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Arabic Distractors for EnglishVocabulary TestsMARK A. CLARKEEnglish Language Institute, The American University In CairoM O S T E D U C A T O R S A G R E E t h a t the validity of theobjective-type vocabulary-test depends upon the feasibility of thewrong choices, or distractors. If the student is not able to eliminateany of the choices the chances of guessing correctly aregreatlyminimized, and the validity of the test is therefore raised. Theproblem for teachers is to find plausible answers for each itemof the test.A recent study carried out by Robert L. Cavanaugh at theAmerican University in Cairo suggests intriguing alternatives forfrustrated vocabulary-teachers and sheds light on the types ofproblems which EFL students must overcome. R. L. Cavanaughhas devised a series of vocabulary items which use both Englishdistractors and words which resemble Arabic words. The reasoningbehind this latter group of items is that students are misled for avariety of reasons, some ofwhich reveal interference between thenative language and the target language. (See Robert Lado'sLanguage T eaching, 1961, for a discussion of cross-culturaldistractors in vocabulary tests.) The test described here is forstudents whose native language is Arabic. The same approachcould be used, of course, with any other language.The Arabic/English distractors of this test are of several types.In terms of effectiveness and ease of preparation, the mostpractical type consists of an Arabic translation of the correctanswer, expressed by an English word which resembles thetranslation. For example:

Item 1. The newshoe hurt my .a. heelb. cobc wriggled. wrist

Two of the distractors, cob and wriggle, resemble Arabic words.Cob (CAQAB) means 'heel' and wriggle (RIGL) means 'leg'.(The transliterations used here represent both Classical andEgyptian Colloquial Arabic, whichever fits the requirements ofthe situation better.) The other wrong choice is an English wordlikely tobe confused with the correct answer, heel. (Notice thatboth of the Arabic/English choices are actual English words.)The student, especially if he is at the elementary level, is likelyto verbalize the choices as he considers them. If he does not

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78 Mark A . Clarke

recognize the correct answer right away, the chances are verygood that he will not be able to eliminate any of the distractors,due to the fact that some of them seem to 'sound okay'. This, ofcourse, raises the validity of the item; only the student whoactually knows the correct answer will be able to choose heel.Other examples of this type of distractor follow.

Item 2. The stung him.a. thornb. waspc. dabber (DA BB UR : wasp)d. hash (HA SH AR A: insect)Item 3. The building had a tall a. manner (MA NA AR A: tower)b . berg (BU RG : tower)c. spired. bridgeItem 4. The mother bear took care of her .a. chickb . kittenc. cubd. jar (JA R: cub)The test was administered to a group of forty-five studentsof the English Language Institute, all of whom spoke Arabic,

most of them as their native language. In the case of the highstudents (ranked 1-10 according to their scores on the test), itwas found tha t out of their total incorrect responses 48 8 per centwere of the Arabic/English-type distractor described here, whilethe low students (ranked 41-45) chose the same distractor typeonly 41 2 per cent of the time. These figures suggest that theadvanced students had more cross-language interference thanthe beginning students. (This is assuming, of course, that thedistractors were operative and that there was no other reasonfor choosing the answers they did.) Why this should be so isunclear. Perhaps it is because the better student is more able tomake the necessary associations which lead him to the incorrectchoice. In interviews after the test, students could not accountfor the motivation behind their choices. It was clear, however,that some of the Arabic/English words represented acceptableEnglish for them. One student actually insisted that manner wasan English word meaning 'tower'. To check further, the test wasgiven to an Egyptian who had received his Ph.D. from a universityin the United States. He missed two questions, bo th times selectingthe Arabic/English distractors. When questioned, he replied thatthe answers he chose seemed to 'fit in with the harmony of thelanguage'. In any case, thefindings ndicate arichfieldof researchfor educational psychology. It would be interesting and valuableto know the kinds of associational problems students encounteras they progress in English as a foreign language.

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English Pronunciation Problems of Francophonle W w t Africans W

The implications of this brief study are two. First, the teachermight profitably make use of student confusion between nativeand target language when compiling objective vocabulary-tests.It would also seem plausible to use items from another languagein cases where English is the third language for the students.French, for example, provides a good source of lexical items inmuch of the Arab world. Although limited to the teacher whoseknowledge of both languages is good, this technique provides apossible solution to the hard-to-find-distractor problem. Second,this approach to testing offers a good source of data on the thoughtprocesses of students of English. Many studies have been doneon the special language-problems of bilinguals, but much remainsto be uncovered in the area of elementary foreign-languagelearning. Any research done in this area would provide valuableinsights which could be used by psychologists and teachers alike.

English Pronunciation Problems ofFrancophonic West AfricansBEVERLEY COLLINS and JILL ROODGeneral introductionT H I S R E P O R T is based on our experience with the 1968-9African Teachers' Course at Thurrock Technical College. Thiscourse consisted of 36 students, coming from eleven countriesand speaking 22 first languages (L .I).1The students were, with four exceptions, either trained teachersof English or students who said they intended to teach Englishas a career. All the students had a previous knowledge of English,but naturally their standard of performance varied considerably.The writers concern themselves only with the spoken language,and in a report of this length it is possible merely to outline the

1Some idea of the diversity of mother tongues and the wide geographicalspread of the group can be derived from the following listing. The country oforigin is followed by the num bers of speakers in the group of each representedAfrican language: Cam eroon (Hausa 1), Central African Repub lic (Sango 3),Zaire Republic (Luba 3), Dahomey (Fon 3, Yoruba 1), Gabon (Ipunu 1,Fang 1), Ivory Coast (Baoule 2, Ebrie 1, Alladian 1, Malinke 2, Agni 2,Tag ouna 1), Niger (Jerma 2), Senegal (Toucoulcur 2, Wolof 1), Tog o (Ewe-Mina 2, Kposso 1, Cabrais 1), Upper Volta (Bobo 1, Dagari 1). There werealso four Malagasy students whose problems were of a different type andwh o are no t considered in this article.

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