Contextualized Listening Assessment (CoLA)

The Contextualized Listening Assessment (CoLA) is part of the Minnesota Language Proficiency Assessments (MLPA) battery of instruments developed for the purpose of certifying the second language proficiency of secondary and post-secondary students.

The CoLA is a 35-item assessment in which test-takers listen to mini-dialogues organized around a story line and respond to multiple-choice questions. The characters in the story engage in a variety of real-life interactions appropriate for assessing proficiency at the Low and Intermediate-High levels. Each situation is contextualized through the use of photographs and advance organizers. It will be available in French, German, and Spanish in a computer-administered format only.

A number of features have been incorporated to reduce test anxiety. Test takers control when the recorded segments are played by clicking on an icon; in this way, they have time to employ test taking strategies, such as activating schema in anticipation of what they will hear, reading the question before listening, etc. They also have the choice of listening to each segment once or twice. During our pilot testing of the CoLA, we found that test takers wanted, and usually took advantage of, the opportunity to listen to the segment a second time. They indicated frustration, however, if they were required to listen to a segment a second time when they felt they had already understood it.