Non-verbal communication (NVC) plays a major role in various aspects of human life (Andersen, 2004; Cameron, 2001; Johnstone, 2008). Children learning their first language come to realize non-verbal communication as their socialization process takes place (Fletcher & German, 1990; Ingram, 1996; Owens, 2001). However, most EFL learners may have little exposure to these non-verbal aspects of comm...

We present a technique for automated assessment of public speaking and presentation proficiency based on the analysis of concurrently recorded speech and motion capture data. With respect to Kinect motion capture data, we examine both timeaggregated as well as time-series based features. While the former is based on statistical functionals of body-part position and/or velocity computed over the...

Recent advances in ASR and spoken language processing have led to improved systems for automated assessment for spoken language. However, it is still challenging for automated scoring systems to achieve high performance in terms of the agreement with human experts when applied to non-native children’s spontaneous speech. The subpar performance is mainly caused by the relatively low recognition ...

this research study employed a mixed-methods approach to investigate the test takers’ perceptions and anx- iety in relation to an english language proficiency test called community english program (cep). this study also evaluated the direct and semi-direct modes for speaking module of this test. to this end, 300 eng- lish as foreign language (efl) students were recruited in the study as test ta...

The assessment of second language (L2) speaking has long been an important yet challenging area of research in language testing. L2 testers are often concerned with designing authentic speaking tasks that resemble real-life speaking activities so that score interpretations are generalizable to non-test contexts. The conversational nature of speaking skills has promoted the widespread integratio...