Testing Lecture Comprehension Through Listening-to-summarize Cloze Tasks

and answer questions on the spot. Therefore, academic setting is one of the domains
targeted by TEM 8 and the fourth-year English Majors who can pass the test are
assumed to have adequate academic listening competence. TEM 8 Mini-lecture and
Gap-filling Task is thefirst section of TEM 8 listening subtest, conducted in two
stages: In thefirst stage, test-takers will hear a mini-lecture of 900–1000 words.
They will hear the lecture ONCE ONLY. While listening, they need to take notes
on the important points. In the second stage, the answer sheets will be distributed to
the test-takers who will need the notes to complete a gap-filling task (10 gaps) after
the mini-lecture. The response format of the gap-filling task is a summary cloze test
in an outline form; some of the gaps may require a maximum of THREE words.
The word/words to be filled in the gaps may be originally heard from the
mini-lecture or adapted by the test-takers. This section takes 10% of the total score
of TEM 8, i.e., 10 points, one point for one gap.
Two versions of four TEM 8 Mini-lecture and Gap-filling tasks were used:
a. Version 1: a trial version which was a complete task and required the partici-
pants tofinish it with the research aim to familiarize them with the test format

Table 6.4 Participants’individual information

No. Name Gender Age English

learning

length

Grade School

type

TEM

4

score

TEM 8 Mini-lecture

and Gap-filling score

Version 1

(trial)

Version 2

(research)

1 Y. Zhuo Female 21 11 Junior 1st

tier①

82 4

(2010)②

3.5(2013)

2 L. Tan Female 20 10 Junior 1st tier 81 6 (2010) 4 (2013)
3 D. Fan Female 21 9 Junior 1st tier 79 6 (2010) 4 (2013)
4 X. Zhou Female 22 15 Junior 1st tier 78 4 (2010) 3.5(2013)
5 S. Wu Male 22 10 Junior 1st tier 78 5 (2010) 3 (2013)
6 Y. Wang Female 22 13 Junior 1st tier 77 3 (2010) 2.5(2013)
7 Y. Wei Female 21 11 Junior 1st tier 77 5.5(2010) 4.5(2013)
8 Y. Gao Female 21 15 Junior 1st tier 72 6 (2010) 6.5(2013)
9 L. Xue Male 22 10 Senior 1st tier 79 6.5(2006) 6 (2010)
10 T. Zhang Female 21 10 Senior 1st tier 78 6 (2006) 5 (2010)
11 Y. Fu Female 21 12 Senior 2nd tier 76 6.5(2006) 1 (2010)
12 X. Li Male 21 10 Senior 2nd tier 70 6 (2006) 4 (2010)
13 D. Liu Female 22 12 Senior 2nd tier 69 6.5(2006) 4 (2010)
14 Z. Shen Female 23 13 Senior 2nd tier 64 4 (2006) 4 (2010)
15 Q. Zhuang Female 23 13 Senior 2nd tier 64 8.5(2006) 4 (2010)
16 J. He Male 22 12 Senior 2nd tier 63 4 (2006) 1.5(2010)
Note①The school type refers to the recruitment threshold. Though both of the two colleges belong to the
same university, they were admitted to the respective college with two bench marks. Conventionally, the
first tier universities refer to key universities and the second tier universities refer to non-key universities
②The maximum score for TEM 8 Mini-lecture and Gap-filling task is 10 points, 10% of the total score
of TEM 8 test. The numbers in the parentheses indicate the year of the TEM 8 test

72 6 Employing the Think-Alound Method...