ERIC Number: EJ753073
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2006-Jun
Pages: 22
Abstractor: Author
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0039-8322
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
The Development of the English Developmental Contrastive Spelling Test: A Tool for Investigating Spanish Influence on English Spelling Development
Howard, Elizabeth R.; Arteagoitia, Igone; Louguit, Mohammed; Malabonga, Valerie; Kenyon, Dorry M.
TESOL Quarterly: A Journal for Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages and of Standard English as a Second Dialect, v40 n2 p399-420 Jun 2006
This article describes the development of an English spelling measure designed to assess the progress made by Spanish-English bilingual children from Grade 2 to Grade 5. Different stages of developing the measure are described, such as selecting the focus features, the prepilot and pilot phases, and the operational version. Two underlying attributes characterize the spelling measure described in this article. First, it is "developmental," meaning that it contains a wide variety of features and items that differ according to spelling difficulty, such that the assessment is able to measure the growth of English spelling ability over the full sequence of the upper elementary grades. Second, it is "contrastive"; that is, it was designed to detect some areas of potential cross-linguistic influence from Spanish to English. The combination of these two characteristics makes this spelling measure a unique tool for assessing the development of spelling ability by Spanish-English bilingual children. (Contains 7 tables, 4 figures, and 3 footnotes.)
Descriptors: Elementary School Students, Pilot Projects, Test Items, Bilingualism, Spelling, English (Second Language), Tests, Second Language Learning, Spanish, Contrastive Linguistics, Test Format, Test Construction, Transfer of Training
Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc. 700 South Washington Street Suite 200, Alexandria, VA 22314. Tel: 888-547-3369; Tel: 703-836-0774; Fax: 703-836-7864; Fax: 703-836-6447; e-mail: info@tesol.org; Web site: http://www.tesol.org
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A