In today¡¯s interconnected world, effective communication in English is more crucial than ever. As educators and language learners seek to measure and improve English proficiency, a resource like the Global Scale of English (GSE) offers a valuable framework for assessment. This blog post will explore how the GSE can be used to assess listening skills, providing insights into how it also helps tailor instruction and support language development.
For listening skills, the GSE focuses on how well learners can understand spoken English in different contexts. It assesses comprehension at varying levels of complexity:
Understanding simple information: At lower levels, learners are expected to understand basic information, such as simple instructions or everyday topics. The GSE provides learning objectives for how well learners can grasp essential details.
Understanding main ideas: As proficiency grows, learners should be able to identify main ideas and key points in more complex spoken texts, such as conversations and broadcasts. The GSE outlines how well learners can extract important information from various sources.
Understanding detailed information: At advanced levels, learners are expected to comprehend detailed and nuanced information, including implicit meaning and speaker intent. The GSE describes the level of detail and depth of understanding required at these stages.
The GSE also shows how students engage in different operations of listening, from global comprehension, recognizing information and identifying specific information to extracting information. By taking this into account, teachers can monitor students¡¯ progress and assess their listening skills. An example will show this in action.
Let¡¯s consider a level, say GSE 30-35 (equivalent to low A2 on the CEFR) and focus on how students process information. When checking a listening activity, rather than simply focusing on whether the answers are correct or incorrect, we can analyze our learners using the GSE and see what progress they are making and what we need to do as teachers to help them move on. Heres how:
Learning objectives |
GSE |
Date 1 |
Date 2 |
Date 3 |
Date 4 |
Can understand basic information about someone when introduced to them using simple language. |
28 |
? |
? |
? |
? |
Can recognize phrases and content words related to basic personal and family information. |
30 |
? |
? |
? |
? |
Can identify simple information in a short video, provided that the visual supports this information and the delivery is slow and clear. |
30 |
? |
? |
? |
? |
Can extract key factual information - prices, times and dates - from short clear, simple announcements. |
30 |
? |
? |
? |
? |
Can identify basic factual information in short, simple dialogues or narratives on familiar everyday topics, if spoken slowly and clearly. |
32 |
? |
? |
? |
? |
Can understand key information about arrangements in simple dialogues spoken slowly and clearly. |
32 |
? |
? |
? |
? |
Can understand information related to people's daily routines. |
32 |
? |
? |
? |
? |
Can understand the main information in short, simple dialogues about familiar activities, if spoken slowly and clearly. |
33 |
? |
? |
? |
? |
Can identify key information from short audio recordings, if spoken slowly and clearly. |
33 |
? |
? |
? |
? |
Can understand the main information in simple conversations about hobbies and interests. |
34 |
? |
? |
? |
? |
Can extract key factual information such as prices, times and dates from a recorded phone message. |
35 |
? |
? |
? |
? |
Can recognize some fixed expressions used to confirm information. |
35 |
? |
? |
? |
? |
Can identify specific information in short, simple dialogues in which speakers make arrangements to do something, if spoken slowly and clearly. |
35 |
? |
? |
? |
? |
Every class will include a range of different abilities: some students get all of the questions right, whereas others may not. In this case, the GSE provides teachers with an extremely valuable tool to assess learners¡¯ performance.
We may see that students are performing well at the understanding and recognition level but still find it hard to identify and extract specific information. Will we solve this by simply giving them more listening activities? Well, no. To support them in identifying and extracting specific information, we need to help them understand and identify clues in a text. Analyzing the written audioscripts is the best way to help learners understand what they are listening to.
We can also use the same table, above, to record information each time we do a listening activity.
Students write the date and compare results to the ones they fill out in the future. This way, they can truly see progress and if they¡¯ve mastered a particular learning objective, something hard for them to see, even if we tell them so.
The Global Scale of English provides a structured and detailed approach to assessing speaking and listening skills. By using the?GSE framework, teachers can offer precise, level-appropriate feedback and tailor their instruction to meet learners' needs. This not only enhances the learning experience but also ensures that learners effectively develop their English communication skills. Whether you're a teacher or a learner, embracing the GSE can lead to more targeted, effective, and meaningful language assessment.
Explore the teaching resources available at GSE to support learning, including tools like our .?
Read our other posts 'How the GSE can help teachers personalize activities' and 'The Global Scale of English and planning'.
When you¡¯re teaching English to young learners, you might find that there are a few students in your class who are struggling. But sometimes it can be hard to tell why. Is it because their language level is low? Or are they finding classroom work difficult because of a general cognitive difference, like dyslexia??
Taking English exams can be intimidating and challenging. Everyone has their own set of strengths and weaknesses, and it's common to make the same kinds of mistakes in an exam.
It¡¯s possible to make use of this though, and improve your English from the mistakes you make. Today in our language learning blog, we discuss how we can use exam errors to perfect and improve your English.
Firstly, you want to establish what your weak and strong points are. Write these down somewhere each time and build up a record. It's essential to take note of the mistakes you make and try to see if there's a pattern.
Perhaps mistakes happen on:
These are only a few examples, but recognizing patterns or similarities can help you focus on areas that need improvement or extra attention.
Making mistakes in an exam can really impact a person's confidence, but if you can, look back and rationalize why that mistake was made. It can help your confidence in the future. Sometimes mistakes are made just because of a misinterpretation, perhaps a question wasn¡¯t read correctly, and you realize you knew the answer after all.
Remember, the situation of being in an exam can be stressful and you may not think or respond in the way you normally would outside of the exam room, so don't be too hard on yourself.
Mistakes happen in the real world every day, and being able to look back at them and examine them critically is a valuable skill.
As we¡¯ve already mentioned, everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. It can be a great idea to compare your mistakes with others; they may be making the same ones.
You can team up and try to tackle them together, or you may know someone whose strength is in your weak areas (and vice versa). It's helpful to team up and help each other. They might have some handy tips and techniques for you to try.
It's good to switch up techniques at times and your errors might be giving you some guidance on doing so. If you tend to make errors with your spoken English, consider study techniques that work on that ¨C like using recall or incorporating music to strengthen your speech.
Perhaps memory is an issue, so using tools like flashcards can help you. Some techniques focus on and help improve some areas more than others, so there isn¡¯t one solution for all. Make sure to experiment and see what works for you.
Perhaps an obvious one, but just repeating and practicing the questions/tasks you¡¯ve gotten wrong in the exam is a good approach. By doing it over and over again, with some persistence, it ends up being retained in your long-term memory.
You may want to study variations of the questions you struggle with, as exams tend to alter their questions and you don¡¯t want to be thrown off in an exam if they reword/change the question slightly.
The next time you review your exam results, remember these steps, look for patterns, examine your thought process and don¡¯t be afraid to ask others for help. With enough practice, those errors should be things of the past.
In the era of the Great Resignation, there are lots of factors that influence whether or not someone chooses to stay with their company or decides to accept a job offer from a new employer.
Whilst fair pay remains a constant in this, feeling included, valued, and cared about by colleagues plays a significant role in the decision on whether to stay or go.
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