This book investigates the issue of cloze-validity as a measure of second language reading comprehension. It starts off by making a distinction between general reading ability and the more specific reading comprehension followed by a thorough review of the related research on L2 reading comprehension and sorting out the confusion in the literature in this categorization. A comprehensive account of cloze procedure is presented discussing its origin, different versions, its use for teaching and testing purposes, as well the latest research on cloze as measures of readability, language proficiency and second language reading. The book includes studies conducted at several stages on validating cloze as a measure of reading and interview and questionnaire techniques are applied to investigate the validity of eight cloze tests, criterion reading tests, and other cloze and reading tests in general. Two new cloze tests, i.e. reader-centered cloze test and phrase cloze test, are also introduced and researched as measures of reading ability. The book concludes with suggestions for developing tests that can better measure reading comprehension in light of recent research insights on the complex and dynamic nature of reading. This book will appeal to researchers, lecturers and graduate and post-graduate students taking a course in Second Language Acquisition, Applied Linguistics, TESOL, Language Assessment, and Educational Measurement.

This timely collection explores the role of digital technology in language education and assessment during the COVID-19 pandemic. It recognises the unique pressures which the COVID-19 pandemic placed on assessment in language education, and examines the forced shift in assessment strategies to go online, the existing shortfalls, as well as unique affordances of technology-assisted L2 assessment. By showcasing international examples of successful digital and computer-assisted proficiency and skills testing, the volume addresses theoretical and practical concerns relating to test validity, reliability, ethics, and student experience in a range of testing contexts. Particular attention is given to identifying lessons and implications for future research and practice, and the challenges of implementing unplanned computer-assisted language assessment during a crisis. Insightfully unpacking the 'lessons learned' from COVID and its impact on the acceleration of the shift towards online course and assessment delivery, it offers important guidelines for navigating assessment in different instructional settings in times of crisis. It will appeal to scholars, researchers, educators, and faculty with interests in educational measurement, digital education and technology, and language assessment and testing.

This edited book brings together documented evidence and theoretical propositions on the essential mediating role of digital technology in L2 teacher education and professional development. Topics range from technological affordances in teacher education, to challenges and responses to emergency transition from face to face to virtual professional development, to successful practices of online teacher training courses. Bringing together examples from various countries and contexts of how L2 teacher trainers and trainee teachers view these forced changes and react to them, the volume fills a gap in the use of digital technology in contexts where teacher educators and trainee teachers are not technology-literate and not prepared for technology-oriented education. In addition to a Foreword by Mark Warschauer and Introduction and Conclusion chapters by Editors, the volume features 13 full-length chapters by some of the well-known experts from countries such as Australia, Finland, Mexico, the UK, the USA, Spain, Singapore, Turkey and Sweden.

This book includes interviews with fourteen internationally-acclaimed leading figures in Second Language Acquisition (SLA), who speak on seminal issues in the field as well as their own contributions to SLA scholarship. As well as covering the contributors' backgrounds and academic achievements, the interviews also delve into their areas of expertise, current theoretical and practical considerations, and contemporary questions, developments and challenges in SLA. The author probes their views on current topics including input and interaction, vocabulary acquisition, teaching pronunciation, writing development, syntactic processing, multilingualism, L1 attrition, complex dynamic systems, processing instruction, instructed second language acquisition, and technology in language teaching. An introduction by the author draws out the key themes and debates in the field today, and highlights areas for future research and further exploration, and a foreword is provided by Rod Ellis. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of Applied Linguistics, Teacher Education and Methodology, and Second and Foreign Language Education.

