TESTING AND

ASSESSING LISTENING
LANGUAGE ASSESMEN
DELLA OFERISCHA
(1305376) K4.2013

TESTING LISTENING

Some problems appears in constructing listening test:

listeners cannot usually move backwash and forward over
what being said
doesnot represent a typical listening task for most people

A. Specifying what the candidate

should be able to do

Content

Operations
Some operation may be classified as global. They
include ability to:
obtain the gist
follow an argument
recognize the attitude of the speaker

Informational
Obtain factual information
Follow instructions(including directions)
Understand requests for information; expression of needs; request for
help; permission; apologies
Follow sequence of events (narration);
Recognise and understand opinions
Follow justification of opinions
Understand comparisons
Recognise and understand suggestions; comments; excuses; expressions
of preferences; complaints; speculation

Interactional
Understand greeting and introductions; expressions of
agreement; disagreement
Recognise speakers purpose; indications of uncertainty
Understand request for clarification
Recognise request for clarification; opinion; indications of
understanding; indication of failure to understand
Recognise and understand corrections by speake;
modifications of statements and comments
Recognise speakers desire that listener indicate
understanding; when speaker justifies or support statements
of other speaker; when speaker questions assertions made by
other speakers; attemps to persuade others

It may also be thought worthwhile testing lower level

listening skill in a diagnostic test. These might include:
Discriminate between vowel phonemes
Discriminate between consonant phonemes
Interpret intonation pattern

Texts
For reasons of content validity and backwash, text should be specified as
fully as possible:
Text type
monologue, dialogue or multiparticipant
Further specified: conversation, announcement, talk or lecture, instruction,
direction, etc
Text form
Description, exposition, argumentation, instruction, naration
Length
Maybe express in seconds or minutes
Speed of speech
Maybe express as word per minute (wpm) or syllable per second (sps)
Dialects
Standard or non-standard varieties
Accents
Regional or non regional

B. Setting criterial levels of performance

The remarks made in the chapter on testing reading apply
equally here. If the test is set at an appropriate level, then,
as with reading, a near perfect set of responses maybe
required for a pass. ACTFL (American Council for Teaching
of Foreign Language) or ILR (Interagency Round Table) or
other scales maybe used to validate the criterial levels that
are set.

C. Setting the task

1. Selecting sample of speech (text)
use samples of authentic speech to find out:
.How candidates can cope with language intended for
native speakers?
.Whether candidates can understand the language
that maybe adressed to them as non-native speakers.
sources: radio, television, spoken-word cassetes,
teaching material, internet, recording of native
speakers.

2. Writing Items
For extendede listening, a useful first step is to listen to
the passage and note down what it is that candidates should
be able to get from the passage.
Things to do to restraint problems in the test:
- Candidates should be warned by key words
- Candidates should be given fair warninginthe passage
- Candidates should be given sufficient time at the outset to
familiarise themselves with the items

Possible Techniques
1.Multiple Choice
2.Short answer
3.Gap filling
4.Note taking
5.Partial dictationtranscription

1. Multiple Choice
The advantages and disadvantages of using multiple
choice in extended listening tests are similar to those
identified for reading test.
There is a problem of the candidates having to
- hold in their heads four or more alternatives while
listening to the passage
- after responding to one item
- taking in and retaining the alternatives for the next item

2. Short answer
This technique can work well because it provides:
- Short question and straightforward
- The correct
- Preferably unique
- Response is obvious

3. Gap Filling
This technique can work well where a short
answer question with aunique answer isnot possible.

4. Information Transfer
This technique is as useful intesting listening as
it is in testing reading because it makes minimal
demands on productive skills.
- Involve the labelling of diagrams or pictures
- Completing forms
- Making diary entries
- Showing routes on a map

5. Note taking
This activity can be quite realitically replicated in
the testing situation.
Candidates take notes during the talk,and only
after the talk is finished do they see the items to
which theyhave to respond.

It is essential to use a passage from which

notes can be taken successfully in making a test.

6.Partial dictation
It can be useful as a testing technique. This can
be used diagnostically to test students ability to
cope with particular difficulties (such as week
forms in English)
7. Transcription
Candidates maybe ask to transcribed numbers or
words which are spelled letter by letter.

3. Moderating the item

The moderationof listening items is essential
It should be carried out using the already
prepared recordings or with the item writer
reading the text as it is meant to be spoken in the
test.
The moderator beginby taking the test and
analyze their items and theirreaction to them.

