. v i n C hthree-year vocational they were expected to acquire after e n g c h i U high EFL education. For the. nature of the TVEE, it is a norm-referenced test, which according to the definition, does not provide a general description of test takers’ ability but relate one candidate’s performance to that of other candidates. With the norm established every year, technological universities are able to select candidates of certain performance levels for admission.. 1.

(12) The correspondence of the official guideline and the summative assessment is one of the most critical factors when it comes to EFL teaching, for these two factors determine the material development and selection as well as teaching pedagogy and methodology. The latest national guideline, Vocational High School Curriculum Guideline (VHSCG, hereafter, see Appendix A 1), was announced in 2010. It is the basic foundation of the vocational high school educational system and the framework of all textbooks and classroom materials. Whether the test items in the TVEE meet goals and objectives listed in the VHSCG is concerned by both educators and learners. The closely-. 治政大 overestimated by all the vocational high school language teachers. 立. interrelated connection of the TVEE and the VHSCG is one thing that can hardly be. The TVEE has gone through several changes to meet the purpose of examining. ‧ 國. 學. test takers’ language ability. Before 2015, the test types of the TVEE include vocabulary. ‧. test, dialogue test, cloze test and reading comprehension. By that time, reading ability is. sit. y. Nat. the primary focus of the EFL teaching in vocational high school as all test types are. io. er. multiple choices. In order to alter this phenomenon and facilitate the EFL teaching in. al. vocational high schools, a non-multiple-choice writing section was implemented in 2015,. n. v i n C h teachers and learners which was aimed to encourage language e n g c h i U to put more emphasis on cultivating writing ability. The dialogue section in the TVEE (see Appendix B) is an indirect test that examines candidates’ speaking ability through reading, which highlights its significant difference from other direct multiple choice sections. In the dialogue section, a. conversation between two interlocutors is presented with one sentence intentionally left. 1. The Vocational High School Curriculum Guideline is composed of six parts for the three-year vocational high school curriculum. The first part describes the fundamental goals and objectives, and then the following parts offer more explanations. Appendix A includes only the first and the sixth semester to highlight the initiative and the final statement of the national guideline. 2.

(13) blank. By reading the conversation, test takers are required to select the most appropriate option to fill the blank in order to make the whole dialogue logical and reasonable. The setting of the dialogue could be of any occasion, such as at school, with family, at the store or small talks, while the four options could be of any communicative function: a reply, a request, a refusal or a protest. Although it is understandable to apply an indirect test in terms of practicality, the construct validity about whether this indirect dialogue section could truly reflect the candidates’ speaking ability remains uncertain. The indirect productive skill testing method is no longer encouraged now, but the. 治政大validity of the dialogue section thus the researcher feels the urgent necessity to check the 立. Testing Center of Technological and Vocational Education still applies it as a test section,. to see whether it provides an appropriate and relevant indication of test takers’ speaking. ‧ 國. 學. ability. Messick (1989a; 1989b, p. 41) pointed out that the conceptualization of validity. ‧. requires an integrated evaluative judgment of empirical evidence and theoretical rationale.. sit. y. Nat. To be more specific, construct validity is an all-embracing concept that relates to the. io. er. decisions and inferences made on the basis of relevant and appropriate representative of. al. test scores (Kane, 2002). So far, no study has been done to analyze the validity of the. n. v i n indirect dialogue test. Therefore,Cthe is going to investigate the validity of hpresent e n gstudy chi U the dialogue section of the TVEE. Purpose of the Study The present study intends to investigate the dialogue section of the TVEE to bridge the gap in the previous literature. To make a comprehensive examination on whether the dialogue section truly reflect the objectives stated in the VHSCG, the present study aims to compare the objectives of speaking ability in the VHSCG with the dialogue section of the TVEE. Secondly, to find out whether the dialogue section fit the principles. 3.

(14) of testing spoken language, the researcher checks the construct validity of the dialogue section. To serve the purpose, two research questions are stated below: 1. How does the dialogue section of the TVEE match the goals and objectives stated in the VHSCG? 2. Is the dialogue section of the test useful in terms of construct validity? The Significance of the Study The importance of the dialogue section has long been overlooked because test users, both teachers and students, often view the dialogue section as a minor and easier. 治政大 analysis about the aspects. First of all, the study contributes a more comprehensive 立. part of the TVEE, therefore the significance of the present study can be illustrated in three. content and the validity of the test. Second, by examining the validity and pointing out the. ‧ 國. 學. strength and weakness in terms of validity, the study can offer suggestions for the. ‧. examination institute for the development of the test if there is a problem of validity. sit. y. Nat. identified. Lastly, for pedagogical implications, it can give language teachers a goal and. io. al. er. let them know what are the constructs involved in the test, which will offer the main idea. n. about how to teach speaking ability in vocational high schools.. Ch. engchi. 4. i n U. v.

(15) CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter includes four sections to review previous research relating to the topic. Firstly, as assessment and evaluation is a part of curriculum, studies on the role of assessment in curriculum and its interaction with curriculum are discussed. Second, to get an overview about what kinds of abilities involved in speaking, research concerning the constructs of oral ability is presented. The testing of oral ability is the third part. In this. 治政大 high schools in Taiwan and Lastly, both studies on the language education in vocational 立 part, the researcher will examine the principles and the practice of assessing speaking.. 學. ‧ 國. studies on the TVEE are reviewed to have a better understanding of the nature of the exam, in particular the test of spoken language in the TVEE.. ‧. The Role of Assessment in Curriculum. sit. y. Nat. Curriculum design is viewed as a series of well-constructed procedure that offer. io. er. a framework in order to serve the purpose of helping teachers to create sufficient activities and learning conditions to promote language learning. Nicholls and Nicholls. al. n. v i n C has a four-stage cycle, (2013) ascribed curriculum design e n g c h i U including (1) setting objectives, (2) devising methods and choosing materials, (3) conducting assessment and (4) giving feedback to the objectives. Brown (1995), simplifying the widely accepted systems approach, used a figure to describe an interrelated systematic design of language curriculum. As shown in Figure 2.1, six broad types of activities are identified to characterize the process of designing language curriculum: needs analysis, objectives setting, testing, material development, teaching and program evaluation. Each activity works together to achieve the defined goal of the curriculum, and each interacts with one another for input and output. According to Tyler (2010), curriculum design should be a. 5.

