This paper presents the case of 2 adjudicators’ assessment of Northeast Asian EFL speakers in English debate by conducting a qualitative research. From English as an International Language (EIL) perspective, this paper intends to discuss on assessme...
This paper presents the case of 2 adjudicators’ assessment of Northeast Asian EFL speakers in English debate by conducting a qualitative research. From English as an International Language (EIL) perspective, this paper intends to discuss on assessment of Northeast Asian non-native speakers in global setting. The research questions are as follow; (1) How do the adjudicators assess the performance of Northeast Asian EFL debaters? (2) What are the factors influencing the adjudicators’ assessments? To answer the research questions, the current paper conducted semi-structured interview with 2 adjudicators, one from Australia and the other from America. For the purpose of data triangulation, the current paper also included observation of adjudication process as well as collected judging note of each adjudicator. Both adjudicators focused on the meaning of the speech and did not consider speakers’ fluency as crucial when assessing the speech as long as it’s comprehensible. Adjudicators gave feedback on tactics to improve clarity of meaning, confidence, and speaking style for overall persuasion. Each adjudicator had different interpretation of the same judging criteria, which resulted in different assessment performance. Adjudicators constructed self-reflection, recognition of non-native speakers’ equity issue, and problem analysis throughout past experience in debate field, which all impacted on belief as a judge as well as current assessment performance. The current paper has implications in terms of suggesting an authentic case of assessment in EIL paradigm as well as the research of rates’ assessment performance by qualitative method.