English Language Teaching; Vol. 8, No.

12; 2015
ISSN 1916-4742
E-ISSN 1916-4750
Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education

The Relationship among Iranian EFL Learners Self-efficacy,

Autonomy and Listening Comprehension Ability
Haleh Mojarrabi Tabrizi1 & Mahnaz Saeidi2
1

Department of English, Khoy Branch, Islamic Azad University, Khoy, Iran

Department of English, Tabriz Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tabriz, Iran

Correspondence: Haleh Mojarrabi Tabrizi, Department of English, Khoy Branch, Islamic Azad University, Khoy,
Iran. Tel: 98-914-115-1738. E-mail: hmotab@yahoo.com
Received: September 11, 2015
doi:10.5539/elt.v8n12p158

Accepted: November 20, 2015

Online Published: November 23, 2015

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/elt.v8n12p158

Abstract
This study investigated the interrelationships among EFL learners self-efficacy, autonomy and listening
comprehension ability. Ninety female learners of intermediate level participated in the study. They were between
16 and 24 years old. In order to obtain the required data on the three variables (i.e., self-efficacy, autonomy, and
listening comprehension ability), the researchers, after administering a standard language proficiency test to
ensure the participants homogeneity, used Listening Self-efficacy Beliefs Questionnaire, Listening Autonomy
Questionnaire, and Listening Proficiency Test, respectively. First, the participants were asked to complete the
two self-report scales, after which they were given a listening comprehension test to attain their listening
comprehension ability. The data were analyzed using three Pearsons Product-moment correlation coefficients to
assess the relationships among the research variables. The findings revealed that there was a positive correlation
among Iranian EFL learners listening self-efficacy beliefs, listening autonomy, and listening comprehension
ability. Accordingly, it is suggested that building self-efficacy and autonomy in listening comprehension is
crucial to ensure the success of EFL learners in listening comprehension.
Keywords: self-efficacy, autonomy, listening comprehension
1. Introduction
Listening comprehension is an essential skill for good language learner. It has received noticeable consideration
in second language throughout 1990s. According to Howatt and Dakin (as cited in Guo & Wills 2009, p.2)
listening is the ability to determine and comprehend what the speaker is talking about. Lynch (1998) stated that
listening includes a complicated process that lets us make sense of spoken language by making use of a variety
of sources such as phonetic, prosodic, lexical, syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic. Moreover, it is said that
language learners bring their own unique characteristics (e.g., personal, academic, social/emotional or cognitive
characteristics) to a learning environment. One of these characteristics affecting language learning is learner
autonomy.
Autonomy in language teaching was first defined by Holec (1981) as the ability to take charge of ones own
learning. Benson (2001) emphasized that an acceptable explanation of autonomy in language learning should
take into account the importance of three levels of possible control such as control over learning management,
control over cognitive process and control over learning content. Autonomy is generally defined as the outcome
of learning in which the goals, progress and evaluation of learning have been done by the learners themselves.
Learner autonomy has gained more attention in the last 25 years. Little (1991) defined it as the buzz-word of
the 1990s in second language learning field. Learner autonomy claims that involving students in decision
making processes related to their own language competence, they are likely to be more enthusiastic about
learning (Littlejohn, 1985, p. 258). According to Risenberg and Zimmerman (1992) learners with a high degree
of learner autonomy would achieve high scores and those with low degrees of learner autonomy would achieve
low scores if learner autonomy could augment the academic scores.
Another learner characteristics affecting language learning is learners self-efficacy which was first introduced
by Bandura in 1977. For him self-efficacy theory is one aspect of social cognitive theory. Social cognitive theory
posits that people are able to regulate and reflect on themselves and to actively shape their environments rather
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than passively react to it. Bandura (1977) defined self-efficacy as a particular type of expectancy related to a
persons beliefs in his/her ability to accomplish a specific action or series of actions needed to produce a result.
He later extended this definition.
In Bandura (1989), self-efficacy is explained as peoples beliefs about their own abilities to control events which
may touch their lives, and their beliefs in their abilities to combine the motivation, cognitive resources, and other
necessary actions to control task demands. Based on this definition, it can be understood that self-efficacy is not
concerned with the skills individuals have to perform a task, but with judgments of what they can do with those
possessed skills. Efficacy doesnt refer to a static ability that people possess or dont possess; rather, Bandura
(1997) stated that it is a generative capability in which cognitive, social, emotional and behavioral subskills
must be organized and effectively orchestrated to serve innumerable purposes (pp. 36-37). He points out that
having a skill is different from being able to use it or to incorporate it into a proper course of action in order to
use it effectively in different situations. High self-efficacy beliefs result in goal-oriented actions on the part of the
learner and have a generative capability; they force learners to try more in pursuit of their goals, and make them
more confident in the face of problems and difficulties. High levels of self-efficacy in a specific domain have
been associated with high levels of achievement in that domain (Bandura, 1977; McCombs, 2001). Ghonsooly
and Elahi (2011) investigated the relationship between EFL learners self-efficacy in reading comprehension and
their reading comprehension ability. The results indicated that learners with high levels of self-efficacy achieved
higher scores in reading comprehension course than those with lower levels of self-efficacy. Bandura (1997)
pointed out that self-efficacy influences students aspiration and their level of interest in academic work.
Individuals perceptions about their efficacy in a particular domain will enhance their motivation and help them
establish higher goals for themselves and try hard to achieve them. In turn, this can lead to autonomous learners
who are able to take charge of their own learning even outside the classroom.
The results of the studies regarding the relationship among learner autonomy, self-efficacy, and language
learning have not always been consistent. Dafei (2007) investigated the relationship between learner autonomy
and English proficiency. The results indicated that the students English proficiency was significantly and
positively related to their learner autonomy. Arkoc (2008) conducted a study on the relationship between
autonomous learning and listening comprehension. She used pre- and post-tests, autonomy assessment
questionnaire and CAE advanced listening comprehension tests as assessment procedures. The results indicated
that there was no significant relationship between learners autonomy and their listening comprehension.
Huang and Shanmao (1996) conducted a study with four ESL students in a reading and writing class in a
university Intensive English Program. They found a positive relationship between the participants self-efficacy
beliefs and their reading and writing. Mills (2004) surveyed the relationship between French reading and
listening self-efficacy and listening proficiency of American college students. The findings revealed that French
reading self-efficacy was a predictor of French reading proficiency but French listening self-efficacy was not a
predictor of listening comprehension. Rahimi and Abedini (2009) explored the interface between EFL learners
listening self-efficacy and their listening proficiency. The results of the study indicated that there was a positive
relationship between listening comprehension self- efficacy and listening proficiency. Similarly, Chen (2007)
studied the relationship between EFL learners self-efficacy beliefs and their listening proficiency at two large
universities in Taiwan. The students scores in listening course were considered as their listening proficiency
level. A survey questionnaire consisting of two sub-scales of 1) English listening self-efficacy scale constructed
by the researcher, and 2) English anxiety and perceived English value scale was used in this study. The results
showed that EFL learners self-efficacy beliefs were positively correlated with their listening scores.
Mojoudi and Tabatabaei (2014) investigated the relationship between self-efficacy beliefs and autonomy of
Iranian intermediate and upper intermediate EFL learners. The results revealed a strong correlation between
self-efficacy beliefs and autonomy among upper intermediate EFL learners. Moreover, the mean score of the two
variables was rather higher among upper intermediate learners than the intermediate ones. MousapourNegari and
Donyadary (2013) studied the relationship between self-efficacy, autonomy and medical learners language
performance. Results of statistical analysis of Pearson correlation denoted that there is a strong relationship
between students self-efficacy beliefs and their language performances.
Based on the above-mentioned review, it can be concluded that self-efficacy and autonomy are of high
importance in student achievements including their listening comprehension ability. According to Pajares (2000),
the study of self-efficacy in relation to language achievement is still new and there has been little research in the
area in comparison to the work done in other areas. Lack of research in exploring the possible relationships
between Iranian EFL learners self-efficacy beliefs, autonomy and listening comprehension ability stimulated
this study to delve into the possible relationship between these three variables. Findings will shed more light on
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the importance of including these psychological concepts in learners learning process and could provide
valuable insight into the understanding of students beliefs in their own abilities to process and control oral input.
Therefore, this study aimed at investigating the possible relationships between self-efficacy beliefs, autonomy
and listening comprehension ability of Iranian EFL learners. In fact, it provided deeper understandings of the
concepts that may be connected with the development of listening ability.
The study posed the following research questions:
RQ1: Is there any relationship between Iranian EFL learners listening self-efficacy and their listening
comprehension ability?
RQ2: Is there any relationship between Iranian EFL learners listening autonomy and their listening
comprehension ability?
RQ3: Is there any relationship between Iranian EFL learners listening self-efficacy and their listening autonomy?
2. Methodology
2.1 Participants
This study was conducted with 90 female learners. The participants were intermediate EFL learners of English at
Iran Language Institute in Tabriz, Iran. They were between 16 and 24 years old. All the subjects were nearly at
the same level of language proficiency. However, prior to the research, Preliminary English Test (PET) was used
to ensure the homogeneity of participants in terms of language proficiency. The participants were chosen out of a
pool of 110 learners. Through considering the normal distribution of scores on the proficiency test, only those
whose scores were one standard deviation above and one standard deviation below the mean (M =38.15) of the
normal distribution curve were chosen for the study.
2.2 Instruments
In order to obtain the required data on the three variables (i.e., self-efficacy, autonomy, and listening
comprehension ability) the researcher used the following instruments.
2.2.1 The Preliminary English Test (PET)
The Preliminary English Test (PET), a second level Cambridge ESOL exam for intermediate level learners, was
used to ascertain the homogeneity of the participants in terms of language proficiency. The test included four
sections of Reading, Writing, Listening, and Speaking. Speaking and Writing sections were removed for
practical and administrative reasons. Those whose scores were one standard deviation above and below the mean
(i.e., between45.30 and 31 out of 50) were selected to participate in the study.
2.2.2 Listening Self-efficacy Beliefs Questionnaire
In order to measure the participants self-efficacy in listening comprehension, the researchers used a
questionnaire designed by Rahimi and Abedini (2009) (see Appendix I) based on three questionnaires of Beliefs
About Language Learning (BALLI) developed by Hortwiz (1985), Persian Adaptation of the General
Self-efficacy Scale constructed by Nezami, Schwarzer and Jerusalem (1996) and Morgan-Links Student Efficacy
Scale (MJSES) made by Jinks and Morgan (1999). This questionnaire consisted of twenty 5-point Likert type
items ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree based on the items of the above-mentioned
questioners and some added by Rahimi and Abedini (2009). A value of 1 was assigned to strongly disagree, and
5 to strongly agree. The Cronbach alpha coefficient for the scale was 0.78.
2.2.3 Listening Autonomy Questionnaire
The autonomy scale selected for this study was an autonomy questionnaire of listening comprehension skills
developed by Arkoc (2008) (see Appendix II). It is a questionnaire with 51 items that aims to examine the
autonomy of language learners in listening comprehension and the items are answered on a 5-point Likert scale.
2.2.4 Listening Proficiency Test
The listening proficiency test used for evaluating the participants level of proficiency in English was selected
from Longman Preparation Course for the TOEFL Test by Deborah Phillips (2001). The test consisted of eight
series of conversations and talks followed by four to six questions. The total number of multiple-choice
questions was forty. The reliability of the test was also checked using KR-21 method and the result was 0.86,
which reveals a high level of reliability of the test.
2.3 Procedure
The participants were given 50 minutes to complete two self-report scales, Listening Self-efficacy Beliefs
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Questionnaire (Rahimi & Abedini, 2009) and Listening Autonomy Questionnaire (Arkoc, 2008), to measure their
self-efficacy and autonomy in listening comprehension. After completing the self reports, they were given a
listening comprehension proficiency test to attain their listening comprehension ability.
2.4 Design
This study focused on investigating any possible relationship among Iranian EFL learners self-efficacy,
autonomy and listening comprehension ability. Since there could not be any control over the variables or
treatments before measuring them, and the researchers only aimed at finding any probable relationship between
the variables of the study, the design of the study was correlational ex-post-facto. The data obtained through the
procedure described above were analyzed using the statistical package for social sciences (SPSS version 17.0) to
answer the research questions. All the research questions were answered by obtaining Pearsons Product-moment
correlation coefficients to assess the relationships among the variables of the study (i.e., listening self-efficacy,
listening autonomy, and listening comprehension ability).
3. Results
To provide a general description of the performance of the participants concerning PET, listening self-efficacy,
listening autonomy, and listening comprehension ability, the researchers conducted a preliminary analysis by
computing the descriptive statistics of them.
Table 1 presents the descriptive statistics on PET test. Regarding the results, the mean of the scores for 110
participants came out to be 38.15 and the standard deviation came out to be 7.15. So, to determine the
homogeneity of the participants those whose scores fell between one standard deviation above and below the
mean (i.e., between 45.30 and 31 out of 50) participated in the study.
Table 1. Descriptive statistics for PET scores
N

Minimum

Maximum

Mean

Std. Deviation

PET

110

20

50

38.15

7.151

Valid N (listwise)

110

Listening self-efficacy was measured by the 20-item questionnaire designed by Rahimi and Abedini (2009).
Using the 5-point Likert type response scale, it yields scores ranging from 1 to 5 for each item. Scores on this
questionnaire can range from a minimum of 20 to a maximum of 100. From Table 2, it can be noted that the
mean score for listening self-efficacy scores of 90 participants was 75.95 and the standard deviation came out to
be 16.16.
Table 2. Descriptive statistics for listening self-efficacy scores
N

Minimum

Maximum

Mean

Std. Deviation

Efficacy

90

34

99

75.95

16.165

Valid N (listwise)

90

The autonomy questionnaire of listening comprehension skills developed by Arkoc (2008) was used to measure
listening autonomy. It is a Likert-type instrument yielding scores ranging from 1 to 5 for each item. Scores on
this questionnaire can range from a minimum of 51 to a maximum of 255. Table 3 displays the descriptive
statistics for listening autonomy. As the results show, the mean score for listening autonomy scores of 90
participants was 191.43 and the standard deviation came out to be 40.14.

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Table 3. Descriptive statistics for listening autonomy scores

N

Minimum

Maximum

Mean

Std. Deviation

autonomy

90

51

255

191.43

40.144

Valid N (listwise)

90

Listening comprehension ability of the participants was measured by listening tests selected from Longman
Preparation Course for the TOEFL Test by Deborah Phillips (2001). Table 4 displays the descriptive statistics for
listening comprehension scores. As the results show, the mean score for listening comprehension of 90
participants was 29.78 and the standard deviation came out to be 5.34.
Table 4. Descriptive statistics for listening comprehension scores
N

Minimum

Maximum

Mean

Std. Deviation

listening

90

12

39

29.78

5.340

Valid N (listwise)

90

To investigate the relationship between Iranian EFL learners scores on listening self-efficacy and their listening
comprehension scores, a two-tailed Pearson Product-moment correlation analysis was conducted and the result
indicated that there was actually a positive correlation between the two variables (Table 5).
Table 5. Pearson correlation between the participants' scores on listening self-efficacy and their listening
comprehension score

listening

Pearson Correlation

listening

efficacy

.560*

Sig. (2-tailed)

efficacy

.000

90

90

Pearson Correlation

.560*

Sig. (2-tailed)

.000

90

90

Note (*). Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

Based on Table 5, the correlation coefficient between EFL learners scores on listening self-efficacy and their
listening comprehension scores is statistically significant and positive (r= .56, p= .00 <.05). Consequently, the
first null hypothesis, there is no relationship between Iranian EFL learners listening self-efficacy and their
listening comprehension ability, was rejected and it can be concluded that there is a positive relationship between
Iranian EFL learners listening self-efficacy and their listening comprehension ability.
In order to answer the second question of the study which addressed the relationship between Iranian EFL
learners listening autonomy and their listening comprehension ability, the researcher calculated the Pearson
correlation coefficient between the participants scores on listening autonomy questionnaire and their listening
comprehension scores. Table 6 below displays the results of Pearson correlation.

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Table 6. Pearson correlation between the participants' scores on listening autonomy and their listening
comprehension scores

listening

Pearson Correlation

listening

autonomy

.582*

Sig. (2-tailed)

.000

N
autonomy

90

Pearson Correlation

.582

Sig. (2-tailed)

.000

90

90
*

90

Note (*). Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

According to the findings, there is a significant and positive relationship between students' listening autonomy
and their listening comprehension performance (r=.58). The p value of the analysis indicted a high significant
level (p=.000). The correlation coefficient, r, also has a positive sign indicating that the direction of the
relationship between the two variables is positive. Thus, the second null hypothesis, there is no relationship
between Iranian EFL learners listening autonomy and their listening comprehension ability, was rejected and it
can be concluded that there is a positive relationship between Iranian EFL learners listening autonomy and their
listening comprehension ability.
To answer the third question the same correlation formula was used to find the relationship between the
participants listening self-efficacy scores and their listening autonomy scores.
Table 7. Pearson correlation between the participants' scores on listening self-efficacy and their listening
autonomy scores

efficacy

Pearson Correlation

efficacy

autonomy

.663*

Sig. (2-tailed)

autonomy

.000

90

90

Pearson Correlation

.663*

Sig. (2-tailed)

.000

90

90

Note (*). Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

The results of the Pearson correlation revealed that there exists a positive correlation between Iranian EFL
learners listening self-efficacy and their listening autonomy (r= 0.66, p< 0.01; Table 7). Therefore, the third null
hypothesis, there is no relationship between Iranian EFL learners listening self-efficacy and listening autonomy
was rejected. It can be concluded that there is a positive relationship between Iranian EFL learners listening
self-efficacy and listening autonomy.
4. Discussion
The purpose of the present study was to explore the possible relationship among two key psychological concepts,
listening self-efficacy and listening autonomy, and one of the important language skills, listening comprehension
ability, among Iranian EFL learners. The findings revealed that there is a positive correlation between Iranian
EFL learners listening self-efficacy beliefs and their listening comprehension ability. This study, in line with
previous research findings (e.g. Rahimi and Abedini (2009); Chen (2007); Mills (2004)), provided further
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evidence to support Pajares (2000) argument that inner processes of students and their beliefs about their
capabilities must be given attention, since they strongly affect success or failure in school. The findings are also
in line with social cognitive theory. Bandura (1997, 1986) pointed out that self-efficacy is an important
psychological factor in learners functioning. Self-efficacious learners believe in their ability to accomplish tasks
successfully.
The researchers, also, investigated the relationship between listening autonomy and listening comprehension
ability of Iranian EFL learners. The results revealed that there is a direct and positive correlation between these
two variables. This finding is consistent with the findings of Dafei (2007) who found that the students English
proficiency was significantly and positively related to their learner autonomy. According to Nucamendi (2009),
autonomy is crucial to the success of the learners and should be an essential aim of any language learning
program. However, the results of the study by Arkoc (2008) revealed that there was no significant relationship
between learners autonomy and their listening comprehension.
The results of the study regarding the third question which addressed the possible relationship between Iranian
EFL learners listening self-efficacy and listening autonomy showed that there is a positive relationship between
Iranian EFL learners listening self-efficacy and listening autonomy. This is in accord with the findings of earlier
studies (e.g. Mojoudi and Tabatabaei (2014); Mousapour Negari and Donyadary (2013)).
The present study suggests that in order to ensure learners better accomplishment, teachers should nurture their
sense of efficacy and autonomy. They should help learners develop a positive attitude towards their language
learning experience and their capabilities to execute tasks. This belief of accomplishment needs to continue.
Students who are not sure about their own abilities to do better in different skills would be hindered, and thus
less likely to gain better scores in tests. Accordingly, building self-efficacy and autonomy is one of crucial
factors in the success of learners. Self-learning and independent learning are the results of autonomy in language
learning. This study was limited to Iranian female learners. Gender was not considered as a variable. So,
generalizing the current findings beyond the population should be done with great caution. Further studies are
needed to investigate self-efficacy and autonomy of EFL/ESL/ESP learners to promote their educational
experiences. Other researchers can include gender as a variable affecting self-efficacy.
References
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masters
thesis,
Edirne
Trakya
University,
Turkey.
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Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A Social Cognitive Theory. Englewood Cliffs. N.J.:
Prentice-Hall.
Bandura, A. (1989). Perceived self-efficacy in the exercise of personal agency. The Psychologist: Bulletin of the
British Psychological Society, 2, 411-424.
Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. New York: Freeman.
Benson, Ph. (2001). Teaching and researching autonomy in language learning. England: Pearson Education
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Dafei, D. (2007). An exploration of the relationship between learner autonomy and English proficiency. Asian
EFL Journal, 4(24), 1-23.
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Huang, S. C., & Shanmao, C. F. (1996). Self-efficacy of English as a Second Language Learner: An example of
four learners. Retrieved from ERIC document reproduction service No. ED 396536.
Little, D. (1991). Learner Autonomy 1: definitions, issues and problems. Dublin: Authentik.
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perspectives (2nd ed.) (pp. 67-123). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
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and proficiency. Humanities and social sciences, 65 (2-A), 440.
Mojoudi, A., & Tabatabaei, O. (2014). The Relationship between Self-efficacy Beliefs and Autonomy among
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Appendix I:
Listening Self-efficacy Beliefs Questionnaire
Strongly Agree

Agree

No idea

Disagree

Strongly Agree

Agree

No idea

Disagree

3) I have the ability to

concentrate on the content to
which I listen.

Strongly Agree

Agree

No idea

Disagree

4) I believe that my proficiency

in listening skill will improve
very soon.

Strongly Agree

Agree

No idea

Disagree

5) I am sure that if I practice

listening more, I will get better
grades in the course.

Strongly Agree

Agree

No idea

Disagree

6) I can understand the tape in

listening classes better than
other students.

Strongly Agree

Agree

No idea

Disagree

7) I cannot understand an
English film without English
subtitles.

Strongly Agree

Agree

No idea

Disagree

8) No one cares if I do well in

listening course.

Strongly Agree

Agree

No idea

I Disagree

9) My listening teacher thinks

that I am smart.

Strongly Agree

Agree

No idea

Disagree

10) My classmates usually get

better grades than I do.

Strongly Agree

Agree

No idea

Disagree

1) I have a special ability for

improving listening skill.
2) In a listening practice,
although I understand almost
every word, the big problem is
that I do not have the ability to
keep all of them in my mind.

166

Strongly
Disagree
Strongly
Disagree

Strongly
Disagree

Strongly
Disagree

Strongly
Disagree

Strongly
Disagree

Strongly
Disagree

Strongly
Disagree

Strongly
Disagree

Strongly
Disagree

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Appendix II:

I have no difficulty in understanding any kind of spoken language,

whether live or broadcast, delivered at fast native speed.

I can understand enough to follow extended speech on abstract and

complex topics beyond his/her own field, though he/she may need to
confirm occasional details, especially if the accent is unfamiliar.

I can recognize a wide range of idiomatic expressions and colloquialisms,

appreciating register shifts.

I can follow extended speech even when it is not clearly structured and
when relationships are only implied and not signaled explicitly.

I can understand standard spoken language, live or broadcast, on both

familiar and unfamiliar topics normally encountered in personal, social,
academic or vocational life. Only extreme background noise, inadequate
discourse structure and/or idiomatic usage influence the ability to
understand.

I can understand the main ideas of propositionally and linguistically

complex speech on both concrete and abstract topics delivered in a
standard dialect, including technical discussions in his/her .field of
specialization.

I can follow extended speech and complex lines of argument provided

the topic is reasonably familiar, and the direction of the talk is
sign-posted by explicit markers.

I can understand straightforward factual information about common

everyday or job related topics, identifying both general messages and
specific details, provided speech is clearly articulated in a generally
familiar accent.

I can understand the main points of clear standard speech on familiar

matters regularly encountered in work, school, leisure etc., including
short narratives.

10

I can understand enough to be able to meet needs of a concrete type

provided speech is clearly and slowly articulated.

11

I can understand phrases and expressions related to areas of most

immediate priority (e.g. very basic personal and family information,
shopping, local geography, employment) provided speech is clearly and
slowly articulated.

12

I can follow speech which is very slow and carefully articulated, with
long pauses for him/her to assimilate meaning.

13

I can easily follow complex interactions between third parties in group

discussion and debate, even on abstract, complex unfamiliar topics.

14

I can keep up with an animated conversation between native speakers.

15

I can with some effort catch much of what is said around him/her, but
may .find it difficult to participate effectively in discussion with several
167

NEVER

RARELY

SOMETIMES

Listening Comprehension Skill

USUALLY

Autonomy Assessment Questionnaire for

ALWAYS

Listening Autonomy Questionnaire

www.ccsenet.org/elt

English Language Teaching

native speakers who do not modify their language in any way.

16

I can generally follow the main points of extended discussion around

him/her, provided speech is clearly articulated in standard dialect.

17

I can generally identify the topic of discussion around him/her, when it is

conducted slowly and clearly.

18

I can follow specialized lectures and presentations employing a high

degree of colloquialism, regional usage or unfamiliar terminology.

19

I can follow most lectures, discussions and debates with relative ease.

20

I can follow the essentials of lectures, talks and reports and other forms
of academic/professional presentation which are propositionally and
linguistically complex.

21

I can follow a lecture or talk within his/her own .field, provided the
subject matter is familiar and the presentation straightforward and clearly
structured.

22

I can follow in outline straightforward short talks on familiar topics

provided these are delivered in clearly articulated standard speech.

23

I can extract specific information from poor quality, audibly distorted

public announcements, e.g. in a station, sports stadium etc.

24

I can understand complex technical information, such as operating

instructions, specifications for familiar products and services.

25

I can understand announcements and messages on concrete and abstract

topics spoken in standard dialect at normal speed

26

I can understand simple technical information, such as operating

instructions for everyday equipment.

27

I can follow detailed directions.

28

I can catch the main point in short, clear, simple messages and
announcements.

29

I can understand simple directions relating to how to get from X to Y, by

foot or public transport.

30

I can understand instructions addressed carefully and slowly to him/her

and follow short, simple directions.

31

I can understand a wide range of recorded and broadcast audio material,

including some non-standard usage, and identify .finer points of detail
including implicit attitudes and relationships between speakers.

32

I can understand recordings in standard dialect likely to be encountered

in social, professional or academic life and identify speaker viewpoints
and attitudes as well as the information content.

33

I can understand most radio documentaries and most other recorded or

broadcast audio material delivered in standard dialect and can identify
the speakers mood, tone etc.

34

I can understand the information content of the majority of recorded or

broadcast audio material on topics of personal interest delivered in clear
standard speech.

35

I can understand the main points of radio news bulletins and simpler
recorded material about familiar subjects delivered relatively slowly and
clearly.

36

I can understand and extract the essential information from short,

recorded passages dealing with predictable everyday matters which are
168

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English Language Teaching

Vol. 8, No. 12; 2015

delivered slowly and clearly.

37

I am aware of the implications and allusions of what is said and can make
notes on them as well as on the actual words used by the speaker.

38

I can take detailed notes during a lecture on topics in his/her .field of

interest, recording the information so accurately and so close to the
original that the notes could also be useful to other people.

39

I can understand a clearly structured lecture on a familiar subject, and can

take notes on points which strike him/her as important, even though
he/she tends to concentrate on the words themselves and therefore to
miss some information

40

I can take notes during a lecture which are precise enough for his/her
own use at a later date, provided the topic is within his/her .field of
interest and the talk is clear and well-structured

41

I can take notes as a list of key points during a straightforward lecture,

provided the topic is familiar, and the talk is both formulated in simple
language and delivered in clearly articulated standard speech

42

I can summarize information from different sources, reconstructing

arguments and accounts in a coherent presentation of the overall result.

43

I can summarize long, demanding texts.

44

I can summarize a wide range of factual and imaginative texts,

commenting on and discussing contrasting points of view and the main
themes

45

I can summarize extracts from news items, interviews or documentaries

containing opinions, argument and discussion

46

I can summarize the plot and sequence of events in a .film or play.

47

I can collate short pieces of information from several sources and

summarize them for somebody else.

48

I can paraphrase short written passages in a simple fashion, using the

original text wording and ordering

49

I can pick out and reproduce key words and phrases or short sentences
from a short text within the learners limited competence and experience.

50

I can copy out short texts in printed or clearly handwritten format.

51

I can copy out single words and short texts presented in standard printed
format.

Copyrights
Copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal.
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution
license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).

169

AUTHOR
TITLE
PUB DATE
NOTE
PUB TYPE
EDRS PRICE
DESCRIPTORS
IDENTIFIERS
ABSTRACT

Cheung, Yun Kul

The Importance of Teaching Listening in the EFL Classroom
2010-08-28
24p.
Guides Classroom Teacher
English (Foreign Language); Listening Comprehension; Listening
Skills; Second Language Instruction; Teaching Methods
Teaching Listening Skills

This paper discusses the importance of listening comprehension in

learning English as a foreign language (EFL) and argues that more emphasis should be
given to listening comprehension. It cites significant research findings in second
language acquisition and reviews the relationship between listening comprehension and
language learning. Research suggests that listening is prerequisite to other language
skills, speaking, reading, and writing, and listening should be the primary skill to be
acquired in learning a new language. There are major reasons for applying the listeningfirst approach. Listening comprehension sets a foundation for the future acquisition of
speaking. Emphasis on aural comprehension training, and relaxation of the requirement
for oral production in the initial phase of instruction, fosters development of linguistic
competence, and produces better results than those obtained through intensive oral
practice.

