English Items Research Articles

Examining Language in Context: The Need for New Research and Practice Paradigms in the Testing of English-Language Learners

Concerns about how to ensure the valid and equitable assessment of English-language learners (ELLs) and other students from culturally non-mainstream backgrounds are longstanding. This article proposes that new paradigms in the research and practice related to ELL testing are needed to address the complexities of language and culture more effectively. Three main areas are identified as key to this paradigm shift: test review, test development, and treatment of language as a source of measurement error. Research examples are provided that illustrate that the proposed paradigm shift is not only necessary but also possible. The authors propose the combined use of generalizability theory and research designs in which ELLs are given the same items in both English and their native languages—an approach that has the potential to reveal more fine-grained understandings of the interactions among first and second language profi-ciency, student content knowledge, and the linguistic and content demands of test items.

Can ESP be tested by EGP

Background: There are two main methods employed for the evaluation of the reading comprehension ability of students of ESP; one using specialized English texts, and the other with general English texts. Purpose: To determine whether or not there is a correlation between the two methods. Methods: In the regular 1998 examinations for admission to PhD courses for 18 different medical disciplines, in which 30 subject-specific English test items were given to the applicants of each discipline, all of them were also evaluated using a set of 30 general English test items (n=201 0). Results: There was a positive correlation of71% between the scores of the examinees in the two tests, the highest and the lowest correlation being respectively in the scores of the applicants of Epidemiology (84%; n=118), and environmental health (56%; n=70). Conclusion: Our finding seems to warrant the use of EGP test as an adequate measure of English language competency for academic purposes. Keywords: LANGUAGE TESTING, READING COMPREHENSIONASSESSMENT, EGP, ESP

ASSESSING HANDWRITING SPEED OF CHILDREN BILITERATE IN ENGLISH AND CHINESE

The assessment of multiliterate handwriting performance is rarely reported despite increased globalization. The present study describes the psychometric properties of a handwriting speed test developed for children who are biliterate in English and Chinese. This included interrater reliability, test-retest reliability, interitem correlation, construct validity, and concurrent validity. The test's reliabilities between two raters and over a 1-wk. interval were high with ICCs ranging from .89 to .99. Interitem correlation between the English and Chinese items was .87. The presence of age trends but not sex differences was a positive indicator of the test's validity. Correlations of .91 and 1.00 between the Chinese and the English items of the Handwriting Assessment Tool with the Chinese Handwriting Speed Test and Handwriting Speed Test, respectively, provided evidence of concurrent validity. These preliminary results showed the Handwriting Assessment Tool is reliable and is a potentially useful handwriting test for children biliterate in English and Chinese. The feasibility of assessing biliterate handwriting speed performance with the same set of scoring criteria for different writing systems was supported.

Shona-English code-mixing in the speech of students at the University of Zimbabwe

Code-mixing (hereafter CM) is a worldwide communicative phenomenon that obtains in language contact situations and is well documented especially in the context of third-world societies. However, little or no systematic attention has been paid to Shona-English CM. Shona-English CM can be found in a number of domains in Zimbabwean society, mostly in the urban areas, and often the younger generation constitutes the most active mixers in informal interactions. This article is concerned with the code-mixing behaviour of Shona-English bilingual students at the University of Zimbabwe. These students have Shona as their mother-tongue (L1) and English as their second language (L2). I will explore how Shona morphosyntactic structure constrains and integrates English lexical items and phrases to form Shona-English mixed constructions. Two major observations are made. First, it is shown that for a Shona-English code-mixed structure to be acceptable the morphosyntactic structure of English must conform to the morphosyntactic structure rules of Shona. Secondly, it is noted that the English the students use is also of considerable lexical and syntactic complexity and retains much of its semantic and syntactic integrity when it appears in mixed utterances of terms. The data collected for this study reveal that CM involves the integration of English descriptive adjectives, nouns, locatives and verbs.

Code-switching and lexical borrowing: Which is what in Ghanaian English?