(16) continuous cyclical process, which needs to be planned and modified constantly based on feedbacks from assessments. To put it differently, a curriculum requires constant feedback and modification until the desired goal is accomplished (Dick, Carey & Carey, 2000: 2).. Need Analysis E V A L U A T I O N. Objectives. Testing. 立. 政治大. Materials. ‧ 國. 學. Teaching. ‧ y. Nat. sit. Figure 2.1 Systematic Design of Language Curriculum (Brown, 1995). n. al. er. io. The language teachers or the curriculum designers usually start from analyzing the. i n U. v. need of the curriculum, and the result of analysis can contribute to the setting of. Ch. engchi. objectives. Once objectives are determined, the designer may start to consider the testing, materials and teaching altogether. These activities do not process in a linear sequence and can be reverted in any particular stages. For example, if the curriculum designer found that the test result of testing is not as satisfactory as expected; the designer may trace back to re-evaluate whether the objectives are fairly reasonable or whether the teaching materials or the teaching methods match the objectives. The relationship between curriculum and assessment, according to many scholars (Brown, 1995; Brown, 2005: 252; Dick, Carey & Carey, 2000: 2), is dynamic and interactive, and they also suggest that tests should never be divorced from the 6.

(17) language learning processes and that assessment should be treated as an important operation in a systematic language curriculum. In fact, more and more scholars put emphasis on assessment. Prodromou (1995) noted that assessment and evaluation is not only a part of curriculum design but a significant contribution in checking learners’ proficiency, progress and achievement. Citing from Bachman (1990), Brown and Abeywickrama (2010) stated that testing is an explicit technique that focuses on a specific domain to assess the performance of learners and to measure individual ability. It is a series of structured procedures that require each learner’s participation so as to achieve its. 治政 skill is essential to a language classroom, as it provides大 formative and summative 立. goal. Hughes (2003) further pointed out, an accurate measurement of test takers’ target. 學. ‧ 國. information about learners’ progress and achievement, which in turn gives the instructor beneficial feedback in how and what to teach.. ‧. The Constructs of Speaking Ability. sit. y. Nat. The following sections are divided into two parts. In the first part, the form of. io. er. spoken language operation is introduced. Secondly, the researcher will explain. al. n. knowledge required in speaking and then consider spoken language from a pedagogical. i n C view to bring the section together with teaching. h eEFL ngchi U. v. Types of Spoken Language Many researchers agree that spoken language is different from written language in skills, structures and conventions (Burns & Joyce, 1997; Carter & McCarthy, 1995; Cohen, 1996). Burn and Joyce (1997) describes speaking as “an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing, receiving and processing information.” Hughes (2011: 6) states that speaking is not a discrete skill, and cannot be separated from other skills easily. Several scholars also point out that listening and speaking skills are. 7.

(18) two inseparable and tightly interrelated components in spoken language (Brown, 2001: 267; Douglas, 1997: 25-26). Based on the Cambridge CCSE Test of Oral Interaction, Hughes (2003) specifies the content of spoken language with six types of operation. The content specifications are similar to those for the test of writing, including expressing, directing, describing, eliciting, narrating, and reporting. Table 2.1 presents the detailed specification of the six types of operation. Table 2.1 The Types of Operations and the Content Specification of Spoken Language (Hughes, 2003) Types of Operations Content Specification Expressing. 政治大. likes, dislikes, preferences, agreement, disagreement,. 立. requirements, opinions, comment, attitude, confirmation,. actions, events, objects, people, processes information, directions, clarification, help. y. sequence of events. sit. Reporting. Nat. Narrating. description, comment, decision and choices. io. n. al. er. Eliciting. instructing, persuading, advising, prioritizing. ‧. Describing. ‧ 國. Directing. 學. complaints, reasons, justifications, comparisons. i n U. v. The six types of operations generally explain the nature of the spoken language. As. Ch. engchi. shown in the above table, the operation of expressing is the largest group in spoken language. It is made up of speaking skills that manifest thoughts and attitudes, such as showing likeness, complaining, and comparing. The operations of directing, narrating, describing and reporting are basically monologues that do not require actual interaction between the speakers; the operation of eliciting, however, involves more than one interlocutor and thus tends to be more interactive than the others. Brown (2001) describes oral language communication in terms of the numbers of interlocutors, preparation time, functions, and familiarity. Figure 2.2 displays the. 8.

(19) outline of this classification. Types of oral language. Monologue. Planned. Dialogue. Unplanned. Interpersonal. Familiar. Transactional. Unfamiliar. Familiar. Unfamiliar. Figure 2.2 Types of Oral Language (Brown, 2001). 政治大. According to the numbers of interlocutors, the types of oral language can be divided into. 立. two main categories: monologue and dialogue. Monologue can be of any length of time,. ‧ 國. 學. and the sole speaker may have to deal with long stretches of speech uninterruptedly. A. ‧. dialogue involves more than one speaker and is usually unprepared. Unlike planned monologue, a real-life dialogue is full of fillers, pauses, and ellipsis, and it demands more. y. Nat. io. sit. verbal and nonverbal cues among the speakers. Based on the time of preparation, a. n. al. er. monologue is either planned, such as lectures and news broadcasts, or unplanned, such as. Ch. i n U. v. impromptu speeches or longer stories in a conversation. In terms of functions of the. engchi. language, interpersonal dialogue develops social relationship, while transactional dialogue conveys factual information. Also, the degree of familiarity between the interlocutors determines the styles of dialogues. Familiar interlocutors with the similar background knowledge allow the speakers to use more jargons and skip some details, while interlocutors who are unfamiliar with one another need to give clearer explanation. The abovementioned two studies of Hughes (2003) and Brown (2001) describe the nature of oral communication in different dimensions: the former specifies the operations based on functions of speaking ability, while the later analyzes the types of oral language according to its context feature. It enables the present study to establish a 9.

