ASSESSING LISTENING IN THE LANGUAGE CLASSROOM

Oleh: Kristanti Ayuanita

(Program Studi Tadris Bahasa Inggris Jurusan Tarbiyah STAIN Pamekasan )

Abstracts:
The importance of listening in language learning can hardly be overestimated.
In classrooms, students always do more listening than speaking. Listening
competence is universally “larger” than other competence. Listening is not a one-
way street. It is not merely the process of a unidirectional receiving of audible
symbols one facet – the first step – 0f listening comprehension is the
psychomotor process of receiving sound waves through the ear and transmitting
nerve impulses to the brain. Every classroom lesson involves some form of
assessment, whether it is in the form of informal, unplanned, and intuitive
teacher processing and feedback, or in formal, prepared, scored tests.

Keywords:
Assessing, Listening, Language classroom

Introduction reading listeners to a tape cannot flick

One of the main reasons for
getting students to listen to spoken
English in to let them hear different
varieties and accents. In today’s world
they need to be exposed not only to one
variety of English (British English, for
example) but also to varieties such as
American English, Australian English,
Caribbean English, Indian English or
West African English.
There are number of ways in
which listening activities differ from other
classroom exercises: Firstly, Tapes go at
the same speed for everybody. Unlike
language study or speaking practice or
even reading, where individual students
can read (to some extent) at their own
pace the tape continues even
individual students are lost. Unlike
back to a previous paragraph, re – read
the headline, stop to look at the picture
and think for a bit before continuing. On
the contrary, they have to go with the
speed of the voice (s). They are listening
to. Of course, they can stop tapes and
rewind them but essentially, the speed of
the speaker (s) dominates the interaction
not that of listener.
It is perhaps this relentlessness
of taped material which accounts for the
feeling of panic which many students
experience during listening activities. If
they fail to recognize a word of phrase
they have not understood. And if,
therefore, they stop to think about it, they
often miss the next part of the tape and
if are soon falling behind in terms of
comprehension. It is especially for this
 ASSESSING LISTENING IN LANGUAGE CLASSROOM
Kristanti Ayuanita

reason that students have to be Second principle, preparation is

encouraged to listen for general vital. Teacher and students need to be
understanding first rather than trying to prepared for listening. Teacher need to
pick out details immediately. They must listen to the tape all the way through
get into the habit of letting the whole before they take it into class. That way,
tape wash over them on first hearing they will be prepared for any problems,
thus achieving general comprehension noises, accents etc, that come up.
before returning to listen for specific Students need to be made ready to
detail. listen. This means that they will need to
Listening is special too because look at pictures, discuss the topic, or
spoken language, especially when it is read the questions first.
formal, has a number of unique features Third principle once will not be
including the use of incomplete enough. There are almost no occasions
utterances. Experience of informal when the teacher will play a tape only
spoken English together with an once students will want to hear it again
appreciation of other spoken factors, the to pick up the things they missed the first
tone of the voice, the intonation of the time. The first listening is often used just
speakers use, rhythm, and background to give students an idea of what the
noise, will help students to tease listening material sounds like. So that
meaning out of such speech subsequent listening is easier for
1
phenomena . students. Once students have listened to
Because it is special a tape two or three times, however, they
characteristics, teachers need to ensure will probably not want to hear it too many
students are well prepared for listening times more.
and that they are clearly able to hear Next principle, students should
what they listen to. be encouraged to respond to the content
of listening, not just to the language. As
The Principles Behind Teaching with reading, the most important part of
Listening listening practice is to draw out the
However good our tape is, it will meaning, what is intended, what
be useless if the tape recorder has a impression it makes on the students.
poor speaker or if the motor speed Questions like “Do you agree?” are just
keeps changing and the tape goes faster important as question like “what
or slower. That is the first principle. We language did she use to invite him?”2
need to be sure that the tape recorder is
just as important as the tape.
2
Underwood .M, Teaching Listening
1
Harmer, Jeremy. How to teach Skills, (Longman 1989,ur.P.A Course in
st
English.1 published (Addison Wesley Longman Language Teaching, Cambridge University Press
Limited 1998), p. 99. 1996), p. 63.

