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THE DEVELOPMENT OF L2 ENGLISH SPEAKING ABILITY: LINGUISTIC AND INTERACTIONAL PERSPECTIVES
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2025-08
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Teaching & Learning
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https://doi.org/10.34944/wm5g-pa98
Abstract
Understanding the developmental trajectories of second language (L2) speaking proficiency is a key focus of language instruction and research. Linguistic development has been analyzed through complexity, accuracy, lexis, and fluency (CALF), whereas interactional development has been examined via conversation-analytic approaches to interactional competence. However, few researchers have integrated these perspectives to examine how linguistic and interactional resources dynamically co-develop, an issue increasingly highlighted in the literature (Eskildsen, 2024; Pekarek Doehler & Eskildsen, 2022). Drawing on Complex Dynamic Systems Theory (CDST) (Larsen-Freeman, 2020; van Dijk et al., 2024), in this study I investigate patterns of linguistic and interactional resource use over time and assesses how effectively the ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) distinguishes learners across proficiency levels based on these resources. Nine Japanese university students representing three proficiency levels (Intermediate-Low, Intermediate-Mid, Intermediate-High) participated in this longitudinal multiple-case study conducted over one academic year. The participants completed conversation, narration, and role-play tasks during four OPIs administered at approximately three-month intervals. Linguistic performance was quantified using CALF measures, and qualitative analyses employing conversation analysis examined interactional practices such as self-initiated repair and turn-constructional unit-initial discourse markers.CALF analyses revealed distinct developmental trajectories across proficiency levels and tasks. Higher proficiency learners demonstrated balanced gains in complexity (e.g., subordination, words per AS-unit) and fluency (e.g., syllables per minute, mean syllables per run), consistent with predictions from CDST regarding the interconnected, dynamic development of language subsystems (van Geert & Steenbeek, 2005). Lower proficiency learners exhibited pronounced complexity-accuracy trade-offs, supporting the Limited Capacity Model (Skehan, 1996). Fluency measures most clearly aligned with proficiency distinctions, echoing previous findings on fluency’s salience in oral proficiency assessment (De Jong et al., 2012; Kahng, 2024). Task-specific affordances (Ferrari, 2012; Tavakoli, 2018) were evident, with role-play tasks eliciting clearer proficiency distinctions than conversation or narration tasks.
Analyses of interactional practices demonstrated proficiency-level differences in resource use, aligning with previous findings from interactional competence research (Al-Gahtani & Roever, 2012; Youn, 2015). Lower-proficiency learners predominantly used simple turn-maintenance strategies and basic discourse markers (and and so), whereas higher- proficiency learners employed more complex self-initiated repairs for hedging and rhetorical purposes, indicating interactional competence development (Kim, 2020). Importantly, these interactional practices provided contexts conducive to linguistic development, with repair sequences particularly facilitating increases in syntactic complexity and fluency. These findings offer empirical support for assertions regarding the mutually adaptive nature of linguistic and interactional resources as envisaged by CDST (Larsen-Freeman & Cameron, 2008; van Dijk et al., 2024).
Finally, the effectiveness of the ACTFL OPI in differentiating proficiency levels based on CALF and interactional practices was critically examined. Fluency and lexical diversity separated proficiency groups to some extent, whereas syntactic complexity and accuracy showed inconsistent differentiation. Interactional resources clearly differentiated lower from higher levels, though distinctions between the Intermediate-Mid and Intermediate-High groups were less distinct, highlighting potential areas for assessment refinement (Roever & Ikeda, 2024; Roever & Kasper, 2018).
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