Lesson 5 – Testing Listening Skills

Lesson Objectives

In this lesson, you are expected to:

 Describe the different types of listening tests
 Determine the appropriate use of a listening test for a particular competency
 Construct varied types of listening tests

Teaching-Testing Listening: The Congruence

Considered a receptive language skill, listening requires learners to concentrate in

receiving information from other sources (individuals, recording, radio, etc.). Others consider
listening as passive as they think that learners need not produce sounds as they listen. In truth,
learners are actively engaged as they perform listening activities and tasks (Gebhard, 2000). To
Brown (2001), listening is complex process as it involves cognitive, psychomotor and affective
mechanisms as learners are engaged to it.

In order to comprehend what they are hearing, a listener must be able to receive auditory
signals (i.e., input) and break them up into linguistic units (morphemes, words), all the while
retrieving the meaning of those linguistic units from their long-term memory. Moreover,
listening comprehension also involves the transformation of those acoustic signals into a
meaningful interpretation that is matched against what the listener already knows (Buck, 2001;
Rost, 2002). In this way, listening comprehension is viewed as an active process that involves
the interaction of multiple underlying sub-processes.

Related to this view, Rost (2011) identified three larger levels of processing an acoustic
signal
– linguistic, semantic, and pragmatic. Each of those three levels has specific sub-processes
involved.

Linguistic processing, also called as bottom-up processing, encompasses speech

perception, word recognition, and syntactic parsing at both the immediate sentence level and the
more extended discourse level. This type of processing results in a decoded speech signal which
is then related to the structures and concepts one has in the memory to achieve comprehension –
the processes which take place during semantic processing.

Semantic processing, an important step in comprehending a text, involves building,

activating, and updating mental representations of the concepts that help a listener to interpret
the decoded speech signal and to integrate incoming information with what is already known.
The comprehended information is then stored in memory as a network of interrelated
propositions which are accessed when information needs to be retrieved and/or new information
is encoded.

Pragmatic processing, the listener is able to co-construct the speech event by (a)
utilizing the social knowledge and understanding social expectations, (b) understanding the
context in which the speech event is occurring, (c) evoking the speaker’s intentions, and (d)
connecting with the
speaker through various types of strategies, such as back-channeling and understanding what a
preferred response should be, to name a few.

Along listening for academic purposes, Aryadoust, Goh, and Kim (2012) describes not
only the general cognitive characteristics of listening comprehension, but also their interaction
with academic sub-skills and external factors that can contribute to successful academic
listening. They argue that the multi-divisible nature of academic listening ability encompasses
several separate but inter-related sub-skills. They propose two primary features of general
listening ability – cognitive processing skills and linguistic components and prosody (also
referred to as higher- and lower-order listening skills, respectively) – both of which are seen as
being essential to academic listening. They emphasize the cognitive attributes of the listening
process and identifies both the individual characteristics of a listener (e.g., language ability)
and the external contextual factors (e.g., discourse structure) associated with academic
listening.

For this reason, the development of listening skills is essential to the learners. It behooves
therefore, that listening skills must be tested effectively so that correct information and decisions
can be extended to the learners.

Listening Skills Inventory

Two related taxonomies are indispensable to valid, reliable assessment of student’s

listening comprehension ability: macro and micro skills. The more closely language teachers can
pinpoint exactly what they want to assess, the more reliably will they draw valid conclusions
(Underwood, 1996; Ayuanita, 2013).

Macro Skills
 Recognize cohesive devices in spoken discourse.
 Recognize the communicative functions of utterances, according to situations,
participants, goals.
 Infer situations, participants, goals using real-world knowledge.
 From events, ideas, etc., described, predicts outcomes, infer links and connections
between events, reduce causes and effects, and detect such relations as main idea,
supporting idea, new information, give information, generalization, and
exemplification.
 Distinguish between literal and implied meanings.
 Use facial, kinesic, body language, and other nonverbal clues to decipher meanings.
 Develop and use a battery of listening strategies, such as detecting key words, guessing
the meaning of word from context, appealing for help, and signaling comprehension or
lack thereof.

Micro Skills
 Retain chunks of language of different lengths in short-term memory.
 Discriminate among the distinctive sounds of English.
  Recognize English stress patterns, words in stressed and unstressed positions,
rhythmic structure, international contours, and their role in signaling information.
 Recognize reduced forms of words.
 Distinguish word boundaries, recognize a core of words, and interpret word order
patterns and their significance.
 Process speech at different rates of delivery.
 Process speech containing pauses, errors, corrections, and other performance variables.
 Recognize grammatical word classes (nouns, verbs, etc.), system (e.g., tense,
agreement, pluralization), patterns, rules, and elliptical forms.
 Detect sentence constituents and distinguish between major and minor constituents.
 Recognize that a particular meaning may be expressed in different grammatical forms.

