A study of the cloze procedure in English foreign language testing with special reference to the development and application of levels of acceptability within a marking scheme
The cloze procedure, a procedure whereby you delete words and replace them by blanks to be filled in by the students, calls for skills required in reading. In the process of completing the blanks, the students concentrate on some of the elements of the sentence or of the context to find the clues for the missing word. This thesis looks at the 'linking strategies' the students use in order to produce a cloze item. Depending on which types of links are made, the words offered by the students get a mathematical weighting, a credit. A detailed 'Marking Scheme', elaborated within this study, served as a basis for the analysis of the students' answers. The analysis of the results of 166 Algerian students of English as a Foreign Language who had to answer three copies of the same cloze test did not conclusively reveal, as we have hypothesized, that the students considered 'Form' more than 'Meaning' when they were trying to fill in a blank. The other core issue to our study is the scoring of a cloze. Analysis of the results obtained by 'Exact word' scoring and by 'Acceptable' scoring confirmed our hypothesis that it is fairer to score by 'acceptable' in the context of English as a Foreign Language. The marker reliability
Abderrahim, F.
A study of the cloze procedure in English foreign language testing with special reference to the development and application of levels of acceptability within a marking scheme. The cloze procedure, a procedure whereby you delete words and replace them by blanks to be filled in by the students, calls for skills required in reading. In the process of completing the blanks, the students concentrate on some of the elements of the sentence or of the context to find the clues for the missing word. This thesis looks at the 'linking strategies' the students use in order to produce a cloze item. Depending on which types of links are made, the words offered by the students get a mathematical weighting, a credit. A detailed 'Marking Scheme', elaborated within this study, served as a basis for the analysis of the students' answers. The analysis of the results of 166 Algerian students of English as a Foreign Language who had to answer three copies of the same cloze test did not conclusively reveal, as we have hypothesized, that the students considered 'Form' more than 'Meaning' when they were trying to fill in a blank. The other core issue to our study is the scoring of a cloze. Analysis of the results obtained by 'Exact word' scoring and by 'Acceptable' scoring confirmed our hypothesis that it is fairer to score by 'acceptable' in the context of English as a Foreign Language. The marker reliability
study procedure english_foreign language test special_reference development_application level acceptability within mark scheme procedure procedure whereby delete word replace blank fill student call skill require reading process complete blank student concentrate element_sentence context clue miss word look linking strategy student use order_produce item depending type link make word offer student get mathematical credit detailed marking scheme elaborate within study serve_basis analysis student answer analysis algerian student english_foreign language answer copy test reveal hypothesize student consider form_meaning try fill blank core issue study score analysis obtain exact word score acceptable score confirm hypothesis score acceptable context english_foreign language marker reliability