(20) framework of speaking constructs for analysis by incorporating the function and the context feature of oral communication. Knowledge Involved in Spoken Language Since speaking ability is viewed as a skill, it assumes certain knowledge applied to the skill. In order to realize what speakers know to conduct successful oral communication, the following paragraphs presents how previous studies summarize knowledge involved in spoken language. Canale and Swain (1980) propose four areas of knowledge in communicative. 治政 and strategical competence. The four competences are not 大 applied to the speaking skill 立. approach: grammatical competence, sociolinguistical competence, discourse competence. only, but the four areas of knowledge provide a reference to define knowledge related to. ‧ 國. 學. oral communication. Bachman and Palmer (1996) further explains grammatical. ‧. competence as all knowledge of sounds, shapes and literal meanings of a sentence;. sit. y. Nat. sociolinguistic competence as knowledge concerning the appropriateness of the. io. er. production and the interpretation in terms of social context; discourse competence as. al. knowledge to produce coherent and unified texts without discrepancy; strategic. n. v i n C hand non-verbal assistance competence as the ability to use verbal e n g c h i U to make up for the insufficiency of the previous three competence. The four competence offers a general framework of knowledge concerning with speaking ability. Thornbury (2005) categorizes knowledge relevant to speaking in two aspects: (1) linguistic knowledge and (2) extralinguistic knowledge. Linguistic knowledge is relevant to language features, and it embraces knowledge in-between the words, such as phonology, vocabulary and grammar knowledge as well as knowledge in-between the lines, like pragmatic, discourse and genre knowledge. On the other hand, extralinguistic knowledge is independent from language, and it includes elements such as mutual. 10.

(21) background knowledge toward the involved topics and shared values in culture and context. In Bygate’s classification of speaking ability (2009), a top-down hierarchy is proposed to bring the micro-behavioral and macro-pragmatic knowledge of oral proficiency together. The hierarchy includes three levels: micro, mezzo and macro levels. Phonological and lexico-grammatical features are fundamental elements in the micro level, which are correspondent with Thornbury’s linguistic knowledge. The second intermediate mezzo level is where meaning transformation is accomplished through the. 治政大 achieved in the macro level where both linguistic and extralinguistic components such as 立 interaction of phonemes, lexis and grammar. Finally, successful communication is. socio-cultural contexts, discourse knowledge and pragmatic features are considered. ‧ 國. 學. together.. ‧. To consider spoken language in a pedagogical view, Brown (2010: 186) listed 11. sit. y. Nat. microskills and 5 macroskills of oral communication and suggested that both the forms. io. er. and the functions of language should be emphasized in teaching speaking. Microskills. al. contain the ability in phonological and lexical levels, the prosodic knowledge to produce. n. v i n C h ability to parse U stress and intonation, the grammatical e n g c h i utterance into relationships, and the ability to use cohesive devices in discourse. On the other hand, macroskills can be related to the ability to accomplish communicative functions, such as turn-taking conventions, speaking strategies and the use of non-verbal cues. Table 2.2 below shows the micro- and macroskills of oral production.. 11.

(22) Table 2.2 Microskills and Macroskills of Oral Production (Brown, 2010: 186) Microskills 1. Produce differences among English phonemes and allophonic variants. 2. Produce chunks of language of different lengths. 3. Produce English stress patterns, words in stressed and unstressed positions, rhythmic structure, and intonation contours. 4. Produce reduce forms of words and phrases. 5. Use an adequate number of lexical units to accomplish pragmatic purpose. 6. Produce fluent speech at different rates of delivery. 7. Monitor one’s own oral production and use various strategic devices-pauses, fillers, self-corrections, backtracking-to enhance the clarity of the message. 8. Use grammatical word classes (nouns, verbs, etc), systems (e.g., tense, agreement, and pluralization), word order, patterns, rules, and elliptical forms. 9. Produce speech in natural constituents: in appropriate phrases, pause group, breathe groups, and sentence constituents. 10. Express a particular meaning in different grammatical forms. 11. Use cohesive devices in spoken discourse.. 立. 政治大 Macroskills. ‧ 國. 學. ‧. 12. Appropriately accomplish communicative function according to situations, participants, and goals. 13. Use appropriate styles, registers, implicature, redundancies, pragmatic conventions, and conversation rules, floor-keeping and –yielding, interrupting, and other sociolinguistic features in face-to-face conversations. 14. Convey links and connections between events and communication such relations as focal and peripheral ideas, events and feelings, new information and given information, generalization and exemplification. 15. Convey facial features, kinesics, body language, and other nonverbal cues along with verbal language. 16. Develop and use a battery of speaking strategies, such as emphasizing key words, rephrasing, providing a context for interpreting the meaning of words, appealing for help, and accurately assessing how well your interlocutor is understanding you.. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Hughes (2003) related oral skills to testing, and categorized the oral skills into three groups: informational skills, interactional skills and skills in managing interactions. He also provided can-do lists for each skill, specifying the skills candidates should be able to do. It is a straightforward framework to analyze the construct validity of an oral test, and the present research will apply this model to the item analysis.. 12.

