Interaction types of students in english speaking tests: Focused on the impact of personality

Abstract

This study investigated the interaction types of test-takers on English speaking tests (pair and group oral tests) and the effect of personality on the interaction types. 56 Korean university students were paired or grouped according to their personality. The students performed once in a pair oral test and once in a group oral test. Their performances were videotaped, rated on a six point rating scale, and transcribed following Conversational Analysis conventions for qualitative analysis.The investigation revealed two distinctive types of interaction, balanced and unbalanced interaction. Balanced interaction was likely to take place between the same personality participants, especially between high proficiency extroverts. The extroverted test-taker tended to lead unbalanced conversation when paired or grouped with the introverted test-taker(s). The introverted test-taker can, however, also be dominant when his/her proficiency was higher than the extroverted partner in a pair oral test. The extroverted test-taker seemed to be interactionally passive because of lack of proficiency. The similar unbalanced interaction also took place in a group oral test when more extroverted and more proficiency test-taker was grouped with less extroverted and less proficiency test-takers. The findings had implications for our understanding of the constructs of pair and group oral tests. However, it is necessary to conduct further research on the same topic over again, with more careful research design - controlling some potential variables such as oral proficiency.