Cloze Task Research Articles

The Effects of Vocabulary Learning on Collocation and Meaning

This study investigates the effects of receptive and productive vocabulary tasks on learning collocation and meaning. Japanese English as a foreign language students learned target words in three glossed sentences and in a cloze task. To determine the effects of the treatments, four tests were used to measure receptive and productive knowledge of collocation and meaning. The results showed that both tasks led to significant gains in knowledge with little difference between the size of the gains. When participants were grouped according to level, the productive task was more effective for higher level learners, and the receptive task was more effective for lower level learners. Mean scores on the productive tests were slightly higher for both tasks on the test of meaning than on the test of collocation. However, the findings indicate knowledge of collocation may be acquired at a rate similar to that of meaning, and that tasks which focus on collocation, as well as meaning, may be effective.

The Facilitative Role of L1 Influence in Tense–Aspect Marking: A Comparison of Hispanophone and Anglophone Learners of French

English learners of French whose first language (L1) does not mark the perfective/imperfective distinction have shown verb semantic influence and an overall preference for perfective over imperfective in their use of second language (L2) tense–aspect markers. This study investigated whether learners whose L1 marks the perfective/imperfective distinction would exhibit similar acquisition profiles. Hispanophones (n= 17) and Anglophones (n= 15) at similar levels of French L2 proficiency completed a 68‐item cloze task with equal numbers of perfective and imperfective contexts distributed across 4 semantic categories: stative, activity, accomplishment, and achievements. In a 20‐minute retrospective interview, a subsample of the participants (8 Hispanophones, 11 Anglophones) commented on factors influencing their tense–aspect choices. An ANOVA of 1,012 predicates revealed that unlike the Anglophones, the Hispanophones did not prefer perfective over imperfective, and they were also less influenced by verb semantics. The learners' comments suggest that the Hispanophones made effective use of L1–L2 similarities, whereas the Anglophones appealed to verb semantics and partially understood pedagogical rules, which were frequently associated with inappropriate uses of the forms.

Comprehension monitoring and reading comprehension in bilingual students

This study explored comprehension monitoring, use of reading strategies and reading comprehension of bilingual students at different levels of perceived proficiency in Italian. The participants were bilingual fifth to eighth‐grade elementary school students from four Italian schools in Rijeka, Croatia. Students' reading comprehension was assessed. Their comprehension monitoring skill was measured on the Metacomprehension test and through use of a cloze task. The Strategic Reading Questionnaire (SRQ) was used as a self‐report measure of strategic reading. A questionnaire investigating Italian language use and perceived proficiency in the Italian language was also administered. Perceived proficiency in Italian was not clearly determined by early or late preschool age of second language acquisition. Bilingual students with high perceived proficiency in Italian (high PP group) had better meta‐cognitive reading skills than those with low perceived proficiency in Italian (low PP group). Comprehension monitoring was the most important predictor of reading comprehension in all students.

Age- and ability-related differences in young readers' use of conjunctions

Two studies investigating young readers' use of conjunctions are reported. In Study One, 145 eight- to ten-year-olds completed one of two narrative cloze tasks in which different types of conjunction were deleted. Performance for additive conjunctions was not affected by age in this study, but older children were more likely to select the target conjunction than were younger children for temporal, causal, and adversative terms. Performance was superior in the cloze task in which they were given a restricted choice of responses (three vs. seven). In Study Two, 35 eight- and nine-year-old good and poor comprehenders completed the three-choice cloze task. The poor comprehenders were less likely to select the target terms in general. Sentence-level comprehension skills did not account for their poor performance. The results indicate that understanding of the semantic relations expressed by conjunctions is still developing long after these terms are used correctly in children's speech. The findings are discussed in relation to the role of conjunctions in text comprehension.

Language-based intervention for phonological disorders.

Children with phonological disorders often display difficulty in other domains of language. Language-based approaches focus on all aspects of language; therefore, little attention may be drawn to sound errors and these may not be specific targets of intervention. These approaches involve a variety of naturalistic, conversationally based techniques such as focused stimulation in the form of expansions and recasts, scaffolding narratives, and elicited production devices such as forced choice questions, cloze tasks, and preparatory sets. Results from well-controlled group studies are inconclusive regarding the cross-domain effects of morphosyntax approaches on phonology. There are, however, individual children whose phonology improves with a language-based approach. Preliminary evidence suggests that such an approach may be an appropriate choice for children with both speech and language impairments whose phonological systems are highly inconsistent. One advantage of a language-based approach is that it may lead to simultaneous improvements in both speech and language for children with difficulty in both these domains. It is also a viable option when service delivery dictates classroom and collaborative settings. When a language-based approach is chosen for children with phonological disorders, it is imperative that the practitioner monitor phonological progress closely to ensure its effectiveness.