(23) In summary, speaking ability is an interdependent and interactive set of grammatical, lexical, discourse, pragmatic and socio-cultural knowledge (See Figure 2.3). Pedagogical attention in an EFL high school context should focus on lexical and grammatical level to construct learners’ fundamental linguistic knowledge, while at the same time, teachers should keep in mind that linguistic knowledge itself does not live alone without the social context, and thus cultural and pragmatic knowledge should also be included in the teaching of oral ability. Finally, teaching linguistic knowledge in a discourse context could benefit students in creating sufficient schemata on cultural background of the target language.. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. Grammatical Knowledge. Sociocultural Knowledge. Speaking Ability. n. al. er. io. sit. y. Nat. Lexical Knowledge. Ch. engchi. Pragmatic Knowledge. i n U. v. Discourse Knowledge. Figure 2.3 The Constructs of Oral Ability in a Teaching Context 2 The Testing of Oral Ability The following sections contain three major parts. We will first review the basic item types of speaking assessment. In the second section, the researcher will review the 2. Lexis and grammar are both language forms, and many previous studies regard them as the same concept that should be considered altogether. However, the researcher thinks both language forms are important knowledge to learners in vocational high schools. Therefore, the two kinds of knowledge are separated in this figure. 13.

(24) principles of oral test construction. Lastly, how oral ability is tested in standardized tests will be discussed. Basic Types of Speaking Assessment Brown and Abeywickrama (2010) proposed five types of speaking assessment based on the expected responses from the test takers and the degree of interactivity: imitative, intensive, responsive, interactive and extensive. This classification covered a wide range of speaking assessment, and thus the present study presented the following paragraphs to define and demonstrate examples of each type.. 治政 imitative test is to simply parrot back what was heard. Test大 takers are asked to repeat the 立 The first type of speaking assessment is imitative. The performance of an. minimal pairs or phrases they hear. Even though it is an unauthentic and exclusively. ‧ 國. 學. phonetic level of oral production, the prosodic components may be encompassed in this. ‧. kind of test. The test taker’s performance is graded by the pronunciation and intonation.. sit. y. Nat. Take Versant for instance: being a computer-scored commercial test, it requires 15. io. al. er. minutes to complete the entire tasks through phone call. Listen-and-repeat plays a major. n. role in the test, and its construct validity for phonological ability as well as discourse and. Ch. overall oral ability was supported (Brown, 2010).. engchi. i n U. v. The second type of oral assessment, intensive speaking test, requires the production of short length of oral language restricted to a narrow scope of grammar, phrases, lexis or prosodic features. Reading aloud is a simple intensive task to elicit oral production, pronunciation skills in particular. It’s easy to administer and quick to mark, so it is widely used in testing the oral production of students in fundamental level. However, scholars (Brown, 2010:189-191; Heaton, 1998: 89; Hughes, 2003: 121; Thornbury, 2005: 70; Underhill, 1990: 76) questioned the authenticity of this kind of tasks and pointed out that its washback effect may be harmful as few actual situations. 14.

(25) require the skill of reading aloud. Heaton (1998) proposed another intensive spoken assessment, conversational exchange. It is a flexible task as it can be either very strictly controlled or relatively open-ended, for example, the evaluator may elicit a particular sentence pattern by asking test takers to transform a sentence into another pattern. On the other hand, picture cues are usually selected as prompts for description tasks. Several researchers (Heaton, 1998; Luoma, 2004; Underhill, 1990) suggested that well-chosen pictures not only allow meaningful oral production and engage candidates in a task so as to lower the testing anxiety, but also accelerate the grading speed as more controlled. 治政大 such as maps, information (2004:140) introduced several picture-cued oral assessment, 立 output can be generated. Brown and Sahni (1994), Heaton (1998: 92-96), Luoma. gap, picture narration and discussion, etc.. ‧ 國. 學. The third type of speaking tests is the responsive task. Responsive speaking tasks. ‧. include both interaction and test comprehension, but there are somewhat limited levels of. sit. y. Nat. spoken prompts or simple adjacency pairs. Questions at the responsive level tend to be. io. er. referential questions, which give test takers more opportunities to produce meaningful. al. language in response (Brown, 2010: 201). Open-ended conversational exchange involves. n. v i n C greeting candidates hearing a conventional in any appropriate way. h e n gandcresponding hi U. Paraphrasing may also be used in responsive tasks. It requires the candidate to repeat what has been heard or read in a limited time frame. The interactive speaking test is of the fourth oral test type. It extends the assessment scope to a longer context where multiple participants and turn-taking process may involve in. Brown and Abeywickrama (2010) further divided interactive tasks into two types: transactional, which serves the purpose of exchanging information; and interpersonal, which can be more complicated pragmatically as it put emphasis on the purpose of maintaining relationships. An interactive speaking test promotes a beneficial. 15.

(26) washback effect as it evaluates the spoken language directly and engages test takers in an authentic context to prepare such tests. The most typical interactive test is interview. A standard process of an interview speaking assessment involves four stages: warm-up, level check, probe and wind-down (Brown & Abeywickrama, 2010: 207-208). Another common-used interactive test type is role play. In this kind of speaking tasks, two or more candidates are involved as each participant being assigned with a particular role, and the candidates have to interact with one another to complete the mission (Thornbury, 2005). The final test type of oral ability tests is extensive. The style of extensive oral. 治政大 Prepared speeches, the interaction between the examinee and the examiner is minimized. 立. production is often formal and prepared and it requires longer stretches of discourse. Also,. presentation and storytelling are different forms of extensive speaking assessment. Other. ‧ 國. 學. than those, interpretation is also a kind of extensive oral test. However, it requires so. ‧. much higher language proficiency and a large amount of training to interpret fluently and. Abeywickrama, 2010: 221).. io. al. Principles of Testing Oral Ability. er. sit. y. Nat. accurately that the test might totally invalid if used to judge on a non-specialist (Brown &. n. v i n C h three testing principles Based on the previous research, e n g c h i U of speaking ability are frequently referred to in many studies: interactivity, authenticity, and directness. Research about these three principles of spoken tests will be reviewed and examined to see how it is defined and why it is important to oral communication contexts in the following sections. Interactivity Several studies have examined the effects of interaction in oral production, and they found out the interactivity is of one important principle in terms of creating an authentic conversational context. Berry (1994) investigated the performance of oral. 16.

