Page 192 - Teaching English at Primary Level: From Theory into the Classroom

Assessing Language Skills

Listen to a conversation between Anna and her mum. Complete the sentences by circling the right
letter before the answer. Look at the example given.

4. Annie prefers to write the letter in ____.
A blue
B green
C red

5. Annie needs Santa’s ____.
A full address
B phone number
C letter

6. Annie believes Santa spends holidays ____.
A in a forest
B in a castle
C at the seaside
WRþN

Figure 13.2 Example of a Multiple-Choice Listening Task (Državni izpitni center, 2018)
decide on one of the options during the first listening and use the second
listening to finalise their decisions. An example of a multiple choice task is
presented in Figure 13.2. The instructions were originally in Slovenian, the
learners’ L1.

Matching Tasks
Matching tasks usually involve learners listening to an audio recording and
matching a list of items from the question to a set of options given (pic-
tures/words/phrases/sentences). Matching tasks draw upon students’ ability
to make connections between ideas, and they are used to assess their under-
standing of associations, relationships, and definitions. They often test learn-
ers’ competence to summarise longer listening passages or to understand
the main point(s). To complete the task successfully, we should encourage
learners to prepare for the topic discussed by reading the task instructions
carefully and studying the individual statements or pictures.
As we can see from the task in Figure 13.3 (the original instructions were
in learners’ L1), matching tasks typically contain a table or column with num-
bered spaces for answers. By including an example, usually referred to as ex-
ample zero (0.), learners are guided through what they are required to do in

192