Asian Association for Language Assessment

Listening is a vital skill for second language learners to develop, however it is also one of the most challenging to assess in both a conceptual and a practical sense. This workshop is designed to introduce participants to principles of good-practice in the development of listening assessments, and will be of relevance to those who need to develop listening assessments for classroom contexts or in more formal examination settings.

In the first half of the workshop, participants will discuss the following topics:

(1)    Key principles of listening assessment

(2)    Listening abilities to target in a listening assessment

(3)    Selecting or developing input texts  

(4)    Suitable task types for listening test design

(5)    Thorny issues in listening assessment (e.g., speakers’ accents, scoring open-ended items)

In the second half of the workshop, participants will work in small groups to critique and improve a draft listening task and then present their work. This second session will mimic an item moderation session where participants will explain their reasoning and receive feedback from their peers.

Throughout the workshop, participants will be encouraged to share their experiences of assessing listening within their own contexts, however experience with listening assessment will not be necessary to join the workshop.