Assessing Listening Abilities

Abstract

Over the last two decades, research has highlighted the important role that listening plays in language acquisition (Brown and Yule 1983, Ellis, et al. 1994, Faerch and Kasper 1986, Feyten 1991, Long 1985), and listening comprehension skills have begun to receive a lot more systematic attention in language teaching classrooms. A wide range of books, articles, and materials aimed at assisting teachers to develop learners’ listening skills are now available, and a variety of comprehension-based methodologies have been proposed (see, for example, Anderson and Lynch 1988, Courchene, et al. 1992, Rost 1990; 1994, Underwood 1989). However, although many of the tasks used for teaching listening are virtually identical to those which appear in tests, assessment of listening ability has received relatively limited coverage in the language testing literature.