USING CLOZE PROCEDURE AS AN OVERALL
Teachers of English as a second language are beginning to recognize the value of overall language proficiency tests. One such test is the cloze test, a type of fill-in-the-blank test constructed by randomly deleting words from a prose passage. Cloze tests appear to be valid and reliable and can be easily constructed and used. The purpose of this paper is to provide some guidelines on the construction, administration, scoring, and interpretation of cloze tests, as well as to discuss a possible explanation of the cognitive processes involved in taking a cloze test.
To construct a cloze test, select a self-contained passage of approximately 375 words, and systematically delete every seventh word, replacing it with a blank. Generally, the first and last sentences are left intact. Prepare and read aloud the instructions to the students. Mark the results by accepting the exact word which was deleted or any contextually acceptable answer (Preferred by the author). Incorrect spelling is not penalized. Grammatical errors are.
The author believes that a good reading comprehension test is also a good test of overall language proficiency, and that reasonably accurate predictions of language difficulty can be made by applying readability formulas to the cloze test passages. He hews close to Fries's identification of three layers of language meanings to conceptualize reading comprehension, viz. (1) Meaning carried by the lexical items. (2) Meanings carried by the grammatical structures. (3) Socio-cultural meanings. He shares Spolsky's concept of language proficiency as the facility with which an individual can cope with the communication needs of a given task, or in a given situation. He concludes that the cloze procedure is an extremely simple, yet valid language proficiency test.
Aitken, K.G. (Mar. 1977). Using Cloze procedure as an overall language proficiency test. TESOL
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