Interview: #6; Language: Hindi; Interviewee: Rahul; Level: Intermediate Low

During the warm-up stage, it is evident that the speaker uses mostly the present tense when describing his interests and his family. The interviewee‘s responses are short, slow, with error patterns and lack cohesion. After having checked the floor, the interviewer probes the proficiency level with a comparison question about the differences in the educational styles in India and the U.S. , which is an abstract Advanced level question. The answers are short and sprinkled with English words with one exception – he seems to be familiar with the jo-vo relative-correlative sentence, “jo assignment adhyaapikaa dete haiN vo different hai”.. Therefore, the interviewer makes an effort to elicit a response at the Intermediate level by asking him about his ‘daily routine’ (“dincharyaa”). He comfortably answers the question using the present habitual forms, although he uses incorrectly the plural form of the verb with “main”.

The interviewer then probes again with an Advanced level question to check if the interviewee can perform the description function in a different but familiar topic, namely ‘how do you play foodball?’ (“fuTbal kaise khelte haiN?”). The testee provides answers at the Intermediate level with a couple of sentences, e.g., ‘in football one has to score a goal’ (“football ek goal meN karnaa hai”), in which the speaker misplaces the postposition, but uses accurately a popular obligatory construction in an elliptic form (X-ko-missing here + infinitive + “hai”) and ‘which team has more goals, it wins’ (“jis tiim ke zyaadaa goal haiN, veh win hai”) in which he employs a complex syntactical structure, the relative-correlative sentence, where he even uses correctly a an oblique relative pronoun to introduce the subordinate clause, but constructs incorrectly the verb in the independent clause.

The interviewer then introduces another familiar topic at the Intermediate level ‘about class’ (“class ke baare meN”), which the testee can handle adequately. Next, the interviewer probes the proficiency ‘ceiling’, or in other words for a higher level, by eliciting retelling the story of a movie, which the learner has seen in class. He answers mostly at the basic sentence level including a few elaborate phrases as well, e.g., ‘at the end the wedding happens’ (“ant me shaadii ho jaataa hai”), where he fails to make the gender subject-verb agreement, but employs correctly the compound verb.

The interviewer then checks his control of the past time frame, because he has mostly chosen to speak in the present habitual tense. The elicitation question is ‘what did you do in the summer vacation?’ (chuTTiyoN meN kyaa kiyaa?”) and as a further probe he is asked to describe the wedding he has attended. As a result, it is evident that he is familiar with both habitual and simple past, although with consistent gender and number agreement error patterns, e.g., ‘the wedding was very big’ (“shaadii bahut baRaa thaa”), ‘there were 600 people’ (“cheh sau aadmii the,”), ‘it was a party’ (“party thaa”), ‘there was a ritual’ (“ek pooja tha”), ‘they did blessings’ (”blessing diye”).

Noteworthy is his ability to efficiently handle the role-play situation and even sustain it well by asking appropriate questions, e.g., ‘Do I have to wear the cloth specially?’ (”kyaa maiN kisii tarah se kapRaa pahnnaa hai”), ‘Can I take a photo?’ (“kyaa maiN photo kar sakte haiN?”). Noteworthy is also that although, he can consistently formulate simple questions and manages to use correctly ‘can’ (verb stem + sakna), he makes basic subject-verb agreement errors as well as omits –ko in the obligatory constriction.

In the wind-down segment, the interviewer checks the extent of familiarity with and control of the future tense by asking about his plans, but the speaker opts again to using verbs in the present tense.

In conclusion, the interviewee is able to create in the language and handle uncomplicated communicative tasks by asking and answering questions about topics necessary for survival in the target culture. He can speak a little bit about familiar and predictable topics and in an informal context only, at the basic sentence level using the copula verb. He mostly speaks in the present habitual tense, shows familiarity but very limited control of the past and future tenses. His responses are often filled with inaccuracies and hesitancy, as well as English words. He could be understood by a sympathetic interlocutor. Therefore, as a result, he is rated at the Intermediate Low level.

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