The Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) is a widely accepted instrument for assessing second and foreign language ability. It is used by the Foreign Language Institute, the Defense Language Institute, Educational Testing Service, the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, and at many universities in the United States. The Art of Non-Conversation examines the components of speaking ability and asks whether the OPI is a valid instrument for assessing them.

Marysia Johnson applies the latest insights from discourse and conversational analysis to determine the...

How does a person learn a second language? In this provocative book, Marysia Johnson proposes a new model of second language acquisition (SLA)--a model that shifts the focus from language competence (the ability to pass a language exam) to language performance (using language competently in real-life contexts).

Johnson argues that current SLA theory and research is heavily biased in the direction of the cognitive and experimental scientific tradition. She shows that most models of SLA are linear in nature and subscribe to the conduit metaphor of knowledge transfer: the speaker encodes a...