Abstract:
Although listening is often integrated with other language skills in academic study tasks, there is a good case for assessing listening comprehension as a discrete skill. The first step in developing a listening test is to delineate the domain of academic listening situations. It is also necessary to define the construct of listening ability as the basis for determining the skills to be assessed. The choice of topic is another important consideration, given the role of background knowledge in comprehension. Traditionally the stimulus material has been presented to the learners in audio form, but there is an increasing trend to provide visual input of various kinds in the interests of authenticity. However, it is difficult to find authentic speech recordings that are suitable for assessment purposes, hence the need to plan and script input material that lends itself to the setting of test items that target the relevant academic listening skills.