Oral/Listening Comprehension

Oral/Listening Comprehension

Overall oral/listening comprehensionThis covers different kinds of one-way comprehension in live, face-to-face communications, and its remote and/or recorded equivalent. 
Advanced 2 (Mitkadamim Bet)Can understand, with a reasonable degree of independence, clearly delivered general engineering-related audio/visual clips that do not rely on field-specific/expert knowledge. Has a sufficient active high-frequency general and engineering-related vocabulary.
Advanced 1 (Mitkadmim Aleph)Can understand, with some degree of independence, clearly delivered general engineering-related audio/visual clips that do not rely on field-specific/expert knowledge. Has a sufficient active high-frequency general and engineering-related vocabulary.
Basic (Besisi)Can listen to slow and clearly articulated straightforward factual audio/visual clips on subjects related to general engineering topics, containing high-frequency engineering vocabulary, comprehending purpose, main points, and some supporting details.
Pre-Basic (Trom Besisi)Can understand slow and clearly articulated brief, simple popular science audio/visual clips containing high-frequency vocabulary, including a proportion of shared international vocabulary.
Understanding real-time discourseThis concerns two main situations: when the participant is part of the discourse and the other when the user/learner is an overhearer to a conversation between other people nearby.
Advanced 2 (Mitkadamim Bet)Can follow the main points of engineering-related exchanges, provided speech is clear.
Advanced 1 (Mitkadmim Aleph)Can follow the main points of semi-professional exchanges, provided speech is clear.
Basic (Besisi)Can generally follow the main points of straightforward, predictable semi-professional exchanges, provided speech is clear.
Pre-Basic (Trom Besisi)Can follow short, concrete, and predictable everyday exchanges, conducted very slowly and clearly. 

Key concepts operationalized in the scale include the following:

  • picking up and connecting words, phrases, for message coherence
  • catching enough to identify the topic, and changes of topics
  • identifying chronological progression, for example a story
  • identifying when people agree and disagree, and points made for and against an issue
  • identifying attitudes and sociocultural implications (Advanced 2 level)
Understanding synchronous/asynchronous academic/professional contentThis involves audio/visual or audio media in variety of formats and for diverse functions. 
Advanced 2 (Mitkadamim Bet)Can follow a professional audio/visual clip, distinguishing between main and supporting ideas, provided the subject matter is familiar and the presentation is straightforward and clearly structured.
Advanced 1 (Mitkadmim Aleph)Can follow a semi-professional audio/visual clip, distinguishing between main and supporting ideas, provided the subject matter is familiar and the presentation is straightforward and clearly structured. 
Basic (Besisi)Can understand and extract the essential information from short, recorded semi-professional audio/visual clips, provided the speech is clear.
Pre-Basic (Trom Besisi)Can extract important information from brief, recorded audio/visual clips, provided the speech is clear. 

Note: The Engineering SIG slightly adapted this scale to include both asynchronous (as in the original) and synchronous oral content. This was partially motivated during the Covid-19 Pandemic as a consequence of the transition from mostly f2f class meetings to Zoom meetings, where the constructs in the scale became applicable to the synchronous Zoom context. 

Key concepts operationalised in the scale include the following:

  • a variety of text types (e.g., messages, weather forecasts, narrated stories, news bulletins, interviews and documentaries)
  • picking out concrete information
  • understanding main points, essential information
  • identifying speaker mood, attitudes, and viewpoints