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RUNNING HEAD :ASSESSING THE RECEPTIVE LANGUAGE SKILLS

ASSESSING THE RECEPTIVE LANGUAGE SKILLS READING AND

LISTENING

Haifa F.Dermish

Department of English, Faculty of Arts

Submitted to

Dr. Abdulhameed Onaiba

March 2022
TESTING RECEPTIVE SKILLS

Abstract
This paper aims to investigate the receptive skills (reading and listening ) first ,it gives a
definitions of both skills , types of listening and reading beside examples of how to make
effective listening and reading tasks which are vital processes essential to enable you to speak
and communicate in real life and in classroom .

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Table of Contents
Preliminaries…………………………………………………………..…………….ii
Chapter I page
Introduction …………………………………………………….…………………..4
The Nature of Reading ……………………………………… …..………………….5
Testing Reading ……………………………………………………..……………….5
Types of Reading ………………………………………….……………….…………6
Micro and Macro skills for reading Comprehension………………..………..……….8.
Assessing Levels of Reading Comprehension ……………….……………………10
Scoring Reading Tests …………………………………………………………..……11
What is Listening …………………………………………...…………………..……..12
Testing Listening …………………………………………….…..…………………….12
Why Test Listening …………………………………….………………..…………….13
Listening Skill Activities…………………………………………….…..……………..13
What makes Listening Difficult …………………………………….…………………….13
Setting the Listening Task…………………………………………………………..…….14
The Importance of Listening ………………………………………….………………….14
Types of Listening ………………………………………………………..………………15
Designing Assessment Task : Intensive Listening ………………………………….……..16
Designing Assessment Task : Responsive Listening ………………………………………16
Designing Assessment Task : Selective Listening ………………………………..………17
Designing Assessments Task : Extensive Listening ………………………………………19
II Conclusion …………………………………….
References

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Chapter I

Introduction

English language learners can be assessed in both receptive skills (including listening and

reading) and productive skills (including speaking and writing). Typically, the communicative

skills of speaking and listening comprehension are developed at a faster pace than the more

academic skills of reading and writing. Comprehension is such an internal process that listening

comprehension and reading comprehension are much more difficult to assess than other areas. In

this segment, you will find suggestions for assessing both receptive and productive skills.

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The Nature of Reading

Reading is one feature of language that requires complex cognitive abilities. Reading

comprehension refers to the ability of understanding a written text in order to grasp the ideas

intended. It is a tool to interpret the writer's aims by the reader's conceptualization. (Arung,

2015)

Testing Reading

Testing the reading skill appears to be an easy task at the first glance but, in fact, it is

somehow hard to conduct.

The processes underlying reading practice cannot be observed in the same way we observe

speaking and writing.

Tests should be constructed in a way that allows test takers to apply the reading skills

successfully.

Testers need to identify the reading skills they wish to measure, and provide the test items that

can specifically measure them. (Hughes, 2003(

Types of Reading

Urquhart and Weir argue that research on L1 and L2 reading in the past tend to concentrate

on careful reading at the local level, and to some extent has ignored expeditious and careful

reading at the global level, that is the ongoing meaning representation and text representation

level (Carver, 1997; Perfetti, 1999; Enright, Grabe, Mosenthall, Mulcahy-Ernt and Schedl, 2000;

Stanovich, 2000; Grabe and Stoller, 2002; Khalifa and Weir, 2009). Rosenfeld, Oltman and

Sheppard (2004) and Weir et al (2000) suggest that the types of reading demanded of

undergraduates at tertiary level involve both careful and expeditious reading.

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Urquhart and Weir (1998) provide a four-cell matrix to describe the differences between

careful and expeditious reading skills and strategies at the local and global levels.

This framework outlines the two main types of reading, namely, careful and expeditious reading

and the different categories they contain. The sub-divisions of reading assume that different

skills and strategies are employed by readers according to the different purposes of reading.

Different purposes of reading include search reading (reading to find information), reading for

basic comprehension, reading to learn, and reading to integrate information across multiple texts

(Enright et al, 2000). These purposes of reading should be taken into account when describing

reading ability comprehensively. This framework is supported by Grabe (2002) who claims that

to capture a complete picture of the reading process, reading should also be defined to include

purposes of reading, components of reading ability and the key processes in reading

comprehension.