I. INTRODUCTION
Learning a foreign language is commonly associated with speaking that
language, and learners are enamored with speaking the language immediately. As for
teachers, they are more than likely to plunge students right into speaking. Children have
months of listening to their native language before they even utter their first word. But
when a person is taught a foreign language, he is expected to speak the language from
day one.
Listening should be the first and foremost skill to be acquired in learning a new
language. Understanding spoken words is prerequisite to speaking, reading, and writing;
comprehension should precede reproduction. Research has shown strong evidence that
listening comprehension and language acquisition are closely related. Further, listening
skill transfers to other skills, and promoting listening skills before focusing on oral
skills results in increased second language acquisition.
II. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
The argument emphasizing listening comprehension in language learning is
compelling inasmuch as there is sufficient evidence that acquisition of listening skills
leads to acquisition of other language skills, i.e., speaking, reading, and writing.

However, language teachers have not fully adopted the listening-first approach. This is
probably due to the following:
a. Listening is considered a skill that will be acquired naturally by teaching
speaking and reading.
b. Teaching listening comprehension is not a neatly laid-out method to use.
c. Listening may be viewed as passive and is only incidental to learning to
speak, which is viewed as active.
d. Language teachers themselves have had grammar classes, pronunciation
classes, civilization classes, but not listening comprehension classes.
Most EFL programs emphasize effective speaking and listening is superficially
treated in language classes. Further, there seem to be much fewer teaching materials for
listening than for speaking or reading. This is because comprehension processes are still
not well understood and because teachers often assume that students will somehow
develop listening skills once they are taught speaking.
Some of the reasons for applying the listening-first approach are as follows. First,
listening comprehension lays a foundation for the future acquisition of speaking.
Second, emphasis on aural comprehension training and relaxation of the requirement for
oral production in the initial phase of instruction foster development of linguistic
competence and produce better results than those obtained through intensive oral
practice.
Too often, teachers, using the audio-lingual approach, plunge students directly
into speaking even when students have little or no comprehension of the drills they are
3

forced to undertake. This causes unnecessary anxiety on the part of the students and can
further delay the acquisition of language skills. Such an approach is due to the general
thinking that language learning is learning to talk. This ignores, perhaps unintentionally,
the importance of listening and overlooks the fact that communication is a two-way
process; a person must first understand what the other person is saying before he can
make a response. However, in many EFL classes, the extent of aural training is only
nominal and is limited to listening to the teachers reading of English texts.
III. THE NATURE OF LISTENING
Listening defined
Listening is defined differently by different scholars. Chastain (1971) defined
the goal of listening comprehension as being able to understand native speech at normal
speed in an unstructured situation. Morley (1972) defined it as including not only basic
auditory discrimination and aural grammar, but also reauditorizing, extracting vital
information, remembering it, and relating it to everything that involves processing or
mediating between sound and construction of meaning. Postovsky (1975, p.19) said,
Listening ranges in meaning from sound discrimination to aural comprehension (i.e.,
actual understanding of the spoken language). Goss (1982) stated that listening is a
process of taking what you hear and organizing it into verbal units to which you can

apply meaning. Applied to speech processing, listening requires that you structure the
sounds that you hear and organize them into words, phrases, sentences, or other
linguistic units.
Brown and Yule (1983) explained listening as follows:
Listening comprehension could mean that a person understands what
he has heard. However, in EFL teaching, it often is taken to mean that the
listener can repeat the text, even though the listener may reproduce the
sound without real comprehension. If he could actually learn the text as he
heard it, he would probably be said to have understood it (p. 58).

Dirven and Oakeshott-Taylor (1984) described listening comprehension as

follows:
The term listening comprehension is a typical product of teaching
methodology, and is matched in phonetic and psycholinguistic research by
expressions such as speech understanding, spoken language understanding,
speech recognition and speech perception (p. 326).
Bowen, Madsen and Hilferty (1985) defined listening as:
Listening is attending to and interpreting oral language. The student
should be able to hear oral speech in English, segment the stream of sounds,
group them into lexical and syntactic units (words, phrases, sentences), and
understand the message they convey (p. 73).
James (1984) explained listening as:
listening is tightly interwoven with other language skills. Let us
begin by clarifying what is meant by listening. First of all, it is not a skill,
but a set of skills all marked by the fact that they involve the aural
perception of oral signals. Secondly, listening is not passive. A person can
hear something but not be listening. His or her short-term memory may
completely discard certain incoming sounds but concentrate on others. This

involves a dynamic interaction between perception of sounds and

concentration on content (p.129).

Although these definitions were somewhat different from each other to a certain
extent, they basically considered listening comprehension as an activity in which
listeners employ a variety of mental processes in an effort to decode the meaning from
oral texts. The means employed by the listener to comprehend, learn, or retain new
information from utterances are referred to as listening comprehension strategies. James
(1984) broke down listening into different components:
1. The sonic realization
2. The segmental/supra-segmental form.
3. The musical pitch and rhythm
4. The lexical phrasing
5. The purpose of the message intended by the speaker
6. The actualization of the message in the listener (p. 130)
Importance of listening
Research suggests that listening should be the primary skill in learning a new
language. There is evidence that promoting listening comprehension results in increased
acquisition of the other language skills and consequently leads to acquisition of the
target language. It is only logical that one cannot give an output (speak) correctly unless
one comprehends the input (listening comprehension).
Listening is the most frequently used language skill of the four language skills,
(Scarcella & Oxford, 1992). Listening is the primary means by which incoming ideas
6

and information are taken in (Devine, 1982). Adults spend in communication activities
45% listening, 30% speaking, 16% reading, and only 9% (Rivers & Temperly, 1978).
Gilbert (1988) noted that students from kindergarten through high school spend 65-90%
of their communication time for listening. Wolvin and Coakley (1988) said that, in and
out of the classroom, listening consumes more of daily communication time than other
forms of verbal communication.
Listening plays a critical role in the cognitive processes that shape output and
produce improvement in oral proficiency. According to Rubin (1995), For second
language/foreign language learners, listening is the skill that makes the heaviest
processing demands because learners must store information in short term memory at
the same time as they are working to understand the information (p. 8). Furthermore,
she explained, Whereas in reading learners can go over the text at leisure, they
generally dont have the opportunity to do so in listening (p. 8).
Rost (1991) summarized the importance of listening in second language learning
as follows:
1. Listening is vital in the language classroom because it provides input
for the learner. Without understanding input at the right level, any
learning simply cannot begin.
2. Authentic spoken language presents a challenge for the learner to
understand language as native speakers actually use it.

3. Listening exercises provide teachers with a means for drawing learners

attention to new forms (vocabulary, grammar, new interaction patterns)
in the language (pp. 141-142).
Thus, listening is essential not only as a receptive skill but also is pivotal in the
development of spoken language proficiency.
Listening-first approach
Learning a foreign language is commonly considered as speaking that language,
and learners are enamored with speaking the language immediately. However, listening
is prerequisite to developing other language skills; it should precede speaking, reading,
and writing (Devine, 1982; Wolvin & Coakley, 1988). An examination of the realities
of first and second language acquisition reveals that immediate oral practice is not
recommended for developing both aural and oral competence in a second language. In
fact, delaying oral production may be preferable until learners feel they are "ready"
(Devine, 1982; Gilman & Moody, 1984; Krashen, 1981; Park, 2002; Ringbom, 1992;
Rivers & Temperly, 1978; Wolvin & Coakley, 1988).
The listening-first approach was pioneered by Postovsky (1974, 1975), who
demonstrated advantages in delaying oral practice at the beginning of foreign language
learning. Postovsky contended that intensive oral practice is not productive in the initial
phase of instruction and should be delayed until the student is better prepared for the
task, until he has learned to understand the spoken language.
8

Postovsky reasoned that in acquiring the ability to decode, the language learner
must develop recognition knowledge. To encode, he must develop retrieval knowledge
and that time is better spent on developing the students capacity to decode, especially
in the initial phases of a language program. He proposed that the production of speech is
an end result of complex and mostly covert processes which constitute linguistic
competence and claimed that students producing error-ridden varieties of the target
language create interference. He called the students hearing themselves more than the
authentic language a handicap (Postovsky, 1975).
In the audio-lingual class where each student is vocally active,
students hear their own speech output more than they hear the teachers. The
auditory input which they are processing, then, is not the authentic language
they wish to learn, but the classroom dialect rich with all the distortions that
are peculiar to the beginning students speech output. When this distorted
system is internalized, it becomes a new source of interference in
comprehension of the target language (Postovsky, 1975, p 20).
It is not surprising, therefore, that after extensive study of a foreign
language students still experience marked difficulty in understanding a
native speaker, while displaying considerable fluency among themselves
(Postovsky, 1974, p. 231)
Other scholars have also advocated the listening-first approach to language
instruction (Asher, Kusudo, & de la Torre, 1974; Omaggio Hadley, 1993; Winitz, 1981).
Krashen argued that early emphasis on speaking is not only wasteful but also can be
harmful since it takes up time that could be more productively spent on providing input.
Forcing the learner to say things before he has internalized the necessary language rules
9

creates anxiety and encourages errors, which might be difficult to eliminate later
(Krashen, 1985).
Listening as an active process
Of the four language skills, listening and reading are considered by linguists as
receptive while speaking and writing are said to be productive. However, this does not
mean that the learner's task is to listen passively. On the contrary, the learner needs to
keep mentally active in order to gain comprehension. Many scholars have argued that
listening is not a passive but an active process of constructing meaning from a stream of
sounds (McDonough, 1999; Murphy, 1991; O'Malley, Chamot, & Kupper, 1989; Purdy,
1997; Rivers & Temperly, 1978). Listeners do not passively absorb the words, but
actively attempt to grasp the facts and feelings in what they hear by attending to what
the speaker says, to how the speaker says it, and to the context in which the message is
delivered (Purdy 1997).
OMalley, Chamot, and Kupper (1989) stated that listening comprehension is an
active and conscious process in which the listener construes meaning by using cues
from contextual information and from existing knowledge. It is, of course, clear that
we cannot see and observe the cognitive process of listening (p. 434).
Transfer of listening to other skills

10

In a language classroom, listening ability plays a significant role in the

development of other language skills. Research has shown that promoting listening
skills will result in positive transfer to other skills (Asher, 1986; Postovsky, 1981; Gary
& Gary, 1981). Postovsky's studies (1975) supported his argument for the listening-first
approach, which showed a high degree of transfer from listening to other language skills.
His experiment showed that students scored lower in the four language skills when they
were required to develop speaking and listening skills simultaneously than when they
focused only on listening.
Listening can also help learners build vocabulary, develop language proficiency,
and improve language usage. Cayer, Green, and Baker (1971) found that students'
proficiency in reading as well as speaking and written communication was directly
related to students' proficiency in listening. Dunkel (1986) asserted that developing
proficiency in listening comprehension is the key to achieving proficiency in speaking.
Listening skill is not only the basis for the development of the other skills but also the
means by which learners make initial contact with the target language and its culture
(Curtain & Pesola, 1988). Bridgeman and Harvey (1998) cited several studies which
correlated test scores of speaking and listening and reported a correlation of 0.5-0.6
while Messick (1996) reported a high correlation of 0.91.

11

With respect to the transfer of listening to reading, there is strong evidence of a

high transfer. Reeds, Winitz and Garcia (1977) demonstrated significant development of
reading skill for learners to translate from written German to English after eight hours
of listening and yet with no practice in reading German. Asher et al. found a high degree
of transfer from listening to writing. After 90 hours of Spanish language training in
listening, with almost no direct instruction in writing, students performed beyond the
50th percentile rank for listening, speaking, and writing on the Pimsleur Spanish
Proficiency Test (Glisan, 1986). Consequently, a person who does well in listening
comprehension is likely to do well in that language in terms of the overall performance.
Neglect of listening comprehension
Despite the importance of listening practice in language instruction, the teaching
of listening comprehension is often neglected in EFL instruction without understanding
its importance. It is the most neglected of all language skills as English language classes
still emphasize mostly the skills of speaking and reading. Listening is mistakenly
regarded as a skill that can be acquired automatically once the learner goes through the
general process of studying the target language.
Language instruction has been in existence for centuries and during the last few
decades programs in English instruction have taken on many formats from private

12

tuition to formal structured classroom setting. Richards (1990) made the following
comments about conversation classes:
The 'conversation class' is something of an enigma in language
teaching. In some language programs it's an opportunity for untrained native
speakers to talk for the duration of a class period, using whatever resources
and techniques the teacher can think of. In language programs where trained
language teachers are available, they are often left to their own resources
and encouraged to dip into whatever materials they choose in order to
provide in both 'accuracy' and 'fluency' (p. 67).
The audio-lingual approach has been a major culprit for the general neglect as it
emphasizes a canned approach in the repetition and drill method without producing
communicative competence. In the audio-lingual method, listening has been largely
listening for speaking rather than listening for comprehension. In terms of the teaching
strategy, too often, teachers, using the audio-lingual approach, force students to speak in
a drill conversation even when students have little or no comprehension of the drills
they are forced to undertake. This causes unnecessary anxiety on the part of the students
and can further delay the acquisition of language skills. Such an approach is due to the
general assumption that language learning is learning to talk.
The audio-lingual emphasis on language learning as a habit formation, coupled
with the active (production) versus passive (reception) dichotomy, allows little room for
teaching listening comprehension. Traditionally, in the field of foreign language
teaching, both teachers and learners have tended to underestimate the complexity of the
13

learning task. This tendency can be traced directly to such common sense notion as
"learning by doing" and "practice makes perfect" and to the position assumed by
behavioristic psychology that language learning can be described by the
imitation-repetition and analogy paradigm (Postovsky, 1981).
III. LISTENING SKILLS TO BE ACQUIRED
Listening comprehension is a series of processes that are dependent upon
acquiring listening skills. In order to understand the second language utterances, the
learner must draw from his knowledge of the phonology, syntax, lexicon, culture of the
target language, and auditory memory and apply these fields of knowledge
simultaneously while listening at a normal rate of speech. The necessity of teaching
listening is illustrated in the following:
Everyone recognizes the importance of the auditory approach to
learning a foreign language, and yet this procedure is not as easy as it seems.
The average person simply does not know where to begin listening.
Everything floods in upon us in such confusion that we have no idea of
exactly what we are hearing, and we are at a loss to be able to make any
sense of the jumble of sounds (Nida, 1972, p. 145).
Current understanding of the nature of listening comprehension draws on
research in psycho-linguistics, semantics, pragmatics, discourse analysis, and cognitive
science (Richards, 1987). Listening comprehension should be as highly developed as
other skills if the learner wants to be an effective communicator. Listening skill should

14

be the primary skill in its own right rather than a by-product of other practice, and it
should be given more emphasis in the classroom teaching.
Listening skills can be separated into macro and micro skills. Rivers and
Temperly (1978) said that the final goal in listening is macro-language use. They
defined macro-language as "the learning of elements of language and their potential
combinations" and further stated, "Micro-language learning is only a means to this end"
(p. 92). Brown and Yule (1983) argued that the objective in listening comprehension
should be arriving at reasonable interpretation of what the learner hears but not
necessarily processing every word.
Listening at micro-level may consist of a combination of micro-skills, each of
which can perform a different function in different circumstances. Rivers (1980)
outlined four components of listening comprehension: recognition, selection,
anticipation, and memory. In addition, she enumerated a variety of skills necessary in
comprehending speech. Valette (1977) listed three factors for the skill of listening that
requires proficiency: discrimination of sounds, understanding of specific elements, and
overall comprehension. Although the native speaker finds listening a natural simple
operation, beginning EFL students have to develop proficiency in each of the three areas.
Richards (1983) listed three levels of processing involved in listening: propositional

15

identification, interpretation of illocutionary force, and activation of real world

knowledge.
The listening skills are not separate but are inter-dependent and integrated with
each other. Rivers and Temperley (1978) described a variety of skills necessary in
listening comprehension.
1. Ability to understand a large proposition of lexical items occurring in
non-specialized speech, coupled with the ability to guess the meaning
of unfamiliar or distorted items from their contexts.
2. Ability to understand syntactic patterns and morphological forms
characteristic of spoken language.
3. Ability to follow longer units of discourse with syntactic and semantic
constraints beyond the single sentence (i.e., the understanding of one
sentence depends on understanding one or more elements from
previous sentences.
4. Ability to understand the flow of stressed and understressed sounds,
intonation cues, and other cues of oral punctuation.
5. Ability to draw correct conclusions and make valid inferences about the
social situation, speaker's intent, or general context of the utterance.
6. Ability to recognize the speaker's attitudes toward the listener and
toward the topic of the utterance.
7. Ability to identify the techniques and rhetorical devices by which the
speaker conveys his message (pp. 92-95).

In the 1980's EFL specialists dealt with micro-skills in listening comprehension.

Richards enumerated in detail the taxonomies of the micro-skills involved in different
types of listening. He divided listening into three areas: a component interaction (e.g.,

16

conversational listening); listening for information or lectures (academic listening); and

listening for pleasure (e.g., radio, television, movies).
Richards (1983) gave a more detailed breakdown of micro-skills than those of
Rivers. They are similar to each other in that both require the listener's action. The
following are some of the 33 micro-skills listed by Richards that are required for
listening comprehension.
1. Ability to retain chunks of language of different lengths for short
periods.
2. Ability to discriminate among the distinctive sounds of the target
language.
3. Ability to recognize the stress patterns and intonation to signal the
information structure of utterances.
4. Ability to recognize the rhythmic structure of English
5. Ability to recognize the functions of stress and intonation to signal the
information structure of utterance.
6. Ability to identify words in stressed and unstressed positions.
7. Ability to recognized reduced forms of words.
8. Ability to distinguish word boundaries.
9. Ability to recognize typical word order patterns in the target language.
10. Ability to recognize vocabulary used in core conversational topics (pp.
219-229).
The goals of EFL learners should be consistent with the categories that Richards
has listed. Most EFL students strive to gain sufficient proficiency in listening and
speaking to be able to carry on conversations (conversational listening) and enjoy
American movies, pop songs, and watch the CNN (listening for pleasure). Listening

17

fluency will enable students to take notes (academic listening) on lecture information
and will assist them in the process of learning and retaining the information.
In teaching listening comprehension, Nida (1972) proposed selective listening,
listening only to certain features at a time. Inasmuch as people do not try to listen to
everything, they are selective in listening and consciously filter out those things that are
not important or are inconsequential. Nida said while we can't possibly make rules for
the order in which the learner should listen to various features in a sentence, "in general
the order of features should be 1) phonetic features (sounds), 2) vocabulary, and 3)
grammar, i.e., morphology and syntax" (pp. 146-147).
IV. STAGES OF LISTENING COMPREHENSION
Listening comprehension is the primary task in the acquisition of a second
language and can be taught just like any other skills. Listening takes place at two steps
in the communication process. First, the receiver must listen in order to decode and
understand the original message. Then the sender becomes a listener when attempting to
decode and understand subsequent feedback.
The following are the processes involved in listening comprehension as
provided by Richards (1983, pp. 220-221).
1. The listener takes in raw speech and holds an image of it in short-term
memory.

18

2. An attempt is made to organize what was heard into constituents,

identifying their content and function.
3. As constituents are identified, they are used to construct propositions,
grouping the propositions together to form a coherent message.
4. Once the listener has identified and reconstructed the propositional
meaning, these are held in long-term memory, and the form in which
the message was originally received is deleted.
Rivers (1980) gave listening comprehension its rightful prominence and
attention and she dealt directly with teaching listening skills. She stated that listening
comprehension has its peculiar problems, which arise from the fleeting, immaterial
nature of spoken utterances. Rivers (1981) suggested four stages for teaching listening
skills in the elementary, intermediate, and advanced levels of language learning:
1. Identification: perception of sounds and phrases, identifying these
directly and holistically with their meaning
2. Identification and selection without retention: listening for the pleasure
of comprehension, extracting sequential meanings, without being
expected to demonstrate comprehension through active use of language.
3. Identification and guided selection with short-term retention: students
are given some prior indication of what they are to listen for; they
demonstrate their comprehension immediately in some active fashion.
4. Identification, selection, and long-term retention: students demonstrate
their comprehension, or use the material they have comprehended, after
the listening experience has been complete; or they engage in an
activity which requires recall of material learned some time previously
(p. 167).
Teaching listening should be the optimal starting point in EFL instruction. When
first confronted with a foreign language, the learner hears a barrage of meaningless
noise. Gradually, after continued exposure to the language, he begins to recognize

19

elements and patterns such as phonemes, intonation, words, and phrases. When he is
able to recognize the phonological, syntactic, and semantic codes of the language
automatically, he has reached the first level, that of recognition.
Nord proposed three progressive phases in the development of listening fluency.
Progressing through these stages produces a "rather better cognitive map" which has a
beneficial effect on the development of speaking, reading, and writing skills (Nord,
1981, p. 134).
1. Semantic decoding
2. Listening ahead or anticipating the next word, phrase, or sentence
3. Discrepancy detention.

V. CONCLUSIONS
This paper discussed the importance of acquiring listening skills first, before
speaking, reading, and writing. There are major reasons for applying the listening-first
approach. First, listening comprehension designs the blueprint for future acquisition of
speaking. Second, emphasis on aural comprehension training and relaxation of the
requirement for oral production in the initial phase of instruction fosters development of
linguistic competence and produces better results than those obtained through intensive
oral practice.

20

It is also important to point out that the traditional approaches such as GrammarTranslation method and Audio-Lingual method may no longer be the best methods of
instruction. EFL textbooks should be revised to teach listening a great deal more in EFL
education. Teaching materials should be designed so that more time is allowed for
actual listening activities. Educators should consider increasing the percentage of
listening in EFL teaching across the board from elementary school to college. Those
classroom materials that contain pattern drills of audio-lingual method that are widely
used should be replaced with materials for the teaching of listening comprehension.

21

References
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Reeds, J. A., Winitz, H., & Garcia, P. A. (1977). A test of reading following
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24

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Ministry of Higher Education
KING ABDULAZIZ UNIVERSITY
VICE PRESIDENTCY FOR BRANCHES
BRANCH OF COLLEGES-JEDDAH
Girls' College of Education-Literary Sections
Department of Education and Psychology

The Effectiveness of Scaffolding Interactive Activities in

Developing the English Listening Comprehension Skills of
the Sixth Grade Elementary Schoolgirls in Jeddah

A Thesis for the Master's Degree in

Curriculum and Methods of Teaching English as a Foreign Language
By
Salwa Ahmed Al-Yami

Supervised by
Dr. Taghreed Ali Hamada
Assistant Prof. in Curriculum & Teaching Methods

Second Term
1429 H. / 2008 A.D.

Abstract
The present study aims to investigate the effectiveness of scaffolding interactive
activities in developing the English listening comprehension skills of sixth grade
elementary schoolgirls in Jeddah. The problem of the study is stated in this question:
"What is the effectiveness of scaffolding interactive activities in developing the English
listening comprehension skills of sixth grade elementary schoolgirls in Jeddah?". The
subjects in this study were 50 sixth grade pupils at The One Hundred and Twenty Eighth
Elementary School in Jeddah. They were assigned to two groups: 25 pupils in the
control group and 25 pupils in the experimental group. Each group studied the same
lessons. The experimental group participated in the scaffolded interactive activities
designed by the researcher.
To determine which listening skills are included in the English textbooks taught in the
sixth grade in elementary schools, a listening skills list was selected. Based on these
listening skills, the content of the textbooks was analysed and then a listening
comprehension test was designed and used as a pre-post test. Before the treatment, a
pre-administration of the listening comprehension test was performed. The treatment
was designed by the researcher to develop the listening comprehension skills of the
experimental group. The treatment was taught for two periods a week over eight weeks.
At the end of the treatment, a post-test was administered to each group to find out the
effect of the treatment on developing the pupils' listening comprehension skills.

The main statistical results of the study showed that:

1. there was a statistically significant difference between the mean scores of
the pupils of the experimental and control groups in the listening
comprehension post-test (as a whole) in favour of the experimental group
2. there was statistically significant difference between the mean scores of
the pupils in the experimental group in the pre-test and their mean scores
in the post-test (the total test) in favour of the latter.
It was concluded that the proposed scaffolded interactive activities were very
effective in developing the listening comprehension skills of sixth grade elementary
schoolgirls in Jeddah.

ii

Acknowledgements
To Allah al-Mighty, the Most Magnificent, the Most Merciful I kneel down for His
countless blessings, for the strength and patience He has granted me with to accomplish
this work.
My greatest gratitude goes to my mother who supported and is still supporting me with
her love and prayers.
I would like to express my thanks and sincere gratitude to my supervisor Dr Taghreed
Ali Hamada for her continuous and unsparing support and encouragement without
which it would have been impossible to complete this work. I am most grateful to her.
Special thanks goes to my beloved brothers, my sister Ameena, her family and my niece
Abeer for their moral support and love.
Last but by no means least, I would like to thank my friends Dr. Dawla Al-Amrai, Nadia
Al-Shebaili, Dr. Tahani Al-Baiz and Sawsan Al-Jahdali for their co-operation and help.

iii

Table of Contents
Abstract............i
Acknowledgments...........iii
Contents...........iv
List of Figures .....xi
List of Tables.......xii

Chapter I The Problem

1.1. Introduction......1
1.2. Context of the Problem....11
1.3. Statement of the Problem.....14
1.4. Questions of the Study.14
1.5. Purpose of the Study........15
1.6. Significance of the Study.....16
1.7. Hypotheses of the Study......17
1.8. Design of the Study......18
1.9. Limitations of the Study.......19
1.10. Instrument of the Study..........19
1.11. Procedures of the Study.....20
1.12. Definitions of terms...21

iv

Chapter II Review of Literature

2.1. Listening:
Introduction........26
2.1.1. Significance of Listening..............26
2.1.2. Nature of Listening.......30
2.1.2.1. Listening and Hearing......30
2.1.2.2. Listening as a Receptive Skill......32
2.1.2.3. Listening as an Active Skill.....32
2.1.2.4. Listening as a Complex Skill.......34
2.1.3. Listening and English Language Teaching...36
2.1.3.1. Stages of Teaching Listening ......39
2.1.4.. Different Types of knowledge used in Listening ....42
2.1.5. Processes of Listening ......43
2.1.6. The Micro Skills of Listening ..........46
2.1.7. Recommendations for Effective Listening .......50
2.1.8. Review of Related Studies on Listening.......53
2.1.8.1. Studies Dealing with Young Learners...53
2.1.8.2. Studies Dealing with Adult Learners.54

2.2. Scaffolding
Introduction..63
2.2.1. Scaffolding: Concepts and Pedagogical Implication. 63
2.2.2. Origins and Further Understanding of Scaffolding65
2.2.2.1. Psychological Aspects of Scaffolding...70
2.2.2.2. Cognitive Aspects of Scaffolding..70
2.2.2.3. Pedagogical Aspects of Scaffolding..71
2.2.3. Scaffolding Techniques..73
2.2.4. Scaffolding Guidelines...75
2.2.5. Advantages and Disadvantages of Scaffolding..78
2.2.6. Recommended Activities and Techniques for Teaching and
Scaffolding Listening Comprehension Skills.....80
2.2.7. Related Studies on Language Scaffolding..86

Chapter III Methodology and Procedures

3.1. The Study Sample ..........95
3.2. Design of the Study....97
3.3. The Instrument Used in the Study..........97
3.3.1. Test Design.........98
3.3.1.1. Content Analysis.....98

vi

3.3.1.2. The Listening Skills List........99

3.3.1.3. Listening Comprehension Pre-Post Test......... 100
3.3.1.4. Aim of the Test ........101
3.3.1.5. Description of the Test ....101
3.3.1.6. Test Instructions ...105
3.3.1.7. Test Validity .....106
3.3.1.8. Test Reliability .....108
3.3.1.9. Piloting the Test .......109
3.3.1.10. Scoring the Test......110
3.3.1.11. Test Administration........111
3.4. Treatment of the Study.......111
3.4.1. Aims of the Treatment......112
3.4.2. Objectives of the Treatment......112
3.4.3. Assumptions of the Treatment......112
3.4.4. Duration of the Treatment's Administration ....113
3.4.5. Description of the Treatment....114
3.4.5.1. Scaffolding Interactive Activities Included in the
Treatment......114
3.4.5.1.A. Pre-Listening Stage....123
3.4.5.1.B. During Listening Stage...123
3.4.5.1.C. Post-Listening Stage....124

vii

3.4.6. Instructional Aids and Equipment ....124

3.4.7. Evaluation......124
3.4.7.1. Formative Evaluation.124
3.4.7.2. Summative Evaluation...125
Conclusion.126

Chapter IV Statistical Analyses, Results and Discussion

4.1. Analyzing the Results of Testing Research Hypotheses128
4.1.1. Analyzing the Results of Testing the First Hypothesis.128
4.1.2. Analyzing the Results of Testing the Second Hypothesis.129
4.1.3. Analyzing the Results of Testing the Third Hypothesis131
4.1.4. Analyzing the Results of Testing the Fourth Hypothesis..132
4.1.5. Analyzing the Results of Testing the Fifth Hypothesis.133
4.1.6. Analyzing the Results of Testing the Sixth Hypothesis.134
4.1.7. The Effectiveness of the Experimental Scaffolding Interactive
Activities (The independent variable) ...135
Conclusion.138

viii

Chapter V. Summary, Recommendations and Suggestions

5.1. Summary.141
5.1.1. Statement of the Problem...141
5.1.2. Purpose of the Study..142
5.1.3. Design of the Study142
5.1.4. Questions of the Study ..........142
5.1.5. Hypotheses of the Study .......143
5.1.6. Limitations of the Study144
5.1.7. Instrument of the Study ....145
5.1.8. Procedures of the Study.....145
5.1.9. The Statistical Analysis of Data .......147
5.1.10. Results of the Study.....147
5.2. Recommendations.......149
5.3. Suggestions for Further Research.......150
References......151
Appendix 1. Content Analyses......164
Appendix 2. A Checklist of Listening Comprehension Sub-Skills
Hamada's List (1990)....168
Appendix 3.A. The Letter Addressed to the Jury Members.....175
B. Names of the Jury Members Who Validated the Listening
Comprehension Skills Test. ...............176

ix

Appendix 4. A Listening Comprehension Test for the Pupils in the

Sixth Grade Elementary Stage.....178
A. Teacher's Version............179
B. Pupil's Version.....190
C. Correction Key........202
Appendix 5. The Proposed Treatment.........204
A. Description....205
B. Sample Lesson..210
Appendix 6. Volume of Effect.........214

