Assessment in second language pronunciation

For the past two decades, there has been enormous growth in research on second language (L2) pronunciation. Pronunciation is an essential aspect of the assessment of oral skills because it helps us understand the fundamentals in the process of the construction of spoken discourse in L2 performance; that is, listeners begin by processing individual sounds constructed by L2 speakers to arrive at an interpretation for a stream of speech. Recently, various issues regarding L2 pronunciation have particularly drawn attention in the field of applied linguistics. In this chapter, we will start with a historical overview of pronunciation assessment in general and address the aforementioned issues in depth: i.e. validity and reliability of pronunciation assessment, measurement of pronunciation constructs and features, rating scales and criteria, rater background characteristics, classroom-based pronunciation assessment, assessment in the context of world Englishes, and automated pronunciation assessment. We will then discuss main research methodologies particularly related to rubric design and scales as well as other acoustic measures of pronunciation features, followed by recommendation for practice and future directions.