Urquhart and Weir (1998) describe the different skills and strategies classified under

careful and expeditious reading below. Careful reading at the global level is generally associated

with reading to learn which involves reading material of the textbook variety. It is not a selective

process whereby the reader aims to read and grasp most of the information in the text and based

on the main points, builds a macrostructure. For careful reading at the local level, the strategies

employed by the reader include

Expeditious reading at the global level comprises skimming and search reading. Skimming

involves the reader to grasp the gist of the text, i.e. what the whole text is about. As the reading

process is selective, the reader builds a macrostructure with minimal information from the text.

Search reading on the other hand, is related to locating information based on predetermined

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topics and the reader does not necessarily make an attempt to build a macrostructure of the whole

text.

Expeditious reading at the local level refers to scanning which involves selective reading.

This includes locating a specific date, word, phrase, figure, name, date of specific events or items

in an index and the reader disregards

Goals of Testing Reading

Well-constructed reading tests provide stable information about students' reading ability.

They help to measure learners' progress during the course through highlighting the strengths and

weaknesses of each student.

 Testing reading aims at assessing the candidates' metalinguistic competence and

capability to manipulate language through developed ways of thinking.

 Tests are expected to build students’ independence in reading. They are also a good way

of evaluating them and constructing grades for them.

The results of such tests facilitate students' feedback. Consequently, teachers of reading will

offer appropriate texts that are suitable for the learners' needs. (Afflerbach, 2018)

Elements of Reading Tests (Texts /Techniques)

According to Hughes (2003), there are some parameters that control the choice of the texts

that test takers are expected to deal with in an exam.

 Text Type: many types of texts can be selected according to the objectives of the test. For

example, short stories, advertisements, articles, encyclopedia entries, letters, timetables,

etc.

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Text Forms refer to the form in which the texts are written or designed, such as description,

argumentation, narration, instruction, exposition, etc.

 Graphic Features: can contain charts, diagrams, cartoons, tables, illustrations, etc.

 Topics: normally selected according to personal factors, like learners' interests and

background culture. Often, they are general and familiar topics. For instance, sports,

travel, transportation, weather, etc.

 Style: refers to the degree of formality. Texts can be either formal or informal, depending

on the type of text chosen.

 Intended readership: refers to the candidates who are taking the test and being exposed to

the reading passage. Identification of those candidates affects the test material. Readers

can be specified generally, like young native speakers', or accurately, like 'science

undergraduate students, EFL students, etc'.

 Length: reflects the number of words that a reading text includes. It is usually determined

by the level of the candidates, as well as the type of reading abilities being tested.

Readability: is a measure that predicts the difficulty of a passage. Very long texts can be difficult

for the candidates to process.

 Range of Vocabulary: may be indicated by a complete list of words, or by reference to

indications of frequency in a learners' dictionary.

 Range of grammar: can be a list of structures, or a reference to those to be found in a

course book or a grammar of the language.

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Micro-skills Skills for Reading Comprehension

1. Discriminate among the distinctive graphemes and orthographic patterns of English.

2. Retain chunks of language of different lengths in short-term memory.

3. Process writing at an efficient rate of speed to suit the purpose.

4. Recognize a core of words, and interpret word order patterns and their significance.

5. Recognize grammatical word classes (nouns, verbs, etc.), systems (e.g., tense,

agreement, pluralization) patterns, rules, and elliptical forms.

6. Recognize that a particular meaning may be expressed in different grammatical forms.

7. Recognize cohesive devices in written discourse and their role in signaling the

relationship between and among clauses.

Macro Skills of Listening

1. Recognize the rhetorical forms of written discourse and their significance for

interpretation.

2. Recognize the communicative functions of written texts, according to form and

purpose.

3. Infer context that is not explicit by using background knowledge.

4. From described events, ideas, etc., infer links and connections between events,

deduce causes and effects, and detect such relations as main idea, supporting idea,

new information, given information, generalization, and exemplification.

5. Distinguish between literal and implied meanings.

6. Detect culturally specific references and interpret them in a context of the

appropriate cultural schemata.

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7. Develop and use a battery of reading strategies, such as scanning and

skimming, detecting discourse markers, guessing the meaning of words from

context, and activating schemata for the interpretation of texts.

Assessing Levels of Reading Comprehension

Alderson (2000) presents the notion of skills sequence in understanding. Three levels of

reading comprehension are introduced: literal, inferential, and critical.

Literal Reading

Read the lines: recall information stated directly and explicitly in the text.

