Yleisten kielitutkintojen arvioijien käsityksiä thainkieliseksi tunnistettujen suomenoppijoiden suullisesta kielitaidosta
Keywords:
Finnish L2 learners, language assessment, language beliefs, raters, speaking skills, Thai speakersAbstract
This article examines how the recognition of the L1 of Finnish learners of Thai origin (N=10)
affects the National Certificates Finnish raters’ (N=44) perceptions of language skills and
what perceptions the raters have on Thai speakers’ oral proficiency. The data comes from the
project ‘Broken Finnish’ in which Thai speakers form one of the researched migrant groups.
By means of quantitative data, the article examines L1 recognition and the use of the six
analytic criteria for assessment. The qualitative data consist of observations of recognising
L1 and the learners’ language skills, which the raters wrote down during assessment. These
were analysed using theory driven content analysis.
The raters could easily recognise the women (N=8) as L1 Thai speakers, but not the men
(N=2). The recognition clearly had an effect on rating the proficiency levels: the recognised
speakers got lower marks on pronunciation and grammatical accuracy but were rewarded
for fluency and the control of the general criterion. The raters considered it difficult for the
Thai speakers to learn the pronunciation of the target language because of L1. Grammatical
problems were regarded as a consequence of shortcomings in formal education. Fluency,
connected with active speech production, was considered the strength of L1 Thai speakers’
language proficiency. The ratings of the general criterion (covers all criteria) were linked with
understanding the learner product. The perceptions of the learners’ skills were further affected
by the raters’ knowledge of Thai speakers’ life in Finland and, in particular, by stereotypical
thinking patterns connected to women.
