CHAPTER V: Testing and Assessment of Listening, Listening Test Task Types and Sample Test Items 95

Pre-reading questions
1. What do you understand from listening assessment?
2. Do you know what intensive and extensive listening are? Can you
provide any examples of tasks for each?
3. What do you think micro and macro skills of listening refer to?
4. What do you think should be considered when designing listening
assessment tasks?

Introduction
This chapter will provide an explanation of the listening comprehension process
and introduce the processes underlying listening skills. This will be followed by a
mention of different test task types used to assess the skill in different dimensions
such as intensive, responsive, selective, and extensive activities. Of particular
interest will be the following:
• the use and suitability of different test task types and dimensions in different
age and proficiency groups;
• the scoring of listening tasks;
• sample test items for different age and proficiency groups.
Specifically, Chapter 5 is designed to assist pre-service and in-service teachers
to recognize what is meant through the testing and assessment of listening in
language classrooms.
Foreign language teachers who are responsible for teaching listening find
themselves in a range of pedagogical settings consisting of classrooms devoted
merely to listening as well as in classrooms emphasizing the listening skill
integrated with reading, writing, and speaking skills and classrooms employing
various forms of content-based instruction. In all instructional settings, we can
guide students to make them more responsible for their listening abilities and
more strategic listeners. In an effort to understand the effectiveness of their
classroom instruction, reflective listening teachers often ask themselves the
following questions about listening comprehension:
• What do listeners do when they listen?
• How do listeners build comprehension?
• How does listening differ from other language skills?
• What are the principles of teaching the listening skill?
• How can the listening skill be assessed with different techniques for different
age and proficiency groups?
• What are the alternative types of assessment in listening?
96 LANGUAGE ASSESSMENT AND TEST PREPARATION

The responses to these questions will present a better understanding on assessing

listening.

Theoretical Framework on Listening Comprehension Process

Listening is an active process of turning the sound waves into meaning engaging
neurological, linguistic, pragmatic, and psychological processing (Geranpayeh &
Taylor, 2013). In early childhood, children develop their language by listening in
their natural setting as long as they are not deprived of healthy communication
and do not suffer from problems such as deafness, brain damage, developmental
delays, or language impairments (Lightbown & Spada, 2006). However, second
language (L2) listening requires internal and external conditions to be activated
by language learners. These include the: (1) the need to learn a second/foreign
language, (2) the motivation for learning the target language, (3) social and
educational settings for scaffolding, (4) an audience to give feedback. The majority
of researchers and teachers accept L2 listening as an interactive process in which
listeners concentrate on comprehensible input for making meaning by their earlier
experiences (Gilakjani & Ahmadi, 2011). From a cognitive perspective, schemata
are used for input processing, which is a challenge in L2 listening comprehension.
In schema theory, it is stated that schemata are primary sources for the activation
of situations, actions, and experiences in listeners’ minds (Nunan, 2002). Schema
theory is based on information processing: bottom up processing, top-down,
and interactive processing (Flowerdew & Miller, 2005; Nunan, 2002; Wilson,
2003). L2 listeners are able to listen successfully if the input or information gained
via listening is compatible with their schemata; if not, input will not proceed to the
processing levels (Wilson, 2003).
Among the three types of processing, bottom-up is the processing which is
initiated by new information. The incoming data is processed with the decoding of
phonemes, and then each phoneme is connected as minimal meaningful units to
construct words (Gilakjani & Ahmadi, 2011). Words are connected to form phrases,
phrases to sentences to perform both meaningful oral and written texts. This
complicated process ends with meaning-formation (Richards, 2005). L2 listeners
follow natural language processing as in their L1 listening, namely neurological,
linguistic, and pragmatic processing. However, studies conducted on bottom-
up processing commonly describe it as a weak point in L2 listening processing
because top-down processing and interactive processing are regarded as being
more pedagogic models for knowledge construction (Aponte-de-Hanna, 2012).
Top-down processing is a model in which listeners listen to the incoming
information by following a holistic approach to catch the gist of the oral text
rather than focusing on every single details in the text (Graham, 2006). In top-
down processing, listeners draw high level schemata to reconstruct what the
speakers’ mean in their utterances (Chang & Read, 2006; Hall, 2011). In order to
CHAPTER V: Testing and Assessment of Listening, Listening Test Task Types and Sample Test Items 97

