Human communication takes place when there is an exchange of thoughts, messages, or information between two
people: a sender and a receiver. Such exchange occurs between the participants
(with or without the receiver being present of aware of the senders intent to
communicate) by means of speech, visuals, signals, writing, or behavior.
When we communicate orally, our listening, and
speaking skills are essential. In the language teaching field these two aspects
of the language are also interrelated. However, when it comes to assessment,
Brown (2000) suggested that “listening has often played second fiddle to its
counterpart, speaking” as can be seen in the emphasis that exists on speaking rather than on
listening in the standardized testing industry.
Brown’s comments on this matter made me
think of the many occasions in which I have unconsciously supported what he
calls a “universal bias toward speaking”. I have to admit that I have sometimes
underestimated the importance of designing listening assessment tasks that will
give my students the positive washback they need.
Assessing listening should be more than a
way of telling if students have heard correctly or not. Listening goes beyond
recognizing speech sounds and therefore, its assessment tasks should be
designed according to the different types of performance that we want students
to achieve such as the intensive, responsive, selective and extensive listening
performance.
To conclude I would like to invite you to consider Brown’s
words the next time you
plan your lessons and assess your students. By doing so, I hope your students
receive the proper input, practice and assessment to improve not only their
listening performance but all the other aspects of the language learning
process.
Good listening comprehension abilities
are prerequisites for good oral production, so the next time you ask people about their
proficiency in English don’t forget that what you really want to know is if
they can UNDERSTAND as well as
speak English.
Silvia I like your entry, I particularly consider that I did the same once with my students, because as you said, sometimes we don`t consider the kind of assessment we provide to our Ss. I found really useful your advice and also Brown's. Thanks for remind us that speaking is understanding:)
ReplyDeleteyour very wellcome Laura. We tend to forget that all the skills are correlated. Let's give listening the importance it deserves! :)
ReplyDeleteNice entry ! Particularly, when it comes to assess listening, I always have a hard time. To me, thinking about appropriate listening exercises to create a test means a headache. Either if I have to administer the ones provided by some textbooks or I if I have to find it by myself. On the one hand, I have noticed that many times although the tests suggested in textbooks are supposed to be adressing the contents that students have been studying during the course, many things do not really match with students actual language level. On the other hand, if I have to find the listening by myself on the internet, it becomes a nightmare. Looking for exercises that match with the content that is been studying in the class is very hard.
ReplyDeleteThe same has happened to me, but I guess it was because I didn't know much about the micro and macro skills and how to assess them. Now that we have a bigger understanding on the matter maybe It will be easier to find/design listening tests.
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