Assessing written production in L2 Mandarin Chinese: fluency and accuracy

Abstract

This study utilized T-unit and character-unit indices to assess learners’ written production and evaluate their writing development in second language (L2) Chinese. Through a cross-sectional design, three L2 Chinese learner groups at different instructional levels completed a timed letter-writing task within 30 min. Guided by prior research, respective T-unit and character-unit measures were selected to assess fluency and accuracy of the collected writing data. The results showed that fluency was overall positively related to learners’ instructional level, regardless of the indices (T-unit vs. character-unit). Hence, T-units per minute and characters per minute are considered both valid tools to assess fluency in L2 Chinese writing. However, only errors per character, among the accuracy measures, was found to decline linearly with the increasing level, thus suggested to be valid for tapping accuracy development in L2 Chinese writing. Based on the findings, implications regarding the assessment of L2 Chinese texts were discussed.