Assessing Listening

Language Assessment:

Assessing Listening

I.       Introduction

Listening is one of the receptive skills as we can observe neither the process of performing nor the product, but we are observing the result of listening itself. The process of listening performance is the invisible and inaudible process of internalizing meaning from the auditory signals being transmitted to the ear and brain. Invisible and inaudible process means that we cannot see or hear the process of listening; thus, it is impossible to observe the product. We observe only the result of the meaningful input in the form of spoken or written output, and it is usually made by inference. We have developed reasonably good assessment task to make the necessary jump through the process of inference, from unobservable reception to a conclusion about comprehension competence.

In standardized testing industry, it is rare to find just a listening test. One reason for this emphasis is that listening is often implied as a component of speaking. Every teacher of language knows that one’s oral production ability is only as good as someone’s listening comprehension ability. Aural comprehension far outstrips oral production in quantifiable terms of time, number of words, effort, and attention. Hence, we need to pay close attention to listening as a mode of performance for assessment in the classroom.

II.   Test Items

In designing appropriate assessment test in listening, we begin with the specification of objectives or criteria. The objectives of assessing listening can be distinguished into:

1. Comprehending of surface structure elements
2. Understanding of pragmatic context
3. Determining the meaning of auditory input
4. Developing the gist, a global or comprehensive understanding.

Those objectives may be classified in terms of several types of listening performance. There are four commonly types of listening performance:

a.   Intensive

Intensive listening is listening for perception of the components (phonemes, words, intonation, discourse, marker, etc.) of a larger stretch of language.

b.      Responsive

Listening to a relatively short stretch of language (a greeting, question, command, comprehension check, etc) in order to make a short response.

c.       Selective

Processing stretches of discourse such as short monologues for several minutes in order to “scan” for certain information. The purpose is to be able to comprehend designated information in a context of longer stretches of spoken language. For instance, assessment tasks could ask the students to listen for names, numbers a grammatical category, directions (in map exercise), or certain facts and events.

d.      Extensive

Extensive listening is listening to develop a top-down, global understanding of spoken language. Listening for the gist, main idea and making inferences are part of extensive listening.

2.1. Designing Assessment Tasks

After we have determined objectives of the test, the next step is to design the tasks, including making decisions about how you will bring out performance and expect the test – taker to respond. There are different types of test that depend on the types of listening performance.

• Intensive Listening

      There are some test items that are used in intensive listening; those are recognizing phonological and morphological elements, and paraphrase recognition.

 

a. Recognizing phonological and morphological elements

A classic test task gives a spoken stimulus and asks test – takers to identify the stimulus from two or more choice. The test can be in the form of phonemic pair (consonants or vowels), morphological pair, stress pattern, and one word stimulus.

b.      Paraphrase recognition

The next step up on the scale of listening comprehension microskills is words, phrases, and sentences, which are frequently assessed by providing a stimulus sentence and asking the test – taker to choose the correct paraphrase from a number of choices. Sentence paraphrase and dialogue paraphrase are the items of paraphrase recognition.

• Responsive Listening

In responsive listening there are two items of test, those are appropriate response to a question and open – ended response to a question. A question – and – answer format can provide some interactivity in these lower – end listening tasks; in addition, the test – taker’s response is the appropriate answer to a question. In test item of appropriate response to a question is usually framed in a multiple – choice format. On the contrary, in open – ended test item the test – takers can write or speak the response. The weakness of open – ended is it will take more time for the teacher to check or read the students’ responses and judge their appropriateness.

• Selective Listening

      In selective listening, the test – taker listens to a limited quantity of aural input and must discern within it some specific information. Tests that are usually used in selective listening are listening cloze, information transfer, and sentence repetition.

a.      Listening cloze

Listening cloze tasks, which also called cloze dictations and partial dictations, require the test –takers to listen to a story, monologue, or conversation, and simultaneously the written text in which selected words or phrases have been deleted. The weakness of listening cloze is it may simply become reading comprehension task. In listening cloze, deletions are governed by the objective of the test. Moreover, it should normally use an exact word method of scoring, in which the actual word or phrase as the correct response and consider other appropriate words as incorrect.

b.      Information transfer

In information transfer technique, aurally processed information must be transferred to a visual representation, such as labeling a diagram, identifying an element in a picture, completing a form, or showing routes on a map. There are some test items of information transfer, such as picture-cued selection and chart-filling.

