Basic Types of Listening

1. Intensive. Listening for perception of components (phonemes, words,

intonation) of a larger stretch of language.
2. Responsive. Listening to a relatively short stretch of language ( a greeting,
question, command, comprehension check, etc.) in order to make a short
response.
3. Selective. Assessment tasks could ask to listen for names, numbers,
directions, or certain facts and events.
4. Extensive. Listening to develop a top- down, global understanding of spoken
language. Performance ranges from lengthy lectures, a conversation, to a
comprehensive message.
Listening the main idea, and for making inferences. Micro-skills of listening:
attending to the smaller bits and chunks of language, in more of a bottom-up
process. Macro-skills of listening: focusing on the larger elements involved in a
top-down approach to a listening task. (p. 121)
Intensive Listening Phonemic pair, consonants Hear: Hes from California.
Read: (a). Hes from California. (b). Shes from California. Phonemic pair, vowels
Hear: Is he living? Read: (a). Is he leaving? (b). Is he living? Sentence Paraphrase
Hear: Hello, my name is Ken. I come from Japan. Read: (a). Ken is comfortable
in Japan. (b). Ken wants to come to Japan. (c). Ken is Japanese. (d). Ken likes
Japan.
Dialogue Paraphrase Hear: Man: Hi, Maria, my names George. Woman: Nice to
meet you, George. Are you American? Man: No, Im Canadian. Read: (a). George
lives in the U. S. (b). George is American. (c). George comes from Canada.
Responsive Listening Response to a question Hear: How much time did
you take to do your homework? Read: (a). In about an hour. (b). About an hour.
(c). About $10. (d). Yes, I did.
Open-ended response to a question Hear: How much time did you take to do
your homework? Write/Speak: ______________________ (Good: authenticity &
creativity Bad: practicality)
Selective Listening Listening Cloze (p. 126) In a listening cloze task, testtakers see a transcript of the passage that they are listening to and fill in the
blanks with the words or phrases that they hear.
Information Transfer 1. Multiple-picture-cued selection (p. 127) 2. A number
of people and/or actions are presented in one picture, such as a group of people
at a party. Q: Is the tall man near the door talking to a short woman? T/F: The
woman wearing a red skirt is watching TV. Identification: Point to the person who
is standing behind the lamp.

Single-picture-cued verbal multiple- choice One single photo is presented to

the test- taker, who then hears four different statements and must choose one of
the four to describe the photo. (p. 128) Information transfer: chart-filling (p.
129) Sentence repetition: the task of repeating a sentence/a partial sentence
Extensive Listening Dictation: In a dictation, test-takers hear a passage,
typically of 50 to 100 words, recited three times: first, at normal speed; then, with
long pauses between phrases/natural word groups, and finally, at normal speed
once more, during which test-takers write down what they have heard. (p. 131)
Communicative S-R Tasks The test-taker is presented with a stimulus
monologue/conversation and then is asked to respond to a set of comprehension
questions. (p. 133) 1. Dialogue and multiple-choice comprehension items 2.
Dialogue and authentic questions on detail
. Authentic Listening Tasks A framework of alternatives 1. Note-taking: The gain
of note-taking is in offering students an authentic task that mirrors what they
have been focusing on in the classroom. 2. Editing: It provides both a written and
a spoken stimulus, and requires the test-taker to listen for discrepancies.
. Authentic Listening Tasks 3. Interpretive tasks: An interpretive task extends the
stimulus material to a longer stretch of discourse and forces the test- taker to
infer a response. 4. Retelling: In a related task, test-takers listen to a story or
news event and retell it / summarize it, either orally or in writing.
1. Authentic Listening Tasks 5. Interactive listening: It is a two-way process of
speaking and listening in face-to-face conversations.