Listening Assessing (Part II)

Listening Assessing (Part II) Presented by: Najah Abdullah Albelazi To Prof. Dr: Sabri Koc in partial fulfillment of the requirements for ELT 532 Language Testing and Program Evaluation 2014-2015 Academic Year Fall Semester

Outline • Designing assessing tasks. • Intensive Listening. • Recognising phonological and morphological elements. • Paraphrase recognition. • Responsive listening. • Selective listening. • Listening cloze.

Outline • Information transfer. • Sentence repetition. • Extensive listening. • Dictation. • Communicative stimulus-response tasks. • Authentic listening tasks. • References.

Intensive listening • After determining objectives, the next step is to design the task including how to elicit performance and how to expect the test-taker to respond. Teachers will look at the tasks that range from intensive listening performance, such as: minimal pair recognition to extensive comprehension of language in communicative contexts.

Recognizing phonological and morphological elements • A typical form of intensive listening is the assessment of recognition of phonological and morphological elements of language. A classic test task gives a spoken stimulus and asks test-takers to identify the stimulus from two or more choices. e.g.: • phonemic pair consonants: • test-takers hear: he is from California. • test-takers read: a) he is from California b) she is from California

Continued • Morphological pair-ed ending test-takers hear: I missed you so much. test-takers read: • I missed you so much. • I miss you so much.

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-takers to choose the correct paraphrase from a number of choices. e.g. the test-takers hear: Hello, my name is Kieko, I am from Japan the test-takers read: • Kieko is comfortable in Japan. • Kieko wants to come to Japan. • Kieko is Japanese. • Kieko likes Japan.

Responsive listening • A question and answer format can provide some interactivity in these lower-end listening tasks.The test-taker's response is the appropriate answer to a question. e.g.: • approperiate response to a question • test-takers hear: how much time did you take to do your homework? • test-takers read: • in about an hour. b)about an hour. c)about 10$. d)yes, I did.

Continued 2) Open-ended response to a question: • test-takers hear: how much time did you take to do your homework? • test-takers write or speak ....................................................

Selective listening • A third type of listening performance is selective listening, in which the test-taker listens to a limited quantity of aural input and must distinguish or show withen it some specific information.

Continued • A number of techniques have been used that require selective listening: 1- Listening cloze: • listening cloze tasks (sometimes called cloze dictation or partial dictation)require the test-taker to listen to a story, monologue, or conversation and simultaneously read the text in which selected words or phrases have been deleted. • close procedure is commonly with reading only.

Continued • One possible weakness of listening cloze techniques is that may simply become reading comprehension. • Other listening cloze tasks may focus on a grammatical category such as, tenses, preposition, or transition words or phrases.

Continued 2) Information transfer: Selective listening can also be assessed through an information transfer technique in which aurally procced information must be transfered a visual representation, such as labeling a diagram, identifying an element in a picture, completing form or showing routes in a map.

Continued • The test-taker's assessing may take the form of: • questions: Is the man near the door talking to a short woman? • true-false: The woman wearing a red skirt is watching TV? • Identification: Point the person who is standing behind the lamp, or drow a circle around the person to the left of the couch.

Sentence repetition • The task of simply repeating a sentence or partial sentence, or sentence repetition is also used an assessment of listening comprehension. As in dictation, the test-takers must retain a stretch of language long enough to produce it, and then must respond with an oral repetation of that stimulus in correct listening comprehension, whether the phonemic or discourse level that may be manifested in the correctness of repetition.

Extensive listening • Drawing a clear distinction between any two of the categories of listening is very problematic, but the fuzziest devision is between selective and extensive listening. As we gradually move along the continuum from smaller to larger stretches of language, and from micro to macroskills of listening, the probability of using more extensive listening tasks increases.

Dictation • Dictation is a widely researched genre of assessing listening comprehension. In dictation, test-takers hear a passage, typically of 50 to 100 words, recited three times: • first, at normal speed. • then, with long pause between phrases or natural word groups. • finally, at normal speed once more so they can check their work proofread.

Continued • The difficulty of dictation task can be affected by: • The lenght of word groups (technically called bursts) • The lenght of pauses. • The speed at which the text is read. • The complexity of the discourse grammar, and vocabulary used in the text.

Communicative-stimulus response tasks • It is another example of extensive listening in which the test-taker is presented with stimulus monolgue or conversation and then is asked to respond to a set of copmrehension questions. Such tasks are commonly used in produced profeciency test.

Authentic listening tasks • Ideally, the language assessment field would have a stockpile of listening test type that are cognitively demanding, communicative and authentic, not to mention interactive by means of an integration with speaking, however, the nature of a test as sample performance and a set of tasks with limited time capacity to mirror all the real-world contexts of the listening performance.

Continued • Some possibilities to assess test-taker's comprehension: • Note-taking: one among several response formates includes note-taking by the test-taker. these notes are evaluated by the teacher. • Editing: It provides both a written and a spoken stimulus, and requires the test-taker to listen for contrasts. • Interpretive tasks: It extends the stimulus material to a longer stretch of discourse and forces the test-taker to infer a response.

Continued The potent stimulus include: • Song lyrics. • (recited) poetry. • Radio/television news reports. • An oral account of an experience.

Continued 4. Retelling: In a related tasks, test-takers listen to a story or news event and retell it, or summerize it. either orally( on an audiotape) or in writing . 5.Interactive listening: The significant proportion of listening performance is interactive.

References • Brown, H. (2003). Language Assessment, Principles and Classroom Practices. San Francisco: Longman.

Thank you for listening and attention

Listening Assessing (Part II)