List of Figures
Chapter I
1.6. Figure.1. Design of the Study... 18
Chapter II
2.1.2.4. Figure.2. The Complex Cognitive Nature of Listening..... 35
2.2.1. Figure.3. The Gradual Release of Responsibility. 65
2.2.1. Figure.4. The Integrated Aspects of Scaffolding.. 72

xi

List of Tables
Chapter II
2.1.3.1. Table (1) Comparison between the Traditional and
New Trends o f Teaching Listening..41

Chapter III
3.3.2.6. Table (2) Reliability Coefficients of the Listening Comprehension
Test .....108
3.3.2.6. Table (3) Correlation between Each Part of the Test and the Whole
Test......109
3.4.5.2. Table (4) Description of the Scaffolding Interactive Activities
Included in the Treatment..117

Chapter IV
4.1.1. Table (5) Results of the T-test between the Mean Scores of the
pupils of the Control and Experimental Groups in the Pre-Listening
Comprehension Test (as a whole)......129
4.1.2. Table (6) The Significance of the Difference between the Mean
Scores of the Pupils of the Control and Experimental Groups in
the Three Parts of the Listening Comprehension Pre-Test.130
4.1.3. Table (7) Results of the t-test between the Mean Scores of the
Pupils of the Control and Experimental Groups in the Post-

xii

Listening Comprehension Test (as a whole)..131

4.1.4. Table (8) The Significance of the Difference between the Mean
Scores of the Pupils of the Experimental and Control Groups
in Each Part of the Listening Comprehension Post-Test132
4.1.5. Table (9) The Significance of the Difference between the
Mean Scores of the Pupils of the Experimental Group in
the Listening Comprehension Pre-Test and the Mean Scores
in the Post-Test.133
4.1.6. Table (10) The Significance of the Difference between the
Mean Scores of the Pupils of the Experimental Group in
each part of the Pre-Test and their Mean Scores in the Three
Parts of the Post-Test.....134
4.2. Table (11) The Difference in the Effectiveness of Learning Activities as
Shown by the Scores of the Experimental Group pupils and the
Control Group pupils in the Listening Comprehension Post-Test (as a
whole).......136
4.2. Table (12) The Differences in Effectiveness of Learning Activities as
Shown by the Scores of the Experimental Group Pupils and the Control
Group Pupils in Each Part of the Listening Comprehension Post Test ...140
4.2. Table (13) Black's Modified Gain Ratio for the Experimental
Group.........137

xiii

Chapter I
The Problem

Chapter I

The Problem
1.1. Introduction:
English is acknowledged as the dominant language of communication in the age
of globalisation and technology. Therefore, teaching English as a foreign or
second language has become vital in order to help the new generation cope with
the vast changes and challenges of this age. Responding to this international
trend, and based on the recommendations of many researchers who have proved
that the earlier a learner is exposed to a foreign language the easier s/he learns it
(Carroll, 1969; Jachbovitz, 1971; Sadek, 1986; Zughlool, 1988 & Elmuttawa,
1996), the Saudi Ministry of Education has introduced the teaching of English at
the primary stage. As such, it is hoped that pupils can learn English more
effectively and use it for different communication purposes (Teachers Manual,
1426 A.H.). However, in a foreign language (FL) context, where English is not
commonly spoken in the society, pupils are not sufficiently exposed to this
foreign language. It has therefore become urgent that English should be taught
effectively in school classrooms. In other words, the quality of the teaching of
English must be emphasised and more attention should be paid to different
language skills in order to achieve the objectives of teaching English, particularly
developing the pupils' ability to communicate.
However, communication is a two-sided process; a message cannot be
communicated unless there is someone to receive it (Johnson & Morrow,
1981;Rivers, 1989 &Mee, 1999). Listening comprehension is considered a prerequisite for communication. In Dakin's (1997, p. 31) words, listening is one
1

half of the process of communication". More recently, Adrian (2002)

emphasized the very important role of listening when he stated that listening is
considered the queen of communication skills because the better the learners
understand what they hear, the better they will speak. Leloup and Ponterio
(2005) agreed with Adrian declaring that "Oral language development needs two
essential elements in order to be maximally realized: comprehensible input and
social interaction". They recommended that school classrooms - the language
learning environment in the FL context - should be structured to provide more
comprehensible input through meaningful listening activities.
The above suggestion echoes the comprehensible input of Krashen (1985)who
asserted that the more comprehensible the language input is, the easier and the
faster the learner acquires that language. Here, the significance of listening
comprehension to language acquisition in general, and second and foreign
language learning in particular, becomes obvious. El-Sagheer and others (2002)
revealed that listening to comprehensible input can actually aid language
acquisition. As such, listening is considered the channel through which language
is naturally acquired. Through listening, children learn to imitate and produce
sounds which they hear from people around them. Then, in time, they construct
their mother tongue and become capable of communicating with others while
deaf children cannot acquire this skill (IELP-II, 2002). The Natural Approach
pioneered by Krashen and Terrell (1984) stressed this fact. Therefore, learning a
language is not considered just learning to talk, but rather learning a language is
building a map of meanings in the mind (Nord, 1985, p. 17). According to AlHariree (2004), listening activities in classrooms should provide a language input

to the learner, and without understanding this input at the right level, any
language learning simply cannot begin.
Listening is considered one of the most essential skills for both communication
and language learning. At the same time, it facilities the emergence of the other
language skills: speaking reading and writing. It provides the basis for
developing them as explained by Hasan (1998); Saricoban (1999) andPetrcion
(2003). They assert that listening is the first step to achieving oral fluency and
accuracy, and it assists in the development of speaking skills. Petrcion adds that
if a learner can listen effectively, speaking will follow naturally.
In addition to these views concerning the significance of listening
comprehension, particularly in the foreign language learning context, Rivers and
Temperly (1978), Oxford (1993) and Clece-Murcia (1995) agree that listening
constitutes 45% of daily communication among individuals.
Therefore, many researchers such as Nord (1980); Gary and Gary (1981); Morely
(1984); El-Sagheer and Levine (2002) and Al-Hariree (2004) argue for teaching
listening first and delaying speaking or oral responses for many reasons. These
include:
a- the learner is not overloaded by having to focus on two or more skills at
the same time.
b- listening-based approaches easily fill the requirements for acquisition to
occur and avoid the bad effects of having to produce language before
the learner is ready.

c- learners will not feel shy or worried about their learning classes because
listening activities reduce the stress involved in language learning.
Moreover, these researches also suggest that listening should be separated from
speaking and taught as a skill in its own right, though there is another view
which considers that both skills should be taught together (El-Gameel, 1982;
Harmer, 1998 &Aly, 2001). In the present study it is assumed that listening
should not only be treated inside classrooms as a basis for developing other
language skills, particularly speaking, it should also be simultaneously taught
and developed as a skill in its own right, especially in the first stages of learning
a foreign language.
It is surprising, therefore, that teaching listening comprehension skill is still
neglected in schools; it is not really taken very seriously by English language
teachers, even though it has begun to be given some space in schools English
language textbooks. Many researchers, such as Long (1986); Brown (1987);
Vanasco (1994); Bohlken (1998) and AbedlLatif (2002),have referred to this
negligence saying that there are many reasons that listening remains one of the
least stressed skills in language teaching and learning in spite of its importance.
For instance, early language teaching methodologists referred to reading and
listening as passive skills that develop automatically through exposure to oral
language input. The listener's role, therefore, was always thought of as passive
in the process of communication (Celce-Murcia &Terrel, 1991). Another reason
is the traditional method of teaching listening in which learners simply listen to a
spoken message in order to answer some comprehension questions at the end.
This type of teaching material does not help the learners acquire such an
important skill. According to other researchers, this is because most teachers are
4

not certain about how best to teach listening skills (Hyslop& Tone, 1988; ElSagheer&Levine, 2002 and Al-Hariree, 2004).A further practical reason is the
fact that pupils and teachers in Arab countries are exam-oriented and, as long as
listening is not tested, it is not given the importance it deserves(Hamada, 1990
&IElP-II,2002).
After a long time of neglecting listening comprehension skills, language teaching
has moved toward comprehension-based approaches. As a result, learning to
listen has become an important element in both foreign and second language
classrooms (Lund, 1990 & Van-Duzer, 1997). Since then, teaching listening has
begun to attract the attention of many researchers. Many attempts have been
made to investigate the effectiveness of different teaching techniques in
developing the learners' listening skills. Dadour (2003) asserts that such interest
has emerged as a result of the movement of consciousness-raising in language
learning classrooms. Therefore, many researchers have directed their attention to
the study of devices and factors which can convert language input into language
intake.
Simultaneously, listening has been regularly viewed as "a complex skill
involving a large number of sub-skills or micro-skills such as discriminating
English sounds, recognising stress patterns, intonation meanings, recognising
words and expressions involved in the spoken discourse, and organising
grammatical rules" (Brown, 1994, p. 241).Moreover, the listener has to guess the
meaning from the verbal and non-verbal contexts and adjust listening strategies
to listening purposes. Above all, s/he has to use his background knowledge and

experience to make inferences, predict outcomes and comprehend relationships

among ideas (Goh, 2000).
Such awareness of listening as a complex and active skill has led to some
important pedagogical implications: first, listening skills should be taught and
many teaching techniques and strategies have emerged to help language learners
face listening difficulties and develop their listening skills. Second, the listener
should be activated so that s/he can be more involved in the listening process.
The latter was the core of interactive teaching of listening. Lewis and Hill
(1997) mention that it is not enough for listeners to say: "I understood the
message"; rather they should carry out many tasks to show their understanding.
Brown (1994, p. 235) stresses the idea that listening is an interactive process in
which the listener receives the sound waves through the ear and then acts on
them, making use of cognitive and affective mechanisms. All researchers who
have adopted the same view have tried to identify the processes involved in
listening comprehension and the actions that active listeners must perform.
Many taxonomies of listening processes have been presented (Brown, 1994;
Lynch, 1996; Lewis & Hill, 1997). Some of these processes include the ability
to: a) process raw speech and hold an image of it in the short-term memory, b)
decide the objective of the speaker, c) assign literal meaning to the utterance, d)
assign intended meaning to the utterance, e) understand specific details, and f)
recall background information.
Concerning the functions to be done by active listeners, they are open-ended.
Lund (1990) identifies six of them: a) identification which refers to the
recognition of the elements of the message, b) orientation which includes finding
out the important facts about the text, c) main idea comprehension, d) detail
6

comprehension, e) full text comprehension, and f) replication which is the ability

to reproduce the message.
What is more important is that Lund (1990) has provided nine responses which
can show the listener's comprehension of the message which are: a) physical
responses, for instance nodding head or shaking head, b) choosing, such as
matching or arranging, c) transferring information from one modality to another
such as creating tables, figures or drawings, d) answering some questions, e)
condensing which includes taking notes and making outlines, f) extending or
going beyond the text, g) duplication which refers to the ability to reproduce the
message, h) modeling which involves imitation of the speaker, and i)
conversation which is actual interaction with the text .
This brief discussion of the listening process and listeners' functions and
responses may demonstrate that listening is a difficult skill and that language
learners need more conscious, systematic and purposeful help. Harmer (1998)
comments saying that students get better at listening with help from teachers. In
regard to this point, Rost (1991) provides language teachers with three
recommendations to provide help when teaching interactive listening: a)
simplifying the provided text, b) giving pre-listening activities, and c) making
use of visual support for the listening activity. Further recommendations have
been suggested by other researchers; they include preparing learners to listen,
providing support during listening, selecting appropriate tasks, providing positive
feedback (Sheerin, 1997), teacher's modelling of appropriate listening strategies,
direct instruction, guided practice, metacognitive strategies (Miller, 2003; AboEsaa, 2005)and the use of modern technology such as computers and interactive
audio- and video-assisted learning (Strother, 1987; Willets, 1992).
7

However various and effective these techniques are, they are considered types of
help that language teachers and researchers attempt to provide to language
learners when teaching listening. The effectiveness of such help depends on it
being used appropriately by teachers and educators (Willets, 1992). The
researcher believes that the multi-nature of the listening process, skills, and
difficulties on one hand, and of listener's functions and responses on the other
hand, in addition to the variety of the available teaching techniques and
procedures necessitates the sensitive, supportive intervention of English foreign
language teachers, particularly in the first stage of learning any foreign language.
More recently, both psychologists and educationalists have preferred to use the
concept of scaffolding to describe the sensitive and active support provided by
teachers during the process of learning. Mercer (1995, p. 74) describes
scaffolding as "the sensitive supportive intervention of a teacher in the progress
of a learner who is actively involved in some specific tasks, but who is not quite
able to manage the task alone". It appears that scaffolding requires 1) the
teacher's involvement in the learner's learning, 2) an active learner, and 3) a
challenging learning task which requires particular support from the teacher in
order for the learner to complete the task. Bruner (1982, p. 45) comments that
"Scaffolding refers to the steps taken to reduce the degree of freedom in carrying
out some tasks so that the learner can concentrate on the difficult skill s/he is in
the process of acquiring". As such, scaffolding refers to both cognitive and
strategic help provided by the teacher which, as Mercer(1995, p. 75) believes,
requires "the provision of guidance and support which is increased or withdrawn
in response to the developing competence of the learner". This requires
awareness of the learner's needs, difficulties and competence levels in a

particular skill. Consequently, the teacher can determine the degree of his/her
scaffolding. Successful scaffolded interaction requires shared understanding of
the task. Teachers are responsible for leading the learners toward understanding
and for helping them develop their own perception of the task. This is done by
creating a balance of support and challenge(Roehler&Canlton, 1997, p. 2).
The essence of scaffolding is that when pupils are learning new skills, they are
given more assistance. As they begin to demonstrate more developing levels, the
assistance or support is decreased gradually in order to shift the responsibility of
learning from the teacher to the pupil. Such a concept of scaffolding (Bruner,
1983; Rosenshire& Meister, 1992; Mercer, 1995; Hamada, 1999; Stager &
Harman, 2002, and others) is based on the work of Vygotsky(1978), who
proposed that with the assistance of an adult, children could accomplish tasks
that they ordinarily could not perform independently. Some researchers who
have followed Vygotsky's line of interest have studied the language of teaching
and learning as scaffolding tools (Bruner, 1975; Mercer, 1995;
Roehler&Cantlon, 1996; Hamadah, 1999). However, there is a more recent
tendency to broaden the field of scaffolding, referring to it as the support the
teacher gives to the pupil in any number of ways, ranging from hints or feedback
to doing the task for the pupil as demonstration (Stager & Harman, 2002, p. 3).
In respect to this, Bull and others(1999) see that scaffolding can be provided by
teachers, peers or computers, and may include the use of tutoring, a performance
system and online support. Furthermore, scaffolding can be embedded in the
information or the input such as providing visual supports.
This researcher thinks that narrowing the concept of scaffolding to the use of talk
inside classrooms, or broadening it to involve any type of support provided by
9

the teacher, is not helpful in the field of education in general and language
learning in particular. Rather, this researcher considers that both trends can be
integrated. The researcher - depending on her analysis of the teaching learning
situation at hand - used different types of support, and simultaneously used
interactive talk with the pupils to maximise their comprehension of the tasks at
hand. As such, the researcher will not give up Vygotsky's line of interest - the
use of "talk" or "classroom discourse" as a medium for internalising skills
including language skills. However, it is important to mention here that talk is
used in this respect generally and is not restricted to the language which is being
taught, i.e., the mother tongue can be used when needed (Leki, 1992; Gibbons,
2002). The teacher at the same time can benefit from other types of help such as
visual support, modelling, direct instructions, demonstration, etc., as long as she
aims at helping pupils to become more independent learners.
Hogan and Presley (1997, pp. 186-190)identified different guidelines that can
help the teacher use scaffolding. These include: 1) pre-engagement with the
student and the curriculum, 2) diagnosing pupils' needs, 3) providing tailored
assistance such as cueing or prompting, questioning, modelling, telling or
discussing, 4) maintaining pursuit of the goal by questions and encouragement,
5) giving feedback, 6) controlling frustration and risk (pupils should feel free to
take risks with learning), and 7) assisting internalisation, independence and
generalisation to other contexts. This means that the teacher helps the pupils to
be less dependent on the teachers signals to complete a task and also provides
opportunities for the pupils to practise the task in a variety of contexts.
In foreign language learning contexts as in Saudi Arabia, as described earlier,
English language learners in general require support or help to restructure their
10

language. Beginning learners of English as a foreign language, in particular,

need more conscious and systematised support so that they can acquire sound
and good language from the very beginning. Providing support or help as
discussed in the literature related to scaffolding is better based on a strong and
sound psychological and pedagogical basis, taking into consideration practical
implications as well. Therefore, the present researcher tried to adopt some
psychological and pedagogical principles underlying scaffolding as a guide for
the help or support she provided to elementary schoolgirls in Jeddah during the
process of developing their listening comprehension skills.

1.2. Context of the Problem

It has been noticed that teaching listening comprehension skills has attracted the
attention of many researchers and course designers. This tendency has begun to
be reflected in the new English school textbooks presented to schoolgirls in the
sixth grade of elementary education in Saudi Arabia. The new textbooks include
some listening activities.
However, the complex nature of listening skill and the difficulties which
beginners of foreign language learning meet when listening to the language have
urged the researcher to investigate the situation more seriously. As is apparent
from the literature on listening comprehension, listening to a tape or providing
some listening activities are good strategies, but this is not sufficient. These
methods are not equivalent to teaching listening skills. Arnold (2005) goes
further, suggesting that:"Simply asking students to listen to something and
answer some questions is a little unfair, and makes developing listening skills

11

much harder"(p. 11). She asserts that inadequate listening practice could have
negative effects on foreign language learners. Many pupils can become afraid of
listening and can be disheartened when they listen to something and feel that
they understand very little. Considering these points, in addition to the fact that
listening while trying to understand oral language is difficult in the beginning
stages of language acquisition (SPEER, 2002),a pilot study has been conducted
to investigate some variables and to answer these necessary questions:
1. To what extent are listening comprehension skills emphasised in English
textbooks taught in sixth grade elementary schools in Saudi Arabia
compared with other language skills (speaking, reading and writing)?
2. To what extent are the listening activities included in the English for
Saudi Arabia Sixth Grade Elementary textbook designed mainly to
develop the pupils' listening comprehension skills?
3. How suitable are these activities for the cognitive level of pupils of this
age?
4. To what extent are these listening activities interactive?;that is, do these
activities involve the pupils in oral messages and ask them to show their
understanding by giving different responses?
5. Do English language teachers appreciate the listening activities included
in the book?
6. Do sixth grade pupils appreciate these activities?

12

To answer questions 1 to 4, the researcher has analysed the content of the school
textbooks quantitatively and qualitatively*.
The quantitative analysis of the activities for each skill shows that reading in
particular is the most emphasised skill (40 activities),then comes writing (14
activities), while 12 activities have been designed for both listening and speaking
skills. These results show that there are few listening activities compared with
those for the other skills, particularly those designed for practising reading and
writing skills (the language skills which are usually included in school language
tests!). Most of the listening activities are integrated with activities for other
skills. Listening is used as a tool in the service of other skills. There are only a
few activities in just two lessons that are mainly purely for listening. In these
activities the pupils repeat, read what they have listened to, or carry out very
simple responses. Such responses are not cognitively challenging for the pupils.
The study sample,the15 teachers and 30 learners who were interviewed by the
researcher, mentioned that the listening activities were not motivating and that
the pupils lose interest in them quickly. One of the pupils' commented in Arabic
that "They are childish and similar to those presented in nursery books". A
further comment was "We repeat only!". These comments, though very simple,
are very valuable and meaningful. Listening activities in the textbooks are
neither interactive nor challenging. Pupils do not know how to listen; for them it
is equivalent to doing nothing. In other words, they are passive listeners.
The above analysis and results have motivated the present researcher to design
scaffolded interactive activities to develop the listening comprehension skills of

See appendix (1) for content analysis.

13

sixth grade elementary school girls in Jeddah. In designing these activities, the
principles and guidelines underlining scaffolding have been taken into
consideration to determine the types and the degree of support provided to the
pupils.

1.3. Statement of the Problem

Listening is considered a very important skill in language learning and language
acquisition. It is a complex and active skill that requires interactive teaching
within which language learners need more conscious, systematic and purposeful
help. Yet, the pilot study revealed that listening skills are not seriously treated in
the English school textbook activities; these activities are not interactive and the
teacher's help is not clear (see the pilot study). The complex nature of listening
comprehension skill and the difficulties which beginners of foreign language
encounter when listening to the language, in addition to the neglect of listening
skills in English school textbooks, have urged the researcher to adopt some
psychological and educational principles underlying "scaffolding" as a guide for
the help or support she will provide to sixth grade elementary school girls during
the process of developing their listening comprehension skills.

1.4. Questions of the Study

The problem of the present study can be stated in the following question:

14

What is the effectiveness of scaffolding interactive activities in developing

the English listening comprehension skills of sixth grade elementary
schoolgirls in Jeddah?

The following sub-questions emerged:

1- What are the listening comprehension skills included in the English
textbooks used in the sixth grade in elementary schools?
2- To what extent do sixth grade elementary schoolgirls acquire these
skills?
3- What are the appropriate principles and guidelines for constructing
scaffolded listening comprehension activities for sixth grade elementary
schoolgirls?
4- What are the criteria for selection of the interactive activities to be
provided to sixth grade elementary schoolgirls in the area of listening
comprehension?
5- What are the English language elements (sound system, vocabulary and
structures) included in the English for Saudi Arabia Sixth Grade
Elementary school textbooks?
6- To what extent are the proposed scaffolded interactive activities effective
in developing the identified listening comprehension skills of sixth grade
elementary schoolgirls in Jeddah?

1.5. Purpose of the Study

This study attempts to:

15

1- identify the listening comprehension skills included in the English

textbooks used in the
sixth grade in elementary schools
2- design a collection of scaffolded interactive activities to develop the
listening comprehension skills of sixth grade elementary schoolgirls.
3- investigate the effectiveness of the newly-designed scaffolded interactive
activities in developing the listening comprehension skills of sixth grade
elementary schoolgirls in Jeddah by administering a listening
comprehension test.

1.6. Significance of the Study

To the knowledge of the researcher, no study has been conducted to investigate
or to help develop the English listening comprehension skills of elementary
schoolgirls in Saudi Arabia. Therefore, the listening activities designed in the
present study may guide course designers when designing other listening courses
for elementary school pupils. The present study is the first one that uses the
concept of scaffolding in the area of listening comprehension in Saudi Arabia.
Thus it can enrich the field of listening comprehension with valuable scaffolded
activities that demonstrate various types and degrees of help that can be offered
by English language teachers. Furthermore, the present study is the first one that
has attempted to integrate scaffolding from the teacher's perspective and
interactivity from the learner's perspective (learners carry out some functions and
responses) in joint activities.
As such, the present study can help English language teachers use the same
activities and also help them design similar ones with other pupils. Other

16

researchers can use the designed scaffolded interactive activities as model

samples to investigate their effectiveness in developing the listening
comprehension skills of pupils in other grades. A further significance of the
study is that it provides the field and the Ministry of Education in Saudi Arabia
with a listening comprehension testthat can be used in evaluating the listening
comprehension skills of sixth grade elementary school girls.

1.7. Hypotheses of the Study

In this study, the researcher tried to test the following hypotheses:
1. There is no statistically significant difference between the mean
scores of the pupils in the experimental and control groups in the
results of the listening comprehension pre-test (the total test).
2. There is no statistically significant difference between the mean
scores of the pupils in the experimental and control groups in each
part of the listening comprehension pre-test results.
3. There is a statistically significant difference of0.05 between the mean
scores of the pupils of the experimental and the control groups in the
listening comprehension post-test results in favour of the
experimental group.
4. There is a statistically significant difference of0.05 between the mean
scores of pupils of the experimental and control groups in each part of
the listening comprehension post-test results in favour of the
experimental group.

17

5. There is a statistically significant differenceof0.05 between the mean

scores of the pupils in the experimental group in the pre-test and their
mean scores in the post-test results (in the total test) in favour of the
latter.
6. There is a statistically significant difference of0.05 betweenthe mean
scores of the pupils in the experimental group in each part of the pretest and their mean scores in each part of the post-test results in
favour of the post-test.

1.8. Design of the Study

The present study made use of experimental design. Two groups were included:
the experimental group which was exposed to different scaffolded interactive
activities aimed at developing the pupils' listening comprehension skills and the
control group which received the usual activities included in the English
textbooks. As such, the independent variables included the scaffolded interactive
activities designed by the researcher. The dependent variable was the listening
comprehension skills of the sixth grade elementary schoolgirls as shown in
Figure (1).

18

Fig.1. Design of the Study

1.9. Limitations of the Study

The present study was limited to:
1- a sample of 50 sixth grade elementary schoolgirls enrolled in two classes
in the 128 Elementary Girls School in Jeddah. They were assigned to
two groups -one class (N.25) as the control group, the other class (N.25)
as the experimental group
2- the language elements included in English For Saudi Arabia Sixth Grade
Elementary textbooks
3- a limited duration for implementing the proposed activities: in the first
term of the school year 1428-1429 (approximately eight weeks).

1.10. Instruments of the Study

To investigate the effectiveness of the proposed scaffolded interactive activities
in developing the identified listening comprehension skills of sixth grade
elementary schoolgirls in Jeddah, a listening comprehension pre/post test was
designed. For analysing the content of the listening activities included in English
school textbooks and designing the test, some lists of listening comprehension
skills were surveyed and a list was selected to be used in the study.
19

1.11. Procedures of the Study

To answer the questions of the study and to test the hypotheses, the researcher
followed these procedures:
1. review of the literature and previous studies related to "scaffolding",
listening comprehension in general, and interactive listening in particular
2. preparing a list of listening comprehension skills to determine the
listening comprehension skills included in the English textbooks taught in
sixth grade elementary schools
3. submitting the list to a panel of specialists in the field of teaching English
as a foreign language to determine the most important listening skills for
sixth grade elementary schoolgirls in Jeddah
4. analysing the content of English textbooks - the sixth grade elementary
textbook English For Saudi Arabia- to determine the listening
comprehension skills and the language points included in them
5. designing a listening comprehension pre-post test in the light of the
listening skills and language elements identified from the content analysis
of the English textbooks taught in sixth grade elementary schools
6. submitting the listening comprehension pre-post test to a panel of
specialists and experts in the field of teaching and testing English as a
foreign language to determine its face validity
7. verifying the reliability of the listening comprehension pre-post test items
using Alpha Cronbach
8. designing scaffolded interactive activities for developing listening
comprehension skills based on the content analysis
20

9. selecting two sixth grade classes from an elementary girls school in Jeddah
10. administering the listening comprehension pre-test to the two groups to
identify the pupils' level in the identified listening comprehension skills.
The results of the test would help the researcher determine the functions
and responses that cannot be carried out without the teacher's assistance
(actual level of development).
11. implementation, with the experimental group, of the scaffolded
interactive activities developed by the researcher aimed at developing
their listening comprehension skills while the control group were taught
through the usual activities
12. administering the listening post-test to the two groups to investigate the
effectiveness of the designed scaffolded interactive activities in
developing the listening comprehension skills of the experimental group
13. analysing the results statistically by using the T-test
14. discussing and interpreting the collected data
15. providing a summary, conclusions, recommendations and suggestions for further
research.

