Teachers confronted with the task of teaching or assessing listening skills should realize that competence in listening is acquired by knowing and doing and is evidenced by appropriate feedback or response. Various state curriculum and assessment projects have identified and grouped competencies in listening according to function, such as sensing, interpreting, evaluating, and responding to the message. The lack of a conclusive definition of listening contributes to the difficulty in measuring listening skills. Nevertheless, standardized listening tests may serve a useful purpose in locating a strength or weakness in a student's listening. Context-generated paper and pencil tests can be used to ask questions about a discussion, rather than about a reading assignment. Other ideas for assessment include the evaluation of student journals, class notes, inference activities, vocabulary improvement, and logical thinking. Aside from written proof of active listening, a teacher can also make observations about student listening during class discussions about content material, perhaps keeping a check list concerning specific skills. Listening behavior can be observed, too, in the school environment outside of class. The measure for assessment may be varied, but there are many context-oriented opportunities for the classroom teacher to use to assess listening among students. (HOD)