(27) second language with extraverts and introverts, indicating the degree of extraversion affected the scores of introverts significantly. Shea (1994) compared interactions between Japanese students studying in an American university with four interlocutors and reported that the Japanese students appeared to perform more proficiently in spoken conversation when they had equal access to the floor and shared congruence with interlocutors. Tarone and Liu (1995) demonstrated that a more relaxing relationship promoted faster and more complete interlanguage development of an ESL child learner. Young (2000) discussed the differences between communicative competence and interactional competence. He. 治政大 way to generalize the resources during the assessment in order to build a principled 立. suggested that the examiners must pay attention to the configuration of interactional. performance assessment to other contexts.. ‧ 國. 學. The degrees of interactivity vary in tests of spoken language. Indirect and semi-. ‧. direct tests are less favorable for test takers than as it lacks interaction and may create a. sit. y. Nat. psychological barrier (Qian, 2009). One-on-one interview provides human interaction;. io. er. however, the atypical power relationship between the examiner and the candidate is. al. extremely imbalance and thus affects performance (Plough & Bogart, 2008). Interviews. n. v i n C h chances of interaction, that involve two interlocutors provide e n g c h i U but the familiarity and the. degree of extroversion have influence on the performance of speakers (Berry, 1994; Shea, 1994). Hughes (2011) suggested that a group oral discussion task has the potential to eliminate the imbalance power relationship and facilitate the participants to show their linguistic ability as well as interactive skills. The variety of interactivity made the elicitation of authentic speaking ability extremely difficult (Hughes, 2011: 88). However, the interactional competence is of one crucial factor in assessing spoken production (Young, 2000). It is suggested that even formal, monologic speaking tests should be. 17.

(28) performed in situations where there is at least the possibility of interaction (Thornbury, 2005). Authenticity Authenticity has been a critical notion in language teaching and testing since the emergence of communicative language teaching (CLT) in the late 1970s. According to Underhill (1990: 8), an authentic task is the one that similar to things we actually do in daily life. Although the degree of authenticity in speaking tasks is an element that the test designers must bear in mind, still many researchers questioned the necessity of being. 治政大 or an email address is communicative. For example, dictating down a telephone number 立 authentic. Brown (2004) stated that being authentic does not necessarily mean. an authentic task but not a communicative one. Lewkowicz (2000) conducted a study on. ‧ 國. 學. the importance of authenticity for test takers. The result showed that authenticity is not. ‧. necessarily included in the attributes of a test that are likely to affect their performance.. sit. y. Nat. Even though a completely authentic examination task may not be possible,. io. er. authenticity is still highly valued in communicative approach as it can help the test. al. developers reduce and minimize the discrepancy between the test content and real-life. n. v i n C h as one of the U situation. Joughin (1998) views authenticity e n g c h i six dimensions of oral. assessment as it is directly relevant to content validity. Lynch (1982:11) also describes that authenticity carries a positive charge, and many other researchers consider authenticity an important quality of language testing (Morrow, 1991; Wood, 1993; Bachman & Palmer, 1996; Douglas, 1997; Cumming & Maxwell, 1999). In a speaking assessment, authenticity provides test takers a reference to their life experience. For learners, an authentic speaking task provides conversational contexts in which they apply the knowledge of language into the use of language in communicative tasks.. 18.

(29) Directness Directness is another critical principle that has been widely recognized as a favorable factor to facilitate positive consequence in assessment (Resnick & Resnick, 1991; Wiggins, 1993). In terms of direct oral proficiency testing, Clark (1975) concluded that direct testing of oral ability aims at creating face-to-face human interactions for test takers to engage in real-life communication, and it requires test takers to perform speaking skills in the test. For its dynamic nature, direct testing is necessary to measure productive skills like speaking and writing, while indirect speaking tests do not reflect. 治政大 direct test is time-consuming ability through indirect tests (Hughes, 2003: 17). However, 立. real-life communications. Therefore indirect test is not preferable to measure the speaking. and costs much. To the practicability and efficiency concerns, test developers tend to. ‧ 國. 學. apply indirect test instead. For example, the Testing Center of Technological and. ‧. Vocational Education takes advantage of the attainableness and effectiveness of indirect. sit. y. Nat. measurement when it comes to a large-scale speaking assessment.. io. er. Although most of the researchers recognized the value of direct testing for the. al. reason that an ideal direct assessment allows the respondent to perform target skills in. n. v i n C h that such idealUforms of directness rarely exist in real contexts, Messick (1994) indicated engchi an assessment. Guilford (1954) argued that there’s no direct test; in other words, all measurements are indirect because measurements always involve a process of judgment, inference and comparison no matter how implicit they may be. Messick (1996) also explained that the construct-irrelevant variance jeopardizes directness and therefore poses a threat to the validity of a test. It is noted that the major concern of directness in an assessment is to minimize the contaminations of excessive construct-irrelevant factors. For the dilemma of choosing a direct or indirect oral ability assessment, Brown (2004) suggested to put focus on the primary features of oral proficiency testings, that is, to. 19.

(30) determine test takers’ ability of receiving and transmitting information in oral communication. Overall, directness is the most critical factor to the construct validity of speaking ability test. Practice of Speaking Tests To demonstrate how speaking tests pull the knowledge, the abilities, and the testing principles together to conduct oral ability test, this section will introduce three standardized tests: Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), International English Language Testing System (IELTS), and the General English Proficiency Test (GEPT).. 治政大 in the previous assessment and how they correspond to the types of tests discussed 立. The focus in this section is to review how the three examinations conduct its speaking. section.. ‧ 國. 學. The Speaking Section of TOEFL. ‧. The nature and the purpose of TOEFL are to help the universities in North. sit. y. Nat. America select students from all over the world. The 20-minute speaking section of. io. er. TOEFL includes two Independent Speaking Tasks and four Integrated Speaking Tasks.. al. According the examination handbooks, the topics of the TOFEL iBT speaking section. n. v i n C h situation, andUacademic-type content draw on personal experience, campus-based engchi materials (ETS, 2007: 207).. The six questions of the speaking section of TOEFL focus on the different scope of conversational skills. The first independent speaking task requires test takers to respond to a familiar topic through expressing their own ideas and opinions. In the second question, two possible situations will be presented, and the responder should state which one is preferable and justify the reasons by providing details. On the other hand, the four integrated speaking questions explore the test takers’ ability of synthesizing two forms of language skills together. The setting of question three is campus-based, while the fourth. 20.