construct knowledge, listeners make use of their earlier experiences, personal and
academic backgrounds. If a listener has familiarity with the incoming information,
it is possible to compose a contextual network and activate the schemata based
on the listening.
Interactive process refers to the combination of both bottom-up and top-down
processing. Unlike the common view in the literature on the effect size of top-down
processing on listening comprehension, listeners can overcome weak points in
bottom-up and top-down processing by interactive processing (Graham, 2006).
Graham and Macaro (2007) suggest that top-down and bottom-up processes may
operate in a compensatory and confirmatory manner. Field (2008) notes both
processes can be equally applied to listening comprehension. Further, Macaro,
Graham and Woore (2016) make it apparent with their example: “When we read that
“the train manager checked the passengers’ tickets”, we receive congruent evidence
from both the form of the word –tickets (bottom-up) and from our knowledge of
what the train manager is likely to be doing (top-down)” (p. 35). According to the
Flowerdew and Miller (2005), the model includes individualized, contextualized,
critical, intertextual, strategic, cross cultural, social, affective, and affective
dimensions. These dimensions give way to the listeners to comprehend the content
of the text and provide them with content to activate their earlier experiences.
There has been a number of critiques of Krashen’s Input Hypothesis in the
literature about reception of aural language in the listening process (Ellis, 2008;
Rost, 2002). From Rost (2002)’s perspective, the listening process is based on the
perception of cues, and there is not a direct equivalence between sounds and
meaning in listening comprehension. This suggests that potential understanding
does not have a straightforward relationship or link to the structural forms of
language. However, Faerch and Kasper (1980, 1983) state that foreign language
learners use both top-down processing requiring both contextual knowledge
and prior knowledge of the learners, and bottom-up processing pointing out the
linguistic forms in the input. As is seen from the two differing perspectives, the
question occurring in our minds is which comprehension process is needed for
language acquisition to occur. In top-down processing learners pay little attention
to the form of input and how they can add more into their cognition in terms
of new information. Gass and Selinker (2001) point out the importance of the
comprehended input rather than the comprehensible input. However, Krashen
(2013) proposed that language learners can learn through comprehension by
connecting form to meaning and by realizing the gap between comprehensible
input and their current interlanguage rule. As Ellis (2008) has stated “what is
required of any account of the role of input in acquisition is explicit statements
of how what is detected in the acoustic and visual stimuli is mentally represented
and how detection and encoding are guided by internal mechanisms” (p. 251). In
that sense, listening comprehension is directly related with the acoustic and visual
comprehension and connection in the learners’ cognition.
98 LANGUAGE ASSESSMENT AND TEST PREPARATION

One of the inescapable realities is that almost everyone, unless they have no
physiological impairment, can master the micro and macro skills of listening in
their first languages; however, L2 listening development requires basically both
external and internal factors (Dörnyei, 2001). The external factors may include the
opportunities for hearing and using the L2 while the internal ones are listed as
motivation and attitude for learning. Based on these external and internal impulses,
language learners can give way to their own learning process. Especially more aware
learners may regard listening in the learning process as naturally manageable, but
it might be challenging for learners who do not pay attention to the phonological
and lexical processing for clear comprehension and communication. To fulfil the
requirements of full comprehension in listening, there is a need for a coordinated
and integrated fashion in first language (L1) and L2 lexis (Rost, 2002). Among some
bilinguals, mental L1 and L2 lexicon work in an organized manner is required. Ervin
and Osgood (1954) revealed the difference between coordinate bilingualism and
compound bilingualism to show how bilinguals do the coordination and the word
recognition between L1 and L2 listening (Rost, 2002). There seems to be cognitive
transfer from L1 to L2 in information processing which forms a separate storage
for information. The attempt to give nearly equal weight to both phonological and
lexical coding represents and supports the dual coding theory proposed by Clark
and Paivio (1991). The use of phonological coding in L2 is the basis for the word
recognition that L2 listeners use which includes lexical segmentation strategies.
As a result, learners need to develop an awareness of word recognition in the
stream of speech in order to have phonological competence (Cutler & Butterfield,
1992). The word recognition and speech perception are bottom-up processing
cues for L2 listeners while semantic use of the speech provides top-down cues in
L2 listening comprehension.
In order for input to become intake in L2 listening, sentence processing or syntactic
processing occur when a listener tries to process an oral utterance. Grammar
building is the input processing to determine the main components of the given
verbal data. There is a relation between information processing and the grammar
building processing to help listeners use their inborn capacity, universal grammar
for their own listening process. VanPatten (1996) asserts some principles in the
Input Processing Model such as “learners’ processing input for meaning, processing
content words in the input, preferring lexical items to grammatical items for
semantic information, and processing communicative content” (p. 14). There is a
link between listening comprehension and speech production in that language
learners can produce information when they have information processing, which
is based on the principle of readiness of Piennemann’s Processability Theory (1999).

Microskills and Macroskills of Listening

Rather than fostering only micro listening skills (attending to the smaller bits and
chunks of language, in more of a bottom-up process), keeping learners’ attention
CHAPTER V: Testing and Assessment of Listening, Listening Test Task Types and Sample Test Items 99

a step forward with macro listening skills (focusing on the larger elements
involved in a top-down approach to a listening task) such as listening for the gist
of the text, making inferences and using listening strategies will increase their
information processing in listening comprehension (Brown, 2014). Therefore,
it should be clear from the foregoing division that the micro and macro skills of
listening comprehension can be criteria for listening assessment. What learners do
while listening and how they cope with listening breakdowns will provide insight
to teachers about their listening performance.
In Richards’ (1983) comprehensive taxonomy of aural skills, these micro and macro
skills are conceptualized within different forms of objectives to assess listening
comprehension.

Table 1
Microskills and macroskills of listening comprehension (adapted from Richards, 1983)
Microskills
1. Retain chunks of language of different lengths in short-term memory.
2. Discriminate among the distinctive sounds of English.
3. Recognize English stress patterns, words in stressed and unstressed positions, rhythmic
structure, intonational contours, and their role in signalling information.
4. Recognize reduced forms of words.
5. Distinguish word boundaries, recognize a core of words, and interpret word order
patterns and their significance.
6. Process speech at different rates of delivery.
7. Process speech containing pauses, errors, corrections, and other performance variables.
8. Recognize grammatical word classes (nouns, verbs, etc.), systems (e.g., tense,
agreement, and pluralization), patterns, rules, and elliptical forms.
9. Detect sentence constituents and distinguish between major and minor constituents.
10. Recognize that a particular meaning may be expressed in different grammatical forms.

Macroskills
1. Recognize cohesive devices in spoken discourse.
2. Recognize the communicative functions of utterances, according to situations,
participants, goals.
3. Infer situations, participants, goals using real-world knowledge.
4. From events, ideas, etc., described, predict outcomes, infer links and connections
between events, deduce causes and effects, and detect such relations as main
idea, supporting idea, new information, given information, generalization, and
exemplification.
5. Distinguish between literal and implied meanings.
6. Use facial, kinesics; body language, and other nonverbal clues to decipher meanings.
7. Develop and use a battery of listening strategies, such as detecting key words, guessing
the meaning of words from context, appealing for help, and signalling comprehension
or lack thereof.
100 LANGUAGE ASSESSMENT AND TEST PREPARATION

Listening Text Awareness

There is a need for a good listening text or a relevant dialogue for meaningful
listening experience. In the selection and identification of the listening text as
input, there are significant concepts to consider such as relevance (Rost, 2002)
and appropriateness to the proficiency level. Sperber and Wilson (1986) highlight
the importance of relevance by stating that human cognition has a distinguished
goal, which is to pay attention to the input relevant to him/her.
The relevance and appropriateness of the topic to the language level can be
assessed based on the content and delivery of the new information. The content
of the listening text is expected to present crucial factors such as interest, cultural
issues, discourse structures, density, and language level before language learners
begin to listen to listening tasks. The stated factors have a role in pre-listening
or before listening process. Among all, interest is perhaps the most challenging
factor for strategic listening. Language learners or users have the potential to
listen to what is interesting for them, and when they are aware of their needs,
they can increase their focus on the listening text and try to find responses to
their needs. The issues included in the content of listening should appeal to the
listeners’ cultural values. Language learning requires cultural enrichment but if the
main purpose is to create awareness of strategic listening, the listening tasks may
start with the known cultural issues rather than the new cultural items depending
on the topics. As long as language teachers make the listening text accessible
to the listeners, they would accept the text and keep the linguistic and cultural
knowledge together. Additionally, having the knowledge of discourse structures
is important for strategic listening comprehension. The discourse structures refer
to the organization of both written and oral text, most of which are cause-effect,
problem-solution, and claim-counterclaim (McCarthy, 1991). If listeners know the
common discourse patterns, they might tend to predict the rest of the listening
text. Moreover, the amount of knowledge given in the listening text refers to the
density factor, which urges listeners to grasp the structural and lexical repetitions
in the text. The language level regarding the difficulty and familiarity of the lexical
and grammatical items is an aspect of a good listening text, as well. Language
learners need to do listening practice using simple to complex activities as stated
in the Natural Order Hypothesis (Krashen, 2013).
Besides content knowledge, strategic listening entails an awareness of the delivery
of the listening text. The delivery of the listening input can be in two different ways;
face to face and media based. In both ways, listeners deal with both the neurological
and linguistic processing at the same time. However, when there is an overload of
input, listeners may not keep the balance of input receiving and input processing.
Therefore, listeners’ needs, interests, and readiness should be considered before
the application of intensive and extensive listening activities. The quality of the
recording used as listening input materials as well as the environmental factors are
CHAPTER V: Testing and Assessment of Listening, Listening Test Task Types and Sample Test Items 101

significant for the assessment of listening comprehension (Brown, 2004). Another

factor to be taken into account is the speed of delivery and the number of speakers
involved in the input. The rate of speed in live talk and video recordings, and the
speech of more than one speaker can be confusing for listeners, which might
cause listeners to attribute meaning based on the visual elements if there are any.
Related to the speed and number of speakers, the variety of speakers’ accents in a
natural environment or in a recording can also be a factor presented in the delivery
of a listening text, which can cause misunderstandings on the part of the listeners.
To have an awareness of the content and delivery of a good listening text, it is vital
that learners engage in strategic listening but some possible problems especially
in the delivery of a listening text cause us to question whether listening activities
should be authentic or pedagogic (Wilson, 2010).

Awareness of Different Types of Listening

Learners should be exposed to a range of genres to have an awareness of different
oral treatments. The oral treatments in the listening tasks might be transactional
and interactional conversations. While the transactional conversations include
formulaic speech such as buying a train ticket, the interactional ones are less
predictable like sitting down and chatting with a friend. Genres for listening tasks
are likely to encounter natural linguistic features. Therefore, learners should be
taught about different task types in any skill for different purposes, which are
narrative, descriptive, comparison/contrast, causal/evaluation, and problem/
solution task types (Rost, 2002).
Educational sources are designed for different concepts and principles within
pedagogic frameworks. Language users might need to use authentic language
rather than formal language in language classes. From the teachers’ perspective,
the notion of authenticity in listening tasks is controversial because teachers
might struggle with breakdowns in learners’ listening comprehension. The use
of language in the virtual or digital agenda is highly authentic in nature and
the virtual word is more authentic than the traditional classroom. In that sense,
students might hesitate with the words and their real-world relevance (Kearsly,
2001).
As it is well-established in language teaching, language input should be
appropriate to the current needs of the students and should mostly provide an
authentic use for the learners (Nunan, 1999). Language input should involve
features of naturally used language. Both the multimedia-based and instructional-
based designs require awareness of different types of listening: 1) intensive, 2)
responsive, 3) selective, and 4) extensive listening.
1. Intensive listening means to listen for “the sounds, words, phrases,
grammatical and pragmatic units” (Rost, 2002, p. 138). Dictation is
integrated into listening activities to make learners infer from context.
102 LANGUAGE ASSESSMENT AND TEST PREPARATION

Listening is accepted as the perception of the components (phonemes,

words, intonation) of a language.
Intensive listening assessment tasks:
• Recognizing phonological and morphological elements of language (giving
a spoken stimulus and asking test-takers (especially young learners in the
beginning level) to identify the stimulus from two or more choices)
Phonemic pair, vowels
Hear: Is he living?
Read: (a) Is he leaving?
(b) Is he living?

Phonemic pair, consonants

Hear: He’s from California.
Read: (a) He’s from California.
(b) She’s from California. (Brown, 2004; Buck, 2001)
• Distinguishing stress patterns (I can swim; I can’t swim)
• Paraphrase recognition (providing a stimulus sentence and asking the
test-taker to choose the correct paraphrase from a number of choices; I am
Chinese; I come from China.)
Sentence Paraphrase
Hear: Hello, my name is Kim. I come from Japan
Read: (a) Kim wants to come to Japan.
(b) Kim is Japanese.
(c) Kim likes Japan.

Dialogue Paraphrase
Hear: Man: Hi Maria, my name’s George.
Woman: Nice to meet you, George. Are you American?
Man: No, I’m Canadian.
Read: (a) George lives in the U.S.
(b) George is American.
(c) George comes from Canada. (Brown, 2004, p. 124)
• Repetition (A student repeats a word.)
2. Responsive listening is developed through the communicative tasks
fostering negotiation of meaning in the listening task (Rost, 2002). In the
classroom or in a web-based platform, teachers can create classroom
CHAPTER V: Testing and Assessment of Listening, Listening Test Task Types and Sample Test Items 103

interaction and discussion settings like story-telling and interviewing

activities. All students in different proficiency levels and age groups listen
to others’ task performance as a listening activity. They listen to a relatively
short stretch of language (a greeting, question, command, comprehension
check, etc.) in order to make an equally short response (Brown, 2004).
Responsive listening assessment tasks:
• Appropriate response to a multiple choice question
Hear: How much time did you take to do your homework?
Read: (a) In about an hour.
(b) About an hour.
(c) About 10 dollars.