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Fifth principle, different listening the domain of listening comprehension.

stages demand different listening tasks. And in evaluation of listening, these
Because there are different things we micro and macro skills can become
want to do with a listening text we need testing criteria.
to set different tasks for different
listening stages. The last principles, Microskills
good teachers exploit listening texts to 1. Retain chunks of language of
the full. If teacher ask students to invest different lengths in short-term
time and emotional energy in a listening memory.
task, and if they themselves have spent 2. Discriminate among the distinctive
time choosing and preparing the sounds of English.
listening, then it makes sense to use the 3. Recognize English stress patterns,
tape for as many different applications words in stressed and unstressed
as possible. After an initial play of a positions, rhythmic structure,
tape, teacher can play it again for international contours, and their role
various kinds of study before using the in signaling information.
subject matter, situation or tape script for 4. Recognize reduced forms of words.
3
a new activity. 5. Distinguish word boundaries,
recognize a core of words, and
Microskills and Macroskills of interpret word order patterns and
Listening their significance.
Based on seminar article on 6. Process speech at different rates of
teaching listening skills, Jack Richards delivery.
4
(1983) provided a comprehensive 7. Process speech containing pauses,
taxonomy of aural skills, which he called errors, corrections, and other
microskills, involved in conversational performance variables.
discourse level. The former pertain to 8. Recognize grammatical word
skills at the sentence level. Adapted classes (nouns, verbs, etc.), system
from Richards and other sources, the list (e.g., tense, agreement,
can help us to break down just what is pluralization), patterns, rules, and
that your learners need to actually elliptical forms.
perform as the acquire effective listening 9. Detect sentence constituents and
strategies. Through a checklist of micro distinguish between major and
and macro skills, we can get a good idea minor constituents.
of what our techniques need to cover in 10. Recognize that a particular meaning
may be expressed in different
3
Underwood .M, Effective Classroom grammatical forms.
Management (Longman, 1987), p. 82.
4
Richards, J. Listening Comprehension:
Approach, design, procedure. (TESOL Quarterly,
17. p. 220-221)

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Macroskills lecture, detecting the possible biases of

11. Recognize cohesive devices in the speaker, critically evaluating the
spoken discourse. speaker’s assertions and developing
12. Recognize the communicative means (through note taking, for
functions of utterances, according to example) of retaining the content of a
situations, participants, goals. lecture.
13. Infer situations, participants, goals
using real-world knowledge. Understanding the Terms
14. From events, ideas, etc., described, “Assessment” and “Test”
predicts outcomes, infer links and Before specifically considering
connections between events, reduce the topic of assessing listening in
causes and effects, and detect such particular, a word is in order about two
relations as main idea, supporting commonly used terms. It is tempting at
idea, new information, give times to simply think that assessment
information, generalization, and and test are synonymous, appearing in
exemplification. free variation depending on the whim of
15. Distinguish between literal and the speaker or writer.
implied meanings. A glance at some teacher
16. Use facial, kinesic, body language, reference books of 10 or more years ago
and other nonverbal clues to could bear out such an assumption.
decipher meanings. However, in recent years, the profession
17. Develop and use a battery of seems to have come to an appropriate
listening strategies, such as consensus that the two terms are, in
detecting key words, guessing the fact, not synonymous.6
meaning of word from context, Tests are a subset of
appealing for help, and signaling assessment. Assessment is an ongoing
comprehension or lack thereof. pedagogical process that includes a
It is important to note that these number of evaluative acts on the part of
17 skills apply to conversational the teacher.7 When a student responds
discourse. Less interactive forms of to a question, offers a comment, or tries
discourse, such as listening to out a new word or structure, the teacher
monologues like academic lectures, subconsciously makes an evaluating of
include further, more specific micro and the student’s performance. A student’s
5
macro skills . Students in academic written work, from notes or short
setting need to be able to perform such answers to essays, is judged by the
things as identifying the structure of a
6
Douglas, Brown. Teaching by Principles
5
Blackwell, A & Naber T. Academic (San Francisco State University: Third Edition
Listening and Speaking. (New York: Oxford 2007), p. 317.
7
University Press. 2006) Ibid.

