The following manuscript has been accepted for publication:
Blake, H. L., Verdon, S. & McLeod, S. (2021, in press March). Multilingual university students’ perceived English proficiency, intelligibility and participation. Journal of Monolingual and Bilingual Speech.
Here is the abstract:
This paper reports on 137 multilingual students enrolled at 14 English-speaking Australian universities who completed a 27-item online survey investigating the relationship between perceived English proficiency, intelligibility, and their academic, social, and vocational participation. Open-ended responses described strategies used to enhance spoken English. Participants came from 44 countries and spoke 49 home languages. Self-ratings of English communication skills were significantly affected by age, English experience, number of languages spoken, and home language. Participants reported spoken English proficiency impacted participation; however, results highlighted lack of awareness of intelligibility as an essential component of spoken language proficiency. Although environmental factors (e.g., more time using English in conversations) were associated with higher self-ratings of proficiency, participants preferred using individual strategies (e.g., listening/repeating) to support English intelligibility rather than social interactions with native speakers. The results demonstrate the importance of conversation practice in language learning to increase proficiency and confidence, as well as participation.https://journal.equinoxpub.com/JMBS/issue/view/1810
