Die Datenbank "Studentische Referate in der Fremdsprache Deutsch" und ihre Anwendung in einer Pilotstudie zur rhetorischen Sprechwirkung

This article introduces a database designed to evaluate students' public speaking proficiency at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia: "La comunicazione accademica studentesca orale in LS (tedesco), L1 italiano" (Academic student oral communication in FL German, L1 Italian). Central to the project is the collection of audio and video recordings capturing student presentations delivered in German L2, which will be inserted into the BAS CLARIN Repository (Bavarian Archive for Speech Signals, LMU Munich). The corpus consists of audio and video material and is currently being constructed through various transcription phases, with special emphasis on the tool OCTRA for orthographic transcription and lexical recognition. A longitudinal study utilizes a sub-corpus of paired video recordings of the same students, taken two years apart, revealing valuable insights into rhetorical speech effects. The analysis aims to track changes or improvements in speaking proficiency over time, highlighting the development or persistence of skills, and exploring differences between self-assessment and external evaluations. Additionally, the study will investigate differences in presentation styles and effectiveness between in-person and online settings. Key aspects under examination include overall impression, clarity, naturalness, perceived competence, and speaking style, based on phonetic features such as speed, pausing, articulation precision, variation, and emphasis.