Language Teaching Research Quarterly

This contribution investigates gains in technical economy in measuring language ability by considering one recurrent interest of JD Brown: cloze tests. In the various versions of the Test of Academic Literacy Levels (TALL), its Sesotho and Afrikaans (Toets van Akademiese Geletterdheidsvlakke – TAG) counterparts, as well as related other tests used in South Africa, the test designers have used a modification of this procedure to very good effect. This paper reports on the steady evolution of its format over many years, how it is currently used, what its outstanding empirical properties are, and how the kind of technical economy it brings to the measurement of the ability to handle the demands of academic language at the level of tertiary education can be further applied. The modification involves the conventional, more or less systematic mutilation of a selected text, with two multiple choice questions about every gap in it: where the gap is, and which word has been omitted. We have not seen anywhere else analyses of this format, which in itself may be of interest to test designers. We proceed by defining technical economy, and then develop an argument on the basis of the empirical properties of TALL on how that idea can be applied, in particular to the design and task selection of such tests, before giving illustrations of how such choices may contribute to further and other productive and responsible designs and test formats.