To argue that inferences drawn from a test of writing are valid, empirical evidence must demonstrate that the test adequately represents the construct it is designed to measure (Messick, 1998). The writing component of the Canadian Academic English Language (CAEL) Assessment, was developed in the early 1990's to represent the construct of English in use for academic purposes (EAP). Since that time, EAP approaches have been criticised within the fields of both language testing (Alderson, 1993; Clapham, 2001) and genre and composition studies (Freedman, 1999). Writing is currently viewed as a "site of social and ideological action" (Schryer, 1994), embedded within, and interacting with the disciplinary, historical, political and cultural contexts in which it acts (Freedman and Medway, 1994; Norton, 1995). Informed by cultural-historical Activity Theory (Cole and Engestrom, 1994; Vygotsky, 1989), this research examines the "social actions" which characterise performance on the CAEL writing test in relation to two other tests of English as a Second Language (L2) writing, the personal essay and the timed-impromptu essay. In Study 1, the semiotic potential of each test is defined by analysis of the verbal accounts of 4 raters and 20 test takers. In their accounts, what separates the EAP writing test from the other tests of writing is the academic expertise the EAP test elicits. In Study 2, the scores from n = 375 EAP essays and n = 271 cloze tests are compared in order to examine how much of the variance in each test is accounted for by academic expertise. Taken together, Studies 1 and 2 provide empirical evidence of what performance on the EAP writing test means to those engaged in the activity of testing. Evidence that the EAP writing test represents a construct, which has been reconceptualized to reflect current theories of writing, addresses the criticism of EAP-based tests and provides a model of inter-disciplinary test validation in relation to evolving construct

This quasi-experimental study was designed to investigate the effects of negative feedback on second language acquisition and to determine the potential benefits of two different negative feedback techniques, namely recasts and elicitation. The research hypotheses were: 1) Learners who are exposed to communicative activities that include a NF component will benefit more than those who are exposed to communicative activities only; 2) Elicitation will be more effective than recasts in leading to L2 development; 3) Elicitation will be more effective than recasts for both low and high proficiency learners.

No description available.

The purpose of this study was to investigate and describe several aspects of English as a second language (ESL) note-taking in response to lectures. The objective of this study was to analyze note-taking production. In addition, the study had hoped to trace note-taking progress as it correlated with language proficiency progress, but due to circumstances beyond the control of the researcher this idea had to be abandoned. Instead, the study focused on the first six weeks of a learner's academic semester in the target language.The researcher observed twenty students in order to obtain insights into the note-taking production of low ESL students in response to lectures. The methods used were: class observation, notebook collection, a two-part questionnaire, and a follow-up questionnaire. It was found that in the first six weeks of academic study, this group of low ESL students had difficulty taking notes due, largely, to language proficiency problems, such as the rate of delivery. Other reasons why the students had difficulties taking notes included their lack of formal training in note-taking and the fact that they were not using special strategies and skills. Thus, all this study can say about note-taking in second language acquisition is that it is difficult for low ESL students. / Department of English

This thesis has dealt with reading comprehension problems of nonnative speakers of English as determined by an analysis of responses to a cloze test. Because it has been proven to be sound both theoretically and empirically for use in determining reading comprehension problems of non-native speakers, a cloze test was administered to two classes of students at Ball State University who were studying English as a second language. The study was a descriptive one in which responses to the test were first categorized and then analyzed to determine possible reasons for errors.Results of the study indicated that these respondents approached the cloze task at the syntactic level. They were able to respond acceptably when the blank to be filled occurred in a syntactic structure that they were familiar with. The large number of clearly incorrect responses indicated that the test was probably too difficult for them. However, an analysis of the errors proved useful in determining the most prevalent kinds of errors and in examining the syntactic structures which caused the most problems for these respondents. The study concludes with pedagogical implications for the respondents in this study and implications for future research.

