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Extensive 1
Description: Listening/ Extensive (1)
Dictation
Extensive listening tasks focus on macro-skills of listening, producing larger stretches of language. These tasks are used for advanced English Language Learners. Extensive listening tasks include lectures, long conversations, and lengthy messages that require listeners to decipher information and derive meaning. Dictation is a widely researched genres used for assessing listening comprehension. Students taking this test listen to a passage about 50 to 100 words in length three times (normal speed/ slow speed/ then normal again). Students write down what they heard, which requires good listening skills as well as writing. Dictation provides a reasonable method of integrating listening and writing skills implied in short passages. Depending on passage length, this method places more strain on memory and process of meaning. I have included an example of a dictation with short reading passages. Dictation is a widely researched genre of assessing listening comprehension. In a dictation, test-takers hear a passage, typically of 30 to 100 words, recited three times: first at normal speed; then with long pauses between phrases or natural word groups, during which time test-takers write down what they have just heard; and finally at normal speed once more so they can check their work and proofread. The following is a sample dictation at the intermediate level of English. Dictations have been used as assessment tools for decades. Some readers still cringe at the thought of having to render a correctly spelled, verbatim version of a paragraph or story recited by the teacher. Until research on integrative testing was published (Oiler, 1971), dictations were thought to be not much more than glorified spelling tests. However, the required integration of listening and writing in a dictation, along with its presupposed knowledge of grammatical and discourse expectancies, brought this technique back into vogue. Hughes (1989), Cohen (1994), Bailey (1998), and Buck (2001) all defended the plausibility of dictation as an integrative test that requires some sophistication in the language to process and write down all segments correctly. The difficulty of a dictation task can be easily manipulated by the length of the word groups (or bursts, as they are technically called); the length of the pauses; the speed at which the text is read; and the complexity of the discourse, grammar, and vocabulary used in the passage. Scoring is another matter. Depending on your context and purpose in administering a dictation, you will need to decide on scoring criteria for several possible kinds of errors:
• spelling error only, but the word appears to have been heard correctly
• spelling and/or obvious misrepresentation of a word; illegible word
• grammatical or phonological error (e.g., “the southeast have a hot desert”)
• skipped word or phrase
• permutation of words (e.g., “a fertile large valley”; “the part of the central state”) • additional words not in the original
• replacement of a word with an appropriate synonym
Determining the weight of each of these errors is a highly idiosyncratic choice; specialists disagree almost more than they agree on the importance of the above categories. They do agree (Buck, 2001) that a dictation is not a spelling test and that the first item in the list above should not be considered an error. They also suggest that point systems be kept simple (for maintaining practicality and reliability) and that a deductible scoring method, in which points are subtracted from a hypothetical total, is usually effective. Dictation seems to provide a reasonably valid method for integrating listening and writing skills and for tapping into the cohesive elements of language implied in short passages. However, a word of caution lest you assume that dictation provides a quick and easy method of assessing extensive listening comprehension. If the bursts in a dictation are relatively long (more than five-word segments), this method places a certain amount of load on memory and processing of meaning (Buck, 2001, p. 78). However, only a moderate degree of cognitive processing is required, and claiming that dictation fully assesses the ability to comprehend pragmatic or illocutionary elements of language, context, inference, or semantics may be going too far. Finally, one can easily question the authenticity of dictation: It is rare in the real world for people to write down more than a few chunks of information at a time. Despite these disadvantages, the practicality of administration, a moderate degree of reliability in a well-established scoring system, and a strong correspondence to other language abilities speaks well for the inclusion of dictation among the possibilities for assessing extensive (or quasi-extensive) listening comprehension.
This form of listening assessment assesses students’ ability to identify phonemic differences within a normal conversation.
Example:
Students are writing while the instructor reads a passage.
First read at normal speed (students only listen) I can skate. I can ski. Can you swim? Yes, I can. Help! Help! Wait! I’m coming.
Second read with designated pauses (students write): (I can/skate. I can/ski. Can you swim? Yes,/ I can. Help! Help! Wait! I’m coming.)
Third read at normal speed (students check their work): I can skate. I can ski. Can you swim? Yes, I can. Help! Help! Wait! I’m coming.
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