CRELLA

Centre for Research in English Language Learning and Assessment

Defining and AssessingListening Ability

Dr Lynda Taylor

CRELLA

Session 1:

Defining and describing

listening ability

Activity

• Look at the tasks on your handout (taken fromdifferent English language tests)

• Match each task to one of the following dates:

1991 1975 1984

• To what extent do you think each task canbe considered a test of listening ability?

Variety of approaches used in theCambridge tests

• Example 1

- Listeningcomprehension (CPE -1975)

• Example 2

- Listeningcomprehension (FCE –1984)

• Example 3

- Listening (CAE –1991)

What can we learn from this exercise?

• what constitutes listening ability can beinterpreted in different ways

• how listening can be tested can be interpretedin different ways

• the context of assessment can influence bothhow the ability is defined and how it is tested

• the assessment of listening ability can be bothcomplex and multifaceted

A view in 1982…

“The use of recorded material makes possible adecisive move away from literature-orientedtexts, and towards authentic spoken English in avariety of realistic contexts… the changerepresents a decisive step towards thealignment with realistic language learning aimswhich is so strongly and generallyrecommended.”(UCLES, 1982:23)

CRELLA

Some current ways ofdescribing and defininglistening ability acrossproficiency levels

Some descriptions of listening ability

• ALTE Can Do Statements forListening/Speaking

• CEFR Common Reference Levels for overalllistening comprehension

• Level descriptions for the Cambridge Englishtests

Listening level descriptions in GEPT

• Elementary:Can understand simple English sentences, shortconversations and stories

• Intermediate:Can understand general English conversation in daily lifesituations. Can grasp the meaning of advertisements,announcements and broadcasts

• High intermediate:Can understand English conversation in social settingsand workplaces. Can grasp the general meaning oflectures, news reports and TV/radio programmes

A good test of listening ability?

• When we create a listening task, e.g. as testdevelopers or as classroom teachers, we have tothink carefully about several things

• We have to make decisions about the type oflistening activity we expect, the type of inputtext, the type of response/output and the criteriafor judging success – and factor these into thetask design

• We have to be sure we are targeting our task atthe right level, and to do this we need to be ableto control and vary the different task features

CRELLA

The type of listening activitywe expect – the (internal)cognitive processingdimension

Cognitive demands in alistening task (1)

• Cognitive demands of processing the input

– How complex is the language processing involvedin understanding the acoustic (and sometimesvisual) input to build a coherent and meaningfulmental representation?

Activity

• As you listen to me, reflect upon how you areprocessing the acoustic input, e.g.

– what does your brain need to do as you listen?

– how do you use your knowledge of Englishvocabulary and grammar?

– are you aware of building up the overall meaningas you hear the input bit by bit?

– does your understanding ever break down?

– if so, why?

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What happens in our brainwhen we listen?

• Decoding acoustic/phonetic (and visual) input

• Lexical search

• Syntactic parsing

• Establishing propositional meaning

• Constructing a meaning representation

• Constructing a discourse representation

Listening processes (cognitive)

• the listener transforms acoustic (and visual)cues into groups of syllables, some marked forstress and others not

Decoding the input

• the listener identifies the best word-levelmatches for what has been heard, based on acombination of perceptual information andword boundary cues

Lexical search (vocabulary)

• this is when the lexical material is related tothe co-text in which it occurs in order to

a) specify lexical sense more precisely, and

b) impose a syntactic pattern

Syntactic parsing (syntax/grammar)

• when the bare or literal meaning of anutterance is computed as a result of parsing

Establishing propositional meaning

• when world knowledge and inference areemployed to add to the bare meaning of themessage

Constructing a meaningrepresentation

• the listener makes decisions on the relevanceof the new information and how it fits in withwhat has gone before; and, if appropriate, thelistener integrates it into a representation ofthe larger listening event

Constructing a discourserepresentation

• Decoding acoustic/phonetic (and visual) input

• Lexical search

• Syntactic parsing

• Establishing propositional meaning

• Constructing a meaning representation

• Constructing a discourse representation

Listening processes (cognitive)

Key cognitive considerations

For classroom and formal assessment purposes,the match between the input for a listening taskand listening in the world beyond the test mayneed to take account of:

• similarity of processing (is it close enough?)

• comprehensiveness of processing (is it broadenough?)

• calibration of processing (is it appropriately targeted,i.e. at the right level?)

Cognitive demands in alistening test (2)

• Cognitive demands of processing the task

– How complex is the thinking and respondinginvolved in doing the task, e.g.

• selecting a correct answer from a set of 3 of 4 MCitems?

• constructing and writing a short answer using correctspelling and grammar?

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Let’s take a closer lookat some listening testtasks

Activity

• Use the grid on your handout to examinesome of the GEPT Listening Test tasks

• Think about:

1) the types of cognitive processing thelistening input (text) requires

Activity

• Now look at the same tasks again

• This time think about:

2) the extra cognitive demands of the taskthat has been designed based on thelistening input, i.e. the extra things thelistener has to think about or payattention to when doing the task (whatinstructions are they given in Chinese?)

End of Session 1

Refreshment break