Mixed local feelings about the use of local words in the English of Ghana. A Ghanaianism is a vocabulary item peculiar to Ghana. It may be an English item that has undergone a local semantic shift, an item of local origin used consistently in English, or a hybrid of the two. In addition, the term Ghanaian English as used here refers, not to a variety whose features have been more or less fully recognised and described, but broadly to the English used by Ghanaians who have had at least some formal education and are able to use English in some registers. Drawing on a collection of Ghanaianisms compiled over the last 10 years, this paper looks first at some of the prevailing problems in attempting to define the transference phenomena widely identified as code-switching (CS) on the one hand and lexical borrowing (LB) on the other, then at how Ghanaians deal with the phenomenon of borrowing into English at the text level.

"Mixed" Etymologies of Middle English Items in OED3: Some Questions of Methodology and Policy

"Mixed" Etymologies of Middle English Items in OED3: Some Questions of Methodology and Policy

Asymmetric activation of number codes in bilinguals: further evidence for the encoding complex model of number processing.

In two experiments, Filipino-English bilinguals were asked to verify simple addition equations that were presented either in digit, verbal-Filipino, or verbal-English formats and that included different types of sum probes. The main results show (1) faster and more accurate processing of digit and English items than of Filipino items, (2) stronger associative interference by type of probe with the digit and English items compared with the Filipino items, and (3) priming of responses from English to digit codes, and from Filipino to digit codes, but not vice versa. The results were explained by using an elaborated version of Campbell's (1994) encoding complex model with additional assumptions to address the experience of bilinguals. The additional assumptions relate to the preference among the bilingual's two verbal formats, the different strengths of activation pathways within each format, and the asymmetric activation across formats.

Making phonology functional: What do I do first? Shelley L. Velleman. Boston: Butterworth-Heinemann, 1998. Pp. 228.

This book focuses on non-functional phonologies (NFP): that is, phonological disorders with no known physiological or neurological causes. It is a substantial book, well written and carefully researched, with an applied and pedagogical orientation that will make it invaluable for clinicians and students in speech pathology and child phonology. It is an ambitious and original work; its practical guidance for those assessing child phonology is based on a comprehensive and up-to-date descriptive and theoretical review of phonological systems and their realization in children's speech. It consists of six chapters, each of which introduces general concepts of phonology as well as modern concepts of nonlinear phonology and includes practical material, most notably a set of original worksheets that are geared to assessment or other types of intervention. It also has three appendices: the first reviews commercial tests, the second provides examples of stress patterns in English lexical items, and the third presents conventions of the International Phonetic Alphabet.

Ghanaianisms

A list of vocabulary items peculiar to English in Ghana has been compiled over the last ten years. Included are items that have appeared in print at least three times within eight years. Most items were tested on Ghanaians of varying ages, ethnic backgrounds and levels of education to ascertain familiarity and usage. The paper is based on the above data. It classifies the entries according to (1) origin: English, local, hybrid; and (2) semantic and formal subcategorisations, i.e. (i) which semantic and formal processes the English items have undergone, (ii) from which semantic domains the local items are drawn and (iii) by which processes the hybrids were created.

Translation and validation of Caregiving Satisfaction Scale into Korean.

The purpose of this study was to establish the equivalence and to examine the psychometric properties of a Korean translation of the Caregiving Satisfaction Scale (CSS). A convenience sample of 44 bilingual Koreans was selected. The Cronbach's alpha for the English and Korean versions were .87 and .90, respectively. There was significant mean difference between items 3 and 12 of the English items and their Korean translations. Pearson's Correlations demonstrated that 13 of the 15 CSS items had significant correlations (r = .35-.75, p < .05) between two versions. The correlation between total scores of both versions was .86 (p < .001). Overall, none of the items would be regarded as having unacceptable numeric properties. According to the fine process for translation, back-translation, and bilingual field test, the Korean version of the CSS appears to have concrete construct validity and reliability for use in measuring caregiver satisfaction in the Korean population.

A Phonological Account For The Cross-Language Variation In Working Memory Processing

This study examines the relationship between immediate serial recall and word articulation rate with Cantonese and English materials. Using bilingual subjects, Experiment 1 reported a steeper regression function relating recall to word articulation rate for Cantonese than for English items. The effect of language on regression slopes was shown to hold both with and without concurrent articulation (i.e., subjects repeating irrelevant digits during list learning and recall, thus blocking any articulatory mechanisms), although it was significantly more pronounced in the latter condition. In Experiment 2, the effect of language on slopes was replicated in monolingual English speakers, using pseudowords that preserved the consonant-vowel structures of the Experiment 1 items. These findings indicate that (1) both articulatory and nonarticulatory processes contribute to the cross-language variation in regression slopes and (2) the language effect is attributable to a difference in consonant-vowel structures of the items from the two languages. It is concluded that the phonological loop model (Baddeley, 1986), which specifies an articulatory rehearsal process and a nonarticulatory phonological store, is applicable to cross-language working memory processing.