(31) one is based on certain professional field of knowledge. In both questions, the test takers are asked to state what they hear and summarize the material provided. Questions five and six provide a longer stretches of listening input and ask the participants to describe the problem, state the more desirable solution and give explanation. As a semi-direct speaking test, the TOEFL iBT speaking section requires the candidate to create interactive and extensive oral production. The scoring rubrics of TOEFL iBT speaking section include delivery, language use and topic development. Delivery is about the communicative competence in linguistic level, including intelligible. 治政大 in both grammatical and the degree of creating a coherent conversation that is precise 立. pronunciation, correct patterns of intonation as well as fluency. Language use focuses on. if the idea elaborates in a logical and reasonable fashion.. ‧. IELTS Speaking Module. 學. ‧ 國. discourse level. Topic development examines speakers’ extralinguistic knowledge to see. sit. y. Nat. The purpose of IELTS is to measure a person’s overall communicative ability in. io. er. higher education, workplace and daily life. To serve different purposes of language use,. al. IELTS has two sets of formats that require different language proficiency levels:. n. v i n C h module. UnlikeUthe computer-based semi-direct academic module and general training engchi TOEFL iBT Speaking Section, the IELTS Speaking Module applies one-on-one direct interview. The process of the interview is made up of three parts: introduction and interview; individual long turn and two-way discussion. In the first part, the test takers answer general questions about themselves and a range of familiar topic areas. In the second section, the candidate is given a task card with prompts. The candidate has one minute to prepare and take note before speaking for 1-2 minutes. The examiner will ask one or two follow-up questions according to the candidates’ response. Lastly, the. 21.

(32) interviewer and the test taker will discuss a more abstract topic, which is thematically connected to the previous prompt in the second phase. According to the official website of IELTS, the scoring of the interview includes four equally-weighted criteria: fluency and coherence; lexical resource; grammatical range; accuracy and pronunciation. In a highly interactive face-to-face IELTS interview, the basic output level will be at least responsive, but the advanced language users will have to demonstrate their extensive oral production and synthesize their interactional and interpersonal speaking skills in order to get higher score.. 治政大 government-funded GEPT was developed and operated by a Taiwan-based 立. GEPT Speaking Section. institution, the Language Training and Testing Center (LTTC) fifteen years ago. Ranged. ‧ 國. 學. from elementary to superior level, GEPT corresponds with English education framework. ‧. in Taiwan and attempts to promote a balanced English learning process, thus the test. sit. y. Nat. covers four language skills and each skill is tested individually. The general level. io. er. descriptions of GEPT intermediate and high-intermediate match the expected language. al. n. ability of middle school students, so the researcher focuses on the test types of GEPT. i n C speaking section at intermediate and high-intermediate U h e n g c h ilevels.. v. GEPT speaking tests at intermediate and high-intermediate level are semi-direct tests that take 15 to 20 minutes. Similar to the TOEFL speaking test, the GEPT test takers do not speak to a real examiner but listen from a machine and then speak into a microphone. All the processes are audio-taped and scored by trained raters. There are three parts of the speaking tests in intermediate: short essay read-aloud, questions answering, and a picture description. As for high-intermediate speaking tests, they delete the read-aloud section, keep the rest two sections, and add the discussion section.. 22.

(33) LTTC constructed a holistic scoring band ranging from 0 to 5. The grading point includes relevance, comprehensiveness, lexical and grammar use, pronunciation, intonation and fluency. The target candidates of GEPT intermediate and highintermediate level are secondary education language learners; the focus of the test is to check their language ability of utilizing English at everyday-life basis. The test types applied in the GEPT speaking tests are generally imitative, intensive and responsive tasks. Only the last discussion section of high-intermediate level requires speakers to express their own thoughts in an extensive monologue.. 治政 The final section of this chapter is divided into 大 two major parts. First, studies are 立 Research on English Learning in the VHSCG and the TVEE. presented in order to provide a general idea of how previous research viewed the EFL. ‧ 國. 學. learning in vocational high school. Lastly, the studies about the TVEE are reviewed.. ‧. The EFL Learning in Vocational High School. sit. y. Nat. Vocational high school students in Taiwan suffer from the lower English. io. er. proficiency, and this phenomenon continues as the vocational high graduates entered into. al. the technological college (Liu, 2009). Several studies on the learning motivation and. n. v i n C h showed that vocational strategies of vocational high students e n g c h i U high students had moderate learning motivation and that they applied local reading strategy more than global one (Chen, 2007; Han, 2009; Hu, 2011; Hung, 2012; Liao, 2009; Tsai, 2006; Wu, C., 2003; Wu, H. 2003; Wu, 2013). The predicament of EFL teaching in vocational high school does not seem to be built in a day. Huang (1990) indicated that vocational high English education has long been a deserted orphan, and the dilemma has remained the same for more than twenty years (You, 2014: 105). Several scholars (Chou, 2005; Chang, 2006; Hung & Lo, 1995; Lin, 1995; You, 2014) pinpoints that the major problem is insufficient instructional hours,. 23.

