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So what are we listening for?
A comparison of the English listening constructs
in the Japanese National Centre Test and TOEFL^® iBT

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Appendix D: TOEFL^® iBT & J-NCT's
academic listening taxonomy

Abilities		TOEFL® iBT Examples*	2006 J-NCT Examples*
Phonetic	Recognize signals (intonation, pitch, volume, etcetera)	#6 (Table 19)
	Understand accents and speeds	•
Semantic	Identify key lexical items related to topic/subject	•
	Deduce meanings of words from context	3 (Table 17)
	Identify discourse markers (conjunctions, adverbs, et cetera)	•
Discourse	Identify topic, purpose, and structure of lecture	#1 (Table 17)
	Identify relationships discourse units (main ideas, hypotheses, supporting ideas, et cetera)	#6 (Table 19)
	Recognize cohesion markers	#6 (Table 19)
	Recognize non-verbal cues (attitude)
	Recognize instruction cues (warnings, suggestions, advice, et cetera)	#6 (Table 19)
	Activate background knowledge	•
	Distinguish relevant information from irrelevant	#3 (Table17)
	Concentrate & comprehend for extended periods of time	•
	Integrating the current lecture with related information (such as: reading, OHP, lecture notes, handouts, et cetera)	•

Adopted from Richards (1983) as cited in Coombe et al (1998); Flowerdew (1995, p. 12 - 13)
NOTE: This is not an exhaustive list of examples from either test.
• = examples of this characteristic can be found in this test.

Main Article	Appendix A	Appendix B	Appendix C	Appendix D	Appendix E
Appendix F	Appendix G	Appendix H	Appendix I	Appendix J	Appendix K

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2006 Pan SIG-Proceedings: Topic Index Author Index Page Index Title Index Main Index
Complete Pan SIG-Proceedings: Topic Index Author Index Page Index Title Index Main Index

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