Types of Listening Comprehension Tests

Listening comprehension tests measure the learner’s ability to understand what is

said/heard by relating the words to make sense of the speaker’s statement. Considering the
similarities in skills tested, learners who have developed listening comprehension skills can
readily develop reading comprehension skills. The difference lies only in the mode of
presentation, the former is aural/oral while the latter is printed. Test situations that measure
listening skills (Raquepo, 1979; Ayuanita, 2013) are presented below:

1. Intensive Listening Tasks

The goal of intensive listening is to focus on a certain detail. This focusing on detail is
often motivated by you having to answer a question on a listening exercise or test.

a. Contextualized phonemic discrimination – Say the sentence and learners underline in

the test paper the word that is appropriate to the context or message in the statement
heard.

Teacher says: “It was a bad day.”

Learners read and underline the correct word: It was a bad/sad day.

b. Response Evaluation – Learners are asked by the Teacher a question; then they
answer a question. If they understood the question, they would give the appropriate
response.

Question: How much time did you spend in Manila?

Correct Response: About a week.

c. Paraphrase Recognition – Learners are asked to determine the closest meaning of

the original statement from a given set of choices.

Teacher says: “Veronica ran into a foreigner on her way to the school canteen.”
Learners read on the test paper: A. Veronica was exercising
B. Veronica unexpectedly met a foreigner.
C. Veronica was injured.
 d. Recognition of Stress and Intonation Pattern – Learners listen to the Teacher as
she/he reads a word or a statement. On their test paper, they write the location of the
stress in the word or determine the type of intonation pattern used in a statement.

2. Responsive Listening Tasks

Responsive listening is saying what you feel you heard the person say. Responsive
listening
involves listening to a small amount of a language such as a command, question, or greeting.
After listening, the student is expected to develop an appropriate short response.

a. Question and Answer – The teacher asks a question and the learners respond.

Teacher asks “What time is it?”

Learners select the correct answer from multiple choice responses

The variation to this type is making it as open ended response

b. Simple Discourse Sequences - Teacher provides an initial statement from which

the learners take cue in giving the next statement.

Teacher says “Hello, nice weather.”

Learners give a rejoinder appropriate to the context, like: “It’s conducive to
play outdoor.”

3. Selective Listening Tasks

Selective hearing refers to the action in which people focus their attention intentionally
on a specific source of a sound or spoken words. It is the phenomenon that occurs when we only
see what we want to see and hear what we want to hear.

a. Listening Cloze – Just like other cloze tests, a listening cloze requires learners to
replace words missing from a text heard. These missing words are removed at regular
intervals, for example every five words. However, the first and last sentences should
be intact. Study the example below:

Directions: A passage from which words have been purposely left out will be read to you
once. Below is the text of what is to be read. You are to listen what these words are and
write them in the blank to make the passage whole again.

Transcript of the Passage

I sat dejectedly in the school canteen. Everything had gone wrong 1. _____
morning. I could not understand why 2. _____ was called to recite on 3. _____ topic that
I had not 4. _____. I was told 5. _____ my favorite teacher that I 6. _____ not bite
my finger nails. And I 7. _____ to refuse the boy’s invitation 8. _____ an exhibition
game of table 9. _____.
 I could have changed my 10. _____ if I had not been 11. _____ sensitive about
things. I could 12. _____ joined the boys and enjoyed 13. ______ them. I would have
forgotten 14. ____ had happened in the class. Then I would have a better mind set when I
started studying my lessons again.

Note: A variation of this test is to insert a bleep sound instead of the deleted word.
Then after listen to the passage, the students select from the four choices per
number that are presented after the text or passage.

b. Chart completion – As students listen to a passage, they fill in the required

information in the appropriate column and row in a blank chart.

c. Verbal information transfer – The teacher reads a short text. Students choose from a
set of choices the sentence with equivalent meaning of what was heard.

Spoken: I had hoped to visit you while I was in Manila.

Written:
a. I was in Manila but did not visit you.
b. I will be in Manila and hope to visit you.
c. I visited you in Manila and hope to again.
d. I am in Manila and would like to visit you.

d. Picture cued information transfer – The teacher reads an informative text.

Students choose a picture that corresponds to the statement heard.

4. Extensive Listening Tasks

Extensive listening involves listening to the gist or summary of a text. It is listening to (or
being involved in) massive amounts of text, without being constrained by pre-set questions or
tasks.

