چکیده (انگلیسی):

Cloze testing is a widely-used procedure to test learners’ reading comprehension in learning a
language, but little is known if it can really improve learners’ reading comprehension skills. This
paper attempts to seek answers to this question by comparing the cloze test scores of two groups
of students (Experimental versus Control) undertaking Chinese Second Language (CSL) and
measuring their Z-score differences. The paper intends to find out if the Experimental Group
which received one cloze test per week for a whole school term of 10-week duration could achieve
better reading comprehension test results than the Control Group which received no extra cloze
tests in between the first and last week of the term. The subjects were 26, Year 10 students aged
between 14-15 years old from an independent K-12 boys’ school in Melbourne, Australia. They
were randomly divided into two separate groups with identical proficiency level in CSL. The cloze
tests selected for this study were from the textbook series entitled Boya Chinese -Elementary Start
Vol.2 (Li, et al., 2005), which were appropriate to the proficiency level of the subjects. Data were
collected in class after each cloze test. Analysis of the data was conducted at the inter-group level
examining the standard deviation and Z-scores of each group. The study found that there was not
much difference between the two groups. Implications for teaching reading in CSL were
discussed, which could also apply to the teaching of reading in other Languages Other Than
English (LOTE).