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teacher in reading and listening we can pinpoint exactly what we want to

activities, student’s responses are assess, the more reliably will we draw
implicitly evaluated. All that is our conclusions.
assessment. Technically it is referred to What assessment method (tasks,
as informal assessment, because it is item formats) are commonly used at the
usually unplanned and spontaneous and various level? Consider the following list
without specific scoring or grading of sample tasks:
formats, as opposed to formal  1. Intensive listening tasks
assessment, which is more deliberate  Distinguishing phonemic pairs
and usually has conventionalized Ex. Grass – glass; leave – live
feedback. Tests fall into the latter  Distinguishing morphological
category. They are planned sets of tasks pairs
or exercises, with designated time Ex. Miss – missed;
frames, often announced in advance,  Distinguishing stress patterns
prepared for (and sometime feared) by Ex. I can go; I can’t go
students, and characteristically offering  Paraphrase recognition
specific scoring or grading formats. Ex. I come from Taiwan; I’m
In considering classroom Taiwanese
assessment, then, be prepared to  Repetition (s repeat a word)
entertain a range of possible  2. Responsive listening tasks
pedagogical procedures. One of the first  Question
observations that needs to be made in Ex. What time is it? – Multiple
considering assessment is that listening choice responses
is unobservable. We cannot directly see  Question
or measure or otherwise observer either Ex. What time is it? – open
the process or the product of aural ended response
comprehension.  Simple discourse sequences
Ex. Hello, nice weather. Tough
Assessing Types of Listening and test
Micro and Macroskills 3. Selective listening tasks
We have considered the micro  Listening cloze
and macro skills of listening, from (students fill in the blanks)
processing tiny bits and pieces of  Verbal information transfer
language to strategic, interactive and (students give MC verbal
complex skills of extended discourse. response)
These two related taxonomies are  Picture cued information transfer
indispensible to valid, reliable (students choose a picture)
assessment of student’s listening  Chart completion
comprehension ability. The more closely (students feel in a grid)

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 Sentence repetition knowing that their responses are being

(students repeat stimulus measured and evaluated.
sentence) Assessment, on the other hand,
4. Extensive listening tasks is an ongoing process that encompasses
 Dictation a much wider domain. Whenever a
(students listen (usually 3 times) student responds to a question, offer a
and write a paragraph) comment, or tries out a new word or
 Dialogue structure the teacher subconsciously
(students hear dialogue – MC makes an assessment of the student’s
comprehension questions) performance. Listening activities usually
 Dialogue require some sort some productive
(students hear dialogue – open – performance that the teacher implicitly
ended response) judges, however peripheral that
 Lecture judgment may be. A good teacher never
(students take notes, ceases to assess students whether
summarize, list main points, etc) those assessments are incidental or
 Interpretive tasks intentional.8
(students hear a poem – interpret In this view of those two
meaning) concepts, tests are subsets of
 Stories, narrative assessment, they are certainly not the
(students retell a story) only form of assessment that a teacher
can make. Tests can be useful devices,
Testing, Assessing, and Teaching but they are only one among many
The word assessment becomes procedures and tasks that teachers can
a popular word for educators, in much ultimately use to assess students.
the same way that communicative or What we are doing when we are
interactive have gained widespread “coaching” our students and giving them
acceptance in language teaching circles. feedback is essentially informal
A test is a method of measuring a assessment: incidental, unplanned
person’s ability or knowledge in a given comments and responses like “Good
domain, with an emphasis is on the job!” “Did you say can or can’t?” you go
concepts of method and measuring. to the movies yesterday?” or a marginal
Tests are instruments that are (usually) comment on a paper. A good deal of
carefully designed and that have teacher’s informal assessment is
identifiable scoring rubrics. Test are commended in classroom tasks
prepared administrative procedures that designed to elicit performance but not
occupy identifiable time periods in a
curriculum when learners master all their 8
Brown, H. Douglas. Teaching by
faculties to offer peak performance, Principles ( Longman, San Francisco State
University. 2007) p.445.

