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probable that they may have also scored the samples based on their
own ethnic criteria of what constituted proficient speech.
It is questionable whether the scores represent the actual
linguistic proficiency of the students. Both the scorers and I noted
the LAS II #634, Form A, English "Pink Chiffon" and LAS II #637, Form
A, Spanish "Los Astronautas" are very similar stories in nglish and
Spanish. Using two such similar stories in the two languages may have
caused confusion for the students, possibly encouraging them to
attempt to retell the same story twice rather than retell two different
stories. The second set of stories on cassettes, LAS II #634, Form A,
English "Hotel Street" and LAS II #637, Form A, Spanish "El Amor del
Principe" are very dissimilar. The English story, "Hotel Street,"
contains many concepts with which the Spanish-speaking students who
recently arrived from socialist Cuba may not be familiar. Although
the Spanish story, "El Amor del Principe," is a Mexican legend about
which none of the students were familiar, the concept ideas in the
story were not dissimilar to other stories with which the Cubans are
familiar. These similarities and differences could increase or decrease
the level of difficulty of the story retelling and, therefore, present
a false picture of students' proficiency.
The language samples collected with the LAS II were not necessarily
representative of the students' linguistic ability. It is very probable
that these students had never experienced a school situation in which
they were requested to function individually. It is also very possible
that they had never been asked to listen to a story and then retell it
in this manner. Although none of the students expressed any reluctance