1.12. Definition of Terms

Scaffolding
Scaffolding,in its more usual sense, is a temporary structure that is often put up
in the process of constructing a building. As each bit of the new building is
finished, the scaffolding is taken down (Gibbons, 2002, p.10).
21

Scaffolding learning, like its namesake, is a "temporary framework" that

supports students as they develop new skills (Harman, 2002, p. 3).
Bruner(1982)describes scaffolding as the steps taken to reduce the degree of
freedom in carrying out some tasks so that the child can concentrate on the
difficult skill she is in the process of acquiring.
Rosenshire and Meister (1992, p. 75)define scaffolding as a process in which
students are given support until they can apply new skills and strategies
independently.
Scaffolding is described by Wood, Bruner and Ross (1976, p. 9) as controlling
those elements of the task that are initially beyond the learner's capability, thus
permitting him/her to concentrate upon and complete only those elements that
are within his/her range of competence.
Dickson et al., (in Larkin, 2002, p. 2) define scaffolding instruction as "the
systematic co- sequencing of prompted content, materials, tasks and teacher and
peer supports to optimise learning.
Mercer (1995, p. 74) described scaffolding as the particular sensitive and active
support provided by teachers during the process of learning.
Based on the researcher's understanding of the previously mentioned definitions,
she suggests the following operational definition of scaffolding:
Scaffolding is a sequence of different types and degrees of responsive support
provided by the teacher to the learners during the process of learning new or
difficult language skills (listening comprehension skills in the present study).

22

This support depends on the learning situation as well as the learners' responsive
interaction during the process of learning.

Interactive
In Oxford (1999, pp. 400-401),to interact means to communicate or mix in a way
that has an influence or effect on somebody else. Interactive means involving or
allowing direct two-way communication (pp. 400-401).

Horton (2001, p. 192) states that "Learner interactivity is the active

involvement, participation, and engagement of the individual in the learning
process".

In this study, the researcher aims toinvolve the learners in the scaffolding
activities designed, so students will interact with English language in real use.

Activities: Language Activities

Activity is "a very popular term in literature. An activity may refer to virtually
anything that learners actually do in the classroom" (Brown, 1994, p. 136). This
shows that using activities in teaching language is not a recently developed
strategy but has always been integrated in the teaching/ learning process.
Thomas (1991, p. 88), on the other hand, points out that language activities are
the main unit in designing experiences for teaching. He says that in a lesson
plan in the classroom, activities are joined together in a sequence. Lesson plans
outline a sequence of activities that the teaching intends to follow.
Activities are seen as a medium for teaching, but not the target. Richards (1999,
p. 161) affirms this point saying that an activity is described as a task that has
23

been selected to achieve a particular teaching/ learning goal. This indicates the
need for teachers to identify their intended objectives before working on
choosing or designing their language activities.
Horton (2001, p. 191) describes activities as "coordinated actions that exercise
basic intellectual skills, thought processes, and analysis techniques. Learning
activities are the verbs of learning. They elevate learning from passive reading
and watching to active seeking, selecting and creating knowledge".
Activities, then, can be defined as a set of procedural decisions made by the
teacher or course designers to find an answer to the question of how the goals
are to be realized. Activities can be used in the development of skills that the
children will learn in order to achieve a goal or goals(Day et al., 1984, p. 183).
Ibraheem (2000, p. 90) affirms that language activities aim at developing
linguistic ability for students, besides helping them acquire language (linguistic)
skills and experiences". Therefore, language activities are reported to be crucial
to foreign language practices, and teachers need to use them to help their pupils
develop their skills in English. Ghareeb(1989, p. 44) describes activities as
"learning that requires more than watching, observing and listening to the teacher
or gathering subjects. Activities refers to the things that a learner shows as a
response to the teacher's instructions".

Interactive Activities
In this study, interactive activities means a set of actions performed by the
learners as a response to the different types and degree of scaffolding provided or
controlled by the teacher before, during and after listening.

24

Listening comprehension
Listening comprehension is defined as an active and complex process which
requires learners to receive sounds, attend to relevant sounds, assign meaning,
and store the message for later use (El-Sagheer&Leviene, 2002, p.112).
According to Saricoban (1999, p.5), listening is the ability to identify and
understand what others are saying.
Bohlken (1997, p. 2) also defines listening as "the process of receiving,
constructing meaning from, and responding to spoken language and/or
nonverbals".
Moreover, Beatty (1999, p. 47) indicates that listening is an intellectual as well
as a moral skill where the good listener pays an adequate amount of attention to
comprehend the message in order to interact effectively with the speaker.
In addition, Devito (2004, p. 8) views listening as an active process of receiving,
understanding, remembering, evaluating and responding to communicative
discourse.
Thus, listening can be operationally defined in the present study as an active,
complex and intellectual process in which learners receive sounds, construct
meanings, and respond to the verbal as well as nonverbal messages.

25

Chapter II
Review of Literature

Chapter II

Review of Literature

Introduction
This chapter covers a review of the literature and of previous studies related to
the research domains. The review deals with two major domains:
1) listening and 2) scaffolding. The first part focuses on the significance of
listening, its nature, sub-skills, and finally the activities and techniques that can
be used in developing the learners' listening comprehension skills. The second
part is concerned with scaffolding as a recent approach to teaching new skills,
concepts and higher levels of understanding. Furthermore, it explores the
concepts, characteristics, types, and techniques of scaffolding and examines
some practical guidelines and cautions when scaffolding is used in classrooms.
This chapter also includes a review of a number of previous studies related to
both domains mentioned above.

2.1. Listening
2.1.1. The Significance of Listening
Listening is crucial to peoples everyday communication. Byrne (1984, p. 78)
suggests that "communication is a two-sided process: a message cannot be
communicated unless there is someone to receive it". In the case of oral
communication, listening is the receiving process. It is the basis for building up
relationships, making others feel important, and for communicating
understanding. Rivers (1989), Temperly (1987), Oxford (1993) and Celce-

26

Murica (1995) agree that more than forty-five percent of total communication
time is spent listening, thirty percent speaking, sixteen percent reading and nine
percent writing. The importance of communication in different aspects of life
urged Adrian (2002) to consider listening the queen of communication skills
because the better listeners understand what they hear, the better they speak.
Furthermore, different researchers have indicated that listening plays an effective
role in social interaction. For instance, Smith, Finn and Dowdy (1993) mention
that social interaction, and even most jobs, require the ability to listen and to
receive information. They assert that without the ability to listen and to
participate in verbal exchanges, individuals are at a major social disadvantage.
They add that individuals in a social setting will not be able to interact if they
have limited listening skills. Moreover, Schilling (2002) says that listening is an
essential skill at work; it reduces errors and wasted time. In the home, listening
develops resourceful, self-reliant children who can solve their own problems.
Also, Johnson (1996) refers to the fact that when someone is willing to stop
talking or thinking and begin truly listening to others, all of his/her interactions
become easier, and communication problems are all eliminated.

In addition to its general significance, listening has a very effective role in the
processes of language acquisition and learning. Listening is considered the
channel through which language is naturally acquired. Through listening,
children learn to imitate and produce the sounds that they hear from the people
around them. Then, in time, they construct their mother tongue and are able to
communicate with others while deaf children cannot acquire this skill (IELP-II,
2002). The Natural Approach pioneered by Terrell and Krashen (1985) stressed

27

this belief. Furthermore, learning a language is not considered just learning to

talk, but rather learning a language is building a map of meanings in the mind
(Nord, 1985, p. 17). Hence, listening activities in classrooms should provide
language input to the learner but without understanding this input at the right
level, any language learning simply cannot begin (Al-Hariree, 2004).
Many researchers have tried to explore the important role of listening in the field
of language acquisition and learning. Nord (1985) clarifies this importance
saying that:
Listening is the way of learning the language. It gives the learner
information from which to build up the knowledge necessary for
using the language. When this knowledge is built up, the learner
can begin to speak.

The listening-only period is a time of

observation and learning which provides the basis for the other
language skills. (p.17)

In addition, Hyslop and Tone (1988), Mee (1990) and Al Khuli (2000) support
the previous view explaining that listening provides the foundation for learning
and for all aspects of language and cognitive development, and it plays a lifelong role in the process of learning and communication essential to productive
participation in life. Moreover, Al Khuli (2000, p. 58) adds that "unless the
learner hears accurately and understands correctly s/he will not be able to
respond adequately". In this respect, Smith, Finn and Dowdy (1993, p. 142)
explain that any deficit in this important skill means a significant reduction in the
cognitive ability of the student to process incoming information.
It has also been proved that listening is a critical element in the performance of
foreign language learners. More precisely, it facilitates the emergence of the

28

other language skills - speaking, reading and writing. It provides the basis for
developing them (Hassan, 1998; Saricoban, 1999; and Petrcion, 2003). Listening
and speaking are two major parts of communication in the sense that
communication involves the productive skill of speaking and the receptive skill
of listening. Also on this point, these authors assert that listening is the first step
to achieving oral fluency and accuracy and is a way of developing speaking
skills. Moreover, Petrcion (2003) adds that if a learner can listen effectively,
speaking will follow naturally, and if the learner cannot catch the incoming
language, s/he will not be able to speak to the point with her interlocutors.
Similarly, reading, particularly oral reading, is influenced by the learners'
listening skill. Being receptive skills, both listening and reading share some
similarities; both of them require "the leaner to have a readiness for
accomplishment and this includes mental maturity, vocabulary, ability to follow
a sequence of ideas, and interest in language" (Lapp & Anderson 1998, pp. 9092). Lemlech (1984) states that "the student who does not hear well will not
learn to read well" (p. 104).
Listening is also considered a basic element in the emergence of written
expression. It helps students take notes and activate their prior knowledge to use
in writing activities. Ronald and Roskelly (1985) indicate that if students have
not learned to listen, they cannot write. They explain that listening is an active
process requiring the same skills of prediction, hypothesizing, checking, revising
and generalizing that writing and reading demand. According to these
researchers, what people listen for determines the form, style and the content of
the responses they write. From another perspective, Hasan (1998, p. 23) reveals

29

that "both listening and writing skills can be used for supporting each other, in
the sense that writing activities can be developed from listening activities and at
the same time listeners need the help of the written form to comprehend listening
tasks. Thus, it can be said that listening has a positive effect on the students'
ability to write.
It is now clear that listening is very crucial to communication, social interaction,
language acquisition and the development of the other language skills - speaking,
reading and writing. Such significance has urged many researchers, including
this researcher, to tackle further areas in the field of listening in general and of
teaching, or more specifically scaffolding, listening comprehension in particular.
These areas include the nature of listening, and listening and language teaching.

2.1.2. The Nature of Listening

To understand the nature of listening, some points should be briefly explored listening and hearing, listening as a receptive skill, listening as an active skill,
and lastly, listening as a complex skill.
2.1.2.1. Listening and Hearing
Listening has been misleadingly defined simply as hearing, but a more thorough
distinction should be made between the two concepts. Brown (2004, p. 72)
reveals that many people confuse the term listening with the term hearing,
then he explains the difference between these two terms saying that hearing is
merely a sense while listening is a learned behaviour. He adds that, just as
decoding the written word is not the same as comprehending its meaning,

30

hearing a sound is not the same as understanding and correctly interpreting what
is being said.
Listening involves more than just hearing. It is an active process involving
perceiving and organizing oral language input. The ability to attend to and recall
these organized perceptions is required (Seedfeldt & Barbour, 1990, p. 368).
Widdowson (1996) provides definitions for both listening and hearing,
highlighting the difference between them:
Hearing is the activity of recognizing the signals conveyed through
the oral medium which have certain significance. Listening is the
activity of recognizing what function sentences have in an
interaction, what communicative value they take on as instances of
use. (p. 60)

Orwig (1999) considers hearing as a door for listening. She states that listening
comprehension is the receptive skill in the oral mode. When we speak of
listening, what we really mean is listening to and understanding what we hear.
According to Lapp and Anderson (1988), listening comprehension is a complex
process and this complexity is due to the general categories involved - hearing,
listening and auding. They conceptualize this complex process by describing
these general categories as follows:
1. Hearing is the actual physical ability to hear; it is the act of receiving
sounds through the ears without interpreting it.
2. Listening is broader than hearing since it involves not only sensing
but also interpretation and evaluation of the received message.
3. Auding is a reproduction by students of a previously recorded story
after listening to it once or twice (Mitryaeva, 1989, p. 43).

31

2.1.2.2. Listening as a Receptive Skill

Listening and speaking are known to be the two oral skills of any language;
speaking is the productive skill while listening is the receptive one. Widdowson
(1996) points to the reciprocal relationship between these two skills saying:
It is perfectly true that speaking is active, or productive, and makes
use of the aural mode. Speaking as an instance of use, therefore it
is part of a reciprocal exchange in which both reception and
production play a part. In this sense, the skill of speaking involves
both receptive and productive participation. (p. 59)
Reception is preliminary to production, thus listening is necessary for productive
language use (Saricoban, 1999). Speaking is not the only oral mode of
responding to listening; there are other ways to respond to 1istening (El-Mutawa
& Taisser, 1989). Here is where the role of teachers and course designers comes
in - to work on training pupils to invest their receptive skills in the acquisition of
the foreign language and to learn how to respond effectively. Brown (1994)
notes that:
It is essential to encourage active participation by the listener - to
listen predicatively and critically, watching out for new
information which fits neatly into already existing conceptual
structures, and reacting sharply, and indeed even accusingly,
when confronted with information which does not fit into the
preconceived framework. (p.171)

2.1.2.3. Listening as an Active Skill

The type of listening preferred in the field of applied linguistics and methodology
is effective listening. Lapp and Anderson (1988, p.16) stress the active nature of
listening and demonstrate the inadequate nature of the "listener as tape-recorder"
view of listening.
32

Being described as receptive does not imply that listening is a passive skill. The
term is misleading. Most listening requires a readiness and active cooperation on
the part of the listener" (Discroll & Frost, 1999, p. 70). Learners have to share
and exert effort to listen; they are required to think while listening in order to be
able to decode the encoded message and to respond correctly.
As a way to make listening effective, it is recommended that teachers set a clear
objective or objectives of listening for their pupils and for themselves as well.
Nunan (1989, p. 23) suggests that "we do not simply take language in like a taperecorder, but interpret what we hear according to our purpose in listening and our
background knowledge.
Listeners, then, are always making use of their mental abilities in order to work
out what they are listening to; this is a recent trend in the research field that has
caused an advancement in regard to tackling the receptive language skills listening and reading (Stevick, 1994). Listening demands active processing to
decipher the encoded message and to grasp its meaning in an adequate way; in
order to carry this out successfully, the listener has to depend on his/her previous
knowledge. El-Sagheer and Levine (2003) summarize this operation in the
following lines:
Current researchers believe that listeners use a wide range of
knowledge to understand the spoken word.

They need what

Widdowson (1983) calls semantic knowledge, which involves

knowledge of phonological (sound), syntactic (grammatical), and
semantic (meaning) aspects of the language system. Listening also
requires schematic knowledge, or knowledge of the world. (p.95)
Many linguists and methodologists stress the active nature of listening
(Littlewood, 1984; Brown, 1990). Byrne (1983:103) emphasizes the importance

33

of paying attention for effective listening, and identifies the characteristics of an

effective listener, saying that the listener should be:
mentally checked
supported
challenged
extrapolated to the stream of information contained in the discourse.
More recently, Barna (l994) has defined the active listener as a good listener who
can sum up what has just been said, showing that he has concentrated on the
speakers words. He may also ask questions (p. 77). In this definition, listening
is viewed as a receptive skill that is essential for language production.

2.1.2.4. Listening as a Complex Skill

Listening is not a simple skill. Mee (1990) describes listening as a complex
process which involves two basic levels: recognition and selection. He explains
such complexity as follows: When a learner is first confronted with a foreign
language, s/he hears only a barrage of meaningless noise. Gradually, after
exposure to the language, the learner recognizes the elements and patterns like
phonemes, intonation, words and phrases. When the learner is able to recognize
the phonological, syntactic and semantic codes of the language automatically, the
learner has reached the level of recognition. Next, the learner sifts out the
message bearing units for retention and comprehension without conscious
attention to individual components. This is the level of selection.
According to Rost (1991) and Aly (2001), listening is an interactive, integrative ,
interpretive and a creative process in which listeners play a basic role in

34

constructing the overall message; learners construct meaning, predict topic

development, anticipate what may be coming next, and analyze and relate the
new information to what they already know or what they listen to. Rivers and
Temperly (1998) reflect this complex cognitive nature of listening which
involves perception based on internalized knowledge of the language in the
following figure:

constructing the overall message; learners construct meaning, predict topic

development, anticipate what may be coming next, and analyze and relate the
new information to what they already know or what they listen to. Rivers and
Temperly (1998) reflect this complex cognitive nature of listening which
involves perception based on internalized knowledge of the language in the
following figure:

Fig.2. The complex cognitive nature of listening

(Rivers & Temperly, 1998, p. 4)
This reveals that it is not easy to develop listening comprehension. Furthermore,
it cannot develop automatically. In addition to such cognitive complexity,
learners face some difficulties that they cannot avoid in the situation of listening
(Grenfell & Harris, l999):

35

Learners have no visual clues unless a video recording is used.

Learners are not supported by the written word and must therefore break
the stream of sound into individual words for themselves.

Learners do not have time to reflect on the meaning unless the recording
is played a number of times. (p. 81)

Brown (1990) suggests other types of difficulties in regard to teachers' traditional

techniques of teaching, He believes that:
Many teachers of foreign languages develop particularly slow,
clear styles of speech when speaking the foreign language to
learners. In real life, however, ordinary speakers of the language
are simply using it to go on with living. Another difficulty is that
many teachers have a very idealistic impression of how English
is spoken. Most literate people find it very difficult to dissociate
knowledge of how a word is spelt from how it is pronounced.
(p. 23)
Based on the previous argument, it can be concluded that listening is a complex
process where many things happen simultaneously inside the mind of the
listener. Hence, listeners need to be actively engaged in the process of
constructing the meaning of a message and comprehending it. Therefore,
teaching the skills of listening comprehension should be seriously considered.

2.1.3. Listening and English Language Teaching

In spite of the significance and complexity of listening comprehension skill as
explained above, this language skill has not received adequate attention among
foreign language teachers. El-Mutawa and Taisser (1989) point out that:

36

Listening comprehension is probably the least taught skill in the

language classroom; this neglect causes frustration on the part of
EFL learners. Thus, after seven or eight years of English
instruction, secondary graduates find it difficult to understand
spoken language, even though many of them have a good grasp
of grammar, vocabulary, writing, and comprehension. (p. 95)
Vantasco (1994), Stein (2000) and Abdel-Latif (2002) refer to this neglect saying
that listening remains one of the least stressed skills and it has received less
attention in language teaching than have the other language skills, and therefore,
little class time is devoted to developing more than very basic listening skills.
There are different reasons for this neglect which represent different viewpoints:
1. Listening is rarely taught in schools because educators - along with
almost everyone else - have assumed that listening is automatic, and it
develops naturally and over time. (Hyslop & Tone, 1988; Schilling,
2002; and Beare , 2004).
2. Listening is thought of as a tool for learning other language skills but
not as an instructional goal in its own right (Morely, 1984; VanDuzer, 1997; Schilling, 2002; El-Sagheer & Levine, 2002; and Al
Hariree, 2004). These authors affirm that EFL teachers spend most of
their teaching time working with their students on reading and writing
activities. In other words, they have studied to teach speaking,
reading and writing, but they may not be as experienced in developing
objectives and activities for listening skills. Thus, it is noticeable that
listening serves as the basis for developing other language skills but
not as a skill in its own right (Abo Essa, 2005).

37

3. In traditional methods of teaching listening, listening is a skill area

that is often tested but not really taught (Hassan, 1998, pp. 22-24). In
traditional methods of teaching second/foreign language, students
simply listen to the spoken text in order to answer comprehension
questions at the end but this does not help learners acquire this
important skill. This is perhaps, according to Hyslop and Tone,
(1988); El-Sagheer and Levine (2002) and Al-Hariri (2004), because
most teachers are not certain about how best to teach listening skills.
4. A further practical reason is the fact that pupils and teachers in Arab
countries are exam-oriented, and as long as listening is not tested it is
not given the importance it deserves (Hamada, 1990; IElP-II, 2002).

As a matter of fact, the neglect of listening has continued for a long time and the
impact has been that very little direct research on foreign/second language
listening comprehension has been undertaken (Eltokhy, 1999; Dadour, 2003; and
Miller, 2003). Commenting on the shortage of studies in the field of teaching
listening, Dadour (2003) summarizes some reasons as follows:
1. Traditional approaches to the teaching of listening stress repetition
only, and this technique is not a very creative one that needs to be
continually studied.
2. The communicative approach requires the integration of language
skills. Consequently, there have been few studies that have dealt with
listening by itself.
3. Some educators think that the teaching of listening in a foreign
language classroom is merely the use of a tape.
4. Listening is thought of as a skill to be tested rather than taught.
38

5. The productive skills (speaking and writing) are thought to be more

important than the receptive ones (listening and reading). (p. 7)

After a long period of neglect of listening, Lund (cited in Van-Duzer, 1997)

suggested that as language teaching had moved toward comprehension-based
approaches, listening to learn had become an important element in second
language classrooms. Since that time, the notion of teaching listening has begun
to attract the attention of many researchers who have studied the history of
teaching listening and how it has been developed (Brown, 1990; Mendelson,
1998; Dadour, 2003).

2.1.3.1. Stages of Teaching Listening

There have been three different perspectives on, or three major stages in, the
teaching of listening during the last fifty years.

The First Stage took place in the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s, when language
educators were influenced by behaviourism as mentioned by Mendelson (1998).
Brown (1990) has refers to the position of listening in the first stage saying that
as the idea of teaching the four skills developed during the late 50s and 60s,
listening comprehension, as one of those skills, began to be paid little attention.
During that period, the stimulus-response concept was used as a technique in the
audio-lingual method (ALM), and listening was taught by offering the learners
the opportunity to listen to the teacher or to a tape and then to repeat what they
heard, imitating the utterances produced by the model (McDonough, 2003).

39

Moreover, Brown (1994) and Dadour (2003) point out that in the first stage
listening was taught only so that certain micro skills of listening that could affect
the learners' comprehension of the received message could be identified. The
teacher's job in the first stage was to train the learners, mainly through repetition
techniques. Thus, the teaching of listening in the first stage was to: a) identify
certain micro skills of listening, and b) train the students so that they could
develop these micro-skills through repetition techniques.
The Second Stage started in the late 1970s and extended into the 1980s and was
influenced by the principles of the communicative approach to language teaching
and the natural approach to language acquisition. This stage emphasized the role
of unconscious learning of language skills where learning took place in the
classroom through interaction and exposure to sufficient input to allow students
to be able to formulate hypotheses about the language and to give them sufficient
vocabulary to be able to produce satisfactory and meaningful utterances, as
explained by Krashen and Terell (1983). Thus, there was no explicit attention
devoted to the development of listening abilities in the second stage since it was
hypothesized that comprehension would occur on its own through learners'
exposure to input, as described by Shrum and Glisan (1994).
The Third Stage began in the 1990s and represents the new trends in the
teaching of listening. Generally, language teaching during this stage has
emphasized the role of consciousness-raising in language learning classrooms
and, therefore, researchers have directed their attention to the study of the factors
that can convert language input into intake. In other words, more attention is
directed to what is actually stored in the learners' competence rather than to the

40

sent messages. Research conducted on the teaching of listening since the 1990s
has focused on ideas such as: a) training the students on using learning strategies
when listening; b) considering the learners' awareness and background
knowledge of the received messages; and c) utilizing technology in the teaching
of listening (Dadour, 2003).
The following table summarizes a comparison between the traditional and the
new trends of teaching listening:
Item

Traditional trends

New trends

Main focus on

Skill and micro-skills

Processes behind
comprehension

Type of training

Repetition and/or

Training on strategy use

exposure to the target

language
Learners roles

Offering input

Developing intake

Media

Repetition, imitation and

To raise learners awareness/

rehearsal-based activities

metacognition

Ears only

The eyes, imaginary views, and

Senses evoked

kinesthesia are also involved

Table 1: Comparison between the traditional and new trends of teaching listening
(Dadour, 2002, p. 8)

The previous brief review of the trends in the teaching of listening reveals that
while traditional approaches to language teaching tend to underemphasize the
importance of listening, more recent approaches emphasize the role of listening
in building up language competence, suggesting that more attention should be
paid to the teaching of listening in the initial stages of second language learning.

41

Abdel Latif (2002) asserts that "the importance of listening cannot be

underestimated nor can it be treated trivially in foreign language programs; it
needs to be one of the central focal point of curricula" (p. 10). For this reason,
teachers and researchers interested in developing listening comprehension skills
should be aware of four further issues: 1) the types of knowledge used in
listening; 2) the processes of listening; 3) the micro skills of listening; and 4) the
techniques and activities used in teaching, or more recently scaffolding, of
listening skills.

2.1.4. Different Types of Knowledge Used in Listening

When the language comprehension system is considered, it is obvious that a
number of different types of knowledge are involved - linguistic knowledge and
non-linguistic knowledge. There are different types of linguistic knowledge, but
among the most important are phonology, lexis, syntax, semantics and discourse
structure. The non-linguistic knowledge used in comprehension is knowledge
about the topic, about the context, and general knowledge about the world and
how it works. There has been much debate about how this knowledge is applied
to the incoming sound. Yet, two important views, the bottom-up view and the
top-down- view, have attempted to reflect the order in which different types of
knowledge are applied during comprehension.
In bottom-up processing, the listener attends to data in the incoming speech
signals whereas, in top-down processing the listener utilizes prior knowledge
and expectations to guide the process of understanding (Rost, 2005). This
simultaneous bottom-up and top-down processing takes place at different levels
of cognitive organization - phonological, grammatical, lexical, propositional and

42

discoursal. Because of the multiple levels of organization, every listener utilizes

a parallel processing model to find the best fit of meaning: Representations at
each of these five levels create activation at other levels while the entire network
of interactions serves to produce a best match that fits all of the levels
(McGruddy, 1999).

2.1.5. Processes of Listening

Listeners outside and inside classrooms undergo various processes when
listening to different oral input. Cohen (1990, pp. 44-45) presents five types of
oral language input:
i.

Commentator talk: the language of TV and radio

commentators. If you are a beginner in the
language, such talk will be most difficult to
understand.

ii.

Native speaker talk

iii.

Foreigner talk

iv.

Teacher talk: the form of foreigner talk that

teachers choose to use in the classroom

v.

Inter-language talk: the speech of foreign

language learners with all its developmental
forms.

Teachers may use listening materials ranging from the first to the last type.
Learners will need to learn how to process the type of input presented to them.

43

The first type of process is the "bottom-up" model of understanding the oral
message that prevailed during the 1940s-50s and was later proved not to be
efficient on its own (Brown, 1990). It is evident that responding to orally
received input does not take place in one step, but it takes various steps.
Comprehension has its own approaches or processes to be followed by the
listener. Richards (l987) pinpoints two contradictory approaches stating that:
Two distinct kinds of processes are involved in listening
comprehension, which are sometimes referred to as bottom-up
and top-down processing. Bottom-up processing refers to the
use of incoming data as a source of information about the
meaning of a message. Top-down processing, on the other hand,
refers to the use of background knowledge in understanding the
meaning of a message. (pp. 50-51)
Therefore, the two kinds of listening processes need to be used in a
complementary manner. One concentrates on the use of linguistic forms of the
heard message while the other concentrates on background knowledge for getting
the intended meaning. Paran (1997) found that both kinds of processing are
correlated and interactive; they take place at the same time.
When looking deeply into the two types of processing, one can see that the
bottom-up process is a teacher-centered approach. The teacher is supposed to
teach student the sounds, words and structures of the language first, which is
similar to the traditional way of teaching. The other approach is more
communicative and more student-centered. The main focus is on the learners
use of their background knowledge; the teachers role here is experienceorganizer or facilitator.

44

A model of listening processes suggested by Saricoban (1999) is:

1. perception of sounds, letter shapes, etc.
2. initial recognition of the meaning of short stretches
3. material held in short-term memory
4. related to material already held in short-term memory
5. related to material arriving in short-term-memory
6. meaning extracted from message and retained in long-term memory
7. gist recalled later.
According to Saricoban (1999):
Listening to and understanding speech involves a number of basic
processes, some depending upon linguistic competence, some
depending upon previous knowledge that is not necessarily of a
purely linguistic nature, and some depending upon psychological
variables that affect the mobilization of this competence and
knowledge in the particular task situation. (p. 96).

The former varied descriptions of the processes involved in listening are attempts
to explain what really takes place when one is listening. They have a number of
steps in common. These steps do not take place in the same sequence.
Researchers may integrate these classifications in order to come up with a more
comprehensive description of the listening process that would facilitate the
teaching of listening in order to help foreign language learners effectively
develop the micro skills of listening.

45

2.1.6. The Micro Skills of Listening

Listening is one of the macro-skills of language learning. In turn, listening is
composed of a number of micro-skills.
Lapp and Anderson (1988, pp. 83-88) present a number of listening micro skills
categorized according to different listening types:
i. Social Listening:
listening courteously and attentively to conversations in social
situations with a purpose.
understanding the roles of the speaker and listener in the
communication process.
ii. Secondary Listening:
listening to music that accompanies rhythms or folk dances
enjoying music while participating in certain types of school activities
such as painting and working with clay.
iii. Aesthetic Listening:
listening to music, poetry, choral or drama heard on radio or on
recordings
enjoying stories, poems, riddles, jingles and plays as read or told by
the teacher or pupils.
iv. Critical Listening:
noting correct speech habits, word usage, and sentence elements of
others
listening to determine the reason
listening to make judgments
46

 listening to find the answers to specific questions which requires

selectivity and concentration.
v. Concentrative Listening:
listening to follow directions
perceiving relationships such as class, place, quantity, time, sequence,
and cause and effect
listening for sequence of ideas
listening for a definite purpose to elicit specific items or information.
vi. Creative Listening:
constructing visual images while listening
adopting imagery from imaginative thinking to create new results in
writing, painting and dramatizing
listening to arrive at solutions for problems as well as checking and
verifying the results of the problem solved.
The above classification of the micro skills of listening presented by Lapp and
Anderson (1988) was specifically for elementary school pupils. It pinpoints the
need of those pupils to develop their ability to listen to various materials.
Beare (2004) presents another classification of listening micro skills divided into
two main categories: perceptual and cognitive skills.
I. Perceptual Skills:

being able to distinguish phonemes and segmented words from

the continuous speech stream

interpreting assimilations and elisions

47

inferring meaning and emphasis from stress

identifying how prosody can carry a communicative function

recognizing and reconstructing elliptic forms.

