Volume 7, 2007, Paper 5
Paper 5: Documenting features of written language
production typical at different IELTS band score levels
Authors
Jayanti Banerjee
Lancaster University, UK
Florencia Franceschina
Lancaster University, UK
Anne Margaret Smith
Lancaster University, UK
This study addresses the question of how competence levels, as
operationalised in a rating scale, might be related to what is
known about L2 developmental stages.
ABSTRACT
This study has taken its lead from discussions about the benefit
of collaboration between researchers in language testing and second
language acquisition (eg Bachman and Cohen, 1998; Ellis, 2001; and
Laufer, 2001). It addresses the question of how competence levels,
as operationalised in a rating scale, might be related to what is
known about L2 developmental stages. Looking specifically at the
writing performances generated by Tasks 1 and 2 of the IELTS
Academic Writing module, the study explores the defining
characteristics of written language performance at IELTS bands 3–8
with regards to: cohesive devices used; vocabulary richness;
syntactic complexity; and grammatical accuracy. It also considers
the effects of L1 and writing task type on the measures of
proficiency explored.
The writing performances of 275 test-takers from two L1 groups
(Chinese and Spanish) were transcribed and then subjected to manual
annotation for each of the measures selected. Where automatic or
semi-automated tools were available for analysis (particularly in
the area of vocabulary richness), these were used. The results
suggest all except the syntactic complexity measures investigated
here are informative of increasing proficiency level. Vocabulary
and grammatical accuracy measures appear to complement each other
in interesting ways. L1 and writing tasks seem to have critical
effects on some of the measures, so they are an important factor to
take into account in further research.
