Emergentism Emergentism is the name that has recently been given to a general approach to cognition that stresses the interaction between organism and environment and that denies the existence of pre-determined, domain specific faculties or capacities. Emergentism thus offers itself as an alternative to modular, ‘special nativist’ theories of the mind, such as theories of…
Lateralization Lateralization argues that the location of language functions is fixed in one of the brain’s two hemispheres, usually the left one. Cerebral lateralisation or cerebral dominance refers to the differential proficiency of the cerebral hemispheres for the acquisition, performance and control of certain specific neurological functions. Infants as young as four days show a…
Functionalist Theories of SLA Functionalist theories of L2 acquisition share a number of concerns with variability theories. For example, both are concerned not just with how linguistic knowledge is represented in the mind of the learner, but also with how this knowledge is used in discourse. Also, both types assume that syntax cannot be considered…
Test Specifications Test specifications – usually called ‘specs’ – are generative explanatory documents for the creation of test tasks. Specs tell us the nuts and bolts of how to phrase the test items, how to structure the test layout, how to locate the passage, and how to make a host of difficult choices as we…
Reverse Engineering Reverse engineering (RE) is an idea of ancient origin; the name was coined by Davidson and Lynch, but they are the first to admit that all they created was the name. RE is an analytical process of test creation that begins with an actual test question and infers the guiding language that drives…
Classroom Assessment Classroom Assessment According to Brookhart, in classroom assessment, assessment and learning are integrated within the classroom. She sees this in terms of Vygotsky’s (1978) notion of the zone of proximal development, or that space between what the individual can accomplish independently and what he/she can do with assistance. Personal knowledge of the learner…
Competence Competence corresponds to the I-language (Internal Language). Competency is the speaker/hearer’s knowledge of his language. It’s an abstract version of knowledge. Competency is independent of situation. It represent what the speaker knows in the abstract. The different types of competence are: grammatical competency, linguistic competency, communicative competency, pragmatic competency, Communicative Competency: Discourse Competency: The…
Speech Acts Speech acts are carried out over various turns and their exact shape takes into account interlocutor reactions. In other words, conversation is co-constructed by both interlocutors, which is something that can never be simulated with DCTs. Speech acts are certainly the most researched area of pragmatics, and they are arguably the most social,…
Evidence-Centered Design Evidence-centered Design was developed by Mislevy. It is important that we see the tasks or items that we design for tests as part of a larger picture, and one approach to doing this in a systematic way is ECD, a methodology for test design and construction developed at Educational Testing Service (ETS). ECD is…
IELTS Writing Task 2 | Copyright Laws IELTS Writing Task 2 | Copyright Laws Topic Despite numerous attempts to protect and enforce copyright laws, it appears that there are still some people who violate the laws on copyrighted materials. Do you think more stringent laws should be passed to deter people from infringing copyright laws?…