Teaching and Assessing Listening - Week 8 - Listening Assessment Part 1

Introduction: Hello and welcome to Week 8 of the course Teaching and Assessing Listening for the master's in English teaching at ULACIT term IIICO 2022. In today's class we will begin looking at strategies for assessing listening. 

Today's Goal:

• Explain the difference between validity, reliability, and fairness in educational assessment.
• Survey a selection of sample test item types, identify their strengths and challenges, and classify them according to the approach they belong to.
• Clarify expectations regarding the listening assessment group project.

Guiding Question: 

• How do I know if my listening assessment is vailid, reliable, and fair?
• What are different approaches to assessing listening?
• How can I create a listening assessment based on a sound evaluation construct?

Warm Up: Dictogloss Demo

Dictogloss is one of the techniques designed by Swain, one of the early promotors of interaction based approaches to SLA. It involves listening to a spoken text created by the teacher, taking notes individually, then working collaboratively with partners to reconstruct the text to produce a version that is as close as possible to the original. Let's try it out!

• Group 1: CLICK HERE
• Group 2: CLICK HERE

• More Info about Dictogloss: CLICK HERE

Topic 1: Introduction to Listening Assessment

Let's begin today's class by talking with your partners about the content of your assigned reading for today. Click your group link below and follow the instructions with your partners. Feel free to consult your study guide if you need to.

• Group 1: CLICK HERE
• Group 2: CLICK HERE

Topic 2: Concepts in Listening Assessment

Let's go into a bit more detail about some of these important ideas from the reading. Click the group link and follow the teacher's instructions.

• Group Link: CLICK HERE

Topic 3: Approaches to Assessing Listening

Let's consider some typical test item types that correspond to three major approaches to assessing listening. Click your group link below and follow the instructions in the document. 

• Group 1: CLICK HERE
• Group 2: CLICK HERE

• Want more info about this? CLICK HERE for the full chapter from Buck (2001).

Topic 4: Instructions for Listening Assessment Assignment

Your group project this term involves you designing your own listening assessment proposal. We will spend our entire next class working on this but before we do, let's take a moment to read what is expected.

• Group Link: CLICK HERE

References: 

Buck, G. (2001). Assessing Listening. Cambridge University Press.

Rost, M. (2017). Teaching and Researching Listening (3rd ed.). Routledge.