My Center Shiken class

The Center Listening Test of 2009 was a big deal for me. I had been prepping a class of 35 students since last year. During my weekly classes I presented them with listening exercises in various formats. This means that they had over one hundred practice lessons filled with listening to CDs, videos, DVDs, etc. During summer and winter vacation periods they often came to school for "winter school' and "summer school" with daily listening classes. So they had well over one hundred classes of listening practice. For the Center listening test, students can get 50 points for 25 questions. During the last three months we did Center Shiken practice listening tests and most of them had an average score of 30 points and up. Some of them regularly scored well into the 40 points which means more than 80% score ! ! Most of the students were really serious about getting a good score on their Center Shiken listening test.

The school also prepared Center Shiken listening test made by Benesse which is a company that specializes in collecting data and providing practice tests. They send us a box with IC players which are almost identical to the IC players used during the real Center Listening test. There is of course a slight difference between listening to spoken English from a CD player and hearing spoken English through earphones connected to a small device. It is also good practice to be able to listen to different people speaking, because some people speak faster and others might have some kind of accent. Also the difference between a male and a female voice can bring varying results.

After doing all this, I figured they were more than ready to go and get a great score so that I could go the the principal's office and bring proof that I should get a salary raise...

Unfortunately, most failed miserably. Their average score was around the national average of 24.4 (according to Yozemi). I spoke to some of my students and asked them about the possible reasons for not achieving their expected scores. Some told me that the environment (a random classroom at some unknown university) brought some stress. Some told me that it was difficult to hear what the speaker(s) were saying. Some complained about pronunciation which was hard to understand. I have found the Center Listening on the web and hope to post it together with the Center Shiken English listening post, so that everyone can try to do the test.

I guess that this year's third grade classes were too relaxed and I will be more aggressive, or more serious in preparing the now second graders for next year's Center listening test. I hope to make regular posts on how things unfold during the next 365 days.