Evaluation of English speaking proficiency under fixed speech rate: Focusing on utterances produced by Korean child learners of English*

This study attempted to test the hypothesis that Korean evaluators can score L2 speech appropriately, even when rate features are unavailable. Two perception experiments―preliminary and main―were conducted sequentially. The purpose of preliminary experiment was categorize English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) speakers into two groups―advanced learners lower-level learners―based on proficiency scores given by five human raters. In main experiment, a set stimuli prepared such all data tokens modified have uniform rate. Ten were asked stimulus 5-point scale. These statistically analyzed determine whether there significant difference in utterance production between groups. results confirm higher-proficiency speak faster than lower-proficiency learners. indicate under controlled speech-rate conditions, raters appropriately assess learner proficiency, probably thanks linguistic considered during evaluation process.