Evaluation of L2 Listening Comprehension: In Pursuit of New Measurement Units

Abstract

Purpose. Second language (L2) listening comprehension remains one of the most under researched problems in field largely due to the corresponding methodological difficulties. This study focuses on the development of such a measurement unit that considers the actual grammatical completeness and does not distort the factual semantics of the perceived text – listening comprehension unit.

Methods and procedure of research. The concept of listening comprehension unit is developed based on a structural-ontological approach, which is a tool for systemic description of the multidisciplinary subject matter fields. To validate listening comprehension units, a study was carried out on a sample of 38 English L2 learners. Study participants were grouped according to their IELTS results, and listening comprehension unit scores were compared with idea unit ones.

Results. The obtained empirical data were processed with One-way ANOVA test and proper results support the following conclusions. First, listening comprehension units can be used to measure and differentiate levels of L2 listening comprehension of short texts. Secondly, the study demonstrates a higher differential sensitivity of listening comprehension units compared to idea units in L2 listening comprehension levels diagnostics.

Conclusions. First, listening comprehension units can be used to measure and differentiate levels of L2 listening comprehension of short texts. Secondly, our study demonstrates a higher differential sensitivity of listening comprehension units compared to idea units in L2 listening comprehension levels diagnostics. In our opinion, another advantage of using listening comprehension units is that this tool also allows one to look differently at the semantic structure of the listening comprehension process. In turn, this might open new psycholinguistic, pedagogical and didactic perspectives in the field.

Keywords: listening comprehension, psycholinguistic measurement, idea unit, structural-ontological approach, semantic role, subject, actualizer, specification, localization