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Is comprehension measurable? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5227 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 25 of 211 08 August 2014 at 12:31am | IP Logged | |||||
I'm certainly in favour of lots of extensive reading. One can't be against virtue. I'm not so sure that mistakes will eventually work themselves out. Often mistakes become set and very hard to get rid of. Where i disagree with emk's statement here is that at an advanced level, vocabulary problems are with rare words like clocher and contrefort. In my opinion, this is only partly true. Another challenge is learning to use the rare but effective uses of common words. For example, you could take the top 25 non-function words and discover some less common uses that one will find in literary or formal contexts. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6394 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 26 of 211 08 August 2014 at 12:40am | IP Logged | |||||
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Comprehension mistakes are usually less persistent, especially if you don't translate but just vaguely look at the word and think of the possible meaning. If it's important enough, sooner or later you'll see a context that points out your mistake, or forces you to look up the word.
Rare usage of the common words tends to fix itself over time as well. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Arnaud25 Diglot Senior Member France Joined 3639 days ago 129 posts - 235 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Russian | Message 27 of 211 08 August 2014 at 6:32am | IP Logged | |||||
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In fact "clocher" is a common word, if you live in a little village in France (you see it everyday, and probably see the birds on it, hear the bell, etc), or if you watch the midday news report on the 1st chanel (les infos de 13h sur TF1): they regularly make reports of how scandalous it is to let the old churchs falling apart because of the lack of money, bla bla bla...
"contrefort" is indeed rare. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5227 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 28 of 211 08 August 2014 at 2:33pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I have said that comprehension is unmeasurable. I should take that back. I should have said that comprehension
is unmeasurable by counting words. In first language education, testing of reading comprehension in children is a major field of research and all kinds of tests are available. All these tests involve reading sample passages and answering some questions. The kinds of questions vary: cloze, multiple choice, open ended. In foreign language testing such as in the CEFR, there are, of course, reading comprehension tests. All of these tests are based on testing for content of sample texts. Evaluating something like comprehension of literary fiction has its own complications. Here is an example of guidelines for some Canadian government tests: "The reading comprehension test is composed of a series of 27 short texts, grouped according to their expected level of difficulty starting with the easiest texts. Each text is followed by four alternative answers from which you must choose only one. The reading comprehension test lasts 50 minutes. Example: Monsieur Paul Rivest, qui a dirigé le service au cours des huit dernières années, prendra une retraite bien méritée le 30 juin prochain après trente et une années de service dans une variété de postes. Je pense que cet événement mérite d'être fêté et je recevrai vos suggestions à ce sujet jusqu'à vendredi prochain. Selon ce texte, a: M. Rivest dirige le service depuis sa création. b: M. Rivest sera fêté vendredi prochain. c: M. Rivest est invité à une fête en son honneur. d: M. Rivest est le directeur actuel du service. Correct answer: d) " Nowhere in the field of language assessment do we see comprehension tests based on word counting. Word counting counts words; it does not assess comprehension. There is a whole other legitimate field of vocabulary size assessment. Edited by s_allard on 08 August 2014 at 10:11pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| smallwhite Pentaglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5105 days ago 537 posts - 1045 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin, French, Spanish | Message 29 of 211 08 August 2014 at 3:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
And if I got all questions correct, how much did I understand the texts? 100%? Maybe, or maybe I was just lucky, or maybe they were just asking easy questions on a difficult text. And who understands poetry 100%? Its author? Comprehension based on word count seems more comprehensible to me. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5227 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 30 of 211 08 August 2014 at 4:15pm | IP Logged | |||||
Let's try to imagine a reading comprehension test based on word counting. In fact, let's take the example from the Canadian government test. After the student is given a certain amount of time to read the paragraph, the computer displays every word of sample and gives the student the following choices: 1. Have never seen it 2, Have seen it but do not know what it means 3, Know a definition 4, Could use it in a sentence. The results are compiled and we have the numbers of each category. Considering that there is no way to tell if the student is telling the truth, does this tells us better that the student has understood the text than if we ask content questions? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6394 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 31 of 211 08 August 2014 at 4:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Yes, honest self-assessment doesn't work with unmotivated school kids who just want to pass/get a good grade and not actually to learn the language.
It works just fine here on HTLAL though. In this sense it's more similar to an anonymous alcoholics support group ;) 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5033 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 32 of 211 08 August 2014 at 4:36pm | IP Logged | |||||
My name is Rick, and I'm a lang-a-holic. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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