• factual--can be answered definitely with facts

• Recall Character, Setting, or Time Details, action, event, list sequence

• address key elements of the text

• answers found directly in the text or by information readily available in outside sources

• have one correct answer

• require reading of the work, but require little thought or understanding

• good answers lead to an accurate and complete summary of the text

Inferential/Interpretive Reading

Read between the lines: interpret information implied in the text

• inferential--answers to these questions may be implied rather than stated directly in the

reading

• address motive of author or a character

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• reader must make inferences based on specific information they can cite to back up

their conclusions

• found by following patterns and seeing relationships among parts of the text

• call for longer answers and more thinking

• require reading of the work AND consideration of what has been read

• good answers lead to an identification of the significant patterns

• interpret theme, main idea

• summarize

Critical/Evaluative Reading (Global)

Read behind and beyond the lines: evaluate information based on personal knowledge

and experiences.

• connecting--answers to these questions emphasize the “So what?” of the text

• link text to prior knowledge, other texts, or human experiences in life

• found by testing the ideas of a text against readers’ schema

• require the reader to think more abstractly and relate the text to real life

• good answers lead to an appreciation of the text and further discussion

• Giving an opinion about character, events, realistic

• Author’s decision, Point of View

Scoring reading Tests

Objective items of a test, such as multiple choice, or true/ false tasks, are quite easy to

mark and calculate. In some tests, every item is assigned a mark of 1 if it is answered correctly,

and if wrong. Marks are added together in order to get a total for each subset or for the whole

test.

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•Subjective items require subjective score ratings. It can be achieved either holistically “an

overall score”, or analytically “a rating score for each criterion”. (Alderson, Clapham & Wall,

1995)

What is Listening

Listening skills allow one to make sense of and understand what another person is saying. In

other words, listening skills allow people to understand what someone is talking about-the

meaning behind the words.  Among the four language skills , listening is the first skill that a

person learns.  The process starts with the sounds that enter the ears. They are then processed by

our brains and become meaningful messages when interpreted. This is an important skill, as

listening helps us understand what others say.

Testing Listening

Testing listening involves a variety of skills, at the lowest level it involves discrimination

among sounds, discrimination among intonation and stress patterns, and comprehension of long

and short listening texts.

WHY TEST LISTENING?

 Assess how well a student has mastered what has been taught.

 As listening skills is one of the language skills to be developed (receptive skill )

 To be proficient in the language means to be able to listen effectively

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LISTENING SKILLS ACTIVITIES

1) Narrating a story

2) Listening for Information

3) Listening and doing

4) Listening and following directions

5) Acting out a story

6) Drawing a map

7) Dictation

What makes listening Difficult?

What makes listening difficult in a second language? Of the two receptive language skills,

listening to a foreign language is understudied relative to reading (Johnston & Doughty, 2006;

Lund, 1991; Osada, 2004; Rubin, 1994; Shohamy & Inbar, 1991; Thompson, 1995). Most

research concerned with the evaluation of second language (L2) comprehension has focused on

reading rather than listening because the process of reading is more easily observed and

manipulated (Osada, 2004). That said, research findings regarding reading comprehension often

fail to map fully onto the processes involved in listening comprehension (Schmidt-Rinehart,

1994). For example, listeners have a worse memory for spoken information than readers do for

written information, with proportionally more details recalled by readers and proportionally more

main ideas by listeners (Lund, 1991). Further, characteristics of the listener influence listening

performance differently than they influence reading performance (Park, 2004). In addition, there

are factors that are important to listening that are not relevant for reading, like coping with a fast

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speech rate and disfluencies. In short, it is important to recognize that listening is a distinct skill

from reading. Listening involves real-time processing, generally without the option of going

back to earlier sections of the passage the listener may have missed (Buck, 2001; Flowerdew,

1994). While slow readers can alter their reading speed without damaging comprehension, slow

listeners may well miss information that cannot be recovered. Once the information is lost, it can

be difficult to understand the rest of the passage (Buck, 2001). Further, while most reading

involves complete control of the rate at which text is received (i.e., readers may read a text

quickly or slowly, as they wish, unless some time constraint is applied), control over the speed of

delivery for listeners varies much more widely (Osada, 2004). In a conversation, listeners may be

able to exert some control over the speech rate of their interlocutor, while listening to a radio

program provides no opportunity for control over the speed of delivery, and attending a

professional lecture does so only with certain restrictions and considerable effort.

