TEM 8 Mini-lecture and Gap-filling task is composed of four types of gaps. 1. Gaps
that target key points of the mini-lecture; 2. gaps that target supporting details; 3.
gaps that target inferences; 4. gaps that need summarization of a group of sentences.
Therefore, the sub-constructs the four different types of gaps represent are different.
Types 3 and 4 particularly aim at higher cognitive processes featured by meaning
and discourse construction.
To tackle the second pitfall is rather a headache. In terms of TEM 8 Mini-lecture
and Gap-filling task, the response loosens from rigid one word to no more than
three words, reflecting a higherflexibility as well as a higher demand that requires
students to employ more types of knowledge and higher level of listening skills
through more extensive interaction with the listening task (Zou 2004). It’s easy to
determine the correctness of direct gaps that test detailed information, but for gaps
that aim at higher comprehension levels such as understanding discourse features,
summarizing parts of the lecture or making inferences, answers vary and it becomes
difficult to judge those“borderline cases”, so a feasible solution is to determine
acceptability of the answer by evaluating whether the response indicates that the
listener has understood the text (Buck 2001: 73). Since the purpose of TEM 8
Mini-lecture task is to test test-takers’comprehension instead of word recognition
or writing production, the scoring validity is guaranteed by pre-scoring of repre-
sentative samples of the test-takers’answers. The pre-scoring session is crucial,
during which, experienced and new test graders reach the consensus on the
acceptability of the answers to minimize cases that answers indicating candidates’
right understanding of the lecture content are judged as incorrect simply because
they are different from“standard”answers.
In one word, TEM 8 Mini-lecture and Gap-filling task pertains to a summary-
cloze test format in line with a higher cognitive demand for the test-takers who not
only need to decode the acoustic and visual input and take down notes at the same
time but also need to comprehend the lecture content and construct a hierarchical
discourse structure of the lecture to match the gap-filling task in the form of an
outline with bullet points.
4.4 A Proposed Construct Framework for Lecture Comprehension
Field’s studies (2008, 2013) on listening comprehension from the perspective of
cognitive psychology has a profound impact on teaching and assessment of lis-
tening; however, either the elaboration on the cognitive behavior that occurs during
the decoding process or the proposed model of listening levels is not substantially
supported by empirical data. In another word, these models or frameworks are still
assumptions related to the listening behavior we want to observe. Therefore, further
empirical data should be provided to substantiate those models concerning cogni-
tive processes. On the other hand, in the following chapters, empirical data are
4.3 The Test Format of TEM 8 Mini-Lecture Comprehension 37