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

Appendix E: Conversation & dialogue characteristics
of the TOEFL® iBT academic lectures

Question
format:
  1. multiple-choice questions with one or more than one answer
  2. ordering events or steps in a process
  3. matching objects or text to categories in a table
Passage
Type		 Dialogues
and multilogs		 Academic lectures
(monologues with interaction)
Situations
(examples):
  1. During university office hours
  2. Service encounters
  1. a speech by a professor
  2. a student asking a question to a teacher
  3. teacher asking students a question
  4. a class discussion
Text format
(examples):		 Request an extension on a deadline
(student -> teacher)		 A professor's lecture:
  • Student questioning a teacher
  • Teacher questioning a student
  • Class discussion
Number of exchanges/passages 2 - 3 exchanges 6 - 9 passages
Length per conversation/passage 4 - 6 min 4 - 6 min
Questions per conversation/passage 5 6
Topics covered
(examples):
  1. College office conversations:
    • non-academic content
    • academic content
  2. Service encounters:
    • on a university campus
    • non-academic content
    (such as housing payments)
  1. Arts (architecture, music, history, literature, etcetera)
  2. Life sciences (viruses, animals/plants, health, biochemistry, et cetera)
  3. Physical sciences (weather, pollution, astronomy, math, et cetera)
  4. Social sciences (anthropology, linguistics, business, education, et cetera)

Source: ETS (2006a)

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