Listening Assessment Checklist

Hi colleagues

My co-teacher and I are getting ready to assess the listening skills of a new group of high intermediate/low advanced students in our adult  ESOL program.  I'm looking for an existing resource or a hive-mind effort to create one.  As background:  I've been reading some of Marnie Reed and Tamara Jones' book "Listening in the Classroom:  Teaching Students How to Listen" and realize I want to teach listening differently rather than solely through the comprehension approach.  For the assessments, I'd like to have a new checklist to facilitate the process, be able to tell the students what they can work on to improve their listening, and then teach to the assessment.    

Our plan (so far) is to give two dictation activities:  oral and visual.  The teacher will read a description of a room for which the students will write out the dictation.  In the second step, the students will draw a picture of the room as described.  

Here's what I'm thinking about for the checklist:

1.  Word Recognition: 

  • sound substitution (e.g.,, /b/ instead of /p/)
  • word endings (morphological markers)
  • other spelling accuracy (I'm not sure about this.)
  • spelling of words with reduced sounds

2.  Picture Accuracy  (I expect variation, of course.)

I'd appreciate any thoughts you might have about our effort and any suggestions for fleshing out the checklist.  

Thanks in advance!

Ellen 

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Ellen Clore-Patron

Arlington Education and Employment Program (REEP)

Arlington, VA

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

Hi Ellen! Greetings from a former fellow REEP teacher. :) I currently teach in the MA TESOL program at American University, and I help ESOL teacher create content-based lessons and assessments in our methods courses. I wanted to share some of the resources I've compiled that I use in my teacher training. I'll try to be concise! :D

1. I want to encourage anyone who wants to develop assessments like this to make sure that you've checked the level descriptors (or standards) used by your program. If you're teaching level 450 at REEP, for example, it describes the listening skills of this level as "Understands conversations containing some unfamiliar vocabulary in familiar contexts. May need repetition, rewording, or slower speech. Can understand and give simple telephone messages." https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/REEPcurriculum_leveldescriptions-450.pdf

This descriptor tells me that Ss should be focusing on conversations, not simple descriptions of physical locations.

2. When assessing listening, you want to be careful that you're not assessing writing at the same time. A dictation activity is good for assessing the particular kinds of vocabulary and grammatical structures that Ss have been working on, but it is very easy to conflate 'listening comprehension' with spelling/writing ability. Everything you've listed on the 'Word Recognition' checklist is great for developing literacy skills!

3. If you use a backward design approach in your instructional planning, you probably try to identify what your learning objectives are and how you will measure them before you start the actual lesson planning. Here are some prompts for listening objectives that I like to use for planning:

  • A content objective (what information will students learn by listening to and comprehending this text?)
  • A language objective (what particular vocabulary, grammatical structure, phonetic, and/or pragmatic language will students focus on and practice through listening to this text?)
  • A skill objective (what kind of skill or strategy will students be practicing while developing their listening proficiency?)

4. When I think about what makes listening *challenging* for English language learners, here are some of the things that come to mind -- and consequently, need to be taught, practiced, and assessed:

  • We "chunk" our language in phrases, with words that run together and phrases that run together.
  • There's a lot of redundancy, false starts, pauses, and hesitations in authentic speech.
  • English words and phrases are never pronounced like they are written.
  • The colloquialisms that we use in authentic speech aren't usually taught in textbooks.
  • Syllable stress, word stress, and sentence intonation (or rhythm) need to be paid attention to in addition to just the words/grammar used.
  • "Performance variables" make authentic speech tricky (e.g., some people speak very quickly, some people mumble, some people may hesitate a lot, there might be a lot of background noise while people are speaking, etc.). 
  • Much of our listening is not one-way: We listen AND we have to answer and then listen to the response and then give our own response, etc. Assessing listening in interaction is super important.

5. Some of the things we *do* when we listen actually make great ideas for *assessing* listening. For example:

  • We make predictions about what will be said next.
  • We infer the meaning "between the lines."
  • We monitor our own listening to make sure we're clear on what is being said.
  • We ask for clarification if there's a misunderstanding.
  • We provide an appropriate response to whatever was said.
  • We evaluate how we feel about what was said. (Do I agree? Do I believe what was said? Do I want to add something? Do I feel angry? etc.)

6. Given how authentic listening works, here are some ideas for "evidence" of listening comprehension:

  • Listen and do
  • Listen and choose
  • Listen and draw (or complete a chart)
  • Listen and answer
  • Listen and take notes/outline

  • Listen and extend/elaborate

  • Listen and duplicate (translate)

  • Listen and follow the model

  • Listen and converse

I think any of the above tasks could be developed into a relevant "checklist" like you're looking for. However, the checklist would be specific to the learning objectives, the aspect(s) of authentic speech you want Ss to get comfortable with, and the task itself.

Again, I don't think that you should have to come up with any of this yourself, or reinvent the wheel. I always go back to the proficiency levels/descriptors, the standards used in your program (check out pp. 55-65 of the English Language Proficiency Standards for Adult Education for speaking and listening), the content of the textbook you use, and the goals for speaking/listening that the students have.

7. Developing *listening* skills in English is probably the least focused-on skill in teaching/assessing AND the hardest to do! I really admire your efforts to provide a more systematic way to do so. We don't do enough of it in our curricula. When trying to develop a listening curriculum, I think the following considerations are important:

  • Do Ss need to use information they comprehend to inform their own decisions?
  • Do they need this information so that they can then talk or write about the topic?
  • Do they need to spend more time looking at the grammar, vocabulary, pragmatics, or phonetic/pronunciation elements of the language they heard?
  • Do they need to compare what they heard with something that they read?
  • Do they need to analyze the information to critique or evaluate it in some way?
  • Do they need to use the listening text as a model to practice producing their own language?

If you're still reading, thank you :) I wish I had a quicker/easier answer to share! Listening is so, so complex... and I haven't even gotten to other stuff like varieties of English, cultural knowledge, etc.

Please keep us posted on how it's going!

Thanks,

Sarah Knowles, PhD

Senior Professorial Lecturer

TESOL Program

American University

https://www.american.edu/cas/tesol

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahknowlesTESOL/