Individual and Interactional Speech Fluency in L2 English from a Problem-solving Perspective: A Mixed-methods Approach

In my PhD dissertation, I examine second language speech fluency and resources for maintaining it based on monologue and dialogue data. The study extends previous L2 speech fluency research by making three theoretical–methodological contributions: adopting a mixed-methods approach (including quantitative and qualitative analyses), developing a problem-solving framework for fluency analysis that incorporates fluency resources (stalling mechanisms and communication strategies), and measuring and assessing fluency based on L2 dialogue data. The study is situated within L2 oral proficiency and second language acquisition research and has implications for L2 teaching and assessment.

Press release (in Finnish)

Blog post about the PhD defense and the main themes of the dissertation