II. Cognitive Skills:

recognizing discourse-organizing features

making predictions about the development of the topic

interpreting the speakers intentions

applying background knowledge and world experience and

adapting this to accommodate what we hear

script knowledge and scaffolding.

It is important to mention here that listening micro skills suitable for beginners
may not be suitable for advanced learners; therefore, teachers need to identify
which listening micro skills are required for their students (Imhof, 2001, pp. 219).
Beginners and intermediate students need to be trained in these micro skills:

predicting what they are going to hear

listening for the gist (the general idea)

listening for specific information

coping with language which is too fast for them

coping with unfamiliar words and expressions

using the context to increase understanding

detailed listening.

48

On the other hand, advanced learners need more training in the following micro
skills:

recognizing how stress, rhythm and intonation are used to

convey meaning

deciding what situation the speakers are in

distinguishing between the different sounds of English

understanding relationships between different speakers

understanding colloquial speech

being able to imagine someones character from what they say

making inferences. This is like reading between the lines which

is one of the most difficult skills of listening.

The classifications of listening micro skills mentioned above share some items;
some skills are found in some classifications and are missed in others. These
classifications helped this researcher to identify and choose the listening micro
skills that will be most suitable for sixth grade elementary pupils (See Chapter
III).

2.1.7. Recommendations for Effective Listening

Because of the growing need to include listening comprehension skill as one of
the fundamental components of any language course, there are some
recommendations for effective listening:
1- We never listen without a purpose. We should not ask a student to
listen without identifying, or helping him to identify, a purpose that relates
to the communicative value of the text (Byrne, l984). It is the supposed

49

role of the teacher to assign pupils a specific purpose to listen for.

Lindsay (2000) states that generally there are four purposes for listening:
- listening for gist
- listening for specific information
- listening to establish a context
- listening to provide information for later discussion, role-play, or
information exchange.
2- Effective listening is mainly characterized as having an identified target for
listening. Consequently, the acknowledged objective of listening determines the
type or steps of processing to be followed. Krashen and Terrell (1984) believe
that:
What must happen is that by hearing everything in a clear context,
the student is able to follow the communication without
necessarily understanding all of the language. When this goal is
attained, students will believe they can understand a new language.
(p. 75)
3- Listening is difficult for young foreign learners of English; therefore, the role
of the teacher is to facilitate listening. Cohen (1990) suggests some strategies
which help listeners to listen effectively:
listening for key words
tapping into the key topics and paying particular attention to skim
listening
listening just for the overall theme without worrying about the details
(p. 47).

50

More recently, Rost (1991) recommended a set of steps that should be taken into
consideration to simplify or adjust the listening activities to remove the
difficulties that students and teachers face:
- make the input language of the activity simpler or less complex
- create pre-listening activities that give a useful preview of the content
and procedures of the activity
- give visual support for the listening activity
- break down the steps of the activity in order to provide sub-goals
- decreased amount of time required to be spent on oral and written
production.
4- Teachers and course designers need to help language learners develop suitable
listening habits. Teachers can help their students take part in preparing for the
listening experiences. The following are some strategies that can be employed
by both teachers and students to plan lessons that help develop effective
listening:
- Activate existing knowledge: students should be encouraged to ask the
question; What do I already know about this topic?
- Build prior knowledge: teachers can provide appropriate background
information including information about the topic.
- Establish a purpose: teachers should encourage students to ask the
question; "Why am I listening?" (Lindsay, 2000)
5- Teachers should concentrate on the way English uses certain sound
distinctions, rhythm and pitch to alert listeners to significant grammar and

51

discourse features that are used to keep listeners (learners) on track with
speakers.
Teachers need to think of various ways to apply the former recommendations in
order to scaffold their students' listening skills. They need to be more effective
and more imaginative, and they should be aware of their students' language
proficiency levels, their growth requirements, and the techniques of teaching and
scaffolding listening comprehension skills.

52

2.1.8. Review of Related Studies on Listening Comprehension

Listening is a language skill which was, and still is, a core research field. Many
studies have been conducted to explore the effectiveness of different teaching
techniques and activities in developing the listening comprehension skills of: 1)
young learners, and 2) adult learners.

2.1.8.1. Studies Dealing with Young Learners

Perkins (1992) conducted a study which aimed at measuring the effectiveness of
teaching certain listening skills to increase the auditory discrimination ability of
pre-school children. The research sample was 20 pre-school children and an
experimental and a control design was used. The control group received the
regular lesson plan activities; the experimental group was given extra activities
including rhyming words, retelling stories, listening games, and the opportunity
to practice phoneme sounds for 30 minutes each day for 9 weeks. The
experimental group showed a significant gain in the post-test.

Thomas (1997) carried out another treatment to teach listening to young learners
of English as a foreign language. The study aimed to examine whether reading
adult literature aloud to children in the intermediate classroom would increase
the students' listening and reading comprehension skills. The research sample
was 30 intermediate school children and an experimental and a control design
was used. The Stanford Achievement Test was used as the measure for both preand post-testing of the experimental and the control classes. The experiment
lasted for two years. The experimental group showed a significant gain in both
listening skills and reading skills over the control group.

53

Seif El Nasr (2003) conducted a study that aimed to identify the effectiveness of
using language activities based on songs, dictation and dialogues on developing
the listening skills in English of fifth grade primary pupils. The sample of the
study consisted of 68 pupils. 34 pupils from each of two government schools
were randomly chosen and assigned to a control and an experimental group. The
results of the study showed a significant difference between the mean scores of
the two groups in the listening post-test in favour of the experimental group.

The studies on developing the listening comprehension skills of young learners

reviewed above indicate that listening comprehension skills can be developed at
an early age using different kinds of activities such as rhyming words, retelling
stories, listening games, reading aloud activity, and activities based on songs,
dictation and dialogues.

As it aims to develop the listening comprehension skills of primary schoolgirls,

the present study can make use of the designs, the activities and the evaluative
techniques used in these studies.

2.1.8.2. Studies Dealing with Adult Learners

Quinn (1996) conducted a study aimed at investigating the pedagogical utility of
songs as a means of raising language learners' awareness of stress in English. In
this study, the researcher used songs with adult learners of English as a foreign
language. The research sample, 47 adult intermediate students of English, was
divided into two groups. The researcher compared the two groups' perception of
stress; one group participated in spoken activities, while the other group
participated in activities involving song. The researcher also compared the
54

groups recall of stress patterns in the absence of the original oral input. Test
results revealed statistically significant improvement in the performance of both
groups despite the statistically insignificant differences between them. Although
the songs and the spoken materials proved to be equally useful for developing
stress perception, the study proves that songs are a guaranteed motivational tool
that teachers can use to develop the language skills of adults.

Hasan (1998) conducted a field study investigating the actual teaching of

listening in the EFL classroom at Damascus University. His study aimed to
improve the traditional method of teaching listening in the EFL classroom at
Damascus University and also to examine the effectiveness of some alternative
techniques in teaching listening. These techniques included: (1) pre-listening
activities; (2) strategies or enabling skills; (3) aural input; (4) tasks and activities;
and (5) visual and written support. A descriptive-analytical approach was used
for this study.
The results of the study showed that listening comprehension was not taught
properly in EFL classrooms at Damascus University, and this could be attributed
to the fact that teachers had not made much use of effective techniques for
teaching listening comprehension; instead, they had focused on the traditional
techniques of teaching this skill. In addition, the study ascertained that when
alternative techniques for teaching listening were instigated well, they could
provide effective techniques for improving the teaching of listening skills and
could lead to students having greater confidence in using the language for
interactive and communicative purposes.

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Abou-Hadeed (2000) carried out a study aimed at investigating the effectiveness

of cognitive and metacognitive learning strategies on developing students'
listening and reading comprehension. The study was partly analytical and partly
experimental. Two classes were chosen at random and assigned to an
experimental or a control group; there were 40 students in the experimental
group, and 45 students in the control group. The experimental group received a
self-instructional program based on cognitive and metacognitive strategies for
developing their listening and reading skills. Students in the control group
received the usual type of instruction. They were given ten additional listening
and reading comprehension passages by the researcher using the traditional
method.
The results of the study indicated that there was evidence that the selfinstructional program, when used with cognitive and metacognitive learning
strategies, helped students to develop certain listening comprehension skills, i.e.
getting the general idea, getting the specific idea, predicting the next incident,
and making inferences. The program also developed their reading
comprehension skills, i.e. skimming, scanning, guessing the meaning of
unfamiliar words, predicting the next incident, making inferences, and
summarizing.

Abdel-Aal (2002) conducted a study aimed at helping student teachers of

English in Egypt learn how to go about listening, and how to get over the
problems they had in listening to English as a foreign language. This was to be
achieved by designing an instructional program for listening based on strategy
instruction and then evaluating the effects of this program on the development of

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listening comprehension among the student teachers of English. It also

compared the effects of this program with two other approaches - metacognitive
instruction only, and the pure exposure approach.

The sample of the study was a homogeneous group of 72 third year

undergraduate students majoring in English at the Faculty of Education at Al
Azhar University. The subjects were assigned to three groups of 24 students the strategy group, the metacognitive group, and the control group. The
researcher investigated six instruments; a) listening comprehension tests; b) a
strategy questionnaire; c) a self-efficacy questionnaire; d) an attitude
questionnaire; e) follow-up interviews; and f) retrospective interviews.

There were positive findings from the experiment. The strategy training
approach was most effective in enhancing FL learners' listening skills and
promoting learners' self- efficacy. Both the strategy training and the
metacognitive approaches had a positive effect on the learners' attitude towards
the treatment. The effect of the treatment seemed to be the same for high and
low proficiency students.

Kashghari (2003) conducted a study aimed at examining the effect of visual

cues on listening comprehension skill. The sample of the study was 29 female
L2 students in the English department at Umm Al-Qura University. They were
assigned to two groups: 14 students in the Audio group and 15 students in the
Visual group. All subjects listened to two lectures. The lectures were presented
to the Audio group using an audiotape, and to the Visual group using an
audiotape and pictures related to the content of the lectures. The Audio and

57

Visual groups completed five tasks: the SLEP test, a demographic profile,
writing a summary for each lecture, comprehension questions, and a
questionnaire.
The results of the study revealed the significance of using visual cues in
developing the listening comprehension skill of L2 learners. The Visual group
showed a positive attitude toward listening comprehension with visual cues.

AL-Hariree (2004) aimed at developing some listening comprehension skills for

first-year secondary school students through the use of some metacognitive
strategies. The study adopted a quasi-experimental design. Subjects in this study
were female first-year secondary school students. Two classes were randomly
selected and assigned to two groups: an experimental group of 40 students and a
control group of 40 students. Students in the experimental group were taught
using metacognitive strategies through the Strategy-Based Approach to listening
and the Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach (CALLA) for
developing their listening comprehension skills. The control group received
regular instruction.
The results of the study were positive and showed that (1) there was a
statistically significant difference between the mean scores of the experimental
group and the control group in favour of the experimental group, and (2) there
was a statistically significant difference between the mean scores of the
experimental group who had been exposed to the metacognitive strategy
instruction in the pre and post-test in overall listening comprehension skills and
in each listening sub-skill with the group doing significantly better in the posttest. The study concluded that adopting metacognitive strategies using the

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strategy-based approach and the CALLA approach helped the experimental

group students develop their listening skills.

Otte's descriptive and exploratory study (2006) examined the outcomes of aural
authentic texts on the listening comprehension ability of four ESL students who
were enrolled in a nine-week advanced ESL listening course at a private
university in the United States. The subjects' primary purpose for taking the
listening course was to become better prepared for academic listening. This
study also sought to identify the learning strategies the advanced ESL students
used the most when faced with aural authentic texts in the listening course, and
also to examine the students' attitude towards learning the English language in
this way. The advanced ESL listening course employed audio recordings of live
conversations on topics of high interest to students. Data collection included
classroom observations, face-to-face interviews with the students and the
instructor, and two questionnaires - a self-evaluation questionnaire and a learning
strategy questionnaire.

Results from this study indicated that the use of aural authentic texts in the
advanced ESL listening course increased students' motivation to seek
opportunities to listen to aural authentic language outside the classroom. The
students also gained a greater awareness of the learning strategies - cognitive,
metacognitive, and socio-affective - that they employed most when dealing with
aural authentic texts as well as their strengths and weaknesses as listeners and as
learners. Lastly, the students' attitude towards learning English in this way
improved as they found themselves more successful in comprehending features
of real English language such as contractions, reductions and elisions.

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A review of the previous section indicates that some studies were concerned with
the effectiveness of using different techniques for developing and teaching
listening. These techniques include songs, cognitive and metacognitive learning
strategies, using visual cues and aural authentic texts.
Although the previous studies dealt with adults, this researcher found them of
benefit. Ideas for using each teaching technique and for simplifying some of the
strategies to suit young learners have been developed for the present research
based on the findings of these studies. Reviewing previous studies has also
allowed the researcher to anticipate most of the students' needs during listening.
As a result, the researcher has been able to design some different types of
interactive listening activities for developing the listening comprehension skills
of sixth grade elementary schoolgirls.
Other studies have been concerned with evaluating listening comprehension
skills and designing validated listening comprehension tests. For example, Sheir
(1977), who designed an English achievement test to assess the language
proficiency of Egyptian preparatory school leavers, allocated a part of the test to
measure the students' listening comprehension skills. The test used a number of
discrete-item questions and statements to which students listened once. These
listening items were tape-recorded. The test used written multiple-choice
responses. The listening section was reliable (0.90). It was administered to 160
students chosen randomly from third year preparatory stage classes. Results
showed that students had difficulties in listening skills.
Another listening comprehension test was designed by Hamada (1990) to
evaluate the listening comprehension skills of the pupils in Grade7 of preparatory

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education in Egypt. Two samples were used; the sample of the pilot study
consisted of six classes (242 pupils both boys and girls), and the sample of the
main study consisted of eight classes (four classes of boys and four classes of
girls). The analysis of listening comprehension test scores indicated that most of
the students got low grades in listening comprehension skills with the girls
scoring better than the boys. Hamada made several recommendations: more
attention should be paid to teaching and practising listening comprehension
skills; teacher training courses should be organized to improve teachers' ability to
speak English correctly and fluently; special listening materials and exercises
should be prepared to develop the students' listening comprehension skills; and
schools should be provided with language laboratories for practising and testing
listening comprehension skills.

The previous studies assisted the researcher in choosing some techniques to

evaluate and test the listening comprehension skills of sixth grade elementary
schoolgirls, taking into consideration their linguistic level and their age.

Conclusion
After reviewing the literature and related studies on listening, it can be concluded
that:

Listening is a skill that can be developed by using appropriate techniques.

Listening is a complex process in which listeners construct meaning

within the context of their experience and knowledge.

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Listening involves many different sub-skills that are necessary for

communication and language learning.

Different techniques and strategies can be used for teaching listening as

well as for testing it.

Developing listening can start at an early age, even before children go to

school. This may be achieved by using interesting techniques such as
songs and games which make language learning more enjoyable and
motivational.

Different strategies proved to be effective in developing the listening

comprehension skills of young and adult learners.

Listening is a vital and a fertile field of research and it is still in need of

more oriented research to investigate and explore the areas of listening
that have not been studied yet.

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2.2 Scaffolding
Introduction
Scaffolding is a recent view of teaching new skills, concepts and higher levels of
understanding. It is a more mature educational and psychological view of the
teachers' support and intervention in the learners' learning. Many efforts have
been made to explore this view, its concepts, characteristics, types and
techniques, and to develop guidelines and cautions for using scaffolding in
classrooms.

2.2.1. Scaffolding: Concepts and Pedagogical Implications

Scaffolding, in its usual sense, is defined as "a temporary structure that is often
put up in the process of constructing a building. As each bit of the new building
is finished, the scaffolding is taken down. The scaffolding is temporary, but
essential for the construction of the building" (Gibbons, 2002, p. 10).
Wood, Bruner and Ross (1976, p. 9) were the first to use the term "scaffolding"
in its educational sense. They defined it as an adult controlling those elements
of the task that are essentially beyond the learners capacity, thus permitting him
to concentrate upon and complete only those elements that are within his range
of competence. Similarly, the teaching process can be seen as comparable to
the process of constructing a building. From this perspective, the term
scaffolding is used to describe the assistance given to a learner while s/he is
trying to acquire a new skill.

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This assistance increases or decreases according to the learner's ability to

accomplish the task alone. Scaffolding, then, is a special kind of temporary help
that assists and motivates the leaner to move to a higher level of understanding or
success in accomplishing the targeted task. It is what a teacher - the scaffolder does when working with a learner to solve a problem, carry out a task, achieve a
goal or acquire a skill which would be beyond his or her unassisted efforts
(Hogan & Pressley, 1997; and Larkin, 2002).
Pressley (2002) provides a particularly rich description, explaining both the
metaphor entailed in the term and its educational meaning. The scaffolding of a
building under construction provides support when the new building cannot
stand on its own. As the new structure is completed and becomes freestanding,
the scaffolding is removed. In the same way, during scaffolded adult-child
academic interactions, the adult carefully monitors when enough instructional
input has been provided to permit the child to make progress toward an academic
goal. Thus, the adult provides support only when the child needs it. If the child
makes progress quickly, the adults responsive instruction will be less detailed
than if the child experiences difficulties with the task.
Figure 3 summarizes the crucial and sensitive relationship between the teacher's
(the adults) and the student's (the child's) responsibilities in scaffolded reading
situations.

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Fig.3. The gradual release of responsibility (Pearson and Gallagher, 1983, p. 337)

This figure goes along with Hogan and Pressley (1997) who describe scaffolding
as a temporary supportive structure that teachers create to assist a student or a
group of students to accomplish a task that they could not complete alone (p.
116). Clark (2005) and Cagiltay (2006) describe scaffolding as a process that
enables a child or a novice to solve a problem, carry out a task or achieve a goal
which would be beyond his unassisted efforts. Graves (2003) expanded this
definition, noting that in addition to helping children complete tasks they could
not otherwise complete, scaffolding can aid students by helping them to complete
a task with less stress or in less time, or to learn more fully than they would have
otherwise (p. 30). In scaffolded learning situations, learners can also extend
current skills and knowledge to a higher level of competence (Rogoff, 1996).

2.2.2. Origins and Further Understanding of Scaffolding

Scaffolding is nowadays a popular method for developing new skills, concepts
and higher levels of understanding within learners' performance. The notion of
scaffolding has been linked to the work of the Soviet psychologist Lev Vygotsky.
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Although Vygotsky did not use the term scaffolding, he believed that learning
first occurs at the social or interindividual level, and he emphasized the role of
social interactions as being crucial to cognitive development. Therefore,
according to Vygotsky (1978), a child (or a novice) learns with an adult or a
more capable peer; and learning occurs within the childs zone of proximal
development (ZPD). ZPD is defined as the "distance between the childs actual
developmental level as determined by independent problem-solving and the
higher level of potential development as determined through problem-solving
under adult guidance and in collaboration with more capable peers (Vygotsky,
1978, p. 86). Enabling the learner to bridge this gap between the actual and the
potential depends on the resources or the kinds of support provided. Moll (1990)
defined the relationship between student and teacher as a give and take
relationship based on a mutual responsibility for the task and the learning
environment. He said:
Within the ZPD, the child is not a passive recipient of the adults
teachings, nor is the adult simply a model of expert successful
behaviour. Instead, the adultchild dyad engages in joint problem
solving activity, where both share knowledge and responsibility for
the task. Rather than simply modeling, the adult teacher must first
create a level of intersubjectivity, where the child redefines the
problem situation in terms of the adult perspective. Once the child
shares the adults goals and definition of the problem situation, the
adult must gradually and increasingly transfer task responsibility to
the child. (p. 219)
Later, the notion of scaffolding was linked with the ZPD. Instruction in the ZPD
then came to be viewed as taking the form of providing assistance (or
scaffolding), enabling a child or a novice to solve a problem, carry out a task or

66

achieve a goal that s/he would not be able to achieve on his or her own (Bruner,
1985).

The original notion of scaffolding assumed that a single, more knowledgeable

person, such as a parent or a teacher, helped an individual learner by providing
him or her with exactly the help s/he needed to move forward (Bruner, 1985;
Wood et al., 1976). In this description, one of the most critical aspects of
scaffolding is the role of the adult or the expert. Wood et al. documented six
types of support that an adult can provide: (1) recruiting the childs interest;
(2) reducing the degree of freedom by simplifying the task; (3) maintaining
direction; (4) high-lighting the critical task features; (5) controlling frustration;
and (6) demonstrating ideal solution paths. The expert functions as a facilitator
who is knowledgeable in the skills, strategies and processes required for effective
learning. The expert not only helps motivate the learner by providing just
enough support to enable him or her to accomplish the goal, but also provides
support in the form of modelling, highlighting the critical features of the task,
and providing hints and questions that might help the learner to reflect. In this
view, the adults role includes perceptual, cognitive and affective components
(Van Lier, 2004).
Successful scaffolding is related to other educational notions:
1. A shared understanding of the goal of the activity "intersubjectivity":
Intersubjectivity is attained when the adult and child collaboratively
redefine the task so that there is combined ownership of the task and the
child shares an understanding of the goal that s/he needs to accomplish.

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2. Gradual assistance: Mercer (1995, p. 74) clarifies the assistance provided

by an adult when she describes scaffolding as "the sensitive supportive
intervention of a teacher in the progress of a learner who is actively
involved in some specific tasks, but who is not quite able to manage the
task alone". Thus, "scaffolding" requires (A) the teacher's involvement in
the learner's learning; (B) an active learner; and (C) a challenging
learning task which requires particular support from the teacher to be
done by the learner. More precisely, scaffolding requires gradual
assistance in the sense that the adult provides appropriate support based
on an ongoing diagnosis of the childs current level of understanding.
This requires that the adult should not only have a thorough knowledge of
the task and its components as well as the sub-goals that need to be
accomplished, but s/he should also have knowledge of the childs
capabilities that will change as the instruction progresses (Van Lier,
2004). Therefore, the number and types of strategy are different, not only
for different learners who are at different levels in their learning but also
for the same learner over a period of time. The adult may model the ideal
solutions (Wood et al., 1976) or the appropriate strategies (Brown, 1984)
or provide several types of support such as offering explanations, inviting
participation, modeling desired behaviour, and providing clarifications
(Roehler & Cantlon, 1997).
3. Ongoing assessment: An important point is that the ongoing assessment
and adaptation of support is attained through the dialogic and interactive
nature of scaffolded instruction. Van Lier (2004) added that interactions
also enable the adult to monitor progress, provide appropriate support,

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and eventually fade the support so that the learner is now able to function
on his or her own.
4. Learning responsibility: The final key theoretical feature of
scaffolding is fading the support provided to the learner so that the
learner is now in control and taking responsibility for learning.
Vygotsky (1978) theorized that the cognitive processes that first
occur on an interpsychological plane move on to an
intrapsychological plane, a process that he called internalization.
There is a transfer of responsibility from the teacher to the learner
and the scaffolding can be removed as the learner moves toward
independent activity. According to Vygotsky, internalization is
hardly a mechanical operation. In Woods original conception,
what is important about the transfer of responsibility is that the
child not only learns how to complete a specific task, but
successful scaffolding entails that the child also abstracts the
process of completing the particular activity to generalize this
understanding to similar tasks (1976).

It is now evident that scaffolding plays a significant role in the process of

learning in general and in learning new skills in particular. Stager and Harman
(2002) concluded that scaffolding contributes a significant amount of strengths
that are critical to teaching. They emphasized the fact that one cannot teach
without using some of the techniques of scaffolding. It is also clear that
scaffolding is multidimensional in the sense that it includes different types of

69

assistance and support which can be provided to the learner - psychological,

cognitive and pedagogical.

2.2.2.1. Psychological Aspects of Scaffolding

From the psychological perspective, when scaffolding techniques are applied
properly, they provide individualized support based on the learners ZPD.
Scaffolding builds self-confidence when the learner feels that s/he could
accomplish the task without frustration. According to Stager and Harman,
"Scaffolding is valued because it helps the student master the task, strategy or
skill using easier material, and then move toward mastery of higher level content
with more confidence and actual understanding". This temporary and adjustable
assistance provided by the teacher allows the learner to complete a task that
would have been impossible to complete without the scaffolded support.
Furthermore, scaffolding fosters a different relationship between the teacher and
the learner; the teacher provides a comfortable and interesting learning
atmosphere in order to make the learners more excited about acquiring the new
skills.

2.2.2.2. Cognitive Aspects of Scaffolding

Cognitive scaffolding is what a teacher does when working with a student to
solve a problem, carry out a task, or achieve a goal which would be beyond
his/her unassisted efforts. It can be said that scaffolding is a wonderful tool for
getting learners to acquire critical thinking skills and to develop a problemsolving mentality. Critical thinking is the intellectual-disciplined process of
actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing and/or

70

evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience,

reflection, reasoning or communication, as a guide to belief and action (Rogoff,
1996). Problem-solving has been defined as a higher-order cognitive process
that requires the modulation and control of more routine or fundamental skills.
All these cognitive processes require not only a lot of scaffolding but different
levels of the teacher's involvement in the learners' learning.

2.2.2.3. Pedagogical Aspects of Scaffolding

The ultimate goal of scaffolding is to support, assist and facilitate the learning
process. Hammond (2001, p. 60) describes how scaffolding works by stating
that Knowing when and how to intervene is what scaffolding is all about. It is
about the teacher taking an informed and active role in guiding students learning
as they come to terms with new ideas and concepts. He adds that scaffolding is
far more than helping out so that a student can complete a task. It requires the
teacher to act contingently, using a variety of strategies, so that students can gain
understanding and confidence to work independently in applying new learning.
In other words, they can work without assistance. This requires that teachers
carefully monitor students' learning, provide assistance when needed, and
withdraw at a suitable time.
Van Lier (2004) and Walqui (2006) illustrate different and significant
pedagogical aspects of scaffolding:
Continuity: Tasks are repeated with variations and are connected to one another.
Contextual support: Exploration is encouraged in a safe, supportive
environment; access to means and goals is promoted in a variety of ways.

71

Intersubjectivity: Mutual engagement and rapport are established; there is

encouragement and nonthreatening participation in a shared community of
practice.
Contingency: Task procedures are adjusted depending on the actions of learners;
contributions and utterances are oriented towards each other and may be coconstructed.
Handover/takeover: There is an increasing role for the learner as skills and
confidence increase; the teacher watches carefully for the learners readiness to
take over increasing parts of the action.
Flow: Skills and challenges are in balance; participants are focused on the task
and are in tune with each other.
The above mentioned pedagogical aspects of scaffolding assert that
psychological and cognitive scaffolding do exist within pedagogical scaffolding.
They all interact together and it is hard to characterize the features of each aspect
separately as in Figure 4.

Fig.4. The integrated aspects of scaffolding

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2.2.3. Scaffolding Techniques

What is needed in EFL classrooms is effective or successful scaffolding where a
teacher assists students to learn and to manage the parts of a task and hence
presents just the right challenge at the right time and place and in the right way.
Rogoff (1996) mentions that scaffolding integrates multiple aspects of a task into
a manageable chunk and permits students to see how they interrelate. In so
doing, it helps students to cope with the complexity of tasks in an authentic
manner.
The way that scaffolding is implemented in the classroom depends on students
abilities. Varying levels of support are possible, and the teacher and learner
collaboratively redefine the task so that there is combined ownership of the task
and the learner shares an understanding of the goal that he or she needs to
accomplish it (Van Lier, 2004).
According to Hannafin (2001), scaffolding can be differentiated by mechanisms
and functions. Mechanisms emphasize the methods by which scaffolding is
provided while functions emphasize the purposes served. Scaffolding varies in
complexity according to different contextual variables. Scaffolding approaches
or methods therefore vary accordingly. In some instances, where the problem or
the task is very explicit, simple scaffolding can be closely linked to specific
performance demands. But when the task is not well-known or is ill-defined,
scaffolding of a generic nature is generally provided. The teacher can use
different types of scaffolds - conceptual, metacognitive, procedural and strategic.

Conceptual scaffolding is provided when the task is well defined and

guides learners regarding what to consider. Conceptual scaffolding can
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be accomplished by several mechanisms such as cueing/hinting, coaching

comments for motivational purposes, providing feed back, and providing
a model (Cagiltay, 2006).

Metacognitive scaffolding provides guidance in how to think and how to

relate the given information to previous knowledge.

Procedural scaffolding emphasizes, clarifies and aids the learner while

s/he is performing the task until the task is accomplished.

Strategic scaffolding takes the form of response-sensitive guidance at key

decision points.