Fundamental Considerations in Technology Mediated Language Assessment aims to address issues such as how the forced integration of technology into second language assessment has shaped our understanding of key traditional concepts like validity, reliability, washback, authenticity, ethics, fairness, test security, and more. Although computer assisted language testing has been around for more than two decades in the context of high-stakes proficiency testing, much of language testing worldwide has shifted to 'at home' mode, and relies heavily on the mediation of digital technology, making its widespread application in classroom settings in response to the COVID-19 outbreak as unprecedented. Integration of technology into language assessment has brought with it countless affordances and at the same time challenges, both theoretically and practically. One major theoretical consideration requiring attention is the way technology has contributed to a re-conceptualisation of major assessment concepts/constructs. There is very limited literature available on theoretical underpinnings of technology mediated language assessment. This book aims to fill this gap. This book will appeal to academic specialists, practitioners or professionals in the field of language assessment, advanced and/or graduate students, and a range of scholars or professionals in disciplines like educational technology, applied linguistics and TESOL.

Fundamental Considerations in Technology Mediated Language Assessment aims to address issues such as how the forced integration of technology into second language assessment has shaped our understanding of key traditional concepts like validity, reliability, washback, authenticity, ethics, fairness, test security, and more. Although computer assisted language testing has been around for more than two decades in the context of high-stakes proficiency testing, much of language testing worldwide has shifted to 'at home' mode, and relies heavily on the mediation of digital technology, making its widespread application in classroom settings in response to the COVID-19 outbreak as unprecedented. Integration of technology into language assessment has brought with it countless affordances and at the same time challenges, both theoretically and practically. One major theoretical consideration requiring attention is the way technology has contributed to a re-conceptualisation of major assessment concepts/constructs. There is very limited literature available on theoretical underpinnings of technology mediated language assessment. This book aims to fill this gap. This book will appeal to academic specialists, practitioners or professionals in the field of language assessment, advanced and/or graduate students, and a range of scholars or professionals in disciplines like educational technology, applied linguistics and TESOL.

This timely collection explores the role of digital technology in language education and assessment during the COVID-19 pandemic. It recognises the unique pressures which the COVID-19 pandemic placed on assessment in language education, and examines the forced shift in assessment strategies to go online, the existing shortfalls, as well as unique affordances of technology-assisted L2 assessment. By showcasing international examples of successful digital and computer-assisted proficiency and skills testing, the volume addresses theoretical and practical concerns relating to test validity, reliability, ethics, and student experience in a range of testing contexts. Particular attention is given to identifying lessons and implications for future research and practice, and the challenges of implementing unplanned computer-assisted language assessment during a crisis. Insightfully unpacking the 'lessons learned' from COVID and its impact on the acceleration of the shift towards online course and assessment delivery, it offers important guidelines for navigating assessment in different instructional settings in times of crisis. It will appeal to scholars, researchers, educators, and faculty with interests in educational measurement, digital education and technology, and language assessment and testing.

This book investigates the issue of cloze-validity as a measure of second language reading comprehension. It starts off by making a distinction between general reading ability and the more specific reading comprehension followed by a thorough review of the related research on L2 reading comprehension and sorting out the confusion in the literature in this categorization. A comprehensive account of cloze procedure is presented discussing its origin, different versions, its use for teaching and testing purposes, as well the latest research on cloze as measures of readability, language proficiency and second language reading. The book includes studies conducted at several stages on validating cloze as a measure of reading and interview and questionnaire techniques are applied to investigate the validity of eight cloze tests, criterion reading tests, and other cloze and reading tests in general. Two new cloze tests, i.e. reader-centered cloze test and phrase cloze test, are also introduced and researched as measures of reading ability. The book concludes with suggestions for developing tests that can better measure reading comprehension in light of recent research insights on the complex and dynamic nature of reading. This book will appeal to researchers, lecturers and graduate and post-graduate students taking a course in Second Language Acquisition, Applied Linguistics, TESOL, Language Assessment, and Educational Measurement.

