A reply to Ruixia Yan’s critique on CPD procedure in cloze

A reply to Ruixia Yans critique on CPD procedure in clozeHossein Vahid Dastjerdi and Mohammad Reza Talebinezhad University of IsfahanYans critique of Dastjerdi and Talebinezhad (2006; henceforth, DT) is interesting for a number reasons, and the authors are grateful for her comments, which can lead to a better understanding of both concepts of chains and deletion procedures in cloze testing. Hossein Vahid Dastjerdi, English Department, Faculty of Foreign Languages, The University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran; email: h_vahid@yahoo.comLanguage Testing 2006 23 (3) 408409 10.1191/0265532206lt335xx 2006 Edward Arnold (Publishers) LtdHossein Vahid Dastjerdi and Mohammad Reza Talebinezhad 409The MELAB was administered as an external criterion to check the concurrent validity and reliability of both forms of the cloze test. A reconsideration of the ending section of the article (pp. 6869) clarifies the precise focus of the study and provides adequate elucidation on Yans concern about the issue of washback effect, and other issues such as the naturalness of language, the ease of the test or the better performance of the test-takers exposed to CPD (rather than the higher validity of CPD thereof).In conclusion, we would like to thank Yan for her insightful suggestions.