Page 189 - Teaching English at Primary Level: From Theory into the Classroom

Assessing Listening

Table 13.1 Continued from the previous page
Subskill Why? How?
Listening When we listen for specific information, Listening for specific information also
for details we need to have some idea of what we involves listening to determine whether
or listening are listening for before and while we are the information is stated or not. Stu-
for specific listening. dents should also learn to ignore infor-
information mation that is not relevant. While lis-
tening to a new text (a story or a con-
versation), it is important to give the
learners a few questions which are re-
lated to specific details (such as Who
(with) ... When ... How long/far/often ...
Where ...).
It is vital that when taking a listening
test task, YLs should skim through the
questions, underline the important
words, and decide what kind of detail
they need to identify in the listening
text as soon as they get the question
paper.
Inferring Refers to finding answers from clues Students listen to a dialogue and must
meaning and from prior knowledge rather than infer the relationship between the two
from the in- directly. speakers from what they hear. ‘Who are
put text Inferring allows readers to ‘listen/read the people who are talking? How do
between the lines,’ to ‘listen/read for you know that it is a teacher and a stu-
a deeper meaning,’ and to ‘make their dent?’ We can infer this from the use of
own discoveries about the text.’ the words ‘homework’ and ‘tests.’
By using contextual clues and our
knowledge of the world, we can work
out what’s being said in a conversa-
tion, who is speaking, and what’s taking
place.

ing comprehension skills (Brewster et al., 2012). Teachers should have a clear
idea about the purpose of each listening task, which listening subskill is to
be tested in a particular task (e.g. listening for the main idea or listening for
specific information), and why a particular task type is used. The task should
reflect the way in which people usually listen to the type of text used. For a
tasktoeffectivelyassessthelisteningobjectives,learnersneedtobeexposed
to the same task type during regular instruction. It is also important to stress
that tasks should not test YLs’ background knowledge. Below are examples
of listening assessment tasks, together with recommendations for their use
in classroom assessment.

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