4. Scoring the listening test

In scoring a test of a receptive skill, there is no reason to
deduct points for errors of grammar or spelling.

ASSESSING LISTENING

A. INTEGRATION OF SKILLS IN LANGUAGE ASSESMENT

Every language teacher and researcherwill tell you that the integration of
skills is of paramount importance in language learning.
In assessing language, integration is even more of a certainty because
assesment virtually always implies a two-ways street between the
teacher/tester and the student: A set of questions of prompts is produced by
the teacher and comprehended by the test-taker. Such integration is of course
authentic in its simulation of real-world communication.
B. ASSESSING GRAMMAR AND VOCABULARIES

There is no such thing as a test of grammar or vocabulary that does not evoke
one or more of the separate skills of listening, speaking, reading, or writing.
Assessing grammar is to provide current perspectives on the myths and the
realities of form-focused assessment and to bring grammar and vocabulary test
more in line with current view of functional grammar and pragmatics.

C. OBSERVING THE PERFORMANCE OF THE

FOUR SKILLS

The relationship between listening and two interacting concepts (performance

and observation).
1.Performance
All language users perform tha acts of listening and speaking. one
important principle for assessing a learners competence is to consider the
falibility of the result of a single performance, such as that produced in a
test.
2. Observation/ Observable
It means being able to see or hear performance of the learner (the senses
of touch, taste, and smell dont apply very often to language testing)

D. THE IMPORTANCE OF LISTENING

Listening is often emphasizes as a component of speaking
Therefore we need to pay close attention to listening as a mode of
performance for assesment in the classroom

E. BASIC TYPES OF LISTENING

The following processes flash through your brain:
1.You recognise speech sounds and hold a temporary imprint of them in shortterm memory.
2.You simultaneously determine the type of speech even (monologue,
insterpersonal dialogue, transactional dialogue) that is being processed and
attend to its context and the content of the message.
3.You use (bottom-up) linguistic decoding skills and/or (top-down) background
schemata to bring a plausible interpretation to the message and assign a literal
and intended meaning to the utterance.
4.In most cases, you delete the exact linguistic form in which the message was
originally receive in favor of conceptually reatining important or relevant
information in long-term memory.

Each of those stages represents a potential

assesment objective:
1.Comprehending surface structure elements such
as phonemes, words, intonation, or grammatical
category
2.Understanding pragmatic context
3.Determining meaning of auditory input
4.Developing the gist, a global or comprehensive
understanding

From these stages we can derive four commonly

identified types of listening performance:
Intensive
Responsive
Selective
extensive

What makes listening difficult

- Clustering
- Redundancy
- Reduced forms
- Performance variabels
- Colloquial language
- Discourse markers
- Rate of delivery
- Stress, rythm, and intonation
- interaction

G. DESIGNING ASSESMENT TASKS: INTENSIVE

LISTENING
Once you have determined objectives, your next step is to design the
tasks, including making decisions about how you will elicit performance and
how you will expect the test-taker to respond.
H. DESIGNING ASSESMENT TASKS: RESPONSIVE
LISTENING
The objective of this item is recognition of WH-Question and its
appropriate response.
I. DESIGNING ASSESMENT TASKS: SELECTIVE
LISTENING
The test-taker listens to a limited quantity of aural input and must
discern within it some specific information.

Techniques of selective listening

Listening cloze
it requires the test-taker to listen to a story, monologue,
or conversation and simultaneously read the written text in
which selected words or phrases have been deleted.
weakness of listening cloze is that they may simply become
reading comprehension task.
Information transfer
it must be tranferred to a visual representation, such as
labeling a diagram, identifying an element in a picture,
completing a form, or showing routes on a map
Sentence repetition
this task may test only recognition of sounds and it can
easily be contaminated by lack of short-term memory ability.

J. DESIGNING ASSESMENT TASKS:

EXTENSIVE LISTENING
Some important question about designing assessments at this
level emerge:
1.Can listening performance be distinguished from cognitive
processing factors such as memory, associations, storage, and
recall?
2.As assessment procedures become more communicative, does
the task take into account test-takers ability to use
grammatical expectancies, lexical collocations, semantic
interpretations, and pragmatic competence?
3.Are test tasks become more and more open-ended, they more
closely resemble pedagogical tasks, which lead one to ask, what
is the difference between assessment and teaching tasks?

 Dictation
Communicative stimulus-response tasks
Authentic listening tasks
- notetaking
- editing
- interpretive tasks
- retelling

THANK YOU