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with the intent of recording results and A. Practicality

making fixed judgments about student’s A good test is practical. It is
competence. within the means of financial
On the other hand, formal limitation, time constraints, ease of
assessment includes exercise or administration, and scoring and
procedures specifically designed to tap interpretation.
into a storehouse of skills and B. Reliability
knowledge. They are systematic, A reliable test is consistent and
planned sampling techniques dependable. A number of source of
constructed to give teacher and student unreliability may be identified:
an appraisal of student achievement.  The test itself (it is
Maybe we have a question, is construction), known as test
formal assessment the same as a test? reliability
We can say that all tests are formal  The administration of a test
assessments, but not all formal  The test taker, known as
assessment is testing. For example, we student – related reliability
might use a student’s journal or portfolio  The scoring of the test, known
of materials as a formal assessment of as rater (or scorer) reliability
the attainment of certain course C. Validity
objectives, but it is problematic to call By far the most complex
those two procedures “tests”. A criteria of a good test is validity, the
systematic set of observations of degree to which the test actually
student’s frequency of oral participation measure what it is intended to
in class is certainly a formal assessment, measure. How does one establish
but it too hardly what anyone would call the validity of a test? Statistical
9
a test. correlation with other related
measures is a standard method. But
Principles of Language Assessment ultimately, validity can be established
Whether we are focusing on only by observation and theoretical
testing or assessing, a finite number of justification.
principles can be named that serve as D. Authenticity
guidelines for the design of a new test or In a test, authenticity may be
assessment and for evaluating the present in the following ways:
efficacy of an exciting procedure. 10
 The language in the test is a
natural as possible
 Items are contextualized rather
9 than isolated
Ibid.
10
Brown, H. Douglas. Language
Assessment: Principles and classroom practices
(New York: Person Education 2004) p. 42.

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 Topics and situations are assessment component in every

interesting, enjoyable and listening activieties and every course, we
humorous could’nt determine the attainment of
 Some thematic organization to objectives and goals.
items is provided, such as To assessing listening we have
through a story line or episode to considered to what levels and what
 Tasks represent or closely assessment methods appropriate to our
approximate, real world tasks students. We have also consider too the
E. Wash back micro and macroskills of listening, from
When students take a test, processing tiny bits and pieces of
ideally they will receive information language to strategic, interactive, and
(feedback) about their competence, complex skills of extended discourse.
based on their performance. That
feedback should “wash back” to References
them in the form of useful diagnoses
Blackwell , A & Naber T. 2006.
of strengths and weakness. Wash Academic Listening and
back also includes the effects of an Speaking. New York: Oxford
assessment on teaching and University Press.
learning prior to the assessment Douglas, H. Brown. 2004. Language
itself, that is, on preparation for the Assessment: Principles and
assessment. Informal assessment is Classroom Practices. New York:
Pearson Education.
by nature more likely to have built –
in wash back effects, because the Douglas, Brown. 2007. Teaching by
teacher is usually providing Principles. San Francisco State
University.Third edition.
interactive feedback Formal tests
can also have positive wash back, Harmer, Jeremy. 1998. How to Teach
but they are also subject to an in English. Longman: Addison
Wesley, First Published.
advertent absence of wash back if
students simply receive a letter Richards, J. Listening Comprehension:
Approach, Design, Procedure.
grade or a single overall numerical
Tesol Quarterly.
score.
Underwood, M. 1996. Teaching
Listening Skills. Longman:
Conclusion
Cambridge University Press. P.A
Assessment is an integral aspect Course in language teaching.
of the pedagogical process of designing
------------------------, 1987. Effective
lessons, implementing them, and
Classroom Management.
evaluating their success. Without an Longman

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