This dissertation is designed for Japanese singers to aid them in mastering correct American-English singing diction. Many Japanese singers of college age or older have knowledge of English through high school programs. However, they often lack the communicative ability to hear and speak English. This study enables those singers to sing American-English repertoire with more precise diction.Chapter 1 contains introductory materials. Chapter 2 presents a pronunciation guide for American English and Japanese using IPA symbols, which includes the sounds that are common to Japanese and American English, the vowels and consonants found in Japanese only, and the vowels and consonants found in American English only. Chapter 3 contains the analyses and approaches to problems in learning American-English singing diction, including the comparison of speech and singing and the analyses of Japanese word structures. Chapter 4 incorporates the previous chapters and introduces approach and solutions to the successful performance of American-English repertoire. Chapter 5 consists of the IPA transcriptions of selected American-English songs. / School of Music

This creative project is composed of a series of ten lessons that should be suitable for use in English-Bible classes and/or seminary classes for non-native speakers of English. The main emphasis is on learning English for communication, but the lessons are also structured to utilize learning English as a tool to stimulate spiritual growth. The material is sequenced according to grammatical structures and Biblical chronology. The major grammatical patterns include present tense, continuous present tense, imperative, past tense, future tense, present perfect tense, continuous present perfect, past perfect, and continuous past perfect tense verb forms. The Biblical material has been selected to give a chronological view of the Old Testament period and to trace the plan of salvation from Adam and Eve's fateful choice in the Garden of Eden through the Old Testament.

Using a combination of Error Gravity and Composition Evaluation research methods, the author examined unguided responses to three non-native speaker compositions by 16 college composition and 10 TEFL teachers. A total of 13 to 15 content or form items per paper were rated, but for each paper, no more than five were selected by 50% or more of the teachers. The lack of agreement among the respondents concerning the items rated for seriousness throws doubt on the feasibility of producing meaningful rank orders of weaknesses using authentic written discourse as the sample. The findings show that the respondents rated content weaknesses as more serious than form weaknesses, but there was evidence that attention to form can obscure content problems for some teachers.

During the past decade, self-assessment has become a major research area; however, contradictory findings have been reported. This study investigated the effectiveness of self-assessment and examined some possible factors that might influence the accuracy of self-assessment. Participants were 32 English as a second language (ESL) graduate students and an experienced ESL teacher at McGill University. The student participants were divided into a control group and an experimental group while the researcher and the ESL teacher served as raters. Both quantitative and qualitative data were generated. The results indicated that the experimental group outperformed the control group. Some possible causes of the differences or similarities between student and teacher assessors' rating were identified. The findings of this study provide evidence on the effectiveness of self-assessment and offer ESL students and teachers an alternative way to participate in the learning process and to assess the learning outcomes.

The purpose of this research is to further investigate the ongoing debate between the Dual Mechanism Model and the Connectionist Model of language processing by investigating how knowledge of second language (L2) inflectional morphology is represented and processed by learners of English. Specifically, do second language learners of English use the same Dual Mechanism Model that Prasada and Pinker (1993) have argued is a universally applicable model, or does the Connectionist Model of language processing better explain L2 learning and language processing? / The participants in this study were students in a Montreal area CEGEP. The instrument used to gather data was the Prasada and Pinker pseudo-verb list, with modifications suggested by Lee (1994) to create a revised list. Participants were asked to create past tense forms of pseudo verbs. In addition to this task, four participants were asked to do a simultaneous verbal think aloud, orally explaining their responses to the stimulus presented in the study. / The results of the studies indicate that English second language learners used both a rule based mechanism and an associative mechanism in the formation of both regular and irregular English verbs. This result provides support for the claims of the Connectionist model of past tense formation of English verbs, but also supports some of the claims of the Dual Mechanism Model. There are possible implications for the teaching and learning of English as a Second Language (ESL). This study also raises further research questions involving rule vs. associative learning in the teaching and learning of language. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)