Hogan and Pressley (1997, pp. 17-36) present different instructional scaffolding
techniques such as modeling of desired behaviors, offering explanations, inviting
learners' participation, verifying and clarifying learners' understandings, and
inviting learners to contribute clues. These techniques may either be integrated
or used individually depending on the material being taught. The instructors
goal in employing scaffolding techniques is to offer just enough assistance to
guide the students toward independence and self-regulation.
As such, the instructor plays a very crucial role in the scaffolding activities. In
these activities, s/he can:

motivate or enlist the childs interest related to the task

simplify the task to make it more manageable and achievable for a child

provide some direction in order to help the child focus on achieving the
goal

clearly indicate differences between the childs work and the standard or
desired solution
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reduce frustration and risk

model and clearly define the expectations of the activity to be performed

(Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000).

2.2.4. Scaffolding Guidelines

Effective scaffolding enables teachers to accommodate individual students
needs. Eight essential elements of scaffolded instruction that teachers can use as
general guidelines have been summarized by Hogan and Pressley (1997, pp. 138146). These elements do not have to occur in the sequence listed:

Pre-engagement with the student and the curriculum. The teacher

considers curriculum goals and the students' needs to select appropriate
tasks.

Establish a shared goal. The students may become more motivated and
invested in the learning process when the teacher works with each student
to plan instructional goals.

Actively diagnose student needs and understandings. The teacher must

be knowledgeable of content and sensitive to the students (e.g., aware of
the students' background knowledge and misconceptions) to determine if
they are making progress.

Provide tailored assistance. This may include cueing or prompting,

questioning, modeling, telling or discussing. The teacher uses these as
needed and adjusts them to meet the students' needs.

Maintain pursuit of the goal. The teacher can ask questions and request
clarification as well as offer praise and encouragement to help students
remain focused on their goals.

75

Give feedback. To help students learn to monitor their own progress, the
teacher can summarize current progress and explicitly note behaviours
that have contributed to each student's success.

Control for frustration and risk. The teacher can create an environment in
which the students feel free to take risks with learning by encouraging
them to try alternatives.

Assist internalization, independence and generalization to other contexts.

This means that the teacher helps the students to be less dependent on the
teacher's extrinsic signals to begin or complete a task and also provides
the opportunity to practice the task in a variety of contexts.

Based on classroom observations and interviews with teachers who use

scaffolding activities in their teaching, Larkin (2002, pp. 30-34) includes other
guidelines:

Begin with what the students can do. Students need to be aware of their
strengths and to feel good about tasks they can do with little or no
assistance.

Help students achieve success quickly. Although students need

challenging work in order to learn, frustration and a "cycle of failure"
may set in quickly if students do not experience frequent success.

Help students to "be like everyone else. Students want to be similar to

and accepted by their peers. If given the opportunity and support, some
students may work harder at tasks in order to appear more like their peers.

76

Know when it is time to stop. Practising is important to help students

remember and apply their knowledge, but too much may impede the
learning.

Help students to be independent when they have command of the activity.

Teachers need to watch for clues from their students that show when and
how much teacher assistance is needed. Scaffolding should be removed
gradually as students begin to demonstrate mastery and then no longer
provided when students can perform the task independently.

In order to incorporate scaffolding throughout the lesson, teachers may find the
framework outlined by Larkin (2002, pp. 58-65) helpful. This framework
reflects how the responsibility for learning is gradually shifted to the learner; the
dependent becomes independent.

First, the teacher models how to perform a new or difficult task, and
"thinks aloud" as s/he describes and illustrates the relationships in the
information contained in it.

Second, the class does the task. The teacher and students work together
to perform the task.

Third, the group does the task. Students work with a partner or a small
cooperative group to complete related exercises.

Fourth, the individual does the task. This is the independent practice
stage where individual students can demonstrate their task mastery.

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Although scaffolding can be used to optimize learning for all learners, there are
some challenges and cautions teachers should be aware of (Hogan & Perssley,
1997, pp. 138-146). The following are some challenges and cautions for
scaffolding instruction.

Scaffolding should be provided at the appropriate time but only for the
students who need it; all students may not need scaffolding for all tasks
and materials.

Awareness of the curriculum is very necessary; it will enable the teacher

to determine the difficulty level of particular materials and tasks as well
as the time and support necessary to benefit students.

The teacher should be equipped with different prompts. The first prompt
the teacher gives to a student may fail, so s/he may have to give another
prompt or think of a different wording to help the student give an
appropriate response.

Teachers should be positive, patient and caring until the student's success
becomes evident.

2.2.5. Advantages and Disadvantages of Scaffolding

Based on this review of the literature, it has been clearly noticed that:

Scaffolding is a highly flexible and adaptable model of instruction that

can be used to support learners at all levels.

Scaffolding engages the learner. The learner does not passively listen to
the information presented. Instead, through teacher prompting the learner
builds on prior knowledge and forms new knowledge.
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In working with students who have low self-esteem and learning

disabilities, scaffolding provides an opportunity to give positive
feedback. This makes them feel that they are capable of performing the
task. This leads to another advantage of scaffolding in that, if done
properly, scaffolding instruction motivates students so that they want to
learn.

It can minimize the level of frustration of the learner.

However, scaffolding instruction has some disadvantages. Rachel & Van Der
(2002) mention that the biggest disadvantage of scaffolding is that if the teacher
were to present scaffolded lessons to meet the needs of each individual, this
would be extremely time-consuming. Implementation of individualized
scaffolds in a classroom with a large number of students would be challenging.
Another disadvantage is that, unless properly trained, a teacher may not properly
implement scaffolding instruction and therefore will not see the full effect.
Scaffolding also requires that the teacher give up some control and allow the
students to make errors. This may be difficult for teachers to do. Finally, the
teachers manuals and curriculum guides do not include examples of scaffolds or
outlines of scaffolding methods that would be appropriate for the specific lesson
content. Although there are some drawbacks to the use of scaffolding as a
teaching strategy, the positive impact it can have on students learning and
development is far more important.

Teachers should be aware that what suits some learners does not necessarily suit
others. Each teacher should understand the nature of his/her students, what skills

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they have and what they do not have, so that appropriate scaffolding activities
can be well-designed and presented at a suitable time.

2.2.6. Recommended Activities and Techniques for Teaching and

Scaffolding Listening Comprehension Skills
Lots of listening activities have been designed and suggested in order to
encourage the learners to share and interact in these activities; as such their
participation in interactive listening comprehension activities will show how
much they comprehend what they listen to. Here are a few general types of
scaffolded interactive activities as mentioned by Kathy (1997) and Gibbons
(2002, pp 141-150).
-Activities Based on Visual Cues
In these activities, the teacher asks the students to:
- choose the picture that corresponds to the oral description
- complete grids, pictures or sentences with missing information
- put the pictures into the right sequence after listening to a story.
Listen and Draw: Primary pupils always enjoy drawing. Simple stick figures are
modelled for the pupils. They listen to short sentences in English including the
words in their lesson. Then they draw what the teacher says in their notebooks.
After each drawing is completed, pupils are shown a picture of the target
vocabulary so they can check their answers.
Listen and Colour: The pupils have a matrix with objects drawn on it. Then
they listen and colour the pictures according to the teacher's directions.

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Listen and Sequence: The pupils are given a group of pictures that tell a story
or illustrate a sequence. They are asked to listen as the teacher tells the story
then they arrange the pictures in the correct order.
- Information-Based Activities
These are listening activities aimed at developing pupils' skills in listening for
information. The students have to:
- indicate which word does not belong in a given sequence
- respond to questions about message content in a variety of formats
- supply possible titles for listening passages
- supply the missing portions of a telephone conversation
- supply the ending for a story
- participate in chain activities in which each person repeats what the
preceding people said and then adds a detail
- indicate the number of words heard in a sentence
- indicate if they heard a particular statement in a passage
- repeat a description as accurately as possible
- categorize words heard
- distinguish sentences, questions and exclamations
- respond to possible, impossible and unlikely statements
- paraphrase what is said.

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- Jigsaw Listening: In this activity, each group listens to an audiotape. There is

different information on each tape which all students will eventually need.
Each group takes notes about what they have learned. Then the groups
regroup to share the information they need.
- Hands Up!: Pupils are given a set of questions based on a text. The text is read
aloud and when the students hear the information that answers the question,
they raise their hands. The questions are in the order in which the information
is given.
- If You Are .: This is a listening activity in which the students are required
to follow instructions depending on other information that relates to them.
- Information Extraction Tasks: These are listening activities aimed at
developing students' skills in listening for key information.
- Spot the Difference: This activity is aimed at developing students' skills in
listening for general information.
- Listen and Classify: The pupils are provided with a table that is partially filled
in. The table is designed according to the topic of the lesson. Next, the
pupils listen and look for the information they need to complete the table.
The first one is done for them.
- Listen and Judge: For this activity, the teacher reads a text to the pupils. The
pupils have some written sentences on a separate paper. They are asked to
listen and judge which sentence is right and which one is wrong. Pupils will
find this particularly interesting if the teacher uses sentences about them.

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- Listen and Match: A list of target vocabulary words are written on the board.
The pupils are asked to listen as the teacher defines one of the words, then
asks them to write the appropriate word on their paper. They are helped to
check their answers at the end of the activity.
- Game Activities
Describe and Draw: This is a barrier game that can be done as a teacher-directed
activity or between pairs of students or with one student directing the class:
Draw a circle in the middle of the paper.
Draw a big triangle on top so that it touches the circle.
Under the circle draw
Map Games: These are barrier games using incomplete maps that must be
completed through questioning, or games involving the giving of directions
using the maps.
Matching Games: Students have several pictures, each labeled with a number.
The teacher describes one of the pictures, giving each description a letter.
Students then match the pictures with the description saying which number
goes with each letter.
Sound Bingo: This is based on the traditional Bingo game. Children hear
sounds rather that words; for example, they may hear a baby crying or a dog
barking. As they hear the relevant word, they cover the appropriate word on
the Bingo board, for example, baby or dog.

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-Following Instruction Activities

In such listening activities the pupils have to:
- act out what is said
- follow oral directions
- signal (by standing, raising hand, clapping, etc.) recognition of
grammatical features (tense, gender, etc.).
Listen and Do: The pupils listen to the teacher and perform actions; for example:
Put your hand on your head, Tap your feet, Close your eyes. The teacher
demonstrates the actions at the beginning of this activity and later gives
directions with no demonstration.
- Activities that improve pronunciation and listening
Say It Again: This is a listening activity in which pupils select some lines spoken
by a character in a video. The teacher plays the scene a second time, then
stops the tape after each sentence and asks the students to repeat the line
exactly as it was said. This activity provides practice in pronunciation, stress,
and intonation.
Sound Stories: In this listening activity, children must find a connection between
several sounds. Using a sound tape, the pupils listen to three different sounds.
In groups, they make up stories in which all three sounds are significant.
When the pupils are ready, they are asked to listen to more than one sentence.
They are given an oral description of a certain object, job or a person and are
asked to circle the item on their paper.
These activities require different degrees of cognitive involvement and
interaction from the pupils and different degrees of scaffolding from the teacher.
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It is apparent that many listening activities can be used to develop EFL learners'
listening comprehension skills. However, each teacher/researcher should select
the activities which suit their students. They should take into consideration the
students language level, their age, their culture and their purpose of learning.
Hence, the present researcher has tried to select the activities that will be most
suitable for young beginner learners studying English in Saudi government
schools.
As such, the scaffolding listening activities used in each research can only help in
providing general guidelines and implications for other researchers. Therefore,
the next part will discuss some related studies in the area of scaffolding.

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2.2.7. Related Studies on Language Scaffolding

Different studies have been conducted. Palincsar (1986) conducted a study to
examine whether scaffolding (the interaction that emerges when novices and
experts work cooperatively) can be extended if the scaffolding model for
facilitating problem-solving instruction is imposed. Eight teachers were
instructed and coached in the use of scaffolding to teach first graders listening
comprehension skills. When a group of eight teachers was introduced to
reciprocal teaching (teaching in which there is a dialogue between teacher and
students as well as among students, and in which students take turns assuming
the role of teacher) within the scaffolded instruction framework (all having
received the same preparation), they varied considerably in the manner in which
they applied their skills. Each teacher read expository passages to her students
(six per group) that were written at a third grade level. Two sample sets of
dialogue are given; what distinguishes the two examples is that one teacher
scaffolded the students at the "word level" while the other scaffolded them at the
"idea level." An examination of the transcripts of the classes also showed that
some teachers relied more on instructional statements, others on prompting
statements, still others on reinforcing statements. These statements were
evaluated against the contributions of the students to elicit an instructional
profile.

Renner's study (1999) investigated the nature and effects of scaffolding

metacognitive strategies for fifth-grade remedial writers. The areas addressed
were: (a) the construction of the metacognitive scaffold; (b) the use of the
scaffold during the composing process; (c) the writers' conscious metacognitive
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reporting (thinking aloud) while composing; and (d) the writers' responses to the
survey regarding the efficacy of scaffolding. The five participants in this study
received scaffold-based instruction for 15 weeks. The study consisted of three
phases: pre-test (writers' interview), scaffold-based instruction and generated
samples, and post-tests (verbal reports, a writer's survey, and the New York State
Elementary Writing Test).

The study concluded that using scaffold-based instruction assisted the

participants in developing metacognitive behaviour for composing, and was
found to be an effective writing intervention. This study concluded that
scaffolding, although challenging, was both beneficial and efficacious for the
participants.

Rancourt (2001) conducted a quasi-experimental study to investigate the effects

of direct instruction with ongoing scaffolding for web-page construction and
development of writing performance and reading ability of fourth and fifth grade
students. The study was carried out over a period of eight months with a sample
of 214 students of varying reading and writing abilities. The sample was
composed of entire classes from each grade: the two fourth and two fifth grade
classes designated as the experimental groups developed web pages, while the
students in the control groups maintained a traditional classroom curriculum.

The results confirmed that the fourth and fifth grade students who developed web
pages while receiving direct instruction with ongoing scaffolding by adults and
peers showed greater gains in writing performance and reading proficiency than

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those fourth and fifth grade students who maintained the traditional classroom
curriculum.

Helmar-Salasoo (2001) conducted a study focusing on the social context and

instructional scaffolding deliberately developed by a teacher who was an expert
in supporting the literacy development of English language learners (ESL) in a
literature-based urban high school classroom. Research in second language
contexts has highlighted the importance of a challenging curriculum, of building
a highly literate community, and of the instructional scaffolding needed to
develop high literacy in the classroom. This study was informed by Vygotsky's
developmental theories on learning and ZPD, Bakhtin's views on dialogism, and
Langer's ideas on literate thinking. Findings indicate that both social context and
instructional scaffolding were critical to the development of high literacy in the
classroom studied. The social context required that all students collaborate in
groups every day using English or their native language as a support. Students
were scaffolded in how to work in a group and were required to read and think
deeply about literature. Over the year, students came to internalize ways to
discuss and ways to think and transform their role to scaffold others. This study
emphasizes the power of using instructional scaffolding to help learners to
become highly literate thinkers and to learn to participate in a highly literate
community.

Chang, Chen and Sung (2002) conducted a study to test the learning effects of
three concept-mapping methods on students text comprehension and
summarization abilities and to determine how students can most effectively learn
from concept mapping. Three concept-mapping methods were designed with
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varying degrees of scaffolding support, namely, map construction by correction

(with constant and the highest degree of scaffolding), by scaffold fading (with
gradually removed scaffolding), and by generation (with the least scaffolding).
The subjects were 126 fifth grade students who were randomly assigned to 4
groups, one for each concept mapping method and a control group. Both preand post- comprehension and summarization tests were administered to evaluate
the students abilities. Each group received the same reading materials and
training on concept mapping. The map correction group was given a partially
revised expert-generated concept map that included some incorrect information.
The students had to read the materials provided before correcting the errors in the
map. The instructions for the scaffold-fading group consisted of the following:
(a) read an expert concept map, (b) fill in the blanks of the expert concept map
(with the whole structure), (c) complete the partial expert concept map (with
partial structure), (d) construct the concept map using the given concepts and
relation links, and (e) determine the key concepts and relation links from the text
to construct the concept map. Only the reading materials were provided to the
students in the map generation group.
The study results showed that the scaffolds provided by the map-correcting
method (framework and partial information) was a more suitable way for
conducting concept mapping for elementary students than the other methods scaffold-fading and map generation. However, any form of concept mapping
(scaffolding) may serve as a useful graphic strategy for improving text
learning.

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The study by Middleton (2004) was an investigation of the ways in which

teachers in a special school for children with specific learning difficulties support
the learning of children in this context. This thesis questioned the utility of the
'scaffolding' metaphor in the context of Specific Learning Difficulties and sought
to redefine the metaphor for the teaching of atypical children. This was because
of the nature of the learning difficulties. A second aim of the study was to
determine whether there were qualitative differences in the teaching strategies
employed in mathematics and guided writing lessons during 'speaking and
listening' when novel tasks were introduced. Observations were carried out
during eight mathematics lessons and five guided writing lessons. Although the
metaphor that best captures a sense of shared competence and permanent support
at a basic level remains open to discussion, this research succeeds in highlighting
some ways in which teachers can effectively scaffold children and foster
learning.

Qualitative analysis of the data revealed that teachers scaffolded children in these
contexts by 'creating an effective learning environment'. This was achieved in
three main ways: the mutual construction of knowledge, the negotiation of failure
and teacher mediation of the learning environment.

Liang (2004) conducted a study to investigate the effectiveness of two ways of

scaffolding - reader-response and cognitive-oriented activities - in developing the
students' learning from literature. It examined the results on 85 sixth-grade
students' comprehension of and response to literature when they were led to read
stories using a reader-response approach and when using a cognitive-oriented
approach. In order to compare the two approaches, each was operationalized in a
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Scaffolded Reading Experience (SRE), an instructional framework designed to

foster students' understanding and engagement with individual texts.

The study used a pre-test/post-test design and quantitative and qualitative

research techniques. Cognitive-oriented SREs and reader-response SREs were
created for three stories by acclaimed children's authors. Two experienced
middle school teachers used the SREs with students. Results from pre-test-posttest, comprehension and response assessments were scored using pre-designed
scoring rubrics, and the scores were analyzed using ANOVAs with a covariate of
student reading ability.

Results from field notes, teachers' journals, and teacher and student interviews
were analyzed using the constant-comparative method. Results showed that both
the reader-response and cognitive-oriented SREs fostered students'
comprehension of short stories. Qualitative results indicated that the teachers
valued the SRE framework and that students found both the activities and the
purpose of the SREs useful.

Two studies - as far as the researcher knows- have been conducted in the field of
teaching English as a foreign language for Arabic speakers: Both studies used
different ways of scaffolding as teaching strategies to scaffold their students in
two different language areas - grammar and reading.

Hamada (1999) used scaffolding as a teaching strategy for developing the

pedagogical grammatical awareness of Egyptian English language trainee
teachers. Proleptic classroom discourse was used as a scaffolding medium

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through which grammatical concepts and generalizations were built with the
students. Only 16 trainee teachers were involved in this study. Both quantitative
and qualitative analyses proved that proleptic classroom discourse was an
effective scaffolding strategy. It was effective in developing both the articulated
and practical grammatical knowledge of trainee teachers (the differences
between the trainees' pre and post scores in the designed grammar test were
significant at 0.001 level in favour of the post-treatment application). In
addition, scaffolding was effective in developing the trainees' pedagogical
awareness: they could select appropriate teaching techniques and could use
scaffolding as a teaching strategy in their own teaching.

Ibrahim (2004) aimed to develop Egyptian EFL teacher's pedagogical awareness

of teaching reading by designing and implementing an action research program.
The researcher used scaffolding throughout the different stages of the program
implementation and integrated reflection and scaffolding to develop the Egyptian
EFL teachers' pedagogical awareness of teaching reading. Within the
Vygotiskian theory of cognitive development, the researcher selected scaffolding
to be used as the process component of the suggested integrated program.
Twenty-two trainee teachers were involved in this program. Data analysis
indicated that there was an improvement in different aspects of the trainees'
pedagogical awareness of teaching reading.

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General Comments
The above studies emphasize that using scaffolding in teaching in general and in
teaching English as a foreign or a second language in particular was very useful.
It has different positive effects: (1) scaffolding activities create an effective
learning environment, (2) they foster high academic achievement of students, (3)
they positively affect students' comprehension levels, and (4) scaffolding is
effective in developing different variables - convincing skills, language skills
(reading and writing), learners' independence, feeling of responsibility, grammar
awareness and reading awareness.
It has been noticed that different ways of scaffolding can be used with young and
adult language learners. Researchers recommend using scaffolding strategies
with other learners and in other language areas.
The present research is a response to these calls and recommendations. The
researcher designed some interactive activities based on scaffolding principles to
develop the listening comprehension skills of sixth grade elementary schoolgirls
in Jeddah.

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Chapter III
Methodology and Procedures

Chapter III

Methodology and Procedures

This chapter provides a detailed description of the following topics:
1- the study sample
2- the design of the study
3- the instrument used in the study
4- the treatment of the study.

3.1. The Study Sample

In this study, the sample consisted of fifty pupils from two classes selected at
random from sixth grade elementary schoolgirls in Jeddah in the academic year
1428/1429 H. One class was randomly assigned to be the experimental group.
This class consisted of twenty five pupils and they were exposed to interactive
scaffolding activities. The other class was assigned to be the control group. It
consisted of twenty five pupils and this group had the regular English lessons
with no additional activities.
The reasons for selecting sixth grade elementary schoolgirls as a sample for this
study were as follows:
-

The sixth grade is considered to be the first year that students study
English in the public schools in Saudi Arabia.

It has been noticed that many researchers and course designers have
become interested in studying the teaching of listening comprehension
skills. This tendency has begun to be reflected in the new English school
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textbooks presented to girls in the 6th grade of elementary education in

Saudi Arabia; the book includes some listening activities*.
-

The significance and the complex nature of listening skills and the
difficulties that young EFL learners encounter during listening to English,
as discussed earlier in the literature review, are important factors that
have prompted the researcher to investigate the situation more seriously.

The experimental group received the treatment based on interactive scaffolding

activities designed and taught by the researcher during eight weeks in the first
term of 1428/1429 H. The researcher taught the interactive scaffolding activities
herself for the following reasons:
1- The researcher was familiar with the concept of scaffolding and teaching
listening comprehension skills through the survey she did before the
experiment.
2- She could have better control of the instructional variables.
3- She had more awareness of what should be done during the instruction.
4- She wanted to be sure that the cognitive, psychological and pedagogical
views underlying the designed activities would be applied properly during
the experimentation.

See Appendix 1 for the listening activities included in the textbook

96

3.2. The Design of the Study

The present study made use of an experimental design to investigate the
effectiveness of interactive scaffolding activities in developing the listening
comprehension skills of the study sample. In this study, the experimental group
was exposed to the scaffolding interactive activities designed to help develop
their listening comprehension skills. The experimental group and the control
group were subjected to a pre-post listening comprehension test, prepared by the
researcher to validate the effectiveness of the experimental activities. The test
was piloted on first year intermediate schoolgirls at the beginning of the first
term (1428/1429 H) before they had studied the English textbooks designed for
first year intermediate schoolgirls and it was submitted to a panel* to establish its
validity and reliability.
The pre-test was given to both groups to make sure of the equivalence of the
level of the pupils in the two groups (see Chapter IV).

3.3. The Instrument Used in the Study

One instrument was prepared and administered by the researcher in the present
study. It was a listening comprehension pre-post test to measure the pupils'
listening comprehension skills. The test was based on the textbook English For
Saudi Arabia Sixth Grade Elementary.

See Appendix 3.B for the names of the jury

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3.3.1. Test Design

For constructing the listening comprehension test, the researcher followed some
research steps:
3.3.1.1. Content analysis
The content of the English textbook was analyzed for two purposes:
a) to determine the language points (sounds, vocabulary and grammatical
structures) included in the lessons selected in the treatment. The research was
restricted to the sounds, vocabulary items, and the grammatical structures found
in the selected lessons. The sounds included consonants: /b/, /p/ - /f/, /v/ //, /t/,
/k/, /g/, /s/, /z/, //, //, and vowels: /i/, /e/, //, /u/, //, / ^ /, /i:/, /i /, /ei/, /ai/,
/au/, /u/). The grammatical structures included the verb to be; indefinite articles
(a, an); singular/plural forms; and demonstrative pronouns (this-these). As
mentioned before, the research was restricted to the vocabulary items included in
the English textbooks.
b) to determine the listening comprehension skills included in the listening
activities in the school textbook. Therefore, a listening comprehension list was
selected by the researcher. It was used in the analysis of the listening activities.
The following listening skills were revealed by the analysis:
a. recognizing and discriminating English speech sounds
b. recognizing word meaning
c. recognizing sentence meaning
d. observing a single detail
e. recognizing syntactic patterns.
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3.3.1.2. The Listening Skills List

A. The Purpose of the Listening Skills List
A listening comprehension skills list was selected to determine the listening
comprehension skills included in the English textbook studied by sixth grade
schoolgirls. The listening comprehension pre-post test was designed in the light
of the listening skills revealed by the analysis of the English textbook used in
schools, both the pupils and teacher's books.
B. Sources of the Listening Skills List
The researcher surveyed previous studies concerned with developing listening
skills, especially at early stages of learning, for example, Sheir (1977), Hamada
(1990) and Seif El-Naser (2003). Hamada's listening skills list* was selected to
be used in this study for several reasons:
1. It included most of the important listening comprehension skills found in
other lists.
2. It was divided into these categories: phonology, grammar, vocabulary and
overall comprehension - the same categories the present researcher is
interested in.
3. The list was used to analyze the content of Welcome to English Book 1,
the textbook taught in First Year Preparatory Stage in Egypt which is the
first year for teaching English in government schools. Similarly, the list
could be used to analyze the content of English For Saudi Arabia Sixth
Grade Elementary.

See Appendix 2 for Hamadas listening skills

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The analysis of the English textbook for sixth grade revealed five
listening comprehension skills (see page 100).
3.3.1.3. Listening Comprehension Pre-Post Test
Based on the list of listening skills and the language elements revealed by
analysis of the textbooks, a listening comprehension test was developed. This
test was used as a pre-and post-test. As a pre-test, it was used to measure sixth
grade pupils' level in the identified listening comprehension skills before the
experimentation and to make sure that pupils in both groups (the control group
and the experimental group) were at the same level before starting the
experiment. The progress achieved by the experimental group (if any) could,
therefore, be attributed to the treatment they had been exposed to. As a post-test,
the comprehension test was used to investigate the effectiveness of the
experimental treatment in developing the listening comprehension skills of the
pupils.
The test was designed in the light of the following procedures:
A. a review of previous studies concerned with language tests, especially those
tackling the topic of how to develop and measure listening comprehension skills
B. identification of the skills to be measured by the test based on the listening
skills revealed by the textbooks analysis
C. identification of the language elements (vocabulary, grammar and sounds)
included in the assigned lessons
D. submitting the test to a panel to establish its validity
E. estimating the reliability of the test.
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3.3.1.4. Aim of the Test

The major aim of the listening comprehension test was to measure the level of
sixth grade pupils in the identified listening comprehension skills mentioned
previously. The test also helped the researcher to determine the functions and
responses that the pupils could not carry out without the teacher's assistance.

3.3.1.5. Description of the Test

For the present study, the researcher needed to measure the listening
comprehension skills of pupils in the sixth grade elementary stage. Therefore,
she designed a listening comprehension pre-post test. The initial version
consisted of sixty five items distributed to cover the above mentioned listening
skills. After submitting it to the jury, the final version of the test consisted of
sixty items divided into three parts.
-The test consisted of two versions*:
A) The teacher's version included the verbal stimuli for the test and the test
directions. The content of this version was recorded on a tape by a native
speaker. Each verbal stimulus was recorded twice.
-The teacher's version included the written items, pictures and written directions.
-The teacher's version was recorded on a tape. The test took 90 minutes to
administer. Data obtained were used in testing the study hypotheses and
questions.

See Appendix 4 for the two versions of the Listening Comprehension Test

101

B) The pupil's version consisted of the answer sheets on which the pupils gave
their responses by circling the number or the letter of the suitable answer.
No written words were included in the pupil's version for two reasons.

using written distracters introduces a reading element to the listening test

the pupils in the sixth grade are poor readers as they will have only been
reading for a short time from the middle of the year.

The pupil's version had colored pictures and a number for each item followed by
a number of letters from which they had to choose one to circle. It also
included Arabic written directions followed by an example.
The items in the test were divided into three parts:

Part One was for measuring the pupils' ability to discriminate between
English sounds. It consisted of 25 items.

Part Two was for measuring the pupils' ability to recognize word and
sentence meaning. It consisted of 22 items.

Part Three was for measuring the pupils' ability to determine correct
grammatical structures and forms. It consisted of 13 items.

It is important to mention that if testing is to be effective, we must select the

most appropriate item-type and construct the test so carefully that it brings out
the desired responses. Therefore, great care was exercised in constructing the
test items to be sure that they were appropriate for the listening comprehension
skills they were designed to measure.

