CTEL Exam Secrets Test Prep Staff - CTEL Exam Practice Questions: CTEL Practice Tests & Review for the California Teacher of English Learners Examination

Table of Contents

1. Second-grade English language learners (ELLs) arestruggling with pronunciation of an English-language phoneme not found in theirnative language. Of the following strategies, which would be the best step fortheir teacher to do first?

a. Showthem the phonemes point of articulation on a model or diagram of the humanmouth.

b. Repeatthe sound while pointing at its associated alphabet letter on a chart multipletimes.

c. Assignrhyming words in poems and songs as minimal pairs to place it in whole-wordcontexts.

d. Read stories, paragraphs, and dialoguesaloud, so they hear it in meaningful discourse contexts.

2. English language learner (ELL) students in an Englishlanguage development (ELD) class at the early-advanced level typically showwriting errors like the underlined part of the following: We studied all week. To get good scores on the test. Which of the following should theirteacher first instruct them to learn?

a. Discriminatingbetween infinitive phrases and prepositional phrases

b. Discriminatingbetween clauses as direct objects and indirect objects

c. Discriminatingbetween subordinating and coordinating conjunctions

d. Discriminating between independentclauses and dependent clauses

3. Spanish-speaking students learning English commonly add// before word-initial consonant clusters like /sp/, /st/, /spr/, /str/, andso on, for example, espeak, estudy, esprinkle, estrike. Why does thishappen?

a. Theirnative language has no comparable such consonant clusters in it.

b. Theirnative language always precedes consonant clusters with the //.

c. Theirnative language always separates these consonants with vowels.

d. Their native language excludes one ofthe consonants in each cluster.

4. A Chinese student learning English tends to speak andwrite constructions like this: This dish is my favorite because it has shrimp,snow pea, water chestnut, and bamboo shoot. To correct the errors representedin this sentence, what part of the English language does he teacher need toaddress?

a. morphology

b. phonology

c. semantics

d. syntax

5. A Mexican student is aghast when an American classmatetries to communicate with her in Spanish and translates embarrassed to embarazada.The teacher helps her explain to the American classmate that, in Spanish,this word means pregnant. What is this difference an example?

a. Cognates

b. Falsecognates

c. Multiplemeanings

d. A syntactic mistake

6. Since coming to America, Fredo has learned to speakEnglish using different vocabulary words and sentence structures whenaddressing his teachers and principal than he does when conversing with hisfriends. This is an example of which of the following?

a. Theinfluence of contextual discourse factors on language variation choices

b. Thepersistence of a native regional dialects characteristics after relocating

c. Thedifferences between English language learner (ELL) students correct andincorrect constructions

d. The influence of an ELL students nativelanguage on his speaking in English

7. A high school teacher wants to familiarize ELL studentswith standard discourse structures and conventions used in academic essays.Which activity would be most appropriate for this purpose?

a. Assignsmall groups to brainstorm essay topics, write short drafts, and analyze thesetogether.

b. Givethem copies of essays with key vocabulary words missing, and have them completethese.

c. Havethem analyze various essay types, and identify which vocabulary and grammarthey share.

d. Help them analyze provided sampleessays, and make graphic organizers of various essay types.

8. Sylvia is a high school English language learner (EL)Lstudent. When given oral discourse activities, she is very good at addressingpoints classmates have just brought up, organizing her ideas, unifying heroverall message, and finding appropriate English words and phrases to makeconnections and transitions between sentences. However, she speaks very slowly,with many pauses and interruptions between phrases and sentences. On which areadoes she need to work?

a. Responsivity

b. Coherence

c. Cohesion

d. Fluency

9. An English language learner (ELL) student from Italyshows strengths in oral discourse, including good eye contact and expressivephysical gestures. However, his American classmates are put off by hismaintaining closer physical proximity than they expect when conversing withthem. What is this cultural difference a feature of?

a. Discoursein using language

b. Semanticsin using language

c. Pragmaticsin using language

d. Social functions of language

10. Which of the following is a morphological feature?

a. Thecombination of roots and affixes

b. Thepatterns of intonation in speech

c. Thepitches of a voice during speech

d. The relationship of letters to sounds

11. Which of the following English words has a Greekorigin?

a. Calorie

b. Calendar

c. Calumny

d. Calisthenics

12. Of the following words, which has roots in both Greekand Latin?

a. Camera

b. Calcium

c. Campus

d. Canister

13. Among the following pairs, which two words share thesame root?

a. Clinicand recline

b. Clauseand clavicle

c. Clavicleand clavichord

d. Iconoclast and claustrophobia

14. To promote English learners language development,what does knowledge of morphology informing word analysis related to solve,solvent, solution; absolve, absolute, absolution; and dissolve,dissolute, dissolution most promote?

a. Spelling

b. Fluency.

c. Vocabulary

d. None of these

15. Why might Spanish-speaking English language learner(ELL) students fail to pronounce the initial letter h in English words?

a. Thereis no such letter in their native language alphabet.

b. Thereare no similar phonemes in their native language.

c. Theletter h when word-initial is always silent in Spanish.