Subject Searching in Online Catalogs Including Spanish and English Material

The use of title words, the combination of these through the use of logic operators, and the possibility of truncating them when carrying out subject searches, are some of the search options that have been incorporated into the online catalog. Several arguments in favor of these options have been expressed which state that they represent an approach for the use of natural language and that they facilitate information retrieval. However, expressed arguments against them that support the necessity of using controlled language to obtain more precision in search results also exist. This paper reports the main results from a study whose objective was to compare advantages and disadvantages of retrieval by keywords from the title and by subject headings included in the records of LIBRUNAM, an online catalog containing records for English and Spanish items at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Where is the hierarchy of academic self-concept?

The hierarchy of academic self-concept (SC) was examined in 4 studies. In Study 1, a higher order artistic SC factor represented teacher education students' (N = 298) SCs in 4 art areas. In Study 2, high school students' (N = 197) perceptions in speaking, reading, and writing in English and in language other than English formed 2 distinct higher order factors showing the domain specificity of their SCs in respective language areas. In Study 3, university students' (N = 309) SCs in speaking, reading, and writing English as a second language formed a higher order English SC factor that was not distinguishable from an independent global English SC measure. In Study 4, responses of students in a school of commerce (N = 211) to SC items in accounting, math, economics, English, and Chinese formed a higher order factor that was not distinguishable from a global academic SC measure.

Using Statistical and Judgmental Reviews to Identify and Interpret Translation Differential Item Functioning

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the equivalence of two translated tests using statistical and judgmental methods. Performance differences for a large random sample of English- and French-speaking examinees were compared on a grade 6 mathematics and social studies provincial achievement test. Items displaying differential item functioning (DIF) were flagged using three popular statistical methods—ManteTHaenszel, Simultaneous Item Bias Test, and logistic regression—and the substantive meaning of these items was studied by comparing the back-translated form with the original English version. The items flagged by the three statistical procedures were relatively consistent, but not identical across the two tests. The correlation between the DIF effect size measures were also strong, but far from perfect, suggesting that two procedures should be used to screen items for translation DIF. To identify the DIF items with translation differences, the French items were back-translated into English and compared with the original English items by three reviewers. Two of seven and six of 26 DIF items in mathematics and social studies respectively were judged to be nonequivalent across language forms due to differences introduced in the translation process. There were no apparent translation differences for the remaining items, revealing the necessity for further research on the sources of translation differential item functioning. Results from this study provide researchers and practitioners with a better understanding of how three popular DIF statistical methods compare and contrast. The results also demonstrate how statistical methods inform substantive reviews intended to identify items with translation differences.

ON SENTENTIAL NEGATION AND THE LICENSING OF NEGATIVE POLARITY ITEMS IN ENGLISH AND JAPANESE: A MINIMALIST APPROACH

This paper is concerned with the syntax of negative sentences and negative polarity items (NPIs) in English and Japanese and argues for the validity of a feature-checking analysis in the framework of Chomsky (1995). It is demonstrated that the feature-checking analysis based on feature specification on Neg and NPIs can present a unified view of negative sentences and that different distributions of NPIs naturally follow from it. At the same time, it is argued that negative sentences suggest a locality condition supplementary to the Minimal Link Condition in Chomsky (1995), in support of Manzini (1998). This locality condition is incorporated into the analysis as the NEG-Convention.

Library Instruction and Information Literacy–1997

This annotated bibliography lists materials dealing with information literacy including instruction in the use of information resources, research, and electronic skills related to retrieving, using, and evaluating information. This review, the twenty‐fourth to be published in Reference Services Review, includes items in English published in 1997. A few items are not annotated because the compiler could not obtain copies of them for this review.

Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage

This remarkable new dictionary represents the first attempt in some four centuries to record the state of development of English as used across the entire Caribbean region. Information has been drawn from speech recordings and from over 900 written sources of Caribbean literature, reference works, magazines, pamphlets, and newspapers. The derivation and usage of words, their social or grammatical register, pronunciation, area of occurrence and regional differences are all clearly recorded, with full cross-referencing and thousands of illustrative quotations from a broad range of sources. A short Supplement lists Caribbean French and Spanish equivalents to Caribbean English items selected from the main work. Includes: bobolist * feg * pla-pla * Tobago love * fungee * Jamaica-plum * naseberry * Phagwa * Conchy Joe * take up sb's fire-rage * jumbie * coskel * obsocky * Rastafarianism * play ole mas

Ironic Context-Free Ironies in Thai as Conventionalized Implicatures

It is claimed that there are no lexical items in English which are carries of ironic meanings (Myers 1978). Thai is, to determine whether an expression is ironic or not depends on context. Similar to English, most cases of verbal irony in Thai are context-dependent (Panpothong 1996). Yet Thai has expressions which always convey the opposite of literal meaning. In this paper, I refer to them as context-free ironies. Like dead metaphors, these expressions start life as conversational implicature before by-passing their literal meaning. Thus, they are appropriately viewed as conventionalized ironic implicatures. The paper consists of three sections. In the first section, the definition of verbal irony adopted in this paper shall be provided. In the second section, examples of context-free irony in Thai shall be presented. And in the last section, the context-free ironies shall be viewed on the basis of Grice’s theory.

Library Instruction and Information Literacy–1996

This annotated bibliography lists materials dealing with information literacy including instruction in the use of information resources, research, and computer skills related to retrieving, using, and evaluating information. This review, the twenty‐third to be published in RSR, includes items in English published in 1996.

CONCURRENT CALIBRATION OF DICHOTOMOUSLY AND POLYTOMOUSLY SCORED TOEFL ITEMS USING IRT MODELS

ABSTRACTIn order to meet the needs of the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL®) constituencies, the TOEFL program is sponsoring a development project known as TOEFL 2000. Drawing from current linguistic theory and models of communicative competence, it is anticipated that the new test or test battery developed by the TOEFL 2000 project will likely be designed to test all four language skills — reading, writing, listening, and speaking — in an integrated fashion. However, one compromise level or position on integration of skills is one in which reading and writing would be tested together, and listening and speaking also tested together. It is also assumed that the test will largely be performance‐based, meaning a substantial portion of the items on the test will likely be constructed‐response items, and an examinee's score on such items will be in one of multiple ordered categories.Two groups of item response theory (IRT) models have been developed to calibrate items with multiple ordered categories (i.e., polytomously scored items): (a) the partial credit model (Masters, 1982) and the generalized partial credit model (Muraki, 1992); and (b) the graded response model (Samejima, 1969,1972). These models have been used jointly with the dichotomous three parameter logistic (3PL) IRT model to concurrently calibrate dichotomously and polytomously scored items for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). However, the performance of these polytomous IRT models and the concurrent calibration of dichotomous and polytomous scored items have not been investigated with data from the TOEFL examinee population.The purpose of this study was to obtain a good understanding of the performance of a combination of dichotomous and polytomous IRT models with TOEFL data. TOEFL Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension and Test of Written English (TWE®) items, and TOEFL Listening Comprehension and Test of Spoken English (TSE®) items were concurrently calibrated using a combination of the generalized partial credit model and the 3PL IRT model. The two sets of combined items were also concurrently calibrated using a combination of the graded response model and the 3PL IRT model.The results of this study indicate that data from a reading/writing combination made up of the TOEFL Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension section and the TWE were reasonably well fit by a combination of the 3PL and generalized partial credit models or 3PL and graded response models. In a similar fashion, data for a listening/speaking combination made up of the TOEFL Listening Comprehension section and selected tasks from the TSE were also reasonably well fit by the 3PL/generalized partial credit and 3PL/graded response model combinations.A variety of comparisons across the generalized partial credit and graded response models seem to indicate some preference for using the generalized partial credit model when PARSCALE is used as the calibration program. The results of this study provide useful information about test construction and item calibration procedures that might later be used for the TOEFL 2000 project.