In written texts coherence refers to the way a text makes sense to the
readers through the organization of its content, and the relevance and clarity
of its concepts and ideas. Generally a paragraphhas coherence if it is a
series of sentences that develop a main idea (i.e. with a topic sentence and
supporting sentences which relate to it).
see also scheme, text linguistics, conversational maximcohesionn
the grammatical and/or lexical relationships between the different elements
of a text. This may be the relationship between different sentences or
between different parts of a sentence. For example:
a A: Is Jenny coming to the party?
B: Yes, she is.
There is a link between Jenny and she and also between is...coming
and is.
b In the sentence:
If you are going to London, I can give you the address of a good hotel there.
the link is between Londonand there (see anaphora).
see also coherence
cohortn
(in research) a group of people who have some feature in common, such as
age, IQ, or number of months they have studied a foreign language.
collaborative assessmentn
a type of assessment that arrives at a consensus collaboratively among
different teachers teaching the same course regarding which common
features to assess in a learner’s response, product, or performance and
how consistently to use assessment criteria for this purpose.
collaborative evaluationn
(in language programme evaluation) the assessment and evaluation of a
curriculum or programme that is carried out jointly by classroom teachers,
researchers, or other trained educational experts.
collaborative learningn
a general term for an approach to teaching and learning which makes use
of learners working together in small groups. A form of collaborative learn-
ing which involves specific roles and responsibilities for group members
and for the use of group-based activities is known as cooperative
learning.
cohesion