Introduction

The purpose of Chapters 1 and 2 was to describe the listening construct. The rest of this book will be concerned with how to measure ability on that construct. For those who would prefer a simpler introduction to this topic, or who would like to read a brief summary, there are overviews of the assessment of listening comprehension. I would recommend Brindley (1998), Buck (1988, 1997) and Thompson (1995).

The basic task in making assessments is to take theoretical notions about a construct and to operationalise those, that is to turn them into actual practice, in a set of test items. (A test item is the part of the test that requires a scorable response from the test-taker.) Historically, there have been three main approaches to language testing: the discrete-point, integrative and communicative approaches. Associated with each of these approaches are a set of theoretical notions about language and what it means to comprehend spoken language, and certain testing techniques. These approaches do not constitute a precise, coherent set of ideas, but a tendency to emphasise particular aspects of language ability, and when we examine the testing techniques associated with each approach, we will see considerable overlap between them.

The theoretical notions underlying testing practice are not always explicit. However, each test item is based on particular theoretical notions about the nature of the construct being measured. In some cases, test-developers may be fully aware of what these theories are, and in other cases they may not.