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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.
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