A Brief Analysis on Assessing Methods for English Listening Course

【Abstract】Listening course is an elementary course for all the English majors. How to improve students listening comprehension ability and how to evaluate their performances and improvements are very important for all the listening teachers. This article is going to have a brief analysis on the assessing methods for English listening course.

【Key words】Assessing Methods； English listening； students-centre

【作者簡介】羅萍（1980-），女，漢族，北流人，廣西科技大學外國語學院，講師，碩士研究生，研究方向：英語教學法。

1. Introduction

Among the four basic skills （listening， speaking， reading and writing） in English study， listening ranks the first. Listening is an essential part in CET and TEM test. As a teacher teaching English listening comprehension course， I have tried many assessing methods in my course by using what I have learned in the assessment and evaluation module in WIT （Waterford Institute of Technology in Ireland）.

2. Description of the assessment process

2.1 Context

Besides the text book teaching， I used the reality TV， which was the show follow and film ordinary people in an artificial situation， in my class to practice students listening， reading， speaking and writing skills. The reality TV I chose was Amazing Race from the United States.

2.2 Process

The assessment could be divided into two parts as follow： Summative Examination

A summative examination is an examination that will assess the degree to which pre-set learning outcomes of the course or module have been achieved by the examination candidate. （Handout of Assessment & Evaluation module of WIT）

Paper examination

This was the final exam required by the school. The exam was the traditional objective assessment which included multiple choice questions， True/false， Dictation.

Role play in pairs

After viewing the whole season of Amazing Race， asked the students to prepare a role play to talk about their ideas on the race， the teams in the race， and then play the role play in front of the tutor who would give them a mark individually according to the context， the pronunciation， the intonation and the fluency. This could find out the students understanding of the program.

Listening and imitation

Let the students choose one of the 11 teams in the Amazing Race， asked them to imitate a dialogue between the team members. The tape would be played five times， and then the students had to imitate in front of the tutor. And the tutor would mark according to the students accuracy of the dictation， the pronunciation， the intonation and fluency. This could test the students listening ability as well as the speaking ability.

Formative Examination

A formative examination （worked examples， in-class activities， and exercises） is an examination designed to monitor and improve learning. （Handout）.

Paragraph dictation

I would let the students have a dictation of a paragraph from Amazing Race. According to the requirements of TEM4， the students should be able to take a dictation exactly correct including the punctuations. So I designed this assessment just wanted to practice the students ability of dictation.

Selective dictation of words & sentences

Before shown the video， gave some Chinese words， and asked the students try to find them through viewing the show. This assessment not only tested their listening ability but also to enlarged their vocabulary.

Answering questions in groups

After viewing the show， organized a brain storming about which team you like best， why， or which team do you think will win the race， why？ Let the students have a group discussion， and then each group nominated a representative to give a brief speech. This was a peer assessment. Each group could give an assessment to every member according to their contribution to the group work. Form this way， the students can help each other to improve.

3. Link Theory to Practice

3.1 Assessment and learning outcomes

Learning outcomes are explicit instructions to the students in a subject about what should be learnt during the subject， the skills and capacities that must be demonstrated in relation to them， and the standards expected. （Chris Morgan， Lee Dunn， Sharon Parry and Meg OReilly， 2004， 214）

When I planned for this module， I read the English Syllabus for English Majors carefully and try to design the assessment according to every requirement. The key to what needs to be assessed lies in the learning outcomes. Only when I link the learning outcome to the assessment， the assessment became acceptable.

3.2 Observations on the assessment

Validity

Validity is a form of truth-seeking. It is often described as the match between what is intended to be measured and what is measured. The closer the match between objectives and assessment tasks， the greater the intrinsic validity of the assessment procedures. （George Brown with Joanna Bull and Malcolm Pendlebury， 1997， 239）

Before the designing of the assessment， I think about how to let the students meet the requirement in such a course which has limited time. So I decide to adopt the reality TV program， try to meet all the requirements. Every part of the assessment reflected the knowledge the students got from the lessons. And it turned out to be valid.

Reliability

The two main measures of reliability in assessment are measures of agreement between assessors and within assessors. （George Brown with Joanna Bull and Malcolm Pendlebury， 1997， 234）

While sometimes the assessments with high validity will often have low reliability and vice-versa. （Handout） So I still let the students to take the paper exam which was mainly about objective questions， such as， MCQ， True/False.

Fairness

According to the Handout of Assessment & Evaluation， Bias either in the task or in the assessor and assessment should reflect knowledge， values， and experiences appropriate to all students.

I found it is a little bit hard to achieve it. For example， I let the students choose their partner as they like. Because everyone wanted to get good marks and look for the good students as their partner. There would be some students whose listening or speaking ability were not so good had no partners or they just got together and their performance would be influenced.

Besides this， because I combined the listening and speaking into exam， sometimes I would focus more on the speaking rather than the original purpose that was the listening.

3.3 Feedback

Summative and formative assessment， both of them have the advantages and disadvantages.

Summative assessment

Because the percentage of the formative assessment was very small， some students didnt take the formative assessment seriously or even didnt take the formative assessment. I just tried to use different kinds of formative assessment to help the students to achieve the learning outcome. If the students didnt take the formative assessment， that was only based on their performance at one time. I cannot see them making progress gradually.

Formative assessment

There may be a combination of three purposes of formative assessment： 1） diagnosing student difficulties； 2） measuring improvement over time； and 3） providing information to inform students about how to improve their learning. （Chris Morgan， Lee Dunn， Sharon Parry and Meg OReilly， 2004， 18）

But in this case， there were still some problems emerged.

（1）The assessment was compulsory. In order to complete the assessment some students just copied the others work.

（2）Most of the formative assessments were subjective. There was bias from the teacher and the peers.

（3）The assessing criteria were not clear enough， so that some marks couldnt reflect the performance of the students exactly.

（4）The formative assessment had a long duration and numerous patterns， and made the students overload.

4. Reflection on assessment

Feedback from the students.

The feedbacks from the students are positive. Most students are tired of all their performances being decided by the final exam. Adopting the formative assessment let them have a better and obvious idea about how they make progress. And the group work made them less nervous comparing with facing the tutor by themselves. And the assessments were based on what they had learnt during the class， it was valid and useful.

But the students also said that it was very difficult to be fair in peer assessing， since the group work were subjective. And the formative assessments were too many for them.

My own reflection

The assessment attempt was successful to some extent. It reflected the learning outcome properly. And the students progresses were obvious.

Since this assessing process was a research， I have tried so many assessing methods at the same time. Maybe that led to the students overload. And the criteria were still the tuff problem to be solved.

Next time I will just choose some effective ones to use in my future practice. Try to improve the assessing criteria， and develop some kind of objective assessment in the formative assessment process. That will avoid all the marks being decided by the tutors perspective.

5. Conclusion

Assessment is an essential part in education. It can help us to test our teaching and learning. Whether the learning outcomes have achieved or not， whether the assessment is valid and reliable are the most important purpose of the assessment. And from these we can improve our teaching and the assessment methods.

References：

[1]Handout of the Assessment and Evaluation module（WIT）[J].

[2]Chris Morgan，Lee Dunn， Sharon Parry and Meg OReilly[J].The Student Assessment Handbook，2004， RoutledgeFalmer.

[3]George Brown with Joanna Bull and Malcolm Pendlebury[J].Assessing Student Learning in Higher Education，1997，Routledge.