EN
According to the contemporary psycholinguistic theories, listening comprehension is a multilevel cognitive process. The deepest level of comprehension is evaluation, which means critical analysis and judgment of what and/or how is being said. Because it involves an active reaction and response of the listener, critical listening is also seen as part of interactive communication. There are a lot of arguments for developing the evaluative level of listening e.g. it facilitates memorizing, deepens knowledge, improves comprehension and production skills. Besides the obvious advantages, this form of listening is often neglected or even not mentioned in teaching. In practice listening comprehension is reduced to filtering and selecting some more or less important facts from the text. Deep analysis, critical thinking and assessment of the text's content or form are usually not demanded. The article attempts to present and investigate listening exercises provided in different secondary school English and German textbooks that seem to develop critical listening skills. The focus is placed on the quality and quantity as well as the real usefulness of the tasks.