Wagner's (2007) article "Are they watching? Test-taker viewing behavior during an L2 video listening test" investigated into how L2 listening test-takers interacted with video listening texts, and the extent to which test-takers oriented to the video texts. One of the most interesting findings of this study was that the test-takers did not find the video "distracting", which was contradictory to the assumption of some researchers. It reminded me of the listening section in the TOEFL (internet-based test) I took two years ago, and I believe the format is still the same today. During the listening test, there was only one static picture shown on the computer monitor throughout each task. Although I did not give much thought about it at that time, because the test itself was too important for someone who wanted to be enrolled in graduate school in an English-spoken country, I now start to wonder, what if we had video listening test in TOEFL? Was that kind of static picture display in TOEFL based on the conjecture that video would be distracting for test-takers? Would videos make the listening tasks easier or more difficult? The author has suggested that the correlation between test scores and test-takers' orientation to the video monitor would be something worth looking into. I agree with him, and I hope that future researches would help to make massive-scale English tests like TOEFL more "taker-friendly" and effective. After all, language is used and understood in real-life situations, videos might indeed help to put test takers into a more life-like environment and get more reliable test results.
Wagner, E. (2007). Are they watching? Test-taker viewing behavior during an L2 video listening test. Language Learning and Technology, 11(1), 67-86.
2 comments:
Hi Rong,
Wonderful idea! I'm not sure whether a video listening test will make the listening comprehension task easier or not (I guess it is quite possible since more "hints" will be included), but it will definitely make the test environment more similar to a "real-life situation" (as you mentioned), i.e. more authentic/ natural, which, in turn will grant the test more validity.
Hi Rong,
TOEFL listening with video! How wonderful! I wish I had my TOEFL text with this new form of test. I think I can do better in TOEFL. Listening can happen in different forms of interaction in our lives such as listening to radio, lectures, watching TV, talking on the phone and face-to-face conversation. However, test only gives us audio input, which most l2 learners find difficult, so yes, depends on learners’ learning types; this type of test may affect l2 learner’s performance. As you mentioned, it would be interesting to see how test takers do better or worse in TOEFL with video in listening section.
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