Interview # 9; Language: Hindi; Interviewee: Kelly; Level: Intermediate Mid

The learner gives a good introduction of herself in the warm up section of the interview that she is an NYU graduate, works as a dog walker and lives in New York City, etc. Thus, in the beginning, having an idea of the interviewee’s level, generally at the Intermediate level, the interviewer continues the conversation about her experience of dog-walking (“kab kyaa hota hai?”). The interviewee answers in a string of present tense sentences sprinkled with many English words – e.g. ‘I go to an apartment’ (“ek apartment jaatii huuN”), ‘Iopen the owner’s apartment’ (“owner kaa aptartment open kartii huuN”), “har walk thirty minute hai”, “maiN ek-do tasviir khiNchtii huuN”, “phone me info send kartii huuN.”

After this topic is exhausted, the interviewer learns about the testee’s other main interest – food (“mujhe khaanaa bahut pasand kartii huuN”). The conversation is veered towards this topic. The interviewee is asked what and how she cooks (“khaanaa pakaatii bhii haiN?” “kyaa pakaatii haiN?”, “kaise banaatii haiN?”). The interviewee answers again in the present habitual tense by stringing simple sentences. Yet at times she employs some connectors and complex syntactic structures, which is a sign of Advanced level, e.g. ‘when the water is boiling, I put in the pasta’ (”jab paanii ublaa hai, to maiN paastaa Daaltii huuN”).

Next, to elicit more cohesive output at the paragraph-length level, the interviewer introduces a new topic – film. The interviewee retells the story of a movie. She uses the habitual present tense only in a string of sentences and with grammatical error patterns, mostly in the postpositional phrases and subject-verb number agreement – e.g. “hotel haunted hai, bahut hai, aadmii paagal jaataa hai, eventually aadmii ko apnaa parivaar ko maarnaa chaahtaa hai, film ka ant me jack parivaar ko nahiN maarte haiN”,“bachchhaa maiz me ghumte haiN, jack uska bachchhaa follow hai.” She uses simple connectors ‘but’ (“lekin”), ‘so’ (“to”), ‘at the end of the movie’ (“film ka ant meN”); uses correctly ‘can’ verb stem + saknaa (“kar saktaa hai”); has a partial control over the definite object marker –ko postposition (“uska parivar ko nahiin maarte hai”); empoys correctly to want to or infinitive + chaahnaa (“maarnaa chaahtaa hai”).

The interviewer then asks about past experiences to check for testee’s ability to use past tense. The interviewee is familiar with the form, but makes all kinds of agreement errors – ‘in the beginning I did not work’ (“beginning meN kaam nahiiN thi”) , ‘in june I looked for work’ (“june me kaam ke liye dekhii”), I worked in Barista’ (“mai barrista thi”), ‘maybe one day I will get another job, I studied politics in college’ (“shaayad ek din main duusraa kaam miluuNgii, college meN rajniiti paRhtii thii…”)

During the Intermediate level role play the testee is able to ask a number of questions very comfortably. In the wind down section of the interview, she also successfully answers questions using the future form.

To sum up, in terms of global tasks and functions, the interviewee consistently creates with the language. She is able to ask questions and handle simple social transactions in an informal context. Her speech is comprehensible – she is understood by a sympathetic interlocutor without any difficulty and with some difficulty by a native speaker. Her speech contains hesitancy and self-corrections as she searches for the right vocabulary without circumventing, which is typical of foreign language learners. She uses limited vocabulary about predictable, familiar topics related to her routine and personal experiences. She is familiar with the three time frames, but when answering the tester’s questions on a variety of topics, most of the time she is comfortable using only the present forms. When the interviewer probes, the learner shows signs of familiarity with other time frames but demonstrate inconsistency and inaccuracy. She is in control of the basic sentence structure, speaks mostly at the sentence level, but does use certain limited number of connectors and cohesion markers. With such a linguistic performance, the speaker is rated at the Intermediate Mid level.

Listen to the rationale in Hindi: