Assessing Listening.

Posted by

 Lcda. Cleopatra Noel Drummond

The fifth chapter of the book Assessing English Language Learners is base on how do we assess listening, but what is listening? To give attention with the ear; attend closely for the purpose of hearing."Active listening is a way of listening that focuses entirely on what the other person is saying and confirms understanding of both the content of the message and the emotions and feelings underlying the message to ensure that understanding is accurate."

Models of Listening

Acording to Nunan (2002) we must first understand the nature of listening. They are two models that have been identified in the literature.

1- Bottom-up processing listening is believed to be a linear, data-driven process. Comprehension occurs when the listener successfully decodes the spoken test. Comprehension occurs un the bottom up processing view when students take in a word, decode it, and link it with other words to form a sentence.

2- Top-down listening, the listener is directly involved with the constructing meaning from input. in this process the student uses background knowledge of the context and situation to make sense of what is heard.

Approaches to Listening Assessment

According to Buck 2001) they are three major approaches to the assessment of listening abilities these are:

1- The discrete-point approach it broke listening into component elements and assessed them separately.

2- The integrative approach attempt the assess a learner's capacity to use many bits at the same time, they believed that the whole language is greater that the sum of its parts.

3- The communicative approach arose as the integrative approach as a result of the communicative language teaching movement. The listener must be able to comprehend the message and then use it in context.

Before attempting to design a listening test, teachers should consult the course objectives and the listening test specifications that will provide information about objectives, formats, and themes. The tasks should reflect those that occur in real-life situations, and the language used should be natural.

Background knowledge.

the background or prior knowledge needs to be taken into account because research suggests the background knowledge affects comprehension and test performance. The background knwoledge is related to: test content, the texts, the vocabulary, the test structure, the formats, the item writing, timing, and skill contamination. 

Techniques for Assessing Listening Comprehension

1- Phonemic discrimination.

2- Paraphrase recognition (students listen to a statement and select the option closest in meaning to the statement.)

3- Objective formats (like MCQs and T/F can be used to assess listening content.)

4- Short answer questions.

5. Cloze.

6- Dictation.

Information Transfer Tasks

Information transfer tasks require students to transfer information they have heard to a chart or visual. Common examples of information transfer tasks used in the assessment of listening are filling in a form or a timetable, labeling a graph, finding something on a map, and following instructions.

Note-taking

Note-taking is an authentic task in academic programs. Students are actively involved as they write key information they understand from the input test. This can be done in two ways: students listen abd simultaneously fill out the questions paper or take notes.

Things to remember about assessing listening.

1- Assess listening comprehension even though is to difficult to assess.

2- Give credit for what students know.

3- Don't forget the importance of background knowledge.

4- Don't just test what is easy to test.

5- Give students a reason for listening.

Finally I will say that this skill is a bit difficult to assess notwithstanding as teachers we can find the adequate method to do so in behalf of the students. 

GLOSSARY

1. Rationale: The reasoning or principle that underlies or explains something, or a statement setting out this reasoning or principle.

2. Scope: To look at or examine something.


3.Purports: To pretend to be or to do something.


4. Contrived: Something that is contrived seems false and not natural.


5. Overlap: To position things in such a way that the edge of one thing is on top of and extending past the edge of another, or be positioned in this way.