CTEL CTEL Language and Language Development 4

Question 1

Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) is BEST described as the gap between:

Accepted Answer

What a learner can do alone and what they can do with support

Answer

The ZPD is the distance between what a learner can accomplish independently and what they can achieve with guidance from a more capable person.

Question 2

Which of the following is an example of a minimal pair used to demonstrate phonemic distinctions in English?

Accepted Answer

'ship' and 'sheep'

Answer

Minimal pairs differ by only one phoneme; 'ship' (/ɪ/) and 'sheep' (/iː/) contrast the short and long vowel sounds.

Question 3

An English learner from a language that does not have articles (like Russian) frequently omits 'the' and 'a' in English. This is an example of:

Accepted Answer

Negative transfer

Answer

Negative transfer (interference) occurs when L1 structures that differ from L2 lead to errors in the target language.

Question 4

Which of the following BEST defines 'discourse competence' as a component of communicative language ability?

Accepted Answer

The ability to connect sentences into coherent, organized text

Answer

Discourse competence involves organizing language at the sentence level and above to create coherent spoken or written texts.

Question 5

Which term describes the phenomenon where a second language learner's errors stop progressing and become permanent features of their speech?

Accepted Answer

Fossilization

Answer

Fossilization occurs when certain L2 errors become permanently fixed in a learner's interlanguage, resisting correction.

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