(34) which is two hours per week as regulated by the national English curriculum guideline. As MOE promoted the 12-year Compulsory Education Bill, educators debated on whether vocational high school should adapt English for Specific Purpose (ESP) or English for General Purpose (EGP) curriculum. To answer this question, Lo (2011) conducted a case study to examine the effectiveness of ESP program on vocational high students majoring in tourism. She concluded that both overall English proficiency and learning motivation has increased significantly after the ESP instruction. Some scholar, on the other hand, argued that EGP should be adapted in order to facilitate vocational. 治政大 Examination The Technological and Vocational Educational 立. high students’ general English proficiency (You, 2014).. Not only did the educational policy of vocational high EFL teaching but the. ‧ 國. 學. pedagogic skills and the testing development have been staggering in the past decades.. ‧. Liu (2002) and Leu (2004) pointed that the most common teaching approach in. sit. y. Nat. vocational high school has been the grammar translation method, mostly involving. io. er. Chinese translation of the text and grammar explanation and exercises. Shih and Lin. al. (1996) further indicated that this was the negative washback effect of the TVEE because. n. v i n C hreading proficiencyUrather than listening and it focused on grammar knowledge and engchi. speaking. Liao (2002) explored the viewpoint of vocational high school teachers and students on the change of TVEE, and she found that, even though both the VHSCG and the TVEE had gone through several major renovations and redevelopment, the English teaching and testing in vocational high school had not altered to communicative language teaching (CLT), which is an approach promoted in the VHSCG. Liu (2009) investigated the development of the TVEE and its interaction with the VHSCG and found that most of the test types were indirect and discrete. She particularly pointed out that reading was the. 24.

(35) only targeted skill in the TVEE, while other three skills, writing, listening and speaking were neglected. In fact, reading ability is not the only skill the TVEE attempt to measure. The test of speaking ability has long been incorporated in the TVEE since the dialogue section first appeared in 1992 (Liu, 2009). However, unlike other oral proficiency tests in standardized tests, which usually apply direct or semi-direct approach to assess the oral proficiency of the candidate, the Testing Center of Technological and Vocational Education developed an indirect dialogue section in the TVEE. The dialogue section is. 治政大 of friends, interaction conversation differs, including daily life occasions, chitchat 立. single-item multiple choices on conversations between two people. The setting of the. between family members, telephone talk and service encounter to name a few. Candidates. ‧ 國. 學. have to decide the most appropriate answer according to the contextual clues provided in. ‧. the stem. Although it is called dialogue, this indirect test actually does not require test. sit. y. Nat. takers to produce oral output. Instead, test takers have to read stems and options carefully. io. n. al. er. and decide which the best answer is.. Ch. engchi. 25. i n U. v.

(36) 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. 26. i n U. v.

(37) CHAPTER THREE METHODOLOGY This chapter describes the materials, the instruments for the study and the process of analyzing and evaluating the materials. The present study primarily aims to answer the research questions about the connection between the TVEE and the goals and objectives of the curriculum guideline, and the construct validity of the dialogue section in the English test of the TVEE. In order to answer the two research questions, the study analyzed two kinds of materials: one was the Vocational High School Curriculum. 政治大. Guideline, and the other was the Technological and Vocational Educational Examination.. 立. Other than the materials, the study also involved two specially designed checklists as. ‧ 國. 學. instruments, the first checklist was established based on the outline of the curriculum guideline and the second checklist included speaking constructs used to examine the. ‧. Nat. y. validity of the dialogue section of the test.. io. sit. Materials. n. al. er. The materials used in this study consisted of (1) the Vocational High School. Ch. i n U. v. Curriculum Guideline (VHSCG), and (2) the English tests of Technological and. engchi. Vocational Educational Examination (TVEE). The following section explains the structure of the VHSCG and the TVEE in detail respectively. The Vocational High School Curriculum Guideline Background Information The latest version of VHSCG was updated in 2010, and it is available to public on the website of Course Department Groups under the administration of Technological and Vocational Department, Ministry of Education (MOE). MOE divides the departments of vocational high education into fifteen groups according to their professional fields, and. 27.

(38) each vocational group has its own curriculum guideline. The VHSCG of English is categorized in the Language Field of General Subjects. General Introduction to the English Guideline English is a required subject throughout the entire six semesters in vocational high schools. Two credits are the minimum requirement for each semester, which means students have at least two course sessions, approximately two hours, in a week. The title of the course is called English I to VI. Course Objectives. 治政大the vocational high school also the basic requirements of the entire six courses through 立 Four main course objectives are set for the first semester (English I), which are. education: (1) to train students to use the lexis and the syntax for daily life. ‧ 國. 學. communication; (2) to foster students to have the ability to learn English effectively; (3). sit. y. Nat. and the Western; and (4) to guide students to think independently.. ‧. to guide students to acquire and understand the cultural differences between the Eastern. io. er. The curriculum guideline keeps the four basic requirements and adds more. al. objectives to enrich the content and expand the dimensions of the courses each year. To. n. v i n C h (English II), the curriculum be more specific, in the second semester guideline modifies engchi U the description of the course objectives by adding the cultivation of the sound learning attitude and the emphasis on knowing the technological knowledge. Four new targets are implemented to enrich the basic objectives in the second year (English III and IV): to develop the interest on learning English, to build up the capacity for humanity education, international affairs and life education. Several new dimensions are added to enrich the teaching content of English V and VI. In the last year of vocational education, students need to know how to apply English into their future jobs, strengthen their self-study ability as a basis of life-long learning, and construct their own value systems.. 28.

(39) From the course objectives, we can see that the objectives throughout the three years are interrelated with one another, and both the complexity and the dimension increase and expand along with the development of the English courses. On the other hand, it is evident that the focus of EFL in vocational high school aims to cultivate the communicative ability for daily life, prepare learners for the future job market, and establish the ability of thinking independently by implementing knowledge from different aspects. Teaching Guideline. 治政大the topic of the reading three-year curriculum. First, it is stated that the length and 立. The VHSCG states four principles that should be taken care of throughout the. material should be comprehensive with particular focus on students’ interest, the texts’. ‧ 國. 學. usefulness and informativeness. Secondly, the teaching pedagogy and approaches applied. ‧. in the language classroom should stress the communicative function of English.. sit. y. Nat. Authentic tasks are, thus, preferable since they allow students to have the opportunity to. io. er. apply the language in real-life use. Third, the evaluation of the course should combine. al. formative and summative assessment, and make a proper use of portfolio assessment. It. n. v i n C h is the focus of evaluation, also stresses that the use of language while the knowledge of engchi U language is the minor purpose. Both the fluency and accuracy of language use are. important when it comes to evaluation. Fourth, the curriculum guideline encourages the instructors to apply teaching aids and multimedia computer-assisted softwares. It also requires teachers to list the extracurriculum material references relating to the topic for students to learn more extensively on their own after school.. 29.

