Testing Lecture Comprehension Through Listening To Summarize Cloze Tasks

This book explores the effectiveness of listen-to-summarize tasks as a tool to assess lecture comprehension ability. It especially focuses on listen-to-summarize tasks that represent listeners’ meaning building and the discourse construction of the lecture for listening assessment purposes. It discusses in depth the nature of lecture comprehension and introduces the approaches to assessing it. It also presents teachers’ and students’ perceptions of listen-to-summarize task demands and their respective implications. By observing interactions between test-takers’ cognitive processes and the task itself, the book explores the effectiveness of these tasks. It also examines the discrepancy in cognitive processes between different language competence levels in detail, shedding light upon current research on lecture comprehension assessment and offering insights into listening comprehension instruction.

The book outlines the major areas of listening research in an accessible manner and provides language teachers with guidelines to design and develop suitable listening tests for their students.

This comprehensive account of performance-based assessment of L2 lexical proficiency analyzes and compares two of the primary methods of evaluation used in the field and unpacks the ways in which they tap into different dimensions of one model of lexical competence and proficiency. This book builds on the latest research on performance-based assessment, which has most recently pointed to the application of more quantitative measures to L2 data, to systematically explore the qualitative method of using human raters in assessment exercises and the quantitative method of using automatic computation of statistical measures of lexis and phraseology. Supported by an up-to-date review of the existing literature, both approaches’ unique features are highlighted but also compared to one another to provide a holistic overview of performance-based assessment as it stands today at both the theoretical and empirical level. These findings are exemplified in a concluding chapter, which summarizes results from an empirical study looking at a range of lexical and phraseological features and human raters’ scores of over 150 essays written by both L2 learners of English and native speakers. Taken together, the volume challenges existing tendencies within the field which attempt to use one method to validate one another by demonstrating their capacity to indicate very different elements of lexical proficiency, thereby offering a means by which to better conceptualize performance-based assessment of L2 vocabulary in the future. This book will be of interest to students and researchers working in second language acquisition and applied linguistics research, particularly those interested in issues around assessment, vocabulary acquisition, and language proficiency.

First published in 1985. In children’s language we are in search of the “ great bears,” the clear solid patterns that hold up after countless angles of view and after many, many lenses have been tried. In the first four volumes of this series, Children's Language, there has been coverage of alternative theories and methods in syntax, semantics, discourse, phonology, figurative language, second language learning, the transition to text processing, and story structures, among other topics. In order to present a lively account of development, the authors in the first four volumes were encouraged to each adopt a flexible format—one that best fit their own material rather than sticking to a standard review organization. Exactly the same approach has been taken by the authors of the present volume 5.

Offering a solid, research-based approach along with sound practical advice, this book equips you with the skills you need to analyse your own contexts and develop your practice, whether through formal study or alone. Badger explores teaching English as a problem-solving activity addressing three fundamental questions: what aspect of language do students needs to learn, how do they learn it, and how can teachers support this learning. This new edition includes updated references, a chapter on pragmatics, coverage of concepts such as translanguaging, CLIL, EMI, English as a lingua franca and sections on digital learning. Topics covered include: · Psychological and social learning processes · TESOL teaching methods and approaches · Lesson planning and classroom management · English teacher professional development The book also includes chapter summaries, activities for students and key readings recommendations, and online resources such as video case studies, additional exercises and multiple choice quizzes to consolidate learning. The book is ideal for both trainee and practicing teachers who want to develop their practice.

This outstanding three-title series prepares college-bound ESL students to understand academic lectures in English. Each text equips students for the challenges of college and university study by helping them listen selectively, take notes, review key ideas, retain information, and apply what they have learned. Twelve recorded lectures in each level are performed in lively and natural styles to provide a motivating introduction to academic listening. Lectures cover a wide range of thought-provoking contemporary topics. Controlled, realistic note-taking practice, ample pre-listening activities, vocabulary preview, post-lecture tests, and a wealth of illustrations also aid student understanding. Audiocassettes offer full lectures, presented both divided into parts and in their entirety. Each book offers the following features: -- Topic preview -- Vocabulary preview -- Identifying main ideas and supporting details -- Note-taking skills -- Review and post-listening tests -- Application of ideas through post-listening activities