≪Abstract≫
This study aims to analyze whether the listening tasks in the middle school English 1 activity books include appropriate activities to improve English communicative competence. For the study, twenty activity books were selected, and all the listening tasks in the listening sections and the assessment parts were examined. For data analysis, two criteria were used; one is the achievement standards and six listening performances from the revised national curriculum, and the other is the classification of communicative activities by Littlewood (1981). The findings from the analysis are as follows. First, listening tasks did not evenly cover all the achievement standards and all the six listening performances which the revised national curriculum proposed. Achievement Standards 2, 3, 4 and 7 were mainly realized in the listening tasks rather than all the standards being applied evenly. In addition, extensive listening, selective listening and reactive listening performances were mostly implemented in listening tasks. Second, the listening tasks in the examined activity books mainly focused on functional communicative activities. The activity books needed more social interaction activities to better develop communicative competence. All in all, to enhance students’ communicative ability, listening tasks should evenly cover all the achievement standards and six listening performances that the revised national curriculum suggested, and a greater number of various and balanced communicative activities related to the standards should be developed.
