Assessing Listening
The assessment of listening abilities is one of the least understood, least
developed and yet one of the most important areas of language testing and
assessment (Alderson & Bachman, 2001). In fact, Nunan (2002) calls listening
comprehension “the poor cousin amongst the various language skills” because it
is the most neglected skill area. As teachers we recognize the importance of
teaching and then assessing the listening skills of our students, but - for a
number of reasons - we are often unable to do this effectively. One reason for
this neglect is the availability of culturally appropriate listening materials suitable
for EF/SL contexts. The biggest challenges for teaching and assessing listening
comprehension center around the production of listening materials. Indeed,
listening comprehension is often avoided because of the time, effort and expense
required to develop, rehearse, record and produce high quality audio tapes or
CDs.
Approaches to Listening Assessment
Buck (2001) has identified three major approaches to the assessment of listening
abilities: discrete point, integrative and communicative approaches.
The discrete-point approach became popular during the early 1960’s with the
advent of the Audiolingual Method. This approach identified and isolated listening
into separate elements. Some of the question types that were utilized in this
approach included phonemic discrimination, paraphrase recognition and
response evaluation. An example of phonemic discrimination is assessing
students by their ability to distinguish minimal pairs like ship/sheep. Paraphrase
recognition is a format that required students to listen to a statement and then
select the option closest in meaning to the statement. Response evaluation is an
objective format that presents students with questions and then four response
options. The underlying rationale for the discrete-point approach stemmed from
two beliefs. First, it was important to be able to isolate one element of language
from a continuous stream of speech. Secondly, spoken language is the same as
written language, only it is presented orally.
The integrative approach starting in the early 1970s called for integrative testing.
The underlying rationale for this approach is best explained by Oller (1979:37)
who stated “whereas discrete items attempt to test knowledge of language one
bit at a time, integrative tests attempt to assess a learner’s capacity to use many
bits at the same time.” Proponents of the integrative approach to listening
assessment believed that the whole of language is greater than the sum of its
parts. Common question types in this approach were dictation and cloze.
The third approach, the communicative approach, arose at approximately the
same time as the integrative approach as a result of the Communicative
Language Teaching movement. In this approach, the listener must be able to
comprehend the message and then use it in context. Communicative question
formats must be authentic in nature.
Issues in Listening Assessment
A number of issues make the assessment of listening different from the
assessment of other skills. Buck (2001) has identified several issues that need to
be taken into account. They are: setting, rubric, input, voiceovers, test structure,
formats, timing, scoring and finding texts. Each is briefly described below and
recommendations are offered.
Setting
The physical characteristics of the test setting or venue can affect the validity
and/or reliability of the test. Exam rooms must have good acoustics and minimal
background noise. Equipment used in test administrations should be well
maintained and checked out beforehand. In addition, an AV technician should be
available for any potential problems during the administration.
Rubric
Context is extremely important in the assessment of listening comprehension as
test takers don’t have access to the text as they do in reading. Context can be
written into the rubric which enhances the authenticity of the task. Instructions to
students should be in the students’ L1 whenever possible. However, in many
teaching situations, L1 instructions are not allowed. When L2 instructions are
used, they should be written at one level of difficulty lower than the actual test.
Clear examples should be provided for students and point values for questions
should be included in the rubrics.
Input
Input should have a communicative purpose. In other words, the listener must
have a reason for listening. Background or prior knowledge needs to be taken
into account. There is a considerable body of research that suggests that
background knowledge affects comprehension and test performance. In a testing
situation, we must take care to ensure that students are not able to answer
questions based on their background knowledge rather than on their
comprehension.
Voiceovers
Anyone recording a segment for a listening test should receive training and
practice beforehand. In large-scale testing, it is advisable to use a mixture of
genders, accents and dialects. To be fair for all students, listening voiceovers
should match the demographics of the teacher population. Other issues are the
use of non-native speakers for voiceovers and the speed of delivery. Our belief is
that non-native speakers of English constitute the majority of English speaking
people in the world. Whoever is used for listening test voiceovers, whether native
or non-native speakers, should speak clearly and enunciate
carefully. The speed of delivery of a listening test should be consistent with the
level of the students and the materials used for instruction. If your institution
espouses a communicative approach, then the speed of delivery for listening
assessments should be native or near native delivery. The delivery of the test
should be standard for all test takers. If live readers are used, they should
practice reading the script before the test and standardize with other readers.
Test Structure
The way a test is structured depends largely on who constructs it. There are
generally two schools of thought on this: British and the American perspectives.
British exam boards generally grade input from easy to difficult in a test and mix
formats within a section. This means that the easier sections come first with the
more difficult sections later. American exam boards, on the other hand, usually
grade question difficulty within each section of an exam and follow the 30/40/30
rule. This rule states that 30% of the questions within a test or test section are of
an easy level of difficulty; 40% of the questions represent mid range levels of
difficulty; and the remaining 30% of the questions are of an advanced level of
difficulty. American exam boards usually use one format within each section. The
structure you use should be consistent with external benchmarks you use in your
program. It is advisable to start the test with an ‘easy’ question. This will lower
students’ test anxiety by relaxing them at the outset of the test.
Within a listening test, it is important to test as wide a range of skills as possible.
Questions should also be ordered as they are heard in the passage. Questions
should always be well-spaced out in the passage for good content coverage. It is
recommended that no content from the first 15-20 seconds of the recording be
tested to allow students to adjust to the listening. Many teachers only include test
content which is easy to test, such as dates and numbers. Include some
paraphrased content to challenge students.
Formats
Perhaps the most important piece of advice here is that students should never be
exposed to a new format in a testing situation. If new formats are to be used,
they should be first practiced in a teaching situation and then introduced into the
testing repertoire. Objective formats like MCQs and T/F are often used because
they are more reliable and easier to mark and analyze. When using these
formats, make sure that the N option is dropped from T/F/N and that three
response options instead of four are utilized for MCQs. Remember that with
listening comprehension, memory plays a role. Since students don’t have
repeated access to the text, more options add to the memory load and affect the
difficulty of the task and question. Visuals are often used as part of listening
comprehension assessment. When using them as input, make certain that you
use clear copies that reproduce well.