3.2.2 The Strategy Approach............................
Bachman’sdefinition of language ability as“a capacity that enables language users
to create and interpret discourse” comprises two components, i.e. “language
knowledge and strategic knowledge”(Bachman 2010: 33). Language use in testing
condition is interpreted as the interaction between the language users’language
knowledge and topical knowledge with the specific task, mediated by the
metacognitive strategies and affective schemata (Bachman 2010: 209). Note the
word“mediate”here as a key notion in defining the role of cognitive or meta-
congitive strategies in the context of task-based language use. In another word,
without activating cognitive strategies, a language user or a test-taker is not able to
fulfill a language use task and hence the study on cognitive strategy selection for a
specific language use task, say the task of academic lecture comprehension, is in its
own right, an essential part of the research on academic listening construct.
In terms of L2 listening, Buck believes that L2 learners will occasionally come
across gaps, of which some turn out to be just small parts without strong connection
to the key point while sometimes those gaps might form“a significant proportion of
the message”(Buck 2001: 50). This might explain why some of our students would
render listening as an unconquerable obstacle in the way to being a successful
language learner. What Buck has argued results from limitations in L2 and foreign
language listeners’linguistic knowledge. Field (2013: 107) extended the argument
by giving a solution: L2 listeners resort to strategies in order to compensate for
sections of the acoustic input that has not been successfully processed. In this case,
listening strategy research becomes necessary and there has emerged quite a range
of studies on categorization and effectiveness of those strategies and how they are
carried out in a testing situation (e.g., Cohen 1998; Goh 1998, 2002; Vandergrift
2003; Graham, Santos and Vanderplank 2008).
Then, why should we study test-takers’ test-taking strategies? Are the
test-takers’strategies part of the test construct? Purpura proposed a construct based
on test-taking characteristics and the construct in testing condition can be defined as
“the type of cognitive processes a test taker invokes during testing and the degree to
which test takers use cognitive processes” (Purpura 1999: 228). If test-takers’
test-taking process is considered construct-relevant, more empirical research should
be needed to address this issue. So far, there is already a pile of studies focused on
test-taking strategies (e.g., Cohen 1998, 2006, 2012; Purpura 1997, 1998, 1999;
Phakiti 2003; Fulcher 2003; Swain et al. 2009).
Cohen proposed a working definition of language learner strategy:
Thoughts and actions, consciously chosen and operationalized by language learners, to
assist them in carrying out a multiplicity of tasks from the very onset of learning to the most
advanced levels of target-language performance. (p. 7)
Localize Cohen’s concept of learner strategy in the test situation and we may
conclude that test-takers naturally need to consciously operationalize thoughts and
actions to help them in completing multiple test tasks. Apart from language learner
20 3 Approaches to Assessment of Lecture Comprehension