In the selection of listening texts or passages, Text type might be specified as

monologue, dialogue, or multi- participant and further specified: conversation, announcement;
talk or lecture, instructions, directions, etc. The Text forms include: descriptions, exposition,
argumentation, instruction, and narration. The Length may be expressed in seconds or minutes.
The Speed of speech may be expressed as words per minute (wpm) or syllables per seconds
(sps). For example, the reported average speeds for samples used abroad are:

Text Words per Minute Syllables per Second

Radio monologues 160 4.17

Conversations 210 4.33

Interviews 190 4.17

Lectures 140 3.17

 In setting the tasks, passages must be chosen with the test specifications in mind.
Possible sources are the radio, television, spoken- word cassettes, teaching materials, the
Internet and our own recordings. Note that poor recording introduces difficulties additional to
the ones that we want to create, and so reduces the validity of the test. It may also introduce
unreliability, since the performance of individuals may be affected by the recording faults. It
may simply be used as the basis for a ‘live’ presentation. To remove redundancy in spoken
language is to make the listening task unnatural. Avoid passages originally intended for
reading. It is better to base the passage on a genuine recording, or a transcript of one. If a
recording is made, care should be taken to ensure that it fits within the specifications in terms
of speed of delivery, style etc. Suitable passages may be of various lengths, depending on what
is being tested: 10 minutes for academic lecture; 20 seconds for set of directions.

a. Passage Comprehension – Learners listen to a story, news item, radio announcement,

dialogue, and the like. Then, they answer comprehension questions of the multiple-choice
type. The context is a good way to measure the different skills like: noting details, getting the
main idea, sequencing events, identifying cause-effect relationships, identifying character
traits and emotions, and many others. Examine the example below:

Directions: Mario’s diary will be read to you just once. Listen carefully and concentrate
on its contents. Do not write anything.

After listening to the diary answer the comprehension questions that follow. Each
question will be spoken just ONE TIME, and it will not be written out for you. After you
hear a question, read the four possible answers that are printed in the test paper and
decide which one would make the best answer to the question you heard. Encircle the
letter of your answer.

Transcript of the Diary

I didn’t know that I could do so much with so little. This afternoon proved that.
As I was rushing downtown to buy some stationery, I saw a little boy in ragged clothes
sitting on a corner. He was crying his little heart out and I had to stop to ask why. He
couldn’t talk at first. He would start saying something and break into sobs. At length,
between sobs, he related that big boys robbed him of his ten pesos. He should get it back
because he must buy something for his baby brother. I pulled out a bright ten-peso coin
from my pocket and handed it to him. He couldn’t believe it. Quickly brushing away the
tears from his dirty face with the edge of his dirty shirt, he gave a big grateful smile.

Sample Passage Comprehension Questions:

1. Why was the boy crying?

a. He dropped his money on the road.
b. He forgot his money at home.
c. Some boys took his money.
d. Some boys boxed his ears.
 2. From the details of the story, what did Mario feel about the boy?
a. sympathy
b. anger
c. gratitude
d. satisfaction

b. Lecturette Test – as described in the previous lesson, after listening and filling up the missing
word as it is read, the students are presented with comprehension questions to check their
understanding of the passage. Thus, the lecturette test measures both listening and reading
comprehension skills. Examine the example below:

Directions: You are given a selection from which some words are deleted. The passage
will be read to you in its entirety just once. Listen carefully as it is being read. As you
listen, fill the blank with the missing word.

Then read the complete selection and answer the questions that follow. Encircle
the letter in your answer sheet.

Transcript of the Lecturette

In almost every newspaper, 1.____________ and school paper there is an

editorial
page. Here 2.____________ editor or one of his staff writes what he 3.____________
about an important topic or what he feels ought 4.____________ be an important news of
the day. The fact 5.____________ editorials are written for different purposes
determine their tone. 6. ____________ approach of our election may call out for a plea
7.____________ the citizens to get out and vote. One purpose 8.____________ the
editorial is to influence action. The failure of 9.____________ city government to keep
the
streets in repair may 10.____________ out a critical editorial. The death of a prominent
11.____________ may evoke an editorial of appreciation. The actions of
12.____________
government in handling a troublesome problem of foreign policy 13.____________
bring
forth an editorial the purpose of which is 14. ____________ instruct the readers. As the
purpose varies, editorials 15. ____________ be thoughtful, sarcastic, humorous,
powerful,
ironic, or complimentary in 16. ____________. However, they must always sincere so
that
they can 17.____________ their purpose to instruct, convince, and persuade the public
18.
____________ action.

Sample Comprehension Questions

1. What appears to be the author’s tone in the passage is –

a. Humorous
 b. Ironic
c. Entertaining
d. Serious

2. Which of the following statements is true as far as the passage is concerned?

a. The tone of the editorial depends on its tone
b. Editorials give comments about the important news.
c. Humorous editorials can be editorials to instruct.
d. An editorial can sound both serious and humorous.

c. Dicto-comp Test – It measures both listening and writing skills inter-relatedly by activating
the learner’s internalized grammar. A passage is read four times in its entirety: the first and
fourth reading are normally read, while the second and third reading are with brief pauses.
Then, the learners write back as accurately as they can using the identical words and
constructions as far as able to and filling in own words when the memory falters. Rubric
scoring is used to assess the competencies of the learner. Go over the example below:

Directions: A passage will be read to you four times in its entirety. Try to understand
what is being read to you. Also try to remember as many words and grammatical
constructions in the selection as best as you can. Note and memorize the sequences of the
sentences. You can take down key words to guide you.