The Covid-19 pandemic has directly impacted the way teachers and learners worldwide teach and learn languages, forcing numerous educational activities in technologically-deprived contexts to stop altogether and those in technologically-rich environments to go online on an emergency basis. This volume provides a collection of theoretical and practical insights into the challenges and affordances faced globally during the pandemic and lessons learnt about the application of digital technologies for language teaching and learning. The chapters explore the vital role of technology in its various forms, including the internet, social media, CALL (Computer-Assisted Language Learning), MALL (Mobile Assisted Language Learning), TALL (Technology Assisted Language Learning) and TELL (Technology Enhanced Language Learning). Topics explored include the new avenues digital technology has opened up for language teachers and learners, options and challenges in applying technology in various contexts, and how the second language education industry could have been adversely impacted at the time of the pandemic without technological affordances. The contributions showcase studies from various geographical contexts, revealing how the global crisis was received and tackled differently in Australia, Hong Kong, Iran, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, the UAE, the UK and the USA.

The success of any teaching-learning enterprise is judged in terms of long terms gains of learners which distinguish successful from successful learners. The question which has intrigued many a researcher and practitioner in education in general and in the field of foreign language learning in particular has been whether there are certain learning strategies which successful learners use to make their learning more endurable. The research in the nature of learning strategies in the field of L2 has been a burgeoning field. Although a lot is known on the links between learning strategies and important variables in EFL educations (including proficiency level, gender, motivation, etc.), there is yet much to be discovered to clarify the definite place of language learning strategies in L2 acquisition. This research-driven book was complied to bridge a gap in this area by tackling the problem of the link and interaction between age, level of education and the use of learning strategies in L2. The audience of the book are both practitioners and researchers in the field of SLA.

Testing and measurement have existed since the start of human life. The formal appearance of measurement as an educational science is however a recent phenomenon. Testing in language sciences in general and in EFL in particular is much younger and less than a century old. Different methods and techniques have been proposed, researched and employed for testing different components of language; and there is still no unanimity on the best testing formats to be used for measuring one's competence in language skills and sub-kills. As the most important building block of language, vocabulary has been the centre of much concern by testers and researchers. One area of concern has been to address the optimal amount of language-related context in vocabulary test items. The findings of previous research in this area are at best contradictory. This research-based book addresses the role of context in L2 vocabulary tests and is addressed to researchers, practitioners and students in the field of language testing.

Writers in different fields utilize different means to achieve success in the communication of their intended meaning to their audience. By manipulating textual resources, writers sometimes say something and mean something different. Much has been said and written about discourse properties such as cohesion and coherence which contribute to what is called texture in a text. The use of such textual resources has been extensively examined in a variety of written and spoken genres. Along the same line of enquiry, a more recent approach in applied linguistics in general and discourse analysis in particular has been to investigate the distribution of meta-textual devices in academic writings, with little attention paid to such resources in literary writing. Intended to apply the trend of research on meta-text to literary form of discourse, this monograph sets out to compare the use of such resources in novels of both original nature and their simplified versions. The audience of the book are primarily researchres in discourse anlaysis and those interesred in text and literary analysis.

God gave us two ears but only one mouth. This fact highlights the importance of listening in our lives and signifies its intricacy and complexities involved in learning it when it comes to mastering listening as a skill in a foreign or second language. There is no shortage of books, monographs and documents on the value of listening and how it can be developed and consolidated by L2 learners, and indeed, the difficulty learners may face in this regard seem to be concerned with the multiplicity rather than paucity of view points on how their listening problem may be tackled. Although advice coming from experts and experienced scholars in this area is embraced too eagerly by the clients, the problem of how listening problems can be sorted out will persist unless solutions provided by teachers and counselors have theoretical-research bases and been empirically tested. It is the aim of this research-oriented book to fill the existing gap by offering empirical advice on how a small portion of learner listener problems may be alleviated by applying certain grammar-based advice. The book is intended for both practitioners and researchers in applied linguistics.

Learning a second or foreign language has challenged many a learner, and there is no shortage of theories proposed by specialists in a hope to make this intriguing task a bit simpler. The fact is that we are still far away from a perfect understanding of the processes involved in learning a second language which make it so different from acquiring L1. What we do know for sure is, however, that the ability to speak a foreign language requires more than a mere knowledge of its grammatical and semantic rules. Learners must acquire the knowledge of how native speakers use the language naturally by capitalizing on a wealth of prefabricated forms such as collocations and idioms. Based on such an assumption, this book sheds light on the relationship between collocational knowledge, speaking proficiency, and oral use of collocations in an EFL context, with a focus on the role L1 transfer plays in their production.

