Gap-filling Test Research Articles

Does pictorial elucidation foster recollection of idioms?

Experimental evidence suggests that pictorial elucidation helps learners comprehend and remember the meaning of second language (L2) idioms. In this article we address the question whether it also helps retention of the form of idioms, i.e. their precise lexical composition. In a small-scale experiment, the meaning of English idioms was clarified to students with reference to the original, literal use of the expressions. This was done with a view to stimulating dual coding, i.e. the association of the figurative phrases with images of concrete scenes. For half of the idioms, photographs or drawings depicting those concrete scenes were added to the verbal explanations. The learners’ recollection of the content words of the expressions was subsequently gauged in a gap-fill test. Overall, the results suggest that the addition of pictorial elucidation contributes little to learners’ retention of linguistic form. Distraction by pictures may even have a detrimental effect when it comes to retaining unfamiliar and difficult words, and this seems to apply especially to learners whose learning style shows a predisposition for processing vocabulary through imagery. Insofar as our findings are transferable to vocabulary learning in general, they may call into question the rather indiscriminate and abundant use of pictorials in modern textbooks and CALL packages.

The effects of online conjunction materials on college EFL students’ writing

Misuse of English conjunction related to incoherent writing, according to the literature, comes from learners’ first language interference, improper mechanical exercises, and misleading lists of connectors in textbooks demonstrated as if mutually interchangeable without contextual constraints. Form-focused instruction with explicit semantic, stylistic and syntactic properties can help learning of connectors. Additionally, computer learner corpus analysis which identifies systematic interlanguage patterns in Chinese learner data offers pedagogical insights for the current study. Four Web-based online conjunction units based on principles from related literature and learner corpus analyses were designed for 19 EFL college students to use for a month with sentence-beyond contexts concerning stylistic properties and overuse situations. Before and after the project, a gap-filling test on conjunctors and a writing task were used, followed by an evaluation questionnaire on students’ perception. Results indicated that students generally held a positive attitude toward the online units and demonstrated statistically significant improvements in the use of connectors in both the test and free production contexts. The case study argues that pedagogically sound instructional design for online conjunction materials can help college EFL learners write more accurate and coherent essays.

Language testing

04–636 Chapelle, Carol A., Jamieson, Joan and Hegelheimer, Volker (Iowa State U., USA; Email: carolc@iastate.edu). Validation of a web-based ESL test. Language Testing (London, UK), 20, 4, (2003), 409–439.04–637 Choi, Inn-Chull (Sungshin Women's U., Republic of Korea; Email: icchoi@sungshin.ac.kr), Sung Kim, Kyoung and Boo, Jaeyool. Comparability of a paper-based language test and a computer-based language test. Language Testing (London, UK), 20, 3 (2003), 295–320.04–638 Fulcher, Glenn (U. of Dundee, UK; Email: g.fulcher@dundee.ac.uk) and Márquez Reiter, Rosina. Task difficulty in speaking tests. Language Testing (London, UK), 20, 3 (2003), 321–344.04–639 Fulcher, Glenn (U. of Dundee, UK; Email: g.fulcher@dundee.ac.uk). Interface design in computer-based language testing. Language Testing (London, UK), 20, 4 (2003), 384–408.04–640 Hill, K. Assessment in transition. Babel, (Adelaide, Australia), 38,1 (2003), 19–24.04–641 Luoma, Sari and Tarnanan, Mirja (U. of Jyväskylä, Finland; Email: sluoma@cc.jyu.fi). Creating a self-rating instrument for second language writing: from idea to implementation. Language Testing (London, UK), 20, 4, (2003), 440–465.04–642 Schlichting, J.E.P.T. (Liesbeth) (U. of Utrecht; The Netherlands; Email: L.Schlichting@inter.nl.net) and Henk C. Lutje Spelberg. A test for measuring syntactic development in young children. Language Testing (London, UK), 20, 3 (2003), 241–266.04–643 Yamashita, Junko (Nagoya U., Japan; Email: yamashita @cc.nagoya-u.ac.jp). Processes of taking a gap-filling test: comparison of skilled and less skilled EFL readers. Language Testing (London, UK), 20, 3 (2003), 267–293.

Processes of taking a gap-filling test: comparison of skilled and less skilled EFL readers

The present study investigates how skilled and less skilled readers answered a gap-filling (or rational deletion cloze) test in order to examine whether such tests can measure text-level processing ability. Twelve Japanese EFL students (six skilled and six less skilled readers) completed a gap-filling test while thinking aloud about their test-taking processes. Their verbal protocols were categorized according to the classification of cloze item types developed by Bachman (1985). Results showed that both skilled and less skilled readers used text-level information more frequently than other types of information. The skilled readers, however, used text-level information more frequently than the less skilled readers. Qualitative analysis of the protocols revealed further differences in the use of different types of information between the groups. Although there were several cases where the items were answered correctly with local grammatical clues and extra-textual background knowledge, overall, the gap-filling test generated text-level processing and differentiated well between skilled and less skilled readers. The present study, therefore, supports the claim that a gap-filling test can be used as a test to measure higher order processing ability.