Cohesive Device

Dr. Mihaita Horezeanu delivered a presentation at a seminar organized by the Language Research Center of King Khalid University held on March 21, 2018. His presentation was titled The Gaps that Speak for Themselves or How to Create a Cloze (T). . ., which was primarily based on cloze test and its practical use. Dr. Horezeanu started with a brief history of the cloze test followed by different types and their advantages and disadvantages. While focusing on the advantages and disadvantages of a fixed-rate cloze test, he pointed out the fact that such a test is the easiest for the test writer to make. Such a type of cloze test, however, may result in a number of gaps which are both virtually impossible and unnecessarily difficult for test takers to fill in, he added. He also talked about the modified fixed-ratio cloze and the rational-deletion cloze and their advantages and disadvantages. Dr. Horezeanu also shared his experience in applying some of those tests. He emphasized that to design a rational-deletion cloze test, the teacher or the test writer should think about what he or she intends to assess. He concluded that it is a great challenge for the test writer if the test is to measure ‘the effectiveness of communication’, since communication is a two-way process. He also added, while concluding, that testing and teaching are interrelated and therefore, the best test writer is the teacher himself or herself. The presentation was very informative and overall a great success. Date: 3/21/2018 Source: MD Adil