An integral requirement of any educational program is the chance to evaluate the effectiveness of the delivery of education. Traditionally evaluative tools of various sorts have been used to measure the process and product of teaching. More recently however as far as English as a second/foreign language is concerned more innovative alternative assessment procedures have been practiced for decades. The problem however with all such assessment techniques has been that they have been static in nature in that they have been meant to measure the product rather than the process of education. Dynamic assessment, which views assessment as an integrated part of teaching rather than as its final loop, has accordingly been proposed as an alternative and complement to static or standardized types of assessment. The focus of this book is on the viability of using dynamic as an instructional adjunct in the development of EFL learners' grammar. The audience of the book includes assessment experts, ELT professionals and SLA researchers.

There is no shortage of literature on how to make the learning process a more enjoyable and lasting one for learners. As far as learning English as a foreign language is concerned, a century of formal teaching has helped little in the way of facilitating the task of learning the language. One thing we know for sure is that effective learning hinges upon making the learning process as enjoyable and the learning materials as meaningful to the learner as possible. Learning vocabulary, as the building block of language, will accordingly be fruitful only when the task includes the elements of joy and meaningfulness. A very commendable technique used as a pre-reading exercise to introduce new words is semantic mapping. This research-based book accordingly presents the findings of a relevant study to look at the efficacy of using semantic mapping strategy for teaching new vocabulary before reading a passage in EFL contexts. The target audience of the book are EFL teachers, researchers and materials developers.

William Lyon Phelps, an American author and critic, divided readers into two classes: those who read to remember and those who read to forget. Of course, reading that does not lead to comprehension may not be regarded as reading at all; and the starting quotation implies that not all comprehension leads to recall. Before helping readers to 'read to remember', we need to help them to 'read to comprehend' since otherwise forgetting will be the immediate outcome. Much has been said and written on how to help readers, particularly in an EFL context, to become more effective readers, letting them fall into the second category of readers described above. The current research-based book, where the experimental relationship between training readers to use the pre-reading strategy of semantic mapping and their comprehension and retention output is illustrated, is still another addition to the list of such books. The target audiences of the book are EFL practitioners, researcher, students, teachers and anybody interested in improving their reading.

Quality is a term readily associated with success in almost any field. Assuring quality in the true sense of the word will lead to improvement; and accordingly, striving for quality in education becomes imperative if we are to trust the belief that proper education lies at the cornerstone of all developments. Achieving quality in education depends on an interplay of the part a variety of variables play in a teaching-learning encounter including learners, teachers, examiners, policymakers, materials, evaluation procedures, objectives and the like. To make education a more lasting enetrprise, the efficacy of all these variables and their combined effects needs proper investigation. It is such a belief on which the current research-focused book is based, where the authors examine the rate of correspondence between course objectives and real achievement of EFL learners with a hope to improve the quality of ELT in higher education. Recommendations are offered to all players of the game of education as to what may be done to better the current situation, with implications for the larger international community.

In educational contexts no learning will take place without the active involvement of the learner. While in many fields the role of a teacher may be supplementary and decorative, in learning a foreign language, the dominant role of the teacher has long been recognized. Over the recent years, there has been some research into desirable qualities of teachers in general, and of foreign language teachers (including EFL teachers) in particular. There has however been little work, of comparative nature, where the views of learners and teachers of EFL have been contrasted. This book, accordingly, fills this gap by contrasting the opinions of EFL learners and teachers on what makes language teachers effective. The comparison indicates that teachers and learners have significantly different views in some areas. The work will prove fruitful for both practicing and prospective EFL teachers in understanding what learners expect of them and what counts as effective teachers according to their peers. Learners of EFL will also benefit by knowing about the attitudes of their mates and their teachers as to one group's expectations from the other.