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Article In:
Seeking Changes in a Challenging Time: New perspectives for proficiency-oriented Chinese teaching and beyond
Edited by Yu Liu, Qiaona Yu and Yu Wu
[Chinese as a Second Language (漢語教學研究—美國中文教師學會學報) 59:2] 2024
► pp. 175–201

Assessing interactive listening in beginning-level L2 Chinese

Developing a data-driven rating scale

 | University of Houston
 | Rice University
Interactive listening (IL) is understood as the interactional process in which listeners not just listen and comprehend but also actively monitor the ongoing talk, display understanding of it, clarify meaning, and advance conversation. Despite its importance in L2 learning, IL does not have much presence in standardized proficiency tests. This study thus aims to develop a rating scale for assessing IL with data drawn from beginning-level L2 Chinese learners’ unscripted conversations with L1 interlocutor. Using the framework of conversation analysis, this study identifies three aspects of IL in which different groups of learners vary most distinctively, that is, 1) the variety of listener responses used; 2) the ways in which understanding and engagement are demonstrated; and 3) sequential orientation. A rating scale with specific descriptors is then proposed.
Keywords: interactive listening, interactional competence, language assessment, rating criteria, Chinese as a second language
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Literature review
    • 2.1Interactive listening
    • 2.2Assessing IC and developing rating scales
    • 2.3Rubrics for evaluating interactive listening
  • 3.The study
    • 3.1Types of listener responses
    • 3.2Participants and data collection
    • 3.3Raters and rating
    • 3.4Analytical methods
  • 4.Analysis of L2 learners’ conversations
    • 4.1Low-IC level learners
    • 4.2Mid-IC level learner
    • 4.3High-IC level learners
  • 5.Discussion: Toward a data-driven rating scale
    • Demonstration of understanding & engagement
    • Sequential orientation
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Author queries
  • References
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