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The following is a description of the listening comprehension items:

Part One: Phonology (Sound Discrimination)
This part measured the pupils' ability to recognize and discriminate English
speech sounds. It had four questions, and each one included five items. The first
and the second questions were for discriminating consonants. The third and the
fourth questions were for discriminating vowels.
- In the first question, the pupils were asked to listen to some words containing
some problematic sounds - /b/and /p/, /f/and /v/ - and to circle the letter that
matched the sound they heard.
- In the second question, the pupils were asked to listen to five items; each item
had three words. They had to circle the numbers of the same words. Emphasis
was placed on certain consonants to be discriminated:- //, /t/, /k/, /g/, /s/, /z/, //,
//.
- In the third question, the pupils were asked to identify the words that had
different vowel sounds. This question consisted of five items, each item having
three words. Two of the words had the same vowel sound and the pupils had to
circle the word that had the different vowel sound - /i/, /e/, //, /u/, //, / ^ /, /i:/,
/i /, /ei/, /ai/, /au/, /u/.
- In the fourth question, there were five items, each item had three words, and
one of these words matched a picture. The pupils were asked to circle the
number of the word that went with the picture.

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Part Two: Vocabulary and Overall Comprehension (Word and Sentence

Recognition)
This part measured the following listening skills:
- recognizing word meaning
- recognizing sentence meaning
- observing a single detail.
This part included only the vocabulary items found in the school textbook.
It consisted of four questions:
-The first question had five items. Each item had three options (pictures). The
pupils had to circle the number of the picture that matched the sentence they
heard.
-The second question consisted of seven incomplete sentences followed by three
words. The pupils had to circle the number of the suitable word that could
complete the sentence.
-The third question had a box which contained different items. The pupils would
hear five sentences describing the items in the box. Some of these sentences
were true, some were false. The pupils had to choose )T) if the sentence was true
and (F) if the sentence was false.
-The fourth question had five pictures which were not in order. The pupils were
asked to listen to 'Maha' describing her family. There were pictures that
illustrated this description. The pupils had to write the number of the appropriate
sentence next to the each picture while listening for the second time.

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Part Three: Determining grammatical structures and forms

This part measured the pupils' ability to recognize syntactic patterns. It included
the grammatical structures which exist in the lessons selected for the treatment:
the verb to be; indefinite articles (a, an); singular/plural forms; demonstrative
pronouns (this-these).
This part had two questions:
-The first question consisted of five incomplete sentences, and each sentence was
followed by three choices. The pupils had to circle the number of the correct
choice.
-The second question consisted of eight incomplete sentences, and each sentence
was followed by two choices. The pupils had to circle the number of the correct
choice.
Designed in this way, with all the language elements and listening skills included
in the English school textbooks for sixth grade elementary schoolgirls
incorporated into the test ,the test could be used all over the Kingdom.

3.3.1.6. Test Instructions

It was necessary for the pupils to understand and become familiar with the
instructions before the test was administered to help them interact with the test
without any anxiety. Accordingly, the test instructions were given to the pupils
beforehand on a separate page so they could read them and everything could be
made clear before the test was administered. The instructions were written in
Arabic, and also recorded on tape. The pupils were given a brief description of
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the test, they were asked to listen carefully to the recorded material and to pay
attention to the given examples for each question before answering. Each item
was to be repeated twice. The pupils had to choose one answer only and circle
the number or the letter they thought was correct. If they did not know the
answer, they could leave it and listen to the next question. The pupils were asked
to keep quiet so that everyone could concentrate. In addition, they were asked to
be careful of the time allowed for each item.
The instructions for each question in the test were recorded on a tape in English
and in Arabic as well. The same instructions were also written on the answer
sheets. Example answers were given to show the pupils what was required in
each question. Furthermore, the researcher explained some instructions for some
items clearly and orally for the pupils during the pre-test in order to avoid any
misunderstanding.

3.3.1.7. Test Validity

The validity of a test has been defined by Nunan (1992, p. 14) as "The extent to
which a piece of information of research actually investigates what the researcher
purports to investigate". This test was designed to measure the pupils' mastery of
listening comprehension skills that are included in the lessons selected from
English For Saudi Arabia Sixth Grade Elementary. It was mainly based on the
language elements found in the textbook. As such, the test has content validity.
Furthermore, the researcher used jury face validity as will be explained below.
The initial version of the test was given to a jury who were asked to review and
examine the test items and instructions. The jury included specialists in teaching

106

English as a foreign language (N= 9)*. They were asked to read the questions,
listen to the tape, and give their opinions with regard to the following:
A. the consistency of the items with the skills measured in the test
B. the representativeness of the items for each intended skill
C. the sufficiency of the number of the items designed to measure the
intended listening skills
D. the appropriateness of the test items for the level of the pupils of sixth
grade elementary school
E. the appropriateness of the test for its time limitations and for the scoring
method.
The test proved to be mostly a valid one as the jury approved most of the items
and agreed on the following:
A. the test measured the intended listening skills
B. there were enough test items to measure the intended listening skills
C. the instructions for the test were clear and understandable
D. the test as a whole was appropriate for the level of the pupils.
Moreover, the jury suggested the following modifications:
A. omitting some items because they were too easy for the pupils
B. changing the order of some questions
C. adding more words to test the contrast of consonants

See Appendix 3.B for the names of the jury

107

D. omitting some items because they were repeated.

Thus, there was a total of sixty five test items before the test was submitted to the
jury. After submitting it, the final total number of test items was reduced to
sixty, distributed to cover the intended listening comprehension skills.

3.3.1.8. Test Reliability

To estimate the reliability of the test, a pilot study of the listening comprehension
skills test prepared by the researcher was conducted at the beginning of the first
term of the school year 1428/1429 H. It was administered to a randomly selected
group of first year intermediate school pupils (N: 50). Then the researcher used
Alpha Cronbach to estimate the reliability of the test. It was found that the
reliability coefficient of the test in general was 0.91 and the reliability of the
parts of the test was estimated as shown in Table 2.

Listening Comprehension Test

Alpha

Part One: sound discrimination

0.82

Part Two: determination of word and sentence

meanings

0.89

Part Three: determination of grammatical structures

0.71
0.91

Total

Table 2: Reliability coefficients of the listening comprehension test

Furthermore, the correlation of each part of the test with the test as a whole was
also estimated as shown in Table 3.
108

Listening Comprehension Test

Correlations

Part One: sound discrimination

0.81

Part Two: determination of word and

sentence meanings

0.79

Part Three: determination of grammatical

structures

0.86

Table 3: Correlations between each part of the test and the whole test

As shown in the tables above, the researcher found that the reliability coefficient
was 0.91which was high and statically significant at less than the 0.001 level.
The correlation coefficients also indicated that the test had a high level of
consistency which ensured that the listening comprehension test prepared by the
researcher was a reliable one.

3.3.1.9. Piloting the Test

The main purpose for piloting the test was to find out the relevance of the test as
a whole to the objectives of the study. In addition, the pilot study aimed to:
A. make sure that the test instructions were clear and comprehensive
B. determine the time the test took
C. measure the intervals between the items of the test or determine
the time of each item
D. determine the materials required for administrating the test
E. make sure that the answer key was accurate.

109

 Sample of the Pilot Study

The sample of the pilot study consisted of fifty pupils randomly selected from
first grade intermediate schoolgirls in Jeddah. This sample was selected to be the
subjects of the pilot study because they had studied English For Saudi Arabia
Sixth Grade Elementary the previous year. The test was applied in the first week
of the school year 1428-1429 H. Pupils in the sixth grade who would participate
in the experimentation had not as yet have studied any English, so it was very
difficult to try the test on them. The pilot study was conducted to choose the
items which proved to be statically valid, to try out the test directions, and to
establish the test validity and reliability.

Results of the Pilot Study

The pilot study revealed the following results:

-the instructions for the test were clear
-the materials required for administrating the test were a tape-recorder, high
quality tape, and coloured answer sheets for all the pupils
-the mean time spent conducting the pilot study allowed the exact time of the
test and intervals between the test items to be accurately calculated . The test
lasted approximately 90 minutes.

3.3.1.10 Scoring the Test

To score the test, the researcher prepared a correction key for the final form of
the test with one mark allocated to each item. Then, the test was corrected out of
60. The students' raw scores from the pre-post tests were prepared and entered
into the computer to obtain statistical analysis of the data.
110

3.3.1.11. Test Administration

After the test was modified and shown to be valid and reliable, and after a
suitable length of time was estimated according to the results of the pilot study
and from the feedback from the jury, the test was administered to the pupils of
the control group and the experimental group as a pre-test on the 8th of Shawaal
1428H. It was administered as a post-test to the pupils of both groups after the
treatment on 30th Thu Al-Quedah.

3.4. The Treatment of the Study

The present study was concerned with designing some interactive scaffolding
activities for developing the listening comprehension skills of sixth grade
elementary pupils from the 128th Elementary School in Jeddah. This treatment
was conducted in the middle of the first term of the school year 1428/1429 H.
It lasted for eight weeks (from 8th of Shawwal 1428H to 30th Thu Al-Quedah
1428H.)
In designing this treatment, the researcher followed these steps:
A- review of previous studies related to designing listening treatments or
programs.
B- determining the aim of this treatment
C- determining the objectives of this treatment
D- identifying the assumptions of the treatment
E- determining the length of time taken to administer the treatment
F- describing the treatment
111

G- describing the activities included in the treatment

H- explaining some instructional aids and equipment used in
administration of the treatment.

3.4.1. Aims of the Treatment

The treatment included in the present study was aimed at:
A. developing the listening comprehension skills selected for the sixth
grade elementary pupils using scaffolding interactive activities
B. shedding light on the importance of teaching listening comprehension
skills.

3.4.2. Objectives of the Treatment

The treatment had certain objectives to be achieved by the end of the experiment.
These objectives were concerned with developing the aforementioned listening
comprehension skills that resulted from the content analysis of the English
textbook and which were approved by the jury members.

3.4.3. Assumptions of the Treatment

The treatment was based on the following assumptions:
A. listening is very critical for language learning at different stages of
learning and in the beginning stage of language acquisition in particular
B. listening is a highly integrative skill. It plays an important and crucial
role in the process of language acquisition.
C. teachers should emphasize teaching listening rather than testing it
112

D. scaffolding is a useful teaching strategy, especially with young EFL

learners, because it provides a more reliable and less frustrating route to
language learning
E. the pedagogical sequence of pre-listening, during listening and post
listening activities that scaffold pupils through the mental process for
successful listening comprehension may be most suitable for
maintaining the development of listening skills
F. pre-listening activities are crucial to good foreign language pedagogy.
During this phase of listening, teachers prepare pupils for what they
will hear and what they are expected to do.
G. in during listening activities, pupils continue to monitor their
comprehension
H. post listening activities are important for evaluating pupils'
comprehension of what they have listened to.

3.4.4. Duration of the Treatment's Administration

The administration of the treatment started on 8/10/1428H and ended on
30/11/1428H. The treatment was carried out by the researcher herself over a
period of eight weeks. The researcher met the experimental group two days a
week for a period of forty five minutes a day. The students were exposed to the
interactive scaffolding activities designed by the researcher and integrated with
the lessons selected from their textbook - English for Saudi Arabia Sixth Grade
Elementary .
113

3.4.5. Description of the Treatment

The treatment consisted of seven lessons selected from the English textbook for
sixth grade elementary students - English For Saudi Arabia. The researcher
designed interactive scaffolding activities for each lesson. The aim was to
develop the listening comprehension skills of the pupils. Eight essential
elements of scaffolding instruction were used as general guidelines: (1) preengagement with the pupils and the curriculum; (2) establishing a shared goal;
(3) actively diagnosing pupils' needs and understandings; (4) providing tailored
assistance; (5) maintaining pursuit of the goal; (6) giving feedback; (7)
controlling for frustration and risk; and (8) assisting internalization,
independence, and generalization to other contexts. The researcher aimed to
begin with what the pupils could already do, to help and scaffold the pupils to
achieve success quickly, to help shy pupils to be like everyone else, to know
when it was time to withdraw, and to help pupils to be independent when they
had command of the activity. The researcher followed a helpful framework to
incorporate scaffolding throughout the lesson. The researcher had to first model
how to perform a new or difficult task using the overhead projector, then work
with pupils to perform the task, then have pupils work with a partner to complete
the task, and finally, have individual pupils demonstrate their task mastery.

3.4.5.1. Scaffolding Interactive Activities Included in the Treatment

It is important to mention that pedagogical, cognitive and psychological
scaffolding were integrated into the activities designed in order to help and
motivate pupils to interact with the listening materials without frustration.

114

- Pupils were asked to listen and circle, listen and colour, listen and do, listen and
classify, listen and judge, listen and match, listen and sequence, and listen and
respond. These activities required different degrees of cognitive involvement
from the pupils and different degrees of pedagogical scaffolding from the
researcher.
- Songs and rhymes were used to motivate and activate pupils. Young learners
enjoy songs, and rhymes. [Songs facilitate and reinforce the target language as
the repetitive nature of most songs and rhymes scaffold the pupils learning of
vocabulary and simple structures of English]. Pupils also played the games
designed by the researcher with the researcher. The games added fun and
entertainment to the learning. When they managed to play well, the pupils
showed that they had comprehended the listening activity. Songs and games
scaffolded the pupils psychologically; everyone participated with no frustration
and with great joy.
- Pictures, posters, flash cards, models, and toys were used to scaffold pupils'
comprehension. By using these materials, the researcher used different visual
scaffolding to provide support through visual images which aimed to make the
instructions more understandable and also allowed the pupils to hear English
words and to connect them with the visual images.
- The students seats were arranged in a U shape which scaffolded them
psychologically. It created a good and comfortable atmosphere in the class, and
also facilitated the movement of the pupils around the classroom which made
them more interactive. Furthermore, the researcher was near to most pupils.
- Singing, playing and sitting on the floor with the students also scaffolded the
115

students psychologically.
As mentioned before, the experimental group received different scaffolding
interactive activities to develop their listening comprehension skills. Table 4
shows a description of these activities
.

116

Table 4: Description of the Scaffolding Interactive Activities Included in the Treatment

Pre-Listening
During Listening Activities

Lesson(9)

-sticking the alphabet

- singing the A B C song

-circling the letters mentioned in the

- cassette (ABC song) names of

letters on the board

while listening to the song

handouts

letters .

- watching the cartoon of

-(dragging the letters for the sounds

-a computer is used to display a

"March with the Animal

that the pupils heard)

cartoon "March with the Animal

letter
Revision

Instructional Media

Activities

while naming each

.Alphabet

Post-Listening Activities

-listening to the A B C

Alphabet" and listening to

song

the sounds of the letters

- answering the exercises on the answer

sheets

Alphabet" to emphasize the

sounds of letters { A song for the
sounds of letters}
- a poster , flash cards , handouts

117

Table (4) continued

Pre-Listening
Lesson(11)

During Listening Activities

-Introductory questions

Family

Instructional Media

-listening to the cassette of

-listening to a cassette of a little native girl

cassette, poster , flash cards ,

the members of the family.

talking about families. Then circling the

toys, [Guess Bag]

Pointing to each member on

My

Post-Listening Activities

Activities

the poster.

letter of the correct number of times

families [sisters, brothers] are mentioned
on the answer sheets.

-holding up a picture of the

family member while

-playing" Guessing Games"

listening

118

Lesson(15)

Pre-Listening
Activities

During Listening
Activities

Introductory

-listening to Ali

questions

describing his house

- pointing to the rooms

My House

on the poster

Post-Listening Activities

-pointing at the toy house, individuals show the different rooms

-other individuals stick the pictures of members of the family in
different rooms on the poster after listening to the teacher
-sitting in a circle on a rug
-putting up a poster of a house, with numbers of rooms
-distributing cards including pictures of room pieces and pictures
of family members
-after naming a room, whoever has a piece of that room places it
on the poster

119

Instructional Media

cassette, poster, flash

cards, a toy house ,
pictures of family
members, handoutsanswer sheets

Table (4) continued

Pre-Listening
Lesson(18)

Post-Listening
During Listening Activities

Activities
Coloured balloons are
distributed among the

-listening to the cassette

- singing the colour song

pupils after asking

Colours*

them some questions

and eliciting correct
answers.

Instructional Media
Activities

- while singing the pupils gather in groups according to

the colour of the balloons they have
-coloured ribbons are distributed among the pupils, then,
when listening to the cassette, anyone who hears their
colour stands up.

120

- a coloured mat is put

cassette, poster ,

on the floor, volunteers

coloured balloons ,

play the colour game

coloured ribbons,
colour mat

Pre-Listening

Where is he?

Surroundings

Lesson(20)

During Listening
Post-Listening Activities

Activities

Instructional Media

Activities

- Introductory

-listening to the cassette

- giving each pupil six coloured flash cards Cassette, poster, flash cards ,

questions about the

pointing to the models

with pictures of a sick person, a plane, a

models of a mosque, a

models on a table in

trolley full of food, a prayer mat, a traffic

hospital, a supermarket and an

front of the class. (The

light , a schoolboy )

airport; hand outs, answering

models include a
mosque, an airport, a

-raising the flash card that suits the name

of the place while listening

hospital, a supermarket,
a school, a street)

- sticking items on the magnetic board

next to the places that match them.

121

sheets

Table 4 (continued)
Pre-Listening

What is s/he?

Lesson(23)

During Listening Activities

Post-Listening Activities

Instructional Media

Activities

Introductory questions-

-listening to the names of

-selecting the items that belong to each

-selecting the items that belong

Role playing

different professions

profession

to each profession.

-listening to a story and deciding whether

-listening to a story and deciding

the sentence is true or false

whether the sentence is true or

false

122

Each treatment lesson was described in terms of the specific objectives,

instructional aids, and the teaching procedures.
Moreover, each session was divided into three stages: pre-listening, during
listening, and post listening activities. These stages are explained in detail as
follows.

3.4.5.1. A. Pre-Listening Stage

In the pre-listening stage, the researcher used various types of activities which
scaffolded the processes of teaching and learning listening comprehension.
These activities motivated pupils to listen and concentrate on the instructions of
the researcher and to not be worried or frustrated about what was expected from
them. These activities facilitated and scaffolded the pupils` comprehension of the
topic of the listening text and prepared them for the next stage.

3.4.5.1. B. During Listening Stage

In the during listening stage, the researcher gave the pupils other interactive
activities to help them concentrate on the listening tasks. In this stage, pupils
were asked to listen to and interact with the activities related to the intended
skills. Such activities helped them monitor and evaluate their comprehension.
During this stage, the researcher scaffolded the pupils cognitively, pedagogically
and psychologically in order to develop their listening comprehension skills.
Through this stage, students could listen to the text more than once according to
their needs. The researcher provided help when needed.

3.4.5.1. C. Post Listening Stage

This stage aimed to check the pupils' comprehension of the listening text and to
evaluate their development, and it provided yet more practice. In this stage, the
researcher presented the pupils with a group of similar activities to be used as a
criterion for judging their success in the listening comprehension tasks alone
(without scaffolding from the researcher). Post listening activities were used for
evaluating the pupils' success in completing the tasks. For the description of the
content of the whole treatment see Appendix 4A.

3.4.6. Instructional Aids and Equipment

In presenting the three stages mentioned above, the researcher used some
instructional aids and equipment that scaffolded the experimental group pupils;
these aids helped the students to interact with the listening materials and the
researcher successfully. They included: songs, games, models, toys, posters,
flash cards, pictures, computer, handouts /answer sheets given to the pupils, taperecorder and tapes.

3.4.7. Evaluation
The evaluation techniques used during implementation of the treatment
contained formative and summative evaluation as follows:
3.4.7.1. Formative Evaluation
This was used for assessing the pupils' progress in listening comprehension as
well as to provide the necessary feedback on their listening comprehension
performance (during listening activities / post-listening activities).

124

3.4.7.2. Summative Evaluation

This was conducted at the completion of the treatment. It included
administration of the post listening test to investigate the effect of the scaffolding
interactive activities on developing the listening comprehension skills of sixth
grade elementary pupils.
As such, the researcher here presents a detailed description of the treatment and
the lessons included in this treatment. During implementation of this treatment,
the researcher noticed the following:
1. The pupils interacted very well with the researcher, and were very motivated
to participate in the lessons.
2. The pupils expressed their interest in sitting in a U shape.
3. The pupils paid great attention to the activities used in each lesson.
4. The pupils expressed their interest in the games and songs. They had fun
while learning.
5. The pupils did not meet with any frustration; the shy ones were involved in the
activities and participated with more confidence.
6. The pupils developed good habits while listening; they paid more attention
when someone was speaking.
7. At the end of the experiment, the pupils were interested enough to ask about
the source of the native materials so that they could get them and listen to them
again by themselves. It could be tentatively said that they wanted to be
independent learners - a serious objective of scaffolded instruction is that the
dependent student becomes independent.
125

Comment
For young pupils, listening while trying to understand oral language is a
powerful beginning for the language acquisition process. In order to accelerate
this natural process of language acquisition, pupils need to hear abundant and
meaningful language input. This comprehensible input can be more meaningful
and motivating when scaffolding interactive activities are used to support and
assist pupils' understanding with gestures, pictures and other context clues. The
validity of this was demonstrated to this researcher as she experienced the benefit
of using these methods and materials with students in the present study. Singing
and playing were also very helpful as this made the learning fun and challenging.
The pupils' curiosity and interest were engaged when a variety scaffolded
interactive listening comprehension activities were used in this treatment. The
pupils received pedagogical, cognitive scaffolding as well as psychological
scaffolding which played an important role in motivating them and raising their
interest to be partners in the lessons.

Conclusion
The third chapter included all the procedures that the researcher followed in the
present study. It provided a detailed description of the design of the study and
the sample. In addition, it described the listening test, the instrument used in the
present study, in terms of its aim, its objectives, the procedures followed in
designing the test, its validity, and its reliability. It also included the proposed
treatment and the procedures followed in designing this treatment. In the next
chapter, the researcher will investigate the effect of the treatment on developing
the listening comprehension skills of sixth grade elementary schoolgirls.
126

Chapter IV
Statistical Analyses, Results and Discussion

Chapter IV
Statistical Analyses, Results and Discussion
This chapter presents the statistical analyses of the data, the results of the study
and a discussion of the results. Data obtained from the pre and post listening
comprehension tests were statistically analyzed by SPSS/PC+ (Statistical
Package of Social Science/Personal Computer). A paired samples t-test and
Black's Ratio were used to validate the effectiveness of the proposed interactive
scaffolding activities. In this chapter, the results of the study will be discussed in
terms of the research hypotheses.

4.1. Analyzing the Results of Testing the Research Hypotheses

4.1.1. Analyzing the Results of Testing the First Hypothesis
The first hypothesis is: There is no statistically significant difference between the
mean scores of the pupils in the experimental group and the pupils in the control
group in the listening comprehension pre-test (as a whole).
To verify the validity of this hypothesis, data obtained from the listening
comprehension pre-test (as a whole) were analyzed. Table 5 shows the results of
this analysis:
The number of pupils involved in the test (N), mean scores (M), standard
deviation (SD), degree of freedom (DF), and t-value of the performance of pupils
of both control and experimental groups in the listening comprehension pre-test
were included.
128

Table 5: Results of the T-test for the pre-listening comprehension test (as a
whole)
Data
N

S.D.

25

28.64

5.47

DF

T-value

Level of Significance

48

0.56

Not significant

Group
Cont. Group
Exp. Group

25

27.68

5.73

Table 5 shows that the difference between the mean scores of the pupils in the
two groups was only 0.56. This means that there was no statistically significant
difference between the mean scores of the pupils in the experimental and control
groups. This indicates that there was homogeneity between the scores of the
groups in the pre-test. Therefore, it can be said that the groups were almost at the
same level before the experiment. Therefore, any difference between the groups
in scores on the listening comprehension test that might occur after the
experiment would be attributable to the teaching technique. Hypothesis one was
accepted.

4.1.2. Analyzing the Results of Testing the Second Hypothesis

The second hypothesis is: There is no statistically significant difference between
the mean scores of the pupils of the experimental and control groups in each part
of the listening comprehension pre-test.
To check the validity of this hypothesis, a t-test was used to estimate the
significance of the difference between the mean scores of the pupils in the two
groups in each part of the listening comprehension pre-test.

129

Table 6 shows the mean scores (M), standard deviation (SD), t-value, and level
of significance of the difference between the mean scores of the two groups in
the three parts of the listening comprehension pre-test - Part One: phonology;
Part Two: vocabulary and overall comprehension; and Part Three: grammatical
structures.
Table 6: The significance of the difference between the mean scores of the
pupils of the control and experimental groups in the three parts of the
listening comprehension pre-test
Group

Control Group

Exp. Group

Level of
T-Value
Significance

Parts

Mean

S.D.

Mean

S. D.

Part One

12.48

12.76

3.34

0.30

Not significant

Part Two

7.64

3.19

7.2

3.23

0.47

Not significant

Part Three

8.52

1.38

7.72

1.31

1.84

Not significant

Table 6 shows the consistency of the results of analysis of the data for each part
of the test with the results included in Table 5 showing the results for the whole
test. There was very little difference between the mean scores of the pupils in the
experimental and control groups (0.28, 0.44 and 0.8) and therefore the t-value for
the difference in each part was not statistically significant. As such, the second
hypothesis was also accepted ensuring the homogeneity between the
experimental and the control groups.

130

4.1.3. Analyzing the Results of Testing the Third Hypothesis

The third hypothesis is: There is a statistically significant difference between the
mean scores of the pupils of the experimental and control groups in the listening
comprehension post-test (as a whole) in favour of the experimental group.
To verify the validity of this hypothesis, the data presented in Table 7 were
analyzed by means of a t-test:
Table 7: Results of the T-Test between the Mean Scores of the Pupils of the
Control and Experimental Groups in the Listening Comprehension
Total Post-Test
Data

Level of
Mean

S.D.

T- Value

Cont.

47.84

4.36
8.11

Exp.

In favour of
Significance

Group

55.8

0.01

Experimental group

2.4

Table 7 shows that the t-value is significant at the 0.01 level in the total scores of
the three parts of the post-test in favour of the experimental group indicating that
the level of the pupils in the experimental group was higher than the level of
those in the control group. This result indicates that the interactive scaffolding
activities used in the treatment had a positive effect on the listening
comprehension skills of the experimental group. Hence, the third hypothesis was
accepted.

131

4.1.4. Analyzing the Results of Testing the Fourth Hypothesis

The fourth hypothesis is: There is a statistically significant difference between
the mean scores of the pupils in the experimental and control groups in each part
of the listening comprehension post-test in favour of the experimental group.
To verify the validity of this hypothesis, the data presented in Table 8 were
obtained and analyzed.
Table 8: The significance of the difference between the mean scores of the
pupils of the experimental and control groups in each part of the listening
comprehension post-test
Group Data

Control Group

Exp. Group

Test Parts

Mean

S. D

Mean

S.D.

Part One

18.12

2.40

22.96

Part Two

18.12

3.06

Part Three

11.64

1.01

T-

Level of

Value

Significance

1.42

4.84

0.01

20.32

2.09

3.11

0.01

12.28

0.66

2.59

0.05

In favour of

The exp.
group

Table 8 shows that the mean scores of the experimental group pupils were higher
in each part of the listening comprehension post-test. The most progress
occurred in Part One (phonology) - the t-value between the mean scores of the
pupils in both experimental and control groups in the post-test was significant at
the 0.01 level in favour of the experimental group. The t-value between the
mean scores of the groups in Part Two (vocabulary and overall comprehension)
was also significant at the 0.01 level in favour of the experimental group. The
difference between the mean scores of the pupils of the groups in Part Three
(grammatical structures) was statistically significant but at the 0.05 level in
132

favour of the experimental group. These results reflected the improvement of the
experimental group pupils' level in the listening skills included in the test. This
also confirmed that the fourth hypothesis was accepted.

4.1.5. Analyzing the Results of Testing the Fifth Hypothesis

The fifth hypothesis is: There is a statistically significant difference between the
mean scores of the pupils in the experimental group in the pre-test and their mean
scores in the post-test (the test as a whole) in favour of the latter.
Table 9 presents the data analyzed to test the fifth hypothesis.
Table 9: The significance of the difference between the mean scores of the
pupils of the experimental group in the listening comprehension pre-test and
their mean scores in the post-test
Data
Mean

S. D.

Group
Exp. Pre-test

27.68
55.8

Level of

Value

Significance

22.17

0.01

In favour of

5.73
24

Exp. Post-test

TD.F.

Post-test

2.4

Table 9 shows that the difference between the mean scores of the experimental
group pupils in the listening comprehension post-test (as a whole) and their mean
scores in the pre-test were statistically significant at the 0.01 level in favour of
the post test. This result validates the fifth hypothesis and shows that the level of
the listening comprehension skills of the pupils in the experimental group
improved as a result of their exposure to the interactive scaffolding listening
activities included in the treatment.
133

4.1.6. Analyzing the Results of Testing the Sixth Hypothesis

The sixth hypothesis is: There is a statistically significant difference between the
mean scores of the pupils in the experimental group in each part of the pre-test
and their mean scores in each part of the post-test in favour of the post-test.
To test this hypothesis, the data presented in Table 10 were statistically analyzed.
Table 10: The significance of the difference between the mean scores of the
pupils of the experimental group in each part of the pre-test and their mean
scores in each part of the post-test
Data

Pre-Test Exp.

Post- Test Exp.

Test Parts:

Mean

S.D.

Mean

S.D.

