Chapter 4
Task Characteristics of TEM 8
Mini-Lecture Comprehension
4.1 Introduction..........................................
In order to localize and further operationalize the construct model for lecture
comprehension, characteristics of the structured listen-to-summarize cloze task of
TEM 8 Mini-lecture comprehension will be analyzed and hence a corresponding
framework of lecture comprehension construct will be proposed.
In mainland China, major English tests designed locally include CET, NMET,
TEM, GSEEE, PETS, BEC, and the WSK—an examination to select professionals
for study and training overseas (Chen 2008). At Chinese tertiary level of education,
CET and TEM are the two tests with highest stakes. CET aims at the general
listening instead of academic listening. TEM 8 is a large-scale, nationwide test
developed and administered by the National Advisory Committee for Foreign
Language Teaching (NACFLT) on behalf of the Higher Education Department,
Ministry of Education, P.R. China, with the purpose to assess the English profi-
ciency at the end of the advanced stage (the third and fourth year) of Chinese
university students majoring in English Language and Literature (Jin and Fan
2011). TEM 8 Mini-lecture is thefirst section of the TEM-8 listening paper that
aims at testing students’listening skills to acquire and understand not only general
information but also academic information concerning literature, linguistics, cul-
ture, etc. (NACFLT 2004). Therefore, in the current project, we employed TEM 8
Mini-lecture and Gap-filling task as our research instrument to investigate the
construct of academic lecture comprehension. Task characteristics and format of
TEM academic lecture comprehension will be explicated as follows.
©Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2018
H. Wang,Testing Lecture Comprehension Through Listening-to-summarize
Cloze Tasks, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-6202-5_4
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