How does learners’ L2 utterance fluency relate to their L1? A meta-analysis

Abstract

Unraveling how learners’ L2 fluency performance relates to their L1 is crucial for promoting L2 speaking assessment. Despite the consensus that learners’ L1 and L2 are correlated in several measures of utterance fluency, there have been variations in the correlation strength resulting from methodological differences. The current meta-analysis aims to present an overall picture of the L1–L2 fluency relationship and investigate the moderating effect of methodological factors. We identified 16 studies with 137 effect sizes and 714 participants. Through a multi-level meta-analysis, we calculated the aggregate effect sizes of the relationship between L1 and L2 fluency and examined the potential moderating effect of five learner and task variables. The overall correlation was strongest in L1 and L2 breakdown fluency, followed by speed and composite fluency, and weakest in repair fluency. Based on the results of the moderator analyses, we assume that the relationship between L1 and L2 composite fluency may be affected by L2 learning context, task type, and task consistency. The findings have implications for future research design and L2 fluency assessment.