Chapter 6

1. Observing the performance of the four skill

Before focusing on listening itself, think about the
two interacting concepts of performance and
observation

When you propose to assess someone's ability in

one or a combination of the four skills, you
assess that person's competence, but you
observe the person's performance
That could take the form of one or more of the
following designs:
• several tests that are combined to form an
assessment
• a single test with multiple test tasks to account
for learning styles and performance variables
• in-class and extra-class graded work
• alternative forms of assessment (e.g., journal,
portfolio, conference, observation, self-
assessment, peer ~ assessment).
Observable means
being able to see or hear the performance of the
learner (the senses of touch, taste, and smell
don't apply very often to language testing!).
What, then, is observable among the four skills
of listening, speaking, reading, and writing?

the process of the listening performance itself is

the invisible, inaudible process of internalizing
meaning from the auditory signals being
transmitted to the ear and brain.
2. The importance of listening
Listening has often played second fiddle to its counterpart,
speaking

One reason for this emphasis is that listening is often implied

as a component of speaking. How could you speak a
language without also listening

We therefore need to pay close attention to listening as a

mode of performance for assessment in the classroom. In
this chapter, we will begin with basic principles and types
of listening, then move to a survey of tasks that can be
used to assess listening
3. Basic type of listening
Think about what you do when you listen. Literally in nanoseconds, the
following processes flash through your brain

1. You recognize speech sounds and hold temporary "imprint" of them in

short-term memory

2. You simultaneously determine the type of speech event (monologue,

interpersonal dialogue, transactional dialogue)

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 (except for repetition tasks, which involve short-term memory
only), you delete the exact linguistic form in which the message was
originally received in favor of conceptually retaining important or relevant
information in long-term memory.
Each of these stages represents a potential
assessment objective:

• comprehending of surface structure elements

such as phonemes words, intonation, or a
grammatical category
• understanding of pragmatic context
• determining meaning of auditory input
developing the gist, a global or comprehensive
understanding
to consider assessment tasks and procedures

1. Intensive. Listening for perception of the components

(phonemes, words, intonation, discourse markers, etc.) of a
larger stretch of language.
2. Responsive. Listening to a relatively short stretch of
language (a greeting, question, command, comprehension
check, etc.) in order to make an equally short response
3. Selective. Processing stretches of discourse such as short
monologues for several minutes in order to "scan" for certain
information. Assessment tasks in selective listening
couldask students, for example, to listen for names,
numbers, a grammatical category, directions (in a map
exercise), or certain facts and events
4. Extensive. Listening to· develop a top-down, global
understanding of spoken language
4. Micro and Macroskills of listening

A useful way of synthesizing the above two lists

is to consider a finite number of micro- and
macroskills implied in the performance of
listening comprehension.
skills are subdivided into what I prefer to think of
as microskills (attending to the smaller bits
and chunks of language, in more of a bottom-
up process) and macroskills (focusing on the
larger elements involved in a top-down
approach to a listening task). The microand
macros kills provide 17 different objectives to
assess in listening.
Consider the following list of what makes listening
difficult (adapted from Richards, 1983; Dr, 1984;
Dunkel, 1991):

Please open your book on page 122

5. DESIGNING ASSESSMENT TASKS: INTENSIVE LISTENING

The focus in this section is on the microskills of intensive

listening
1. Recognizing Phonological and Morphological Elements
Phonemic pair; consonants
Test-takers hear: He's from California.
Test-takers read: (a) He's from California.
(b) She's from California.
Phonemic pair; vowels
Test-takers hear: Is he living?
Test-takers read: (a) Is he leaving?
(b) Is he living?
Morphological pair; -ed ending
Test-takers hear: I missed you very much.
Test-takers read: (a) I missed you very much.
(b) I miss you very much.

Stress pattern in can't

Test-takers hear: My girlfriend cantt go to the
party.
Test-takers read:
(a) My girlfriend can't go to the party.
(b) My girlfriend can go to the party.
One-word stimulus
Test-takers hear: vine
Test-takers read: (a) vine
(b) wine

Sentence paraphrase
Test-takers hear: Hellow, my name's Keiko. I come
from Japan.
Test-takers read: (a) Keiko is comfortable in
Japan.
(b) Keiko wants to come to
Japan.
(c) Keiko is Japanese.
(d) Keiko likes Japan.
Dialogue paraphrase
Test-takers hear:
Man: Hi, Maria, my name's George.
Woman: Nice to meet you. George. Are you
American?
Man: No, I'm Canadian
Test-takers read: (a) George lives in the United States
(b) George is American.
(c) George comes from Canada.
(d) Maria is Canadian.
6. DESIGNING ASSESSMENT TASKS: RESPONSIVE
lISTENING

Appropriate response to a question

Test-takers hear: How much time did you
take to do your homework?
Test-takers read: (a) In about an hour.
(b) About an hour.
(c) About $10.
(d) Yes, I did.
Open-ended response to a question
Test-takers hear: How much time did you
take to do your homework?
Test-takers write or speak: