International students at Candian universities: Validating a pedagogically-oriented pronunciation scale

The overall goal of this research initiative is to provide Canadian university instructors and students with a pedagogically-oriented, cost-effective instrument for assessing second language speaking. The specific objectives are (a) to conduct a critical analysis of a recently developed scale that assesses second language comprehensibility (an important aspect of speaking ability) and (b) to refine this scale based on the results of a validation study conducted in both the Canadian and the UK higher education contexts. Overall, the project has the potential to build knowledge across several disciplines (e.g., educational assessment, applied linguistics) and addresses at least one pressing social-educational challenge to reduce language barriers and improve the oral communication skills of international students, in order to foster their academic success.