Can EFL Interactive Listening Be Validly Assessed?

Abstract

Although passive listening (i.e., hearing language) may occur in some EFL classes through oral reading, oral presentations, or other oral forms, listening instruction is a relatively neglected skill in EFL teaching, and as a consequence, assessment of listening has received relatively limited coverage in the language testing literature. Interactive listening, based on the idea that listening is real-life communication, has been demonstrated to be a dimension of listening worth teaching. However, no successful classroom interactive listening teaching format has yet been reported, let alone assessed. Based on the models designed by previous researchers, an interactive listening teaching format was designed and trailed a university classroom intervention program in Beijing. In order to do this, it was necessary to construct an objective interactive listening assessment which could measure the listener's ability to: (a) negotiate meaning, and (b) to comprehend the speaker's messages (Macaro, 2003;Rost, 2002). To verify its reliability and validity, a standard listening test, the types of negotiation, and selfassessment were also adopted. The results show that compared with traditional listening tests, this interactive listening assessment procedure provided a more comprehensive and objective evaluation of listeners' listening skills.