Setting the Listening Task

1-Selecting samples of speech

2- Writing items: Possible Techniques  Multiple choice  Short answer  Information

transfer  Note taking  Partial dictation 

3-Scoring the listening test: In Receptive skill there is no need to deduct points for errors

in grammar or spelling

The Importance of Listening

Listening has an important role both in daily life and in academic context as it is crucial for

people to sustain effective communication. Listening skills have been a great concern for both

researchers and teachers trying to promote communicative competence

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Richards’s (1983) list of microskills specifying objectives for learning and may be even

more useful in forcing test designers to carefully identify specific assessment objectives. In the

box below, the skills are subdivided into what we prefer to think of as microskills (attending to

the smaller bits and chunks of language, in more of a bottom-up process) and macroskills

(focusing on the larger elements involved in a top-down in the performance of listening compre-

is still useful in the domain of approach to a listening task), The micro- and macroskills provide

17 different objectives to assess in listening

FOUR COMMNLY IFENTIFIED TYPES OF LISTENING PERFORMANCES

1- Intensive :listening to understand and comprehend the smaller components (phonemes,

words , stress and intonation ) of a larger segments of language.

2-Responsive: listening to short segments of language for the purpose of developing a

short response, for instance listening to greeting, command, a question, etc .

3 Selective : listening to a relatively short speech, a monologue for instance, for couple of

minutes in order to scan for specific information. The main purpose of such performance

is not to look for the general meaning but to have an understanding of specific

information that are a part of a longer stretches of information. Assessment tasks in

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selective listening could be done through asking student to look for names or numbers or

a certain fact.

4. Extensive Listening: listening to have a global understanding of the spoken language.

Extensive performance varies from listening to lectures or listening to a conversation and

grasp the overall meaning of it. Test takers in extensive listening might need to resolve to

interactive skills, for example they may ask a question, be part of the discussion or taking

notes.

Designing Assessment Task : Intensive Listening

Intensive listening focuses primary on brief listening exercises like recognizing

phonological and morphological elements

Morphological pair, vowels

Test-takers hear : Is he living ?

Test-takers read : A. Is he leaving ?

B. Is he living ?

Morphological pair , -ed ending

Test takers hear: I missed you very much

Teast takers read: A: I missed you very much

B: I miss you very much

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DESIGNING ASSESSMENT TASKS: RESPONSIVE LISTENING

A question-and-answer format can provide some interactivity in these lower-end listening

tasks. The test-taker’s response is the appropriate answer to a question

Test-takers hear: How much time did you take to do your homework?

Test-takers read: A. In about an hour.

B. About an hour.

C. About $10.

D. Yes, Idid

DESIGNING ASSESSMENT TASKS: SELECTIVE LISTENING

A third type of listening performance is selective listening, in which the test- taker listens

to a limited quantity of aural input and must discern some specific information within it. A

number of techniques require selective listening

Listening Cloze

Listening cloze tasks require the test-taker to listen to a story, monologue or conversational

and simultaneously read the written in which selected words or phrases have been deleted.

Example:

Listening cloze example:

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Test-takers hear an announcement from an airline agent and see the transcript with the

underline words deleted. “ Ladies and gentleman, I now have some connecting gate

information for those of you making connections to other flights out of San Fransisco.”

Test-takers write the missing words or phrase in the blanks.

Flight seven-thirty to Portland will depart from gate seventythree at nine-thirty p.m.

Flight ten-forty-five to Reno will depart at nine-fifty p.m from gate seventeen. Flight

four-forty to Monterey will depart at nine-thirty-five p.m from gate sixty. And flight

sixteen-thirty to Sacramento will depart from gate nineteen at ten-fifteen p.m

Information Transfer

1. Multiple-picture-cued selection The preciding example illustrates the need for

testtakers to focus on just the relevant information. The objective of this task is to

test the prepositions and prepositional phrases of location ( at the bottom, on top

of, around, along with larger, smaller).

2. . Single-picture-cued verbal multiple choice

Test-takers see:

“ a photograph of woman in a loboratory setting, with no

glasses on, squinting through a microscope with her right

eye, and with her left eye closed”

Test-takers hear:

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a) She’s speaking into microscope

b) She’s putting on her glasses

c) She has both eyes open

d) She’s using a microscope

Designing Assessment Task : Extensive Listening

Extensive listening is a way to practice your English listening skills. It means

listening to many different recordings, videos and interviews about the same topic

Dictation In a dictation, test-takers hear a passage, typically of 50 to 100 words,

recited three times.

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Chapter III

Conclusion

The main objective of a receptive skill is not the teaching of grammatical rules and

vocabulary ,but the development of the learners’ ability to understand and interpret

texts using their existing language knowledge.

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Reference

Brown, H. Douglas. Language Assessment: Principles and Classroom

Practices. 3rd ed., Pearson Education, 2018

Green A (2020) 'Exploring language assessment and testing: language in

action' , 2nd edn, : Routledge

WWW.researchgate.com

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