The Role of Native-Speaker Audio in Enhancing ESL Students’ Listening Skills Through Authentic Assessment

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6239-662-3_16How to use a DOI?

Keywords

ESL; Listening skill; Authentic assessment; Cognitive strategies; Implicit knowledge

Abstract

Listening skills are particularly challenging for English as a second language (ESL) students in preparing them for a real-world communication in both academic and professional settings. This study examined the role of English native-speaker audio in improving students’ listening skills through authenticity principles that simulate real-life circumstances. An explanatory mixed methods approach was employed in this study whereas the quantitative data gathered from a Likert scale survey (N = 344) and the qualitative data derived through interviews with nine students. The results of the survey disclosed that listening to native audio enhanced students’ listening comprehension and promoted meaningful learning for their future career. Interview data revealed that students developed efficient listening skills namely note-taking, repetition, identifying important words and adapting to different speech rates. This study contributes to address two main gaps: the scarcity of practice-based research on authentic listening assessment in ESL classrooms, and the necessity to further document and evaluate the use of native-speaker audio to guide listening assessment practices beyond local settings. Overall, future studies are recommended to investigate the effects of authentic assessment on learners’ overall language skills, as to better prepare them for real-world communication in professional settings.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Nurul Atikah binti Mustafa
AU  - Aishah binti Abu Bakar
AU  - Siti Nur Atikah binti Nazri
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/05/14
TI  - The Role of Native-Speaker Audio in Enhancing ESL Students’ Listening Skills Through Authentic Assessment
BT  - Proceedings of the International Conference on Cross- Disciplinary Academic Research 2025 - Track 3 Advances in Humanities, Education, Teaching, Learning & Arts (ICAR-T3 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 230
EP  - 248
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6239-662-3_16
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6239-662-3_16
ID  - Mustafa2026
ER  -