Picture-cued items are sometimes efficient rubrics for assessing certain selected information at the lower end of the scale of linguistic complexity. Picture-cued items are divided into multiple-picture-cued selection and single-picture-cued verbal multiple-choice. Multiple-picture-cued selection is the item in which the test-takers need to focus on just the relevant information. In single-picture-cued verbal multiple-choice, the test-takers are presented a single photograph and then hear four different statements and must choose one of the four to describe the photograph. Another genre of picture-cued tasks is a number of people and/or actions are presented in one picture, such as a group of people at a party. The assessment may take the form of questions, true/ false, and identification.

Information transfer tasks may reflect greater authenticity by using chart-filling. Such chart-filling tasks are good examples of aural scanning strategies; moreover, a listener must discern from a number or pieces of information which pieces are relevant.

c.       Sentence repetition

In sentence repetition, the test-taker must retain a stretch of language long enough to produce it, and then must respond with an oral repetition of that stimulus. The mistake in repetition is scored as a mistake in listening. Sentence repetition is far from flawless listening assessment task. This task may test only recognition of sounds and it can be contaminated easily by lack of short-term memory ability. Hence, the teachers may never be able to distinguish a listening comprehension from an oral production error.

• Extensive Listening

There are three types of tasks or test in extensive listening; those are dictation, communicative stimulus-response tasks, and authentic listening tasks.

a.      Dictation

Dictation is a widely researched genre of assessing listening comprehension. The test-takers hear a passage of 50 to 100 words that recited three times. First reading at normal speed, no pauses, and the test–takers listen for the gist. Second reading is with long pauses between phrases or natural word groups, during which time test-takers write what they have just heard. Third reading is at normal speed so the test-takers can check their work and proofread.

The difficulty of a dictation task can be easily manipulated by the length of the word groups and the pauses, the speed of reading, and the complexity of discourse, grammar, and vocabulary used in the passage.

b.      Communicative stimulus-response tasks

It is a popular genre of assessment task in which the test-taker is presented with a stimulus monologue or conversation and then is asked to respond a set of comprehension questions. Here are typical items of the test:

·         Dialogue and multiple-choice comprehension items

The monologues, lectures, and brief conversations used in such tasks are sometimes a little unnatural, but we can create reasonably authentic stimuli with some care and creativity.

·         Dialogue and authentic questions on details

To compensate for the potential inauthenticity of post-stimulus comprehension questions, we might be able to find contexts where questions that probe understanding are more appropriate with a little creativity.

c.       Authentic listening tasks

Ideally, the language assessment field would have a stockpile of listening test types that are cognitively demanding, communicative, and authentic, not to mention interactive by means of integration with speaking. Nevertheless, the nature of test implies an equally limited capacity to mirror all the real-world contexts of listening performance; in addition, every task shares some characteristics with target-language tasks, and no test is completely authentic. Authentic listening tasks can be in the form of:

·         Note-taking

In the academic world classroom lectures by professors are common features of a non-native English-user’s experience. One among several formats includes note-taking by the test-takers. This test is evaluated by the teacher on a 30-point system, as follow: 0-15 points for visual representation, 0-10 points for accuracy, and 0-5 points for symbols and abbreviations. The process of scoring is time consuming and it lacks some reliability.

·         Editing

Editing provides written and spoken stimulus, and it requires the test-taker to listen for discrepancies or differences. Scoring achieves relatively high reliability as there are usually a small number of specific identified differences.

·         Interpretive tasks

An interpretive task extends the stimulus material to a longer stretch of discourse and forces the test-taker to infer a response. The test takers are then directed to interpret the stimulus by answering a few questions in open-ended form.

·         Retelling

In retelling tasks, the test-takers listen to a story or news event and then simply retell or summarize it, either orally or in writing. The test-takers must identify the gist, main idea, purpose, supporting points, and/ or conclusion to show full comprehension.

III.      Implementation

The commonly used test items in assessing listening are dialogue and multiple-choice comprehension items and dialogue and authentic questions on details. Those test items are commonly used because they can create authentic stimuli and in some rare cases the response mode actually approaches complete authenticity. Moreover, these test items require the process of inference in which all assessment of receptive skills must be made by. The strengths of these test items are:

·         can create authentic stimuli.

·         the scoring process is not time consuming, so teacher as the assessor will be easy to check the students’ answers.

·         use the comprehension questions that aim at assessing certain objectives that are built into the stimulus.

The weaknesses of these test items are:

·         Any task following a one-way listening to a conversation is sometimes artificial.

·         The test-takers might miss some of the questions if they hear the conversation only once and had no visual access to the items.

·         Feedback for the students may be harmful.