• Open-ended response to a question

Hear: How much time did you take to do your homework?
Write/Speak: ………………………………………………
(Good: authenticity & creativity, Bad: practicality) (Brown, 2004, p. 125).

3. Selective listening is the way to concentrate on specific information

given in context rather than understanding the details in the listening task
(Brown, 2014). To develop students’ selective listening ability, note taking is
an advised macro skill in the listening process. Teachers may use some note-
taking techniques such as listing key words, concept making, outlining, and
visualizing. Also, pre-listening activities can be part of selective listening
as they provide a previous content-based activity to students. Selective
assessment tasks could ask students to listen for names, numbers, directions,
or certain facts, and events. Students (especially young adults and adult
learners in intermediate and advanced levels) can process stretches of
discourse such as short monologues for several minutes in order to scan
for certain information. The purpose is not necessarily to listen for global
or general meaning, but to be able to comprehend designated information
in the context of longer stretches of spoken language (such as classroom
directions from a teacher, TV or radio news item, or stories)
Selective listening assessment tasks:
• Listening Cloze (cloze task dictations or partial-task dictations)
In a listening cloze task, test-takers (young adults and adults in intermediate level)
see a transcript of the passage that they are listening to and fill in the blanks with
the missing words or phrases that they hear.
104 LANGUAGE ASSESSMENT AND TEST PREPARATION

Hear:
A
Good morning. This is an announcement for all passengers travelling
on the 9:25 flight TOM1223 to Rome. This flight is delayed by two
hours because of bad weather.
B
Would all passengers travelling to Tokyo on flight FR3421 please
have your boarding passes and passports ready for boarding? Flight
FR3421 now boarding at gate 21.

C
This is the final boarding call for passengers Gemma and Ryan Grey
flying to Athens on flight EZ9753. Your flight is ready to leave. Please
go to gate 14 immediately. The doors of the plane will close in five
minutes.
D
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. We have landed at JFK airport
in New York where the local time is 18:30 and the temperature is 76º.
We hope you have enjoyed your flight with American Airlines.

• Information Transfer
Multiple-picture-cued selection (A number of people and/or actions are presented
in one picture, such as a group of people at a party, in a shop or house, etc.)
The sample task may be presented to young learners and young adults at the
beginning or intermediate levels.
Hear: Circle the correct picture. On Saturday I woke up at 9 am and joined my
friend, Jane to go window shopping. We did not want to go into the shops. I
had planned to go to a café but my grandma called me and invited us to her
home for lunch. Jane said “That would be great to visit her.” In the afternoon I
visited my grandma with my friend. We were very hungry and had lunch with
my friend in her house. Then, we watched a very funny comedy together. We
enjoyed it a lot. What did Daisy do at the weekend?
See: Figure 1.
CHAPTER V: Testing and Assessment of Listening, Listening Test Task Types and Sample Test Items 105

Figure 1
Sample pictures for the multiple-picture-cued selection task (Richards, 2004)

A B C

Single-picture-cued verbal multiple choice (One single photo is presented to the

test taker, then s/he hears a set of different statements, the number of which might
vary, and the student chooses one of the statements to describe the photo).

Figure 2
A sample picture for single-picture cued task (Richards, 2004)

See:

Hear: (a) Aaron is watering the plants.

(b) Aaron is carrying a bucket of water.
(c) Aaron is filling the hole with water.

• Chart-filling (A set of information on any topic is presented to the listeners

(young learners and young adults in beginning and intermediate levels) and
they are expected to select the necessary information to fill in the blanks
within the given chart.)
106 LANGUAGE ASSESSMENT AND TEST PREPARATION

Hear: Now you will listen to three short texts about three pupils. You are to fill in
the table with name, occupation, hobby and how long/how often does s/he do it?
The example has already been given for you. Remember, you will listen to the texts
once. You will have enough time to fill in the table.
I. Clare is a teacher at King’s College in Winchester, UK. She loves her job a lot.
She likes music, nature and animals. She is interested in song-writing. Almost
every weekend she spends time in her lovely backyard and writes song lyrics.
II. Andrew has been working at the Central Police Station as a policeman for ten
years. He helps people near and far if they have any problems. He lives with his
family in a very big house in the country. He likes cooking for his wife. He cooks
new recipes on Saturday nights.
III. Brian has been an office worker in a company for a long time. He is a member
of Northern Box Club. He has boxing trainings three days a week. He thinks
boxing is a full body workout.
See: Figure 3.

