Introduction

All listening tasks present a sample of spoken language to the test-taker, and this is the one characteristic all listening tests share. Once we start providing spoken texts, however, we have a number of practical issues to address. We need to understand the nature of spoken language, and we need the equipment and some expertise to present the text to the test-taker. There are two main issues we need to consider, and they form the two sections of this chapter:

1. i providing suitable texts;

2. ii ensuring good quality sound.

Providing suitable texts

Selecting listening materials is more complicated than selecting reading materials. Written language is by its nature preserved, and most of us have a large selection of books, periodicals and other materials easily available, and if we cannot find anything appropriate, we can easily write something. When selecting listening materials, we still have the same choice between using an existing text or creating our own. However, spoken language is much harder to preserve than written language, and most of us do not have a selection easily available. Creating recordings is also more technical and requires more equipment than creating written texts.

Finding pre-recorded texts

We hear recorded material all the time: we listen to radio and television recordings, and we hear announcements and recorded messages. Language teachers will hear recordings of teaching materials, and many of us will have access to the large amount of recorded material on the Internet.