Production and recognition bias of stylistic sentences using a story reading task.

Four experiments examined participants' ability to produce surface characteristics of sentences using an on-line story reading task. Participants read a series of stories in which either all, or the majority of sentences were written in the same "style," or surface form. Twice per story, participants were asked to fill in a blank consistent with the story. For sentences that contained three stylistic regularities, participants imitated either all three characteristics (Experiment 2) or two of the three characteristics (Experiment 1), depending on the proportion of in-style sentences. Participants demonstrated a recognition bias for the read style in an unannounced recognition task. When participants read stories in which the two styles were the dative/double object alternation, participants demonstrated a syntactic priming effect in the cloze task, but no consistent recognition bias in a later recognition test (Experiments 3 and 4).

When does gender matter?: Interactions during computer-based problem solving

Children worked in pairs or as individuals on a computer-based language problem-solving task, and their keyboard activities were monitored along with their discussions of the task. A total of 60 children worked in either single-gender or mixed-gender pairings and a further 21 children worked individually. Previous investigations have indicated that suggestions and evaluations by the children are associated with improved task performance, and that the gender composition of the pairs has also been found to influence performance. In the present cloze task boy–girl pairs showed lower levels of verbal interaction and less keyboard co-operation, but few differences in task performance in comparison with single-gender pairs. All children working in pairs out-performed children working individually.

Comparing Second Language Learners' Attention to Form Across Tasks

Recent literature on second language grammar pedagogy promotes the use of tasks which require learners to produce output collaboratively (e.g. Kowal & Swain, 1994; Swain & Lapkin, 1997). Yet there are relatively few studies which have investigated the nature of learners' attention to grammar on such tasks, nor how performance on such tasks compares to performance on more 'traditional' grammar tasks. This paper reports on a small-scale study which set out to compare the performance of adult ESL learners of intermediate second language proficiency on four tasks: multiple choice, rational deletion (cloze), text reconstruction and composition. Each task was completed collaboratively. The data collected included student pair talk on the collaborative tasks, individual student retrospections and the researcher's observations notes. Data from the collaborative tasks were analysed for the quantity and nature of attention to grammatical choices each task generated. Learner attention to grammatical forms varied in quantitative terms across tasks and within task types. Furthermore, there were variations in the amount of articulated reflection on grammatical choices, with the least found in the cloze task and the most in the text reconstruction task.

Examining the test-taking process: a cognitive perspective on the discourse cloze test

Testing consists of making a generalization about a population on the basis of what can be observed in a sample. This principle underlies not only the composition of the sample of individuals to be tested but also the selection of content for the testing instrument itself. Careful attention to the content of assessment tasks is needed to ensure that they are representative of the domain of tasks about which generalizations are to be drawn. However, content representativeness extends beyond mere attention to the problems posed and materials provided in the test. What is more crucially important is the manner in which test tasks are performed. Attention to test-taking process is especially crucial and problematic in the testing of cognitive processing skills. The sample will only be representative if the cogni tive processes involved in task performance are representative of those involved in performance of the domain of tasks in the real world. Thus the validation of tests involving cognitive processes will not be complete unless it includes some examination of the processes by which solutions to test tasks are reached. This line of thinking was propounded 40 years ago by Lennon but has only recently been taken up with the application of ethnographic methods to the study of the test-taking process. This article looks at the findings of a study of the processes employed by sub jects engaged in a discourse cloze test. Think-aloud protocols obtained from test- takers give indications of the reasoning employed in selecting items to complete gaps in the cloze passage and of the strategies employed in doing so. From these indications, cognitive processes are inferred. Comparing observed behaviours and inferred processes with those predicted in a model of ideal performance gives a measure of the construct validity both of the items and of the discourse cloze procedure in general. This introspective validation procedure reveals the test-tak ing behaviour of subjects engaged in cloze tasks and provides a cognitive perspec tive on the vexed question of what cloze actually measures.