Figure 3
A sample for chart-filling
How often and how long
Name Occupation Hobby
does s/he do it?
Clare Teacher

Sentence repetition (the task of repeating a sentence/ a partial sentence)

Hear: Listen and repeat.

Car
A car
There is a car.
There is a car in the car park.
A student repeats the stimulus.
The listeners (specifically young learners at the beginning level) repeat the stimulus,
which might be a word, a phrase, a sentence, or perhaps a partial sentence. There
are some variations in the task types to promote the listening and even speaking
skills of the learners. Some tasks are described to assess the learners’ recognition in
listening while some of them are designed to distinguish learners’ oral production
skills. Drawing a clear distinction between the learners’ listening task performance
in sentence repetition and oral production skills might be problematic. The
CHAPTER V: Testing and Assessment of Listening, Listening Test Task Types and Sample Test Items 107

teacher may not clearly distinguish listening comprehension-based errors from

oral production errors. Thus, the sentence repetition task requirements must be
clear in order to overcome confusions amongst students and achieve reliability in
listening assessment. Further, sentence repetition demands a variety of cognitive
abilities such as directed and selective attention, the use of short-term memory,
and speed in processing (Mathias & Wheaton, 2007).
4. Extensive listening refers to all types of listening activities keeping both
teachers and learners busy with comprehensible input; however, instead of
teachers, learners are at the centre of their own activities. They do listening
practices for pleasure and they are responsible for their own listening
activities (Renandya & Farrell, 2011). Extensive listening can ensure a number
of benefits for the learners interested in listening activities in the target
language as it feeds the notion of learner-centred instruction. The spoken
language can be challenging as it follows a normal speech rate which is
sometimes fast for language learners in the beginning and elementary
levels. Also, learners can be in need of practice for processing the spoken
language accurately and fluently. Compared with other listening types,
extensive listening provides opportunities mostly of listening practices
without limiting the learning environment in traditional classroom. It
improves learners’ linguistic, pragmatic, and communicative competences.
In other words, it promotes learner autonomy and an awareness of the
listening process.
Extensive listening assessment tasks:
• Dictation
Learners hear a sentence (especially for young learners at the beginning/pre-
intermediate level of English) or a passage (for young adults and adult learners), of
approximately 50 to 100 words, presented to students three times: 1) first listening,
at normal speed; 2) second listening with slowed speed/ long pauses between
phrases and word groups, and 3) third listening, at normal speed once more,
during which learners check their notes taken while listening (Kiany & Shiramiry,
2002). Here is an example worksheet for young learners.
108
106 LANGUAGE ASSESSMENT
LANGUAGE ASSESSMENTAND
ANDTEST
TESTPREPARATION
PREPARATION

Figure
Figure4 4
AAsample
sample worksheet
worksheet for a dictation
for a dictation task task

Dictation

Directions: Listen to your teacher. Write the simple sentence s/he reads onto the lines below. Remember
to use your checklist listed below. You will receive one point for each component that is correct in your
sentence.

Sentence: My best friend is Sam. He likes horse-riding.

________________________________________________________
□ Capital □ Spacing □ Punctuation □ Spelling □ Neatness Total Points: __/5

Name:_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Sentence:______________________________________________________________
□ Capital □ Spacing □ Punctuation □ Spelling □ Neatness Total Points: __/5

Sentence:_____________________________________________________________
□ Capital □ Spacing □ Punctuation □ Spelling □ Neatness Total Points: __/5

Sentence:______________________________________________________________
□ Capital □ Spacing □ Punctuation □ Spelling □ Neatness Total Points: __/5

Sentence:______________________________________________________________
□ Capital □ Spacing □ Punctuation □ Spelling □ Neatness Total Points: __/5

Dictation is helpful for learners as it helps develop their note-taking skills, and
Dictation is helpful for learners as it helps develop their note-taking skills, and
exposes them to discriminating sounds, stress and intonation patterns, as well
exposes them to discriminating sounds, stress and intonation patterns, as well
as assists them in identifying key terms and main ideas, and finding connections
as assists them in identifying key terms and main ideas, and finding connections
between ideas. Teachers will need a well-established scoring rubric which will ne-
between ideas. Teachers will need a well-established scoring rubric which will
cessitate that they identify specific criteria to assess. The most common criteria
necessitate that they identify specific criteria to assess. The most common criteria
assessed in listening comprehension are spelling, grammar use, word/phrase stru-
assessed in listening comprehension are spelling, grammar use, word/phrase
cture, punctuation, spacing, and legible handwriting (Brown, 2004; Buck, 2001).
structure, punctuation, spacing, and legible handwriting (Brown, 2004; Buck,
Another dictation activity is dictogloss where learners are expected to cons-
2001).
truct a short text by listening and noting down what they hear. It works with va-
Another dictation activity is dictogloss where learners are expected to construct a
CHAPTER V: Testing and Assessment of Listening, Listening Test Task Types and Sample Test Items 109