(40) Teaching Material Topics. The suggested topics of the material are one of the most important components of the curriculum guideline. Although most of the topics are included throughout the three academic years, the last two topics are implemented only in the last two semesters. Ten topics are given for English I to English IV: interpersonal relationships, leisure activities and entertainment, daily life, modern technology, culture and customs, literatures and arts, language, industrial, commercial and agricultural knowledge, environmental education,. 治政大are twelve unit topics in the transportation and traffic; (2) global view. Put together, there 立 and employment. In English V and VI, two more topics are added: (1) travel,. material outline. The VHSCG itself does not explain the reason why the last two topics. ‧ 國. 學. are not introduced until the third academic year, it might be that these two topics are more. ‧. advanced and complicated for vocational high school students. Since these two topics are. y. sit. io. Linguistic knowledge.. er. other topics.. Nat. less invested, the amount of their coverage in the TVEE is expected to be lower than. al. n. v i n C stages The VHSCG also explains the three kinds of linguistics h e nofgdeveloping chi U knowledge in the footnote. The linguistics knowledge includes phonology, vocabulary and syntax. The knowledge is repeated in the six semesters while the complexity increases as learners move on along the program, which helps them deepen their understanding toward these ideas. Below is the description about how linguistic knowledge is addressed in three years. For phonological knowledge, teachers should review phonetic symbols, phonics and pronunciation and improve learners’ accuracy of prosodic feature, such as stress, intonation and rhythm in the first year. In the second and the third year, teachers should. 30.

(41) review the prosodic feature in word, chuck, and sentential levels, while facilitates students’ use of phonological knowledge, such as pause, speed, reduction and linking. As for vocabulary, the vocabulary used in the material should be chosen from the 4000 frequently-used words in English I and II, and new vocabulary in a textbook should not be more than 300 words. In English III and IV, the vocabulary size increases to the 4500 frequently-used words. The number of new words in a textbook should be limited within 350 words. In the last two semesters, English V and VI, the word bank expands as big as the 5000 frequently-used words; also, the word bank expands to 400 words per. 治政大 to introduce rarely-used As for syntax and grammar, teachers are not suggested 立. textbook.. sentence patterns. All of the English courses require teachers to provide students with. ‧ 國. 學. sufficient practice to enhance their understanding of structure at sentential level. To. ‧. compare and synthesize the linguistic knowledge addressed in the VHSCG, the researcher. y. sit. io. n. al. er. 3.1.. Nat. summarizes the content of the three-year curriculum in vocational high school in Table. Ch. engchi. 31. i n U. v.

(42) Table 3.1 The Content of the Three-year Curriculum of the Vocational High School Years The first year. The second year. The third year. English I, II. English III, IV. English V, VI. Contents. 立. new words. 1. Review stress, intonation, rhythm and read-aloud skills.. ‧. 2. Improve the phonological concept of pause, speed, linking and reduction.. n. er. io. Topic. No more than 400 new words. 學. Nat. 2. Improve the accuracy of stress, intonation, rhythm and read-aloud skill.. al. 5000 frequentlyused words. 治政No more than 350 大. No more than 300 new words 1. Review phonetic symbols, phonics and pronunciation.. Prosody. 4500 frequentlyused words. y. New vocabulary for each semester. 4000 frequently-used words. sit. Word bank. ‧ 國. Course title. i n U. v. Interpersonal relationships; leisure activities and entertainment; daily life; modern technology; culture and traditions; literature and arts; language; industrial, commercial and agricultural knowledge; environmental education; employment education.. Ch. engchi. All topics listed in the column on the left; travel, transportation and traffic; global view.. 1. To cultivate the ability to communicate and express ideas. Communicative 2. To train students to have the language ability to conduct general function daily life communication.. Syntax and grammar. 1. Avoid difficult rarely-used sentence pattern. 2. Use charts and graphs for content-based instructions and situational learning. 3. Provide chances to practice.. 32.

(43) Benchmark. Benchmark listed in the curriculum guideline describe the expected progress of the four skills for the six English courses. Since the present study aims to find out whether the dialogue section in the TVEE correspond to the constructs of speaking, the researcher focuses on the benchmark of speaking ability. 3 The benchmark specifically state six abilities for speaking skills for the entire three years. First, students should be able to use the classroom English. Second, students are expected to be capable of asking questions and providing answers to questions on. 治政大should be able to conduct conversational practice in the classroom. Fourth, students 立 reading texts in textbooks. Third, students need to be able to participate the. simple daily life communication. In addition to that, the fifth descriptor states that. ‧ 國. 學. students should be able to read aloud the texts, short essays and stories accurately. Lastly,. ‧. learners should be able to describe things in daily lives. The above speaking abilities can. sit. y. Nat. be generally divided into two kinds: the first kind refers to the language use in the. io. er. classroom that is more controlled and often guided by instructors in a classroom setting,. al. for example, the participation of the speaking practice and the read-aloud activity. The. n. v i n Ctasks second part contains unrestrictive can be conducted in various settings, such as h e that ngchi U daily life conversation and the description of events. Based on the content of the guideline, the researcher designed a checklist that incorporated all the major points of the guideline. It will be presented on the instrument section on page 36. The checklist is used to see to what extend and how the VHSCG corresponds to the dialogue section of the TVEE.. 3. Although conversational ability involves both listening and speaking ability, the dialogue section of the TVEE does not examine test takers’ listening skills. That is the reason why the present study does not include the benchmark and the constructs of listening ability during the analysis. 33.