After the last reading, you are to write down the original passage as you can using
as much as possible the same words and sentences in the same order that they are read to
you. If your memory fails in some parts, you may use your own words to express the
same ideas given in the passage. In such case, be sure that you do not change the original
idea or the sequences of ideas as they are expressed in the paragraph. Write the passage
on a sheet of paper. Check your spelling, punctuation, vocabulary, and grammar when
you finish writing.

Transcript of the Passage

While a few will be leaders, most of us will be followers in one or more groups of
our lives. Good followers are just as necessary to effective group activity as group
leaders. The success of any group activity depends upon effective cooperation between
leaders and followers. In later life, the success of a group activity affecting the welfare of
the community itself will depend as much upon your being a good follower as upon your
selecting good leaders. If you want to become an effective member of society, it is
important that you be a good follower.

d. Dictation Test – It is a test similar in purpose with the Dicto-Comp Test. A passage is read
three times in its entirety. The first reading, the passage is read with normal pauses; the
second time, it is read with long pauses (like when you are dictating something); and in the
last reading, it is read normally again. The learners are tasked to write the passage as
accurately as they can by using the same words and grammatical constructions in the passage
 heard. To assess the competencies of the learner, a scoring rubric is used. Consider the
example below:

Directions: A passage will be read to you three times. The first time it is read, just listen
carefully. The second time it is read, you are to take down the dictation. The passage will
be read with pauses to allow you enough time to write. As the passage is read to you the
third time, you can fill in the portions you have missed or correct your errors. Write the
passage on a sheet of paper.

Transcript of the Passage

The caveman had little need of a clock. He rose with the sun and went to bed at
night. He ate when hungry and cared little about time. Later on, as man progressed the
manner of telling the time became more important. At first, people guessed at the time by
looking at the sun. When the sun was highest in the sky, it was noon. When the sun was
low in the west, it was time to quit work. The next step of telling the time was the use of
the shadow stick. At noon, the shadow was the shortest; it was longest early in the
morning and late in the afternoon. Later, this was developed into the sundial.

e. Interpretive tasks – Students listen to a material and they provide its interpretation. For
example, they hear a poem, then they interpret the meaning. Or, they hear a story, then
retell it.

Checking for Understanding

1. Let’s Reason Together

a. Teaching practices influence testing practices. How is this true in teaching

listening skills? Cite three arguments.

b. Macro listening skills subsume the micro listening skills. Is it correct then for the
teacher to teach and to test just the macro listening skills? Present three arguments
to justify your answer. Also, relate your answer to the principles of differentiated
instruction.

c. Should listening skills development be taught/tested as separate lessons or should

it be integrated in the language lesson? Give three arguments to support your
answer.

d. Do you agree or disagree to the assertion that language skills teaching and
testing has been the most neglected among the language macro skills in the
language classroom? Explain briefly but substantially.

2. Share It
 a. Based on your experiences, list three best practices in teaching and assessing
listening skills. Explain the philosophy behind each, and the observed effects on
the learners.

Philosophy (Why do you Observed Effects/Benefits

Best Practices use it?) on the Learners
Teaching
1.
2.
3.
Testing/Assessment
1.
2.
3.

b. What have been the three most prevalent problems you have encountered in
the teaching and testing of listening skills in your classroom. Explain briefly
but substantially.

c. What performance assessments have you used in assessing listening skills that
your learners can successfully accomplish and could hardly perform. Explain the
probable factors attributed to such circumstances.

3. Recalibrate Your Portfolio

It’s now time to make changes in the table of specifications you prepared. Consider
the integration of the assessment of the macro- language skills as well as
vocabulary and grammar in the periodic test you are going to prepare and develop.

References:

Aryadoust, V., Goh, C.C.M., & Kim, L.O. (2012). Developing and validating an academic
listening questionnaire. Psychological Test and Assessment Modeling, 54, 227-256.

Ayuanita, K. (2013). Assessing listening in language classroom. Okara, 1 (8)

Buck, G. (2001). Assessing listening. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Raquepo, M. R. (1979). Standardization of the Villar-Raquepo integrative proficiency test

in Communication Arts (English) for fourth year secondary school students.
Unpublished Seminar Paper, University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City.

Rost, M. (2002). Teaching and researching listening. London, UK: Longman.

Rost, M. (2011). Teaching and researching listening (2nd ed.). Harlow, UK: Pearson.

Underwood, M. (1996). Teaching listening skills. Longman: Cambridge University Press.