The Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) is a widely accepted instrument   for assessing second and foreign language ability. It is used by the Foreign Language   Institute, the Defense Language Institute, Educational Testing Service, the American   Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, and at many universities in the United   States. The Art of Non-Conversation examines the components of speaking ability and   asks whether the OPI is a valid instrument for assessing them.  Marysia Johnson applies   the latest insights from discourse and conversational analysis to determine the nature of   the OPI's communicative speech event and investigate its construct validity within   Messick's definition of validity. She discusses models of speaking ability--several   communicative competence models, an interactional competence model, and a model of   spoken interaction based on Vygotsky's sociocultural theory of learning. Finally she   proposes a new model to test language proficiency drawn from sociocultural theory, one   that considers language ability to be reflective of the sociocultural and institutional   contexts in which the language has been acquired.

The Art of Non-Conversation: A Re-Examination of the Validity of the Oral Proficiency Interview PDF

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