The authors have conducted several studies concerning reading and listening comprehension processes of Japanese learners of English. Assuming that working memory is the crucial factor in these two types of processing, estal)lished reading and listening span tests are needed. However, so far, span tests have traditionally been conducted in a "face to face" situation. It has been impossible to gather a large number of subjects or to adapt these tests fbr pedagogical use. This paper is intended as an experiment to explore the possibility of modifying span tests for a large nurnber of subjects, i,e. fbr group tesdng. A Reading Span Test (RST) was made on a video tape, using a character generator, VTR and controller. A Listening Span Test (LST) was recorded onto a cassette mo tape, using an mo recorder. These tests vvere administered to students in a Language Laboratory room. The results are presented and some suggestions are made ahout how the results of this research can contribute to the improvement of current English teaching.

Graduate Sthool, Uhii ersity of7lrukuba Abstcac't, 'lhe relationship between reading comprehension and vocabulary knowledge has been exarniiied in many studies, However, few studies se far have distinguished the vocal)utary knewledge in isolation and in c.ontext. Addressing this point, this study considered two types of vocal)ulary tests: Mochizuki (1998) Vbcal)ulary Size [[bst (VST) and TOEFL vocabulary items, and tried to clarify the relationship further. Adding to this, we classified question types in the reading test and exarnined eagh relationship with two types ofvocabulary knoyvFledge in order to differeniiate reading items by the level of reading comprehension, The results of Experiment I suggested that regardless of the presence or absence of context, there was no significant diffbrence between the correlation coethcients of the two vocabulary tests and TOEFL Reading scores, In addition, no correlation coeracients were significantly different in any question type, remaining the issue about whether the vocabulary tests in context and without context really differ or not. For the sake of investigating this point further, the word inference test was newly introduoed in Experiment II to exarnine what

The summar:y writing task has been widely used in order to exarnine how well readers comprehend texts (Alderson, 2000). As a scoring criterion of summary protocols, previous studies have considered whether or not a reader can effectively use rnacrorules, which refiect the process of readers' constmction of their mental representation (e.g., Johns & Mayes, 1990; Kim, 2001). In fact, the use of macrorules is assumed to be closely related to the process of how readers construct their menta1 representation of a passage (van Dijk & Kintsch, 1983). However, surnmary task has a methodological problem in that readers' performance in the use of macrorules reflects not only the process of reading comprehension but also their writing ski11s (Cohen, 1993), Therefbre, we haye used another psycholinguistic measure fbr reading comprehension that suppressed the influence of writing skills: the Mleaning ldbntijication 7lechnique (MIT). The present study examined English as a fbreign language (EFL) learners' macrorule use with the MIT as well as in a summary writing task. Focusing on three types of macrorules (i.e., deletion, generalization, and construction rules), Experimental Study 1 showed that EFL students used all three types of macrorules when they did summary writing, In Experimental Study 2 using the MIZ the generalization and constmction rules were more dicacult for learners to use than the deletion rule. These two rules required learners to generate inferences fbr constmcting the implicit main ideas oftexts, whereas the deletion rule simply required learners to select explicit main ideas from texts, Comparison of the two series of experimental studies indicated that surnmary writing encouraged the participants to use the generalization and construction rules by requiring them to integrate pieces of-185-The Japan Language Testing Association NII-Electronic Library Service The JapanLanguageTesting Association infbrmation for making the summary Therefore, macrorule use measured by the summary protocol should be interpreted carefu11M taking the effects of the summary task itselfinto account in terrns ofpromoted strategic macrorule use, Furtherrnore, it was implied that the MIT could be superior to a surnmary writing task as a reading comprehension test, as far as macrorule use under natural reading conditions reflected pure comprehension of a text.

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The present study describes the first step in the development and validation of a task-based reading performance test. We designed 6 information transfer task test items in which test-takers were required to transfer what they comprehended from passages (e.g., reading a travel schedule and communicating it to circle members via email). To validate extrapolations on the construct validity of our task-based reading performance test, this study examined the reliability of the test scores by performing a generalizability theory study and a qualitative analysis of rating approaches. In particular, we considered 3 factors (task characteristics, number of raters, and type of rating scale) that affect the reliability of observed scores to obtain an appropriate rating scale and procedure. Over 3 weeks of English classes, 122 Japanese university students completed the 6 different reading tasks. Their reading task outcomes were scored by 6 raters using either a task-dependent or task-independent rating scale. A generalizability study suggested that the 2 types of rating scale could be used alternatively, but qualitative analysis revealed that the 2 rating procedures differed in scoring of local errors associated with detailed information, appropriate reorganization of passage contents, and appropriateness of sociolinguistic elements. Moreover, a decision study demonstrated that the reliability of the observed scores was strongly affected by the number of tasks. To obtain a strictly high-reliability coefficient (.80), 7 tasks by 3 raters are desirable using the task-independent rating scale, while 9 tasks by 3 raters are necessary using the task-dependent rating scale. This study suggested the applicability of task-based reading performance tests and points to be noted for the test implementation from the viewpoints of test material development, scoring procedures, and possible washback effects on teaching and learning of English as a foreign language.