Research On The Situation Design Of Listening Test Items Of NMET(2013-2022)

One of the purposes of learning a language is being able to use it proficiently in life.Therefore,it is necessary to emphasize on the construction of situation in teaching and assessment as well as design task and questions based on the real world.The evaluation system of NMET points that situation has become an important channel of meeting the demand of examination and cultivating core competences.Since listening test belongs to a necessary part of NMET,creating test situation is crucial for achieving its effective assessment.However,current research on this field mainly concentrates on science and technology or Chinese subject while scarce literature sheds light on how to design and analyze situation in English test.Therefore,exploring the situation design of listening test items facilitates to enrich existing research and raise suggestions for situation test design and listening teaching.The study combined literature research,text analysis and interviews as its research methods.First,based on extensive relevant literature,it built an analytical framework to explore the situation design of listening test items of NMET,including three dimensions: the identification parameter,the content parameter and the dressing parameter.Then,it used the framework to evaluate the traits and changes of listening test items’ situation design among ten years.Based on the framework and analysis result,it conducted interviews to understand teachers’ opinions towards listening test situation design,utilizing situation in teaching as well as current test forms.The findings demonstrate that:(1)In terms of identification parameter,the themes of situation are closely connected with real life,laying stress on interpersonal communication.Teachers also support the strong relationship between life situation and listening teaching and underline the practicality of situation;The scale between “man and self” and “man and society” is reduced and “man and nature” is rarely appeared,while some situations are repeated;Interactive activities occupy most among listening test situations.Both text analysis and interviews agree the high similarity between those situations and life scenes while “basically similar” situations are usually incomplete in content or expression;“dissimilar” situations usually deviate from daily life;The answering of test generally becomes uniform.(2)In terms of the content parameter,the listening competences examined in the test situation focuses on obtaining specific information and inference,which is aligned with interview results;the language skills examined in the test situation are mainly listening and reading.Teachers hold different views towards integrating comprehensive language skills in listening test;The correlation between tasks and situation is associated with question design,language expression and skills examined,since the proportion of “separated” questions is nearly half.(3)In terms of the dressing parameter,the information of the situation is mainly presented by “record+question+choice”.Generally,the record shows native accent and different speed rate in different districts’ test;Various oral language characteristics are also manifested in texts and records while their diversity,proportion and authenticity can be promoted.Whether teachers illustrate those features in listening passage usually depends on the needs of test.Finally,the study put forward sensible advice for future listening test situation design and teaching and summarized current limitations.