Memory for rote linguistic routines and sensitivity to rhyme: A comparison of low-income children with and without specific language impairment

ABSTRACTThis report describes two studies on memory for rote linguistic sequences and sensitivity to rhyme in young children with and without language impairment. In the first study, 10 low income kindergarteners with specific language impairment (SLI) were compared with age- and income-matched classmates on reciting common nursery rhymes, reciting the alphabet, and rote counting. Children with SLI displayed lower performance on most of the rote linguistic sequence tasks, especially on (heir knowledge of Mother Goose nursery rhymes. The second study examined the learning and retention of nursery rhymes in 8 young children with SLI after 6 weeks of classroom instruction. Low-income, 4- and 5-year-old children with SLI and their age- and income-matched classmates were taught five novel Mother Goose rhymes during a large-group classroom activity. Children were tested before and after the intervention on their ability to recite nursery rhymes and to detect rhyme. When compared with their peers, children with SLI had difficulty repeating the nursery rhymes, despite daily classroom exposure. Although the performance of children with SLI on rhyme recitation and detection tasks was poor, their relative performance was better on a cloze task based on the set of nursery rhymes. The results of this study suggest that children with SLI have difficulty storing and/or retrieving lines of memorized text. Traditional informal techniques for teaching rote linguistic sequences may need to be modified to give children with SLI more opportunities to practice rote sequences.

Agrammatism and adaptation theory

Abstract Ability to process grammatical structures was studied in 14 agrammatic speakers, 11 other non-fluent aphasics, five fluent aphasics and 10 normal controls. Adaptation theory maintains that spontaneous speech gives a poor indication of the underlying impairment, because agrammatic patients adopt a strategy of producing elliptical speech to avoid making errors. It was therefore predicted that the pattern of grammatical errors should look different in tasks that minimized or prevented adaptation, such as elicited speech, written sentence ordering and cloze tasks. The grammatical profile of agrammatic aphasics did show some change under cliciting conditions; they produced a higher proportion of verbs in these circumstances and showed some ability to produce active transitive constructions that were not seen in spontaneous speech. However, elictation had no effect on sentence length or complexity or use of grammatical morphemes. Paragrammatic errors were seen in both agrammatic and fluent aphasics und...

Should we teach EFL students collocations?

German advanced EFL students' productive knowledge of English collocations consisting of a verb and a noun were investigated in a translation task and a cloze task. In the translation task, it was found that, although collocates made up less than a quarter of the total number of lexical words, more than half of the unacceptably translated lexical words were collocates. Thus, for advanced students collocations present a major problem in the production of correct English. Furthermore, since subjects did not express the collocational phrases significantly better in the translation task, where it was possible to paraphrase, than in the cloze task, we concluded that one cannot easily paraphrase one's way around collocations in order to avoid the problem which they present. Finally, it was found that some collocations in the translation task were successfully paraphrased by many students while others were rarely successfully paraphrased. It was concluded that EFL teaching should concentrate on those collocations which cannot readily be paraphrased.

Children's Thinking During Collaborative Computer‐based Problem Solving

In previous experiments we have found that co‐operative working around a computer leads to performance gains, but that not all groups benefit equally. Specifically, we have found that mixed gender pairings have shown the least benefit of co‐operative working and we hypothesised that this was due to the nature of the interaction within these groups. The present experiment attempted to identify the specific components of co‐operative discussion that are associated with variations in performance. A Cloze task and a spatial programming task were used to observe gender pair differences in performance and discussion. Programming generated more co‐operation than did the Cloze task, and pairs of boys were especially reluctant to share the Cloze task. Analyses of dialogues indicated more positive socio‐emotional comments during programming than during the Cloze task, and there were also differences in problem‐focused informative statements between tasks. Programming elicited more suggestions of answers and also mo...

Aging and word finding: Reverse vocabulary and Cloze tests

Two tasks were used to evaluate age differences in “word-finding difficulty, ”—lexical access and retrieval—for 31 young adults (college students) and 24 healthy, community-dwelling older adults (aged 58 to 86). Comparison of performances on a traditional (forward) and a reverse vocabulary test for the same set of 43 nouns indicated that the aged could define the words as well as or better than the young, but that they had greater difficulty thinking of the word when given the definition. A Cloze task, in which 32 nouns had been deleted from each of four prose passages, required that participants try to guess the deleted words. On this task, the performances of young and old adults were very similar. The only suggestion of greater word-finding difficulty for the aged was that they more often failed to provide any response, although in absolute terms these omission errors were quite rare for both age groups.

EFFECTS OF PRIOR KNOWLEDGE, EXPLICITNESS, AND CLAUSE ORDER ON CHILDREN'S COMPREHENSION OF CAUSAL RELATIONSHIPS

Abstract The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of prior knowledge, explicitness and clause order on fifth‐ and sixth‐grade readers’ ability to infer causal cohesive ties in text. One hundred sixty‐eight fifth‐ and sixth‐grade students were randomly assigned from three prior knowledge blocks to participate. A text booklet comprised of four versions of six experimental passages was developed: an explicit‐normal‐clause‐order version, an implicit‐normal‐clause‐order version, an explicit‐reversed‐clause‐order version, and an implicit‐reversed‐clause‐order version. Comprehension of the causal relationships in the passages was measured by free recall task, a yes‐no‐why question, cohesion cloze tasks, literal and inferential questions. Significant effects for explicitness were found for fifth‐grade readers on all variables but only on the cohesion cloze task for sixth‐grade. Significant effects for prior knowledge were found for fifth‐ and sixth‐grade students on all variables except the cohesio...

