A comparative task-in-interaction analysis of OPI backsliding

The oral proficiency interview (OPI) is often used in the domain of business English as a criterion for access to overseas assignments and job promotions. Little, however, is known about variation in interaction style across interviewers, which motivates in this study a contrastive analysis of two oral proficiency interviews used for gatekeeping purposes. The two interviews were conducted with the same candidate three months apart, and provide a rare glimpse of contrastive interviewer strategies with a single candidate. The analysis examines evidence that the candidate backslid from an earlier successful interview to a categorically lower level of performance in the second interview. Analyses of the candidate's differential establishment of footing in the interview, misalignments to the tone of the interviewer, and differential tendencies of the two interviewers to accommodate to the candidate are featured. Interviewer differences in proclivity to backchannel indicate how facilitative accommodation in scaffolding the interaction may influence the initial rating. The micro-analyses of interview discourse suggest that differences in interviewer style potentially lead to divergent outcomes in the two interviews. In spite of considerable variation in the interaction styles of the two interviewers, consistency in the outcomes of five repeated second ratings of the candidate's performance suggest a rating system robust against even large differences in interviewer style.