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The Korean Association for the Study of English Language and Linguistics
[ Article ]
Korea Journal of English Language and Linguistics - Vol. 25, No. 0, pp.1585-1602
ISSN: 1598-1398 (Print) 2586-7474 (Online)
Print publication date 31 Jan 2025
Received 15 Oct 2025 Revised 15 Nov 2025 Accepted 19 Nov 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15738/kjell.25..202511.1585

Exploring Raters’ Criteria for Assessing Interactional Competence in Paired Discussion Tasks

Sanghyo Goh ; Youngsoon So
(First author) Ph.D candidate, Department of English Language Education Seoul National University 1 Gwanak-ro, Gwanak-gu, Seoul, Republic of Korea gkdlel1994@snu.ac.kr
(Corresponding author) Professor, Department of English Language Education, Learning Sciences Research Institute Seoul National University youngsoon_so@snu.ac.kr


© 2025 KASELL All rights reserved
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

This study explores raters’ perceptions of successful interaction in paired discussion tasks within a second language (L2) context, aiming to operationalize interactional competence (IC) in assessment. A qualitative analysis of raters’ notes collected during the evaluation process identified three key categories of successful interaction in paired discussion tasks: interactional management, interactive listening, and co-constructive interaction. Raters highlighted the importance of clear and well-reasoned opinion expression, eliciting partners’ responses, and providing appropriate and genuine responses to previous utterances as important strategies for managing interaction in paired discussion tasks. Interactive listening reflects the importance of the listener’s role in interaction, focusing on how attentively participants listen to each other’s utterances. This category encompasses behaviors such as non-verbal cues (e.g., eye contact, nodding) and backchanneling (e.g., “okay”, “mm”). Co-constructive interaction was recognized as essential, with raters valuing supportive behaviors such as assisting a struggling partner. While collaborative patterns were generally preferred, dominance was viewed positively when it compensated for a passive partner’s lack of engagement. However, dominance driven by excessive self-expression was viewed negatively, highlighting the value of mutual engagement. These findings provide insights into developing rating criteria that capture the interplay of these features, enabling a more comprehensive assessment of IC in paired discussion tasks.

Keywords:

interactional competence, rating criteria, raters’ perception, paired discussion tasks

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