Primary Study On Test Design Of Online Listening Comprehension

Language testing almost never takes place in isolation. There has long been existing the mutual benefited relationship between language teaching and language testing, and the development of the listening test is accompanied with the listening teaching. With the boom of computer network, there is a tendency that the traditional listening test is gradually replaced by the online listening test. In recent years, many language tests, including TOEFL, partially or completely have attempted to adopt the form of the online listening test all over the world. More and more test designers and teachers begin to accept the new form of listening tests. The online listening test is the language test that seeks to find out what candidates can do with, language and provides a focus for purposeful, everyday auditory communication activities via computer network including the internet and the Intranet. Although online listening tests have appeared in some actual tests, the research on test design of online listening test still lags behind. On the one hand, lacking necessary knowledge of computer network, most test designers have to give up the online listening test design; on the other hand, without adequate test design theories and language knowledge, computer technicians have just published some online listening test materials with simple test pattern and unscientific design.