Testing Lecture Comprehension Through Listening-to-summarize Cloze Tasks

5.6.1 Main Factors Representative of Task Demands..........

The factors representative of task demands extracted from both teacher question-
naire data and student questionnaire data are decoding, discourse construction
(macro and micro) and note-taking in consensus. Each factor is represented by a
static set of skills. The factor note-taking is unanimously represented by the skill to
outline the notes, to retrieve information from notes and to use symbols to speed up
note-taking. Macro discourse construction is always represented by the skill to
identify key points and infer their connections so that a macro discourse structure
can be successfully constructed while micro discourse construction refers to the
skill to identify details and infer their connections so that contextual coherence can
be attained. Decoding factor is the weakest amongst all the four factors as skill
items categorized in this factor do not present high factor loadings. Nevertheless,
the skill to decode acoustic input and accent is still highly correlated to the factor
and we can arrive at a conclusion that decoding is an indispensable part of academic
listening task demands.

5.6.1.1 Teachers’Perspective

Teacher participants agree upon macro discourse construction as thefirst dominant
factor in defining the task demands (see Fig.5.3). We must emphasize that the
teachers’perception on the skills representative of academic listening construct is
rather homogeneous for thefirst extracted factor is quite dominant (55.433% of the
variance) and the macro level comprehension of the lecture is emphasized.

Task demands of TEM 8

Mini-lecture & Gap-filling Task

(Teacher perception)

Factor 4 Discourse

(Micro)

Identify micro

markers

Identify

detailed points

between

detailed points

Factor 3 Decoding

Decode

acoustic input

Decode accent

Follow lecture

speed

Factor 2 Note-taking

Outline notes

Retrieve

information

from notes

Shorthand

Factor 1 Discourse

(Macro)

Identify key

points

Infer links

between main

ideas

Grasp macro

structure

Infer links

Fig. 5.3 Teachers’factor structure of task demands..................

5.6 Discussion on Task Demands 63