Untitled

saxelmwifo enis swavlebis sakiTxebi:
problemebi da gamowvevebi
Issues of State Language Teaching;
Problems and Challenges
answers, etc. (Buck, 2001, P. 73).
The question how many times a candidate should listen to the text has different answers in scholarly literature.
We usually listen to the texts once in the process of real communication, but listening to the text once
is not enough for the foreign language learner, especially at the initial stage of learning the language, for it is
easier to understand speech in a real situation than to understand, the video tape. Therefore, the majority of
scholars, think that a candidate should listen to the text twice while taking a test in “listening”; first globally,
and a second time after, he/she has read the accompanying assignments, selectively or in detail (Bolton, 1996,
P. 47). The workers of “the Institute of the Test of German as a foreign language” (later TestDaF)
charachterize the text of the test beforehand to make the description and assessment of the listening competence,
objective. (according to its authentic character, the type of discourse, the subtype, volume, the lexicogrammatical
complexity, the speech tempo, the distinctness of articulation and accent). They adjust the text,
characterized in this way to some level of the reference framework. But adjusting both of the text of the test
and the listening competence of the candidate to the levels of the reference framework cannot always be managed.
On the one hand, it is impossible to observe the process of understanding the text that is being listened
to, on the other, the concepts, given in the reference framework and describers (e.g. “the well-known themes,”
“the text difficult by its content and language”, “distinctly articulated”, “to understand much by a slight effort”,
“having difficulties”, “phonetical distinctness”, “a distinct character of oral expressions, etc.) do not
properly describe the candidates competence or the text to be listened to.
While testing the candidate is offered to listen to three texts of increasing complexity. Before listening
to them he/she must read the assignments, accompanying each text (all the three texts have 25 assignments.)
the candidate listens to the first and second text only once. (answers the questions, put to the text, defines the
correct and wrong variants). The candidate listens to the third text, which is more difficult twice. While listening
for the first time or after listening, he/she answers the questions to the text briefly. Having listened to the
text a second time he/she transfers the points of the assignments he/she has done to a special form.
While assessing the candidates performance, first the number of correct answers is counted, then with
the assistance of the complex statistic method adjust the “listening skill of the candidate to one of the three
levels of TestDoF. According to the 2004 version (TesDaF Institute 2004; Der TestDaF- Beschreibung der
Niveaustufen) these levels are as follows:
1. (The candidate can understand oral texts, connected with the sphere of his/her everyday studies,
both their meaning and their important details; the candidate can understand the text of interdiscipline scientific
themes).
2. (The candidate can understand oral texts, connected with the sphere of his/her everyday studies, and
also with interdiscipline scientific themes whose structure is oriented to the universal language.
3. (The candidate) can understand both the whole idea and the meaning of separate parts of the oral
text, connected with the sphere of everyday studies and also with interdiscipline scientific themes, structured
semantically and according to contents (Grotjan, 2005, P. 135-136).
Test DaF levels envision the hierarchy the type of texts, connected with the sphere of everyday studies,
according to increasing complexity; 2. The texts of interdiscipline themes whose structure is oriented to the
universal language and 3. the texts of interdiscipline scientific themes, having linguistic and complex content
structure. Apart from that the levels differ from one another by the aim of listening as well.
The assessment of candidates according to the TesDaF levels is based on rather complicated closely
connected processes. At the beginning the construct that does not submit to observations is given. It can be
defined as the ability of understanding of what has been listened to in the academic context. This construct is
characterized numerically, according to the quality of the text assignments, done by the candidate (this is already
possible to observe). Finally, it becomes necessary to coordinate the numerical assessment of “the understanding
of “what has been listened to” with scaled component according to its complexity. Thus, the objective
assessment is related to both the numerical assessment of the ability of listening and the so called (candidate)
“can” with the expression and its dimensions that have no connection with the test.
The assessment of “the understanding of what has been listened to” with the help of levels, compared
with the numerical assessment of the ability of listening, is superior because real (veistandeich) information
about the quality of the test is given to the people who have conducted it. The question whether the assessment
of the test is objective or not after discussing these complicated process still expects its answer from the re-
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