Textual Sequence and Second‐Language Comprehension*

This paper reports research into the interactive roles played in verbal comprehension processes by the sequence of textual elements, text‐specific prior knowledge, and levels of language proficiency. Four cloze tests were administered to undergraduate (n=246) and graduate (n=240) native speakers of English and to undergraduate nonnative (n=238) speakers at three universities in northeast Texas. One test passage was a set of descriptive facts with very little linear connectivity. A second test was based on the chronological account of a psychological experiment. The third and fourth tests were scrambled versions of the first two. Prior to the administration of the tests, half of the subjects were allowed to read the entire intact sequentially ordered text before completing the cloze test derived from it. For the native speakers who read the simple collection of facts, textual sequence and topic‐specific prior knowledge did not contribute significantly to comprehension; however, for all subjects who read the chronological account, variation in the text's naturally occurring sequence and the interaction of that sequencing with the reader's access to topic‐specific prior knowledge were important factors in comprehension. Moreover, proficient nonnative speakers were significantly more able to capitalize on recently acquired topic‐specific prior knowledge, especially when the cloze task that they were given was presented in its normal sequence. This findings are interpreted as evidence of nonnative textboundness.

Children's Monitoring of Another's Comprehension: Effects of Reading Ability and Context

Previous research has shown that children do not monitor their own comprehension very well when reading. Theories have been advanced which emphasize the roles of capabilities and strategies in inhibiting monitoring; at least one crucial factor is that children often do not perceive that errors are possible in text. This paper describes the development of a task, the inserted cloze task, in which children are required to judge the correctness of another child's comprehension. This task elicits comprehension monitoring quite easily. An empirical study of above and below average readers in Years 3 and 4 is reported. Their performance indicates that use of prior context within the sentence poses little difficulty for either group of readers. However use of within-sentence following context is most likely in simple texts, and is the only measure which differentiates the better readers from the less able. These results demonstrate that comprehension can be elicited from even less skilled readers, but that the amount of context which must be considered is an important factor. A possible hierarchy of comprehension skills is discussed, and suggestions for the teaching of these skills are presented. It is concluded that the inserted cloze task would be useful in teaching comprehension monitoring.

Syntactic awareness and reading acquisition

Although previous studies have demonstrated that syntactic awareness is related to beginning reading achievement, the direction of causation remains a matter of dispute. Our study employed a reading level design in which good, younger readers were matched with poor, older readers on four measures of reading ability (real word recognition, pseudo‐word naming, reading fluency, and reading comprehension) and verbal intelligence. It was found that the good, younger readers scored significantly better than the poor, older readers on two measures of syntactic awareness, one an oral cloze task and the other an oral correction task. The findings suggest that the older, poor readers were developmentally delayed in syntactic awareness and that this delay may have retarded reading development.

Relations between Word Knowledge and Comprehension: Generalization across Tasks and Readers

AbstractThis study described the relations between word knowledge and reading comprehension for good and poor readers when comprehension was assessed using different task formats: cloze, modified cloze, multiple-choice questions, and free-response questions. Also, question tasks varied in terms of types of passage information assessed (literal or inferential) and the availability of passages during question responding (look back or no look back). Regardless of task type or reader group, all correlations with word knowledge were statistically significant. Coefficients for poor readers were comparable across tasks, but for good readers, word knowledge accounted for significantly less variance on cloze tasks than on question tasks. In addition, correlations were significantly higher for good readers than for poor readers on no look back question tasks. Implications are drawn for explanatory hypotheses and for future investigations of salient differences between successful and less successful readers.

Rational deletion cloze processing strategies: ESL and native English

This article explores cloze sensitivity to global comprehension by means of Cohen and Hosenfeld's [Cohen, A. and Hosenfeld, C. (1981) Language Learning 31, 285–313] retrospective interview techniques. The participants included 14 ESL college students and 14 native English speaking college students. Both groups of students completed a 65-item rational deletion cloze task. Subsequently, the students were interviewed in order to investigate their use of intrasentential and intersentential cues with respect to each successfully completed item. The results revealed no significant differences between the processing strategies of the ESL and the native English speaking students. The author concludes that the cloze procedure appears to yield a valid estimate of syntactic and lexical awareness on the level of individual sentences. However, cloze sensitivity to intersentential processes is suspect.