EXPLORING THE PRACTICE OF ASSESSING AND TESTING THE STUDENTS LISTENING SKILLS: THE CASE OF TWO SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN MIESO WOREDA

Abstract

The major objective of this study was to explore the practice of assessing and testing the student’s listening skills in EFL classroom. In order to achieve the intended objective and obtain the response for research question, a case study research design was employed. To collect the data, six EFL teachers of grade nine and ten at both Mieso and Asebot secondary schools were selected. To select the participants, the researcher was used purposive sampling technique. The data was collected using three types of instruments. These were classroom observation, interview, and Focus group discussion. In relation to this, the researcher also used qualitative method of data analysis. In line with this, the data were analyzed thematically. As the finding illustrates, EFL teachers discussed their feelings about the practice of assessing and testing listening skills. Therefore, the discussion revealed that as the practice of assessing and testing listening has two phases. In one hand, four of the respondents showed, as they are pro active towards assessing and testing listening. Whereas, two of them were react the concept as they face many challenges to implement assessing and test listening in well organized manner based on the current trends of language teaching methodologies, which is communicative language teaching (CLT), and language learning principles. Challenges like, lack of motivation, paralinguistic features, student’s background knowledge, teacher’s use of methodology lack of knowledge about the dominant approaches being used in assessing and testing listening. Finally, from this findings and discussion, Summary, conclusion, and recommendation forwarded