short text by listening and noting down what they hear. It works with various short
texts and passages (Nabei, 1996; Vasiljevic, 2010). The speed and the complexity of
the input will affect the learners’ information processing. Therefore, the text should
be at the learners’ proficiency level or below. It should also include new vocabulary
items to increase the lower-level learners’ vocabulary size. As learners practice
how to process information more automatically and improve their listening skills,
teachers should supply more authentic texts to the learners (Buck, 2001). Here is
the procedure teachers may follow with a dictogloss activity in a classroom setting:
Step 1. Tell your students to listen to the text you will read, and write down
key words that will help them rather than putting down every word they
hear.
Step 2. Read the text twice (with pauses or short stops) and give your
students time to write down key words.
Step 3. Put the students in small groups (three or four) and tell them to
recreate the text they have listened to from their memories and notes.
Step 4. Remind your students that their texts are not supposed to be the
same as the original one. Instead, it has to include the general sense and
main idea of the text.
Step 5. Encourage them to be creative (Jacobs & Small, 2003).

• Communicative Stimulus-Response Tasks

Learners (especially at the intermediate and advanced levels) are presented
with a stimulus monologue/ a brief conversation and then are asked to
respond to a set of listening comprehension questions, which is a common
listening assessment type.

1. Dialogue and multiple-choice comprehension items

110 LANGUAGE ASSESSMENT AND TEST PREPARATION

Figure 5
A sample for a listening dialogue and multiple choice questions (Beare, 2020)

Directions: Listen to a conversation between two friends talking about a party in

the future. Read the questions through before you listen and then answer them
after listening to the conversation two times.
Martha: What horrible weather today. I’d love to go out, but I think it will just
continue raining.
Jane: Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps the sun will come out later this afternoon.
Martha: I hope you’re right. Listen, I’m going to have a party this Saturday. Would
you like to come?
Jane: Oh, I’d love to come. Thank you for inviting me. Who’s going to come to the
party?
Martha: Well, a number of people haven’t told me yet. But, Peter and Mark are
going to help out with the cooking!
Jane: Hey, I’ll help, too!
Martha: Would you? That would be great!
Jane: I’ll make lasagna!
Martha: That sounds delicious! I know my Italian cousins are going to be there. I’m
sure they’ll love it.
Jane: Italians? Maybe I’ll bake a cake...
Martha: No, no. They’re not like that. They’ll love it.
Jane: Well, if you say so... Is there going be a theme for the party?
Martha: No, I don’t think so. Just a chance to get together and have fun.
Jane: I’m sure it’ll be lots of fun.
Martha: But I’m going to hire a clown!
Jane: A clown! You’re kidding me.
Martha: No, no. As I child, I always wanted a clown. Now, I’m going to have my
clown at my own party.
Jane: I’m sure everyone will have a good laugh.
Martha: That’s the plan!
CHAPTER V: Testing and Assessment of Listening, Listening Test Task Types and Sample Test Items 111

Why isn’t Martha going out?

A. The weather is bad.
B. She is going to have a party.
C. She has an appointment.

What does Jane think about the weather?

A. The weather will get worse.
B. It will gel colder soon.
C. The sun will come out later.

What is Martha going to do soon?

A. Go to work.
B. Have a party.
C. Make lunch.

Why does Jane change her mind about cooking lasagne for the party?
A. She does not have all the ingredients necessary.
B. She cannot come to the party.
C. She is nervous about cooking lasagne for Italians.

What is the theme of the party?

A. There is no theme, just a chance to get together.
B. Clowns are the theme.
C. It is a baby shower for her friend.

Which entertainment is Martha going to have?

