Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

It is said that one important aspect of education is the production of coherent discourse (Halliday and Hasan, 1985). This is the speaker’s or the writer’s ability to organize relevant meanings in relation to each other, and this in turn requires the establishment of ‘chain interaction’ - relations between components of a message - in a text. The more chain interactions we have in a text, the more coherent and, as a result, the more comprehensible it will be. Based on the above argument, the present study aims at investigating the effects of chain interaction impairment which may cost the test-takers’ comprehension of texts - itself being an object of measurement in cloze (Alderson, 1983; Francis, 1999) - and account for their low performance. It also aims at suggesting ‘chain-preserving deletion’ (CPD) as a pedagogical procedure.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Alderson, J. C. 1983: The cloze procedure and proficiency in English as a foreign language. In Oller, J. W. , editor, Issues in language testing research. Newbury House , 205-217.

Bachman, L. F. 1985: Performance on cloze tests with fixed-ratio and rational deletions . TESOL Quarterly 19, 535-556 .

Bachman, L. F. 1990: Fundamental considerations in language testing. Oxford University Press .

Bailey, K. 1996: Working for washback: a review of the washback concept in language testing . Language Testing 13, 257-275 .

Chatel, G. R. 2001: Diagnostic and instructional uses of the cloze procedure . New England Reading Association Journal 37, 3-6 .

Clapham, C. 2003: Principles of assessment. Available at http://www.lang.ltsn.ac.uk/resources/goodpractice.aspx?resourceid=1398 (October 2005).

Davies, A. 1995: Proficiency or the native speaker: what are we going to achieve in ELT? In Cook, G. & Seidlhofer, B. , editors, Principle and practice in applied linguistics. Oxford University Press .

El-Shiyab, S. 1997: Lexical cohesion with reference to the identity chain: application of (IC) to different types of Arabic texts . IRAL 35, 211-211 .

Farhady, H. , Jafarpoor, A. and Birjandi, P. 1994: Language skills testing: from theory to practice. SAMT .

10.

Francis, N. 1999: Applications of cloze procedure to reading assessment on special circumstances of literacy development . Reading Horizons 40, 2-2 .

11.

Halliday, M. A. K. 1977: Text as semantic choice in social contexts. In Van Dijk, T. A. and Petofi, J. S. , editors, Grammars and descriptions. Walter de Gruyter .

12.

Halliday, M. A. K. and Hasan, R. 1985: Language, context, and text: aspects of language in a social-semiotic perspective. Oxford University Press .

13.

Hargett, G. 1998: Assessment in ESL and bilingual education: a hot topics paper. ERIC Document reproduction service no. ED 425645. Northwest Regional Educational Lab .

14.

Hasan, R. 1978: Text in the systemic-functional model. In Dressler, W. , editor, Current trends in textlinguistics. Walter de Gruyter .

15.

Heaton, J. B. 1975: Writing English language tests. Longman .

16.

Hughes, A. 1989: Testing for language teachers. Cambridge University Press .

17.

Klein-Braley, C. and Raatz, E. 1998. Introduction to language testing and C-tests. Available at http://www.uni-Duisburg.De/FB3/ANGLING/FORSCHONG/HOWTODOHTM (September 2005).

18.

Messick, S. 1996: Validity and washback in language testing . Language Testing 13, 241-256 .

19.

Oller, J. W. Jr. 1979: Language tests at school. Longman .

20.

Oller, J. W. Jr. editor 1983: Issues in language testing research. Newbury House .

21.

Orwell, G. 1945: Animal farm. Longman .

22.

Stern, H. H. 1983. Fundamental concepts of language teaching. Oxford University Press .

23.

Warwick, B. E. 1989: Tailoring the evaluation to fit the context. In Johnson, R. K. , editor, The second language curriculum. Cambridge University Press , 270-285.

24.

Weitzel, D. 2003: Fry readability scale. Colorado State University Cooperative Extension, Putting Knowledge to work . Available at http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/octnews/oc030602.html (September 2005).

25.

Yarmohammadi, L. 1997: Personal communication, Shiraz University, Shiraz .

Chain-preserving deletion procedure in cloze: a discoursal perspective

Abstract

Get full access to this article

References