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- Hi, my name's Karen Duncan,
and I'd like to you about assessing,
listening and reading tasks in ESL classrooms.
Now, these are both receptive tasks,
so that's why I've combined them in this video.
We can't really see what's going on in our students' minds
when they read something
or if they're listening to something,
so we assess these tasks in similar ways.
Today in this video, I'll be talking about
different types of assessment for these skills,
different sub skills in reading and listening,
and then I'll end with some tips
when you're creating assessments
for listening and reading.
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So when we think about different types of assessments
for listening and reading,
you can think about one main type of assessment.
We give progress or achievement tests or quizzes,
for listening and reading,
where we start out with a text at the beginning.
A reading text or a listening text,
you can think of it in that way.
After the students have listened to or read the text,
then, we see different types of questions
to see what's going on in their minds.
We have multiple choice, true false,
fill in the blank, matching,
and sometimes short answer items on those assessments.
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Now with those different questioning types
I talked about before,
we look at different sub skills with listening and reading.
So first with reading,
a lot of times we're looking at their vocabulary skills.
If they can understand vocabulary
in context of a sentence or in a paragraph.
We're also looking at, sometimes looking at,
if they understand different affixes,
prefixes, suffixes,
and we can see if they understand different parts of speech
from a reading text.
Also, we're looking at reading comprehension skills.
This is the bulk of what you will see
on a reading assessment.
We're looking to see if students
can predict information before they read.
If they can identify main ideas and details in a reading.
Sometimes we look to see if they can restate
those main ideas and details in their own words.
Also, we look at, inference of implied ideas in the reading.
It's also important to note that we want to look at
critical thinking skills as well.
So we're looking to see if students can synthesize ideas
between multiple texts.
Maybe you have two short passages on a reading exam
and the students have to combine ideas
between those passages.
We're also looking to see if they can evaluate ideas
or arguments in that text.
So next if we look at listening,
we have a lot of similarities,
but one main difference would be that,
if students are listening to something,
sometimes we are looking to see if they can identify
speech patterns with what they're listening to.
So intonation, stress, different things like that.
But otherwise, we do see a lot of similarities with reading.
We can look at vocab skills with a listening text
and also listening comprehension.
Can they get that main idea?
The details, and then restate them
just like with a reading exam.
We also look at critical thinking skills
in, listening assessments as well.
So synthesizing information
and evaluating ideas or arguments.
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So I'd like to end with some tips
for you when you're creating assessments
for listening and reading.
One of the most important things
is to think about the topic that you're going to use
for the texts that you choose.
Think of something that your students are familiar with,
something you've already been discussing in class,
a topic that they're familiar with.
Also, try to choose something that won't bring up
negative emotions, while they're taking that test.
Think about vocabulary level as well.
This should be some thing that students can understand,
fairly easily, unless you're looking specifically
for vocabulary skills of certain kinds.
Also, try to use authentic texts when possible.
One important thing I want to leave you with
is if you are testing,
and you ask students to write a short answer,
whether with reading or a listening assessment,
do not deduct points for incorrect grammar or spelling,
if you're only truly assessing reading or listening.
So, I hope that some of these tips and these ideas
will help you when you start to assess students
for listening and reading,
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