Listening has been widely characterised as a multifaceted process encompassing a range of linguistic and psycholinguistic components (see Rubin, 1994). However, for learners at different levels of L2 proficiency, there is uncertainty over the relative importance of the various sub-skills. To address this issue, a number of linguistic and…

Two hypotheses proposed to explain the variance in second language tests are investigated. Hypothesis 1 (H1) claims that language skill is separable into components either related to linguistically defined categories (e.g., listening, speaking, reading, and writing). Another possibility (H2) is that second language ability may be a more unitary…