主讲人：Xun Yan （闫逊）
讲座地点：科技楼北楼510
讲座题目 ：Putting elicited imitation to the test: What have we learned and where are we headed?
讲座时间：2025年5月28日上午，8：30—10：30
讲座摘要：
Elicited imitation (EI) is considered as a type of psycholinguistic task in language testing, and its use as a measure of second language (L2) proficiency is controversial with a unique trajectory of popularity over the past 50 years. This talk is a reflection of EI-related research and practice across four historical stages, from (1) the initial adaptation from first language acquisition research, through (2) the debate on construct validity, to (3) the loss of popularity to communicative movement, until (4) the recent resurgence of interest in the digital era. I will first synthesize research findings on some critical questions raised on the nature of EI as a proficiency measure across different stages. Next, I will discuss implications of this measure in other fields of applied linguistics, propose new lines of research, and illustrate the potential of this method of assessment through some of my recent work. In the end, I will extrapolate beyond EI to share some personal views on the use of psycholinguistic vs. communicative tasks in measuring language proficiency in applied linguistics. By combining historical review and empirical research, I hope that the talk will provide a comprehensive account on the “seasonality” of attention on such a resilient measure of L2 proficiency. Through decades of EI research, while answers to some lingering questions remain inconclusive, advancements in cognitive psychology and technology have also broaden the scope and reshaped the foci of research around this method of assessment.
主讲人简介：
Xun Yan is a professor of Linguistics, Second Language Acquisition and Teacher Education, and Educational Psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is a faculty member in the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology. He received his PhD degree in second language studies from Purdue University and is a language tester by training. At UIUC, Xun is the director of the undergraduate program in Linguistics + TESOL and the supervisor of the English Placement Test and the English Proficiency Interview. Xun’s research interests include speaking and writing assessment, psycholinguistic approaches to language testing, and language assessment literacy. His work has been published in journals including Applied Linguistics, Assessing Writing, Foreign Language Annals, Journal of Second Language Writing, Language Assessment Quarterly, Language Learning, Language Testing, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, System, and TESOL Quarterly. He is a co-editor for Language Testing. Xun was the recipient of the ETS TOEFL Essentials New Scholar award in 2022, UIUC’s LAS Alumni Distinguished Professorial Scholar Award in 2024, Conrad Humanities Mid-Career Scholar Award in 2022, and Lincoln Early-Career (LEAP) Scholar Award in 2018.
william威廉中文外语教育研究中心
2025年5月23日
