English spelling has always been described by many language researchers and teachers as a daunting task especially for learners whose first language is not English. This monograph presents the report of an investigation on the use of spelling, which includes the determining factor of grammar in the teaching of English, in it we will develop a…

Purpose: This study examined the quality of English test items using psychometric and linguistic characteristics among Grade Six pupils. Method: Contrary to the conventional approach of relying only on statistics when investigating item quality, this study adopted a mixed-method approach by employing psychometric analysis and cognitive interviews.…

The purpose of this research was to identify the common errors made in English writing by Malaysian Chinese primary year 6 ESL students and to determine the extent of the influence of the first language, Mandarin in ESL writing. The Mandarin language uses a logographic writing system while the English language is written in alphabetic scripts. The…

The aim of this paper is to examine the effects of sequencing instructional materials and learners' prior knowledge on learning ESL (English as a second language) through an online learning course. 121 fifth-grade students from an elementary school in Korea participated in the study. Each participant was allocated to one cell of a 2 × 2…

Task difficulty is a critical issue affecting test developers. Controlling or balancing the item difficulty of an assessment improves its validity and discrimination. Test developers construct tests from the cognitive perspective, by making the test constructing process more scientific and efficient; thus, the scores obtained more precisely…