A. There will be a clown.
B. She is serving a special dinner.
C. She is asked a band to play.

2. Dialogue and authentic questions on details

Dialogues/conversations with detailed authentic questions are designed to elicit
learners’ listening comprehension and to assess inferencing ability. The listening
tasks should be apparently reasonable and valid. Questions should be designed to
gain an understanding of what learners in intermediate and advanced proficiency
level get from the dialogues/conversations and how they get the big picture
in their listening. Teachers can design inferencing questions in three different
categories: speculation, deduction and examination (Marzona, 2010). Speculation
questions refer to the specifically suggested meaning, described information in
listening. In deduction questions, rather than relying on the information in the
listening text, listeners make a logical reason and result relation. There might be
very detailed questions focusing on the deep meaning of what they listen to, and
112 LANGUAGE ASSESSMENT AND TEST PREPARATION

higher-order thinking. In another genre of authentic tasks, examination questions

are very complicated as listeners are directed to infer the narrators or interlocutors’
thoughts, insights, and expectations. They mostly tend to question, what does
Person X think about the Person Y?
• Authentic Listening Tasks
Every listening classroom involves some form of assessment, whether it is
designed in the form of well-planned testing, or in the form of informally
given teacher feedback. To assess learners’ listening comprehension, the
teacher may need alternative frameworks by going beyond standardized
listening texts. These authentic listening tasks are categorized as note-
taking, editing, interpretive tasks, and retelling (Brown, 2004; Buck, 2001).
1. Note-taking: The main purpose of note-taking is to offer young adults and
adult learners an authentic task that mirrors what they have been focusing
on in the listening, and how they organize the aural input with key words,
visual elements, symbols, and abbreviations. The scoring of note-taking
is regarded as time-consuming and a type of assessment that often lacks
reliability because of the subjectivity of the note-taking system (Brown,
2004; Lebauner, 2010; Rost, 2002). Teachers should increase their students’
awareness on the importance of note-taking in listening. Therefore, they
can ask a set of questions as a starting-out act in their listening classroom:
Do you write down every single word, keyword, symbol, abbreviation and/
or visual (i.e., pictures, charts, tables, lists) during listening? Do you review
your notes or do you write them somewhere else for a second time? Do
you compare your notes with your class mates? Do you use your notes to
answer the listening comprehension questions?
2. Editing: Both a written and a spoken stimulus are provided to the learners,
and the expectation is to listen for the purpose of finding the discrepancies
between the written and oral stimuli. Scoring the editing task has reliability
as the differences and similarities between the two versions are clearly
identified.
3. Interpretive tasks: An interpretive task has the potential to be extended
to a longer stretch of conversation. Teachers may let their students
internalize the stimulus with the open-ended questions. As the responses
of the students to the questions may vary, teachers should clearly prepare
a rubric for reliable scoring. Interpretive tasks designed with news reports,
journals or magazines articles, scientific reports, literary works may have the
potential to foster learners’ listening and speaking abilities and to increase
their topic knowledge.
4. Retelling: In retelling tasks, teachers direct learners to listen to the news,
short stories and monologues. It might be reported in a written form as
well. The main understanding behind retelling tasks is to describe the
CHAPTER V: Testing and Assessment of Listening, Listening Test Task Types and Sample Test Items 113

main and supporting ideas and provide the gist of the listening text. The
kind of assessment often lacks in scoring reliability, yet it can be analysed
by designing a tally sheet of how many words, phrases, and sentences are
represented. Besides, meaning focussed assessment might be applied to
ensure information processing.
5. Interactive listening: It is a process of two-way face-to-face communication,
which requires active participation on the part of the learners in conversation,
discussions, pair-work and group-work activities, and role-plays.

Summary
This chapter primarily broadens the understanding of ELT students and graduates,
in-service EFL teachers, and teacher trainers on the pivotal role of the listening
skill in the foreign language learning process. Secondly, it presents an explanation
of the listening comprehension process underlying bottom-up, top-down and
interactive processing, followed by a mention of the different test task types used
to assess the skill in different dimensions such as intensive, responsive, selective,
and extensive. It is important to meet the standards in the use and suitability of
different test task types and dimensions in different age and proficiency groups.
Finally, it highlights how listeners progress, become more automatic and effective
listeners if listening teachers set the goals and assess listening comprehension
and performance taking the listeners’ proficiency level and age into consideration.
To conclude, the method used for assessing the listening skills depends on the
purpose of the assessment. Whatever assessment method is used in listening as
well as in any of the other skills, it should adhere to the principles of reliability,
validity, and fairness.

Questions
1. In pairs, discuss the stages of your listening process when learning a foreign
language.
2. Based on your own experiences, what is/are the effective way(s) of
communication in the L2 listening classroom?
3. In pairs, discuss what purpose each listening type has, and give examples
of each type taking the age of the listener and their level of English into
consideration.
4. In pairs, consider what the authentic types of assessment are in listening,
and discuss the limitations of the alternative assessment.
5. Explain microskills and macroskills of listening comprehension and discuss
how these skills can be a testing criteria.
6. In a small group, discuss how listening can be assessed through different
task types for different age and proficiency groups, share examples of each
task type and discuss them with the rest of the class.