Abstract
The ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) assessment serves as a widely acknowledged and reliable measure of an individual's linguistic speaking aptitude. Prioritizing Higher Order Thinking (HOT) skills in the creation and execution of ACTFL OPI-aligned speaking activities offers a profoundly effective strategy for cultivating students' oral proficiency at a higher level in the target language, both within and beyond the classroom confines. Speaking activities that are ACTFL OPI-focused enhance students’ exposure to a wide array of subjects, fostering their communicative competence to encompass practical daily conversations as well as articulate argumentative discourse across familiar and unfamiliar topics. The present study delves into the strategic integration of HOT skills: analyzing, evaluating, and creating. For instance, within our weekly speaking club, students actively engage in discussions on contemporary hot topics. Each session, students assume different roles, such as the impromptu topic host (creating), evaluators (evaluating), master of ceremonies (creating), and speakers (analyzing). This multifaceted approach allows students to exercise their HOT skills and fosters a well-rounded language proficiency. This endeavor not only aims to enhance students' interpersonal and presentational communication competencies but also to cultivate their critical thinking abilities. Through drawing upon the experiences of a prominent California-based language institution, the present study will shed light on how these integration of HOT skills into OPI-aligned speaking activities and pinpoint on fostering peer learning and autonomous learning paradigms through these discussions.
Author Information
Hui-Ju Chuang, Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center, United States
Lin Tsai, Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center, United States
Paper Information
Conference: ACEID2024
Stream: Teaching Experiences
This paper is part of the ACEID2024 Conference Proceedings (View)
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To cite this article:
Chuang H., & Tsai L. (2024) Enhancing Chinese Speaking Proficiency Through Leveraging Higher Order Thinking Skills in ACTFL OPI-Aligned Activities ISSN: 2189-101X – The Asian Conference on Education & International Development 2024 Official Conference Proceedings (pp. 99-105) https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2189-101X.2024.8
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2189-101X.2024.8
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