Part One

12.76

3.34

22.96

Part Two

7.2

3.23

20.32

T-

Level of

Value

Significance

1.42

13.76

0.01

2.09

16.70

0.01

In favour
of

Post test
Part Three

7.72

1.31

12.28

0.66

15.22

0.01

Table 10 shows that the calculated t-values for the difference between the mean
scores of the experimental group pupils in each part of the pre-test and their
mean scores in each part of the listening comprehension post-test were
statistically significant at the 0.01 level. This means that there was an
improvement in the level of the pupils' listening skills measured by each part of
the test after the experiment. This also confirms the validity of the sixth
hypothesis.
It can be said that the listening comprehension skill level of the experimental
group pupils in the proposed activities included in the treatment and measured by
the test has improved as reflected in their scores in each part of the test.

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4.1.7. The Effectiveness of the Experimental Interactive Scaffolding

Activities (the independent variable)
The effectiveness of the experimental interactive scaffolding activities was also
computed using Black's modified ratio (Gay, 1992):
The following formulae were used:

(t )

(t )2 N

where t = the differences between the scores of the two groups (experimental and
control) in the listening comprehension

d=

2x 2

2 1

where d = degree of freedom of the two groups

Black's modified ratio =

y x y x

t
t x

where y = mean scores of the experimental group pupils in the post-test

x = mean scores of the experimental group pupils in the pre-test
t = the pupils' total score in the test

The difference in the effectiveness between the experimental and the control
group pupils' scores in the listening comprehension post-test (as a whole) are
shown in Table 11:

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Table 11: The difference in effectiveness of learning activities as shown by

the scores of the experimental group pupils and the control group pupils in
the listening comprehension post-test (as a whole)
Degree of

Group

Freedom

Value of

T-Value

Volume

Value

Volume

of effect

of (d)

of effect *

Large

3.08

Large

Experimental
48

8.11

0.57

Control

It is clear from the above table that the interactive scaffolding activities used with
the experimental group were highly effective; the value of d = 3.08 which means
that the effectiveness of the activities was great as measured by the listening
comprehension test (as a whole).
The same formula was used with each part of the test to determine which area
developed more.
Table 12: The differences in effectiveness of learning activities as shown by
the scores of the experimental group pupils and the control group pupils in
each part of the listening comprehension post test
Testing

Degree of

Value

Volume of

Value of

Volume of

Dimensions

Freedom

of (2 )

effect

(d)

effect

Part One

48

4.84

0.32

Large

1.38

Large

Part Two

48

3.11

0.16

Large

0.89

Large

Part Three

48

2.59

0.12

Medium

0.74

Medium

T- Value

Table 12 indicates that the effectiveness of interactive scaffolding activities (the

independent variable) in developing the listening comprehension skills of the
pupils in the experimental group, and which were assessed in Part One and Part

See Appendix 6 for the volume of effect

136

Two, was great whereas it was medium in Part Three. This means that the
listening skills included in the areas of phonology and vocabulary improved
more than those included in the grammar area.
The following table summarizes the results of the before-mentioned formulae:
Table 13: Black's Modified Gain Ratio for the experimental group
Scores

The mean

The mean

assigned to

of pre-test

of post-test

each part

scores

scores

Part One

25

12.76

Part Two

22

Part Three

Test parts:

Ratio of

Level of

modified gain

significance

22.96

1.24

Acceptable

7.2

20.32

1.48

Acceptable

13

7.72

12.28

1.21

Acceptable

60

27.68

55.8

1.33

Acceptable

The test as
a whole

The previous table indicates that Black's modified gain ratio in the test as a
whole and for each part ranged between 1.21and1.48. In this respect, and
according to Black, it can be said that the use of interactive scaffolding activities
in the treatment was effective in achieving the goals as all values of the
calculated ratio of gain were more than one. This means that the pupils in the
experimental group in which the treatment was used demonstrated development
of their listening comprehension skills as reflected by the significant difference
between the mean scores of the pupils in pre- and post- listening comprehension
tests as a whole and in each part of the test. This verifies the validity of the sixth
research hypothesis. Therefore, it can be said that the interactive scaffolding
137

listening activities used in the treatment were effective in developing the

listening comprehension skills of the pupils in the experimental group.

Conclusion
The previous discussion of the study hypotheses indicates that the proposed
interactive scaffolding activities achieved an observable effect in developing the
experimental group pupils' listening comprehension skills. This was reflected in
the high scores the pupils obtained after being exposed to these activities. Based
on these results, the following conclusions can be drawn:
1. The proposed interactive scaffolding activities were very effective in
developing the listening comprehension skills of sixth grade
elementary schoolgirls in Jeddah (this result was limited to the sample
included in the study).
2. The present study made an observable change in the performance of
the pupils in the experimental group.
3. Offering psychological, pedagogical and cognitive scaffolding formed
the basis for active classroom listening.
4. The suggested interactive scaffolding activities proved to be helpful
in developing the pupils' listening comprehension skills and
promoting their ability to communicate in the target language.
5. The suggested interactive scaffolding activities motivated the pupils
to participate more during the learning-teaching process.

138

6. The pupils gained good listening habits.

7. The suggested interactive scaffolding activities bridged the gap
between the researcher and the pupils and acted as a facilitator and
scaffolder for the pupils throughout the listening process.
8. The listening comprehension skills of foreign language learners can
be developed from the early stages of learning. Furthermore, foreign
language teachers should not neglect these important skills.

139

Chapter V
Summary, Recommendations and Suggestions

Chapter V
Summary, Recommendations and Suggestions
This chapter is a description of what was implemented in the present study. It:
1. provides a summary of the study problem, its background, questions,
aims, significance, subjects, limitations, hypotheses, procedures, and the
results
2. offers recommendations, and
3. suggests some research areas to be considered.

5.1. Summary
5.1.1. Statement of the Problem
Listening is considered a very important skill in language learning and language
acquisition. It is a complex and active skill that requires interactive teaching
within which language learners need more conscious, systematic and purposeful
help. This complex nature of listening comprehension skill and the difficulties
which beginners of foreign language encounter when listening to the language, in
addition to the neglect of listening skills in English school textbooks, have urged
the researcher to adopt some psychological and educational principles underlying
"scaffolding" as a guide for the help or support she will provide to sixth grade
elementary school girls during the process of developing their listening
comprehension skills.

141

5.1.2. Purpose of the Study

This study aimed to:
1. identify the listening comprehension skills included in the English
textbooks used in the sixth grade in elementary schools
2. design a collection of scaffolded interactive activities to develop the
listening comprehension skills of sixth grade elementary schoolgirls.
3. investigate the effectiveness of the designed scaffolded interactive
activities in developing the listening comprehension skills ofsixth
grade elementary schoolgirls involved in the treatment of the study.
5.1.3. Design of the Study
The present study made use of experimental design. Two groups were included:
the experimental group which was exposed to different scaffolded interactive
activities aimed at developing the pupils' listening comprehension skills and the
control group. As such, the independent variables included the scaffolded
interactive activities designed by the researcher. The dependent variable was the
listening comprehension skills of the sixth grade elementary schoolgirls.
5.1.4. Questions of the Study
The problem of the present study can be stated in the following question:
What is the effectiveness of scaffolding interactive activities in developing
the English listening comprehension skills of sixth grade elementary
schoolgirls in Jeddah?

142

The following sub-questions emerged:

1. What are the listening comprehension skills included in the English
textbooks used in the sixth grade in elementary schools?
2. To what extent do sixth grade elementary schoolgirls acquire these
skills?
3. What are the appropriate principles and guidelines for constructing
scaffolded listening comprehension activities for sixth grade
elementary schoolgirls?
4. What are the criteria for selection of the interactive activities to be
provided to sixth grade elementary schoolgirls in the area of listening
comprehension?
5. What are the English language elements (sound system, vocabulary
and structures) included in the English for Saudi Arabia Sixth Grade
Elementary school textbooks?
To what extent are the proposed scaffolded interactive activities effective in
developing the identified listening comprehension skills of sixth grade
elementary schoolgirls in Jeddah?
5.1.5. Hypotheses of the Study
In this study, the researcher tried to test the following hypotheses:
1. There is no statistically significant difference between the mean scores
of the pupils in the experimental and control groups in the results of the
listening comprehension pre-test (the total test).

143

2. There is no statistically significant difference between the mean scores

of the pupils in the experimental and control groups in each part of the
listening comprehension pre-test results.
3. There is a statistically significant difference between the mean scores of
the pupils of the experimental and the control groups in the listening
comprehension post-test results in favour of the experimental group.
4. There is a statistically significant difference between the mean scores of
pupils of the experimental and control groups in each partof the
listening comprehension post-test results in favour of the experimental
group.
5. There is a statistically significant difference between the mean scores of
the pupils in the experimental group in the pre-test and their mean
scores in the post-test results (in the total test) in favour of the latter.
6. There is a statistically significant difference betweenthe mean scores of
the pupils in the experimental group in each part of the pre-test and their
mean scores in each part of the post-test results in favour of the posttest.
5.1.6. Limitations of the Study
The present study was limited to:
1. a sample of 50 sixth grade elementary schoolgirls enrolled in two
classes in the 128th Elementary Girls School in Jeddah. They were
assigned to two groups -one class (N.25) as the control group, the
other class (N.25) as the experimental group
144

2. the listening comprehension skills and language elements included in

English For Saudi Arabia Sixth Grade Elementary textbooks
3. a limited duration for implementing the proposed activities: in the first
term of the school year 1428-1429 (approximately eight weeks).
5.1.7. Instrument of the Study
To investigate the effectiveness of the proposed scaffolded interactive activities
in developing the identified listening comprehension skills of sixth grade
elementary schoolgirls in Jeddah, a listening comprehension pre/post test was
designed by the researcher. For analysing the content of the listening activities
included in English school textbooks and designing the test, some lists of
listening comprehension skills were surveyed and a list was selected to be used
in the study.
5.1.8. Procedures of the Study
To answer the questions of the study and to test the hypotheses, the researcher
followed these procedures:
1. review of the literature and previous studies related to "scaffolding",
listening comprehension in general, and interactive listening in
particular
2. preparing a list of listening comprehension skills to determine the
listening comprehension skills included in the English textbooks
taught in sixth grade elementary schools
3. submitting the list to a panel of specialists in the field of teaching
English as a foreign language to determine the most important
listening skills for sixth grade elementary schoolgirls in Jeddah
145

4. analysing the content of English textbooks - the sixth grade elementary

textbook, English For Saudi Arabia- to determine the listening
comprehension skills and the language points included in them
5. designing a listening comprehension pre-post test in the light of the
listening skills and language elements identified from the content
analysis of the English textbooks taught in sixth grade elementary
schools
6. submitting the listening comprehension pre-post test to a panel of
specialists and experts in the field of teaching and testing English as a
foreign language to determine its face validity
7. testing the reliability of the listening comprehension pre-post test items
using Alpha Cronbach
8. designing a suitable number of scaffolded interactive activities for
developing listening comprehension skills based on the content
analysis
9. selecting a random sample of sixth grade elementary schoolgirls
enrolled in the 128th Elementary School (a class consisting of twenty
five pupils was randomly selected)
10. administering the listening comprehension pre-test to the two groups
to identify the pupils' level in the identified listening comprehension
skills. The results of the test helped the researcher determine the
functions and responses that could not be carried out without the
teacher's assistance (actual level of development).

146

11. implementation, with the experimental group, of the scaffolded

interactive activities developed by the researcher and aimed at
developing their listening comprehension skills
12. administering the listening post-test to the two groups to investigate
the effectiveness of the designed scaffolded interactive activities in
developing the listening comprehension skills of the experimental
group
13. analysing the results statistically by using the T-test
14. discussing and interpreting the collected data
15. providing a summary, conclusions, recommendations and suggestions
for further research.
5.1.9. The Statistical Analysis of Data
To test the validity of the study hypotheses, the researcher used the following
statistical treatments: a t-test for estimating the significance of the difference
between a) the mean scores of the control and experimental group pupils, b) the
mean scores of the experimental group pupils before and after the treatment.

5.1.10. Results of the Study

The statistical analysis of data highlighted the following results:
1. There was no statistically significant difference between the mean scores
of the pupils in either the experimental group or the control group in the
listening comprehension pre-test (as a whole). This refers to the
equivalent skill levels of the pupils in the two groups before the
147

experiment which allowed the pupils to be selected to participate in this

experiment.
2. There was no significant difference between the mean scores of the pupils
in the two groups in each part of the listening comprehension pre-test.
This showed that the level of the two groups was equal before using
interactive scaffolding activities in the experiment.
3. The t-values indicated statistically significant differences at 0.01 between
the mean scores of the pupils of the two groups in the overall listening
comprehension post-test. These differences were in favour of the
experimental group as their mean scores were higher and were consistent
with all previous indicators.
4. There were statistically significant differences at the 0.01 level between
the mean scores of pupils in the first and second parts of the listening
comprehension test. There was also a statistically significant difference
between the mean scores of the groups in the third part of the testing at
0.05. The differences in the three parts were in favour of the
experimental group pupils as their mean scores were higher. This means
that the listening comprehension skill level of pupils was higher in every
part of the test after the experiment. This also demonstrates the validity
of the hypothesis mentioned before.
5. The calculated t-values between the mean scores clearly demonstrated a
statistically significant difference at the 0.01 level overall between the
pre-testing measure and the post-measure. These differences were in
favour of post-testing as its mean scores were greater. This demonstrated

148

the validity of the previous hypothesis and the improvement in the level
of pupils in this group after the experiment.
6. The calculated t-values for the differences between the mean scores of the
experimental group pupils in each part of the pre-test and their mean
scores in each part of the listening comprehension post-test were
statistically significant at the 0.01 level. This means that there was an
improvement in the pupils' level in the listening skills measured by each
part of the test after the experiment. This proved the validity of the
hypothesis mentioned before.

5.2. Recommendations
Based on the results of the present study, the following recommendations are
suggested:
1. The proposed treatment in the present study can be adopted for teaching
listening comprehension skills at other learning stages taking into
consideration the learners' age, needs and levels.
2. More attention should be paid to teaching listening, not to testing it.
3. More time and effort should be devoted to developing listening
comprehension skills.
4. Appropriate listening conditions and an interactive environment should
be provided to students by their teachers.
5. Immediate positive feedback throughout the listening process is
recommended.
149

6. More listening activities should be included in school textbooks.

7. Listening comprehension skills should be evaluated as other skills are.

5.3. Suggestions for Further Research

The following suggestions are presented to be considered for further research:
1- examining the effect of interactive scaffolding activities on developing
the students' listening comprehension skills at intermediate, secondary
and university stages
2- examining the effect of different scaffolding strategies on developing
other language skills
3- evaluating the listening comprehension skills of the pupils at different
learning stages.

150

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162

Appendices

Appendix (1)

Content Analysis

164

Appendix (1)

Content Analysis

Skill

Type of Activities

Place of Occurrence

Pupil's Book

Listening

Speaking

Work Book

Listen and repeat/ Listen

and read/ Listen and play/
Listen and circle

Lessons:
1,2,6,8,10,14,20

Lessons:

Listen and say/ Say / Say

and trace/Say and
match/Say and color

Lessons:
1,2,3,8,9,11,17,24,

Lessons:
5,8,11,19

8,11,19

25,26.

Reading

Listen and read/ Read and

copy/ Read and complete

Lessons:
19,24

Writing

Trace / Trace and copy/

Copy

Lessons:
1,2,3,4,5,7,8,9,
11,12,13,14,15,1
7,19,20,21,23,24,
25,26.

165

Types of Listening Activities in the Sixth Grade Elementary Textbooks

Types of listening activities

Place of occurrence

Listen and repeat

Pupil's Book .Lesson 1,2,10,20

Listen and read

Pupil's Book. Lesson 6, 8, 10, 14.

Work Book .Lesson8.

Listen and play

Work Book. Lesson11.

Listen and circle

Work book. Lesson 19.

166

The Weight Given to Listening Skill in the Sixth Grade Elementary Textbooks

Types

Lesson

Frequency

Page

Listen and repeat

Objectives

L.1

Pupil's Book

p.27

Pupils say letters then

numbers.

Listen and repeat

L.2

Pupil's Book

p.28

Pupils repeat words.

Listen and read

L.6

Pupil's Book

p.32

Pupils listen to Ali talking

about his computer. Then
read

Listen

L.7

Pupil's Book

p.33

Listen and point to family

members

Listen and read

L.8

Pupil's Book

p.34

Pupils look at the pictures

and listen then read.

Work Book

p.10/11

Listen and read

Listen and circle
Listen, repeat then
read

L.10

Pupil's Book.

p.38

Pupils listen, repeat then

read.

Listen and play

L.11

Work Book.

p.46

Pupils listen and touch

their eyes, ears, etc.
While playing.

Listen and read

L.14

Pupil's Book

p.40

Pupils listen then read

Listen and circle

L.19

Work Book

p.54

Listen and circle

Listen and repeat

L.20

Pupil's Book

p.46

Pupils listen and repeat

167

Appendix (2)

A Check List of Listening Comprehension Sub-Skills

Hamada's list (1990)

168

A Check List of Listening Comprehension Sub-Skills

Hamada's listening comprehension skills list (1990)
Phonology:
1. The ability to discriminate sounds of English language.
2. The ability to discriminate between English sounds and similar Arabic
sounds.
3. The ability to discriminate sounds in isolated words esp.,
- phonemic contrasts
- phonemic sequence
- permissible phonemic variation
4- The ability to discriminate sounds in connected speech:
- strong forms and weak forms
- reduction of unstressed vowels
-.modification of sounds at word boundaries through
assimilation, elision etc.
5- The ability to discriminate stress patterns within words e.g.,
compounds.
6- The ability to recognize use of stress in connected speech e.g. for
emphasis or for contrast.
7- The ability to recognize intonation patterns and use of tone.
169

8- The ability to recognize discourse marks e.g., "well" and "oh".

Grammar:
1- The ability to identify syntactic patterns and devices.
2- The ability to recognize grammatical errors.
3- The ability to recognize grammatical word classes (parts of speech)
4- The ability to understand relations within the sentence esp.,
- elements of sentence structure
- modification structure e.g. pre and post modification,
disjuncts, negation .etc.
5- The ability to understand relations between parts of a text through
grammatical cohesion devices of:
- comparison
- substitution
- ellipsis
- time and place relators
------------------------------------------------------------------------------Vocabulary and Overall Comprehension:
1- The ability to recognize words meaning.
2- The ability to recognize word groupings e.g. in the sense that

170

3- The ability to detect key-words (i.e. those that identify topics.)

4- The ability to understand relations between parts of the text through lexical
cohesion devices of:
- repetition
- synonyms
- hyponyms
- antithesis
- opposition
5- The ability to guess at unknown words and phrases.
6- The ability to deduce the meaning and use of lexical items through
- stems or roots
- Affixation
- Derivation
- Compounding
7- The ability to follow oral directions.
8- The ability to observe a single detail.
9- The ability to observe a series of details
10- The ability to recall facts and ideas
11- The ability to understand, explicitly stated, information.
171

10- The ability to understand, not explicitly stated, information through

interferences.
11- The ability to recognize organizational elements.
12- The ability to distinguish the central idea from supporting details by
differentiating:
- Primary from secondary significance
- The whole from its parts
- The process from its stages
- A statement from an example
13- The ability to select what is relevant to the purpose of listening and
reject what is irrelevant.
14- The ability to understand conceptual meaning, esp. quantity,
location, comparison, time, result and purpose.
15- The ability to take notes on an oral communication.
16- The ability to predict outcomes from events described.
17- The ability to infer links and connections between events.
18- The ability to deduce causes and effects from events.
19- The ability to distinguish between literal and implied meanings.
20- The ability to identify and construct topics and coherent structures
from on going discourse involving two or more speakers.
172

21- The ability to identify the speaker's feelings through nonverbal and verbal
expressions (excited- disappointed- cautious- angry)
22- The ability to understand the communicative value (function) of
utterances e.g., an interrogative that is a polite request.
23- The ability to evaluate stories heard.
24- The ability to evaluate the development and conclusions of the
speaker's utterance.
25- The ability to respond to content by formulating opinions and
judgments.
26- The ability to adjust listening strategies to different kinds of
listener purposes or goals.

173

Appendix (3)
A. The Letter Addressed to the Jury Members
B. Names of the Jury Members Who Validated the
Listening Comprehension Skills Test and the Scaffolding
Interactive Activities.

174

Appendix (3)
A. The Letter Addressed to the Jury Members

Dear Professor,
The researcher is undertaking a study entitled "The Effectiveness of
Scaffolding Interactive Activities in Developing English Listening
Comprehension Skills of the Sixth Grade Elementary School Girls in Jeddah".
This study mainly aims at developing the listening comprehension skills of the
sixth grade elementary schoolgirls in Jeddah. In order to achieve the purpose of
the study, the researcher will analyze the content of the textbooks of the sixth
grade to determine the sounds, the words, the grammatical items, the topics and
the listening skills included in the lessons of the school textbooks; she does not
aim at adding new skills, but developing the skills already found in the school
textbooks through different scaffolding interactive listening activities.
You are kindly asked to have a look at the content of the scaffolding interactive
activities and the listening test items determining the validity of the activities and
the test items, In other words, whether they include the listening skills included
in the textbooks or not and whether the activities and the test items are suitable
for the pupils' age and learning stage.

Your modifications are needed and highly appreciated.

175

Appendix (3)
B) Names of the Jury Members Who Validated the Listening

Comprehension Skills Test

No.

Names

Prof. Dr. Sirvert Sahakian

Position
Professor of English Language
Methodology, Mansoura University.
Associate Professor of Curriculum and

Dr. Shawky El Sheriefy

Methods of Teaching English as a Foreign

Language, Mansoura University.

Dr. Hanaa El Baz

Assistant Prof. in Curriculum & Teaching

Methods, Mansoura University
Assistant Professor in Linguistics, Girls'

Dr. Mona Hamouda

College of Education, King AbdulAziz

University.
Assistant Professor in Linguistics, Girls'

Dr. Mona Ba Duwais

College of Education, King AbdulAziz

University.
Assistant Prof. in Curriculum & Teaching

Dr. Maysoon Al Dakheel

Methods, Girls' College of Education,

King AbdulAziz University.

Mrs. Shymaa

English teacher

Mr. Ramy

Assistant lecturer in Misr University.

176

Mrs. Maysa Rakha

A supervisor

177

Appendix (4)
A Listening Comprehension Test for the
Pupils in the Sixth Grade
Elementary Stage

A) Teacher's Version
B) Pupil's Version
C) Correction key

178

A) Teacher's Version
Part One:()
The First Question:[]
- Circle the letter that matches the sound you hear (/b/ or /p/, /f/ or /v/):
: /v/ /f/ /b/, /p/ ) (
One ()
Example ():
- .read

( bp)

- en ( b p )

1-..ook

2-..lease

3- comuter

4- um..rella

5- sou.

Two ()
Example ():
- amily ( f v )

- li.ing-room ( f v )
f

1-ish

2-..egetables

3-dri.er

v
179

4-le.t

5-riday

The Second Question: []

- You will hear three words. Two words are the same; circle the same words:
: ,
Example():
1- share

a. 1- class
b. 1- close

2- glass
2-close

2- chair

3- chair

3- class
3- clothe

c. 1- watch

2-wash

3- wash

d. 1- sing

2-sink

3- sing

e. 1- think

2-thing

3- think

The Third Question:[ ]

- You will hear three words; circle the word that goes with the picture:
:
180

Example ():
1- box

2- books

3-bakes

a) 1- cat

2- coat

3- caught

b) 1- lane

2- line

3- lion

c) 1- road

2- read

3- red

d) 1-big

e)1-tin

2- bag

2- ton

3- bug

10

3- ten

181

The F0urth Question:[ ]

-You will hear three words. Two of them have the same vowel sound; the other
one has a different sound .Circle the different word:
,
:
Example():
1- cup

2- car

3- far

a. 1- that

2- hair

3- hat

b. 1- milk

2- list

3- left

c. 1- nice

2- night

3- fish

d. 1- lunch

2- mouse 3- house

e. 1- cheap

2- bread

3- meat

182

Part Two:()
The First Question:[]
I- You will hear five sentences. Choose the picture that matches the sentence:
: ,
Example ():
- I like ice cream.

-1-

-2-

-3-

a) The boy has four balloons.

-1-

-2-

-3-

b) We live in a big house.

-1-

-2-

-3-

183

c) The doctor works in a hospital.

-1-

-2-

-3-

d) I sleep in my bedroom.

-1-

-2-

-3

e) The boys sit around a yellow circle.

-1-

-2 -

184

-3-

The Second Question:[]

You will listen to seven incomplete sentences. Each sentence is followed by
three words. Choose the number of the suitable word that can complete the
sentence.
.
.
Example ( )
- Doctors work at (1- schools

a- Bananas are (1- yellow

2- hospitals

2- red

b- Teachers work at .( 1- houses

c- We watch TV in the

3- white )

2- schools

3- hospitals )

(1- living room 2- kitchen 3-bathroom )

d- Trees are .. (1- black

2- green

e- There are in the house.

f- We put books in ..

3- houses )

(1- classrooms

( 1- bags

g- At hospitals, there are many

3- blue )

2- beds

(1- drivers

185

2- boards 3- rooms)
3- pens )

2- engineers

3-nurses)

The Third Question:[]

You have many items in the box. You will listen to five sentences describing the
items in the box. Some of these sentences are true, some are false. Choose ( T ) if
the sentence is true, and ( F ) if the sentence is false.
, .
) F ( ) T ( .
.
Example ( (
- There are two schoolboys.

(T - F)

1- There are four red cars.

(T - F )

2- The girl has a book.

(T - F)

3- There are six cars in the box. (T - F )

4- The apples are green.

(T - F)

5- The letters are red.

(T - F)

186

The Fourth Question[ ]

- You will listen to Maha describing her family. The pictures you see show that
description. The pictures are in disorder. Put the number of the sentence next to
the suitable picture while listening to the description for the second time
.
.
1- Maha lives with her family in a big house.
2- The house has three bedrooms.
3- She has one sister and two brothers.
4- Her father is an engineer.
5- Her mother is a teacher.

(a)

5 (d)

(b)

2 (e)

187

(c)

Part Three:()
First Question:[]
You will hear six incomplete sentences, followed by three choices, circle the
correct choice as shown in the example:

. -

.Example():
-Hi. I . Ali.

(1- am

2- is

3-are)

a- My name . Maha.

(1-am 2- is 3-are)

b- I a school girl.

(1- am 2-is

c- She a teacher.

(1-am

d- How you?

(1-am 2-is

3- are)

e- How old . Ahmad?

(1-am

3-are)

3-are)

2- is 3-are)

2- is

The second Question:[] :

You will hear eight incomplete sentences, followed by two choices; circle the
correct choice as shown in the example:

. -
.
.
Example():
- These are red .. (1-apple
a- It is a blue .

(1-car

2-cars)
188

2- apples)

b-My brother is . engineer. (1-a

c-.is a nice house.

2- an)

(1-This

2-These)

d-We have four ..

(1- bedrooms

e- He is . schoolboy.

(1- a

f- Nasir and Waleed are

g-. are two books. (1-This
h-I want .. ice-cream. (1- an

2-bedroom)

2-an)

(1-brother

2- brothers)

2- These)
2-a)

189

B) Pupil's Version
A Listening Comprehension Test for pupils in the Sixth Grade Elementary
School
Name:................

Class:..

Part One:.
Part Two:.
Part Three:
Total score:

:
- .
: .
-1 :
-2 .
: .

-
.
- .
.
- .
.
- .

...
190

Part One:()
First Question:[]
- Circle the letter that matches the sound you hear (b or P/f or v):
: v f / b p
One:((

.Example():
1) - (b p)

-( bp)

1-

2-

3-

4-

5-

Two:()

.Example():
2) - ( f v)

- ( f v)

1-

2-

3-

4-

5-

v
191

The Second Question: []

- You will hear three words. Two words are the same; circle the same words:
: ,

.Example():
-1a.

-1-

- 2-

-3-

b.

-1-

-2-

-3-

c.

-1-

-2

-3-

d.

-1-

-2-

-3-

e.

-1-

-2-

-3-

-2-

-3-

The Third Question:[]

- You will hear three words; circle the word that goes with the picture:
:

.Example():
-1-

a) -1-

-2-

-2-

-3-

- 3-

192

b) -1-

- 2-

-3-

c) -1-

- 2-

-3-

d) -1-

-2-

-3-

e) -1-

-2-

-3-

10

The Fourth Question:[]

-You will hear three words. Two of them have the same vowel sound; the other
one has a different sound .Circle the different word:
,
:
Example():
-1-

-2-

-3-

193

a. -1-

- 2-

-3-

b. -1-

-2-

-3-

c. -1-

-2-

-3-

d. -1-

-2-

-3-

e. -1-

-2-

-3-

194

Part Two:()
The First Question:[]
I- You will hear five sentences. Choose the picture that matches the sentence:
: ,

Example():

-1-

-2-

-3-

-1-

-2-

-3-

a)

b)

-1-

-2-

-3-

195

c)

-1-

-2-

-3

-2-

-3-

d)

-1-

e).

-1-

-2-

196

-3-

The Second Question:][

You will listen to seven incomplete sentences. Each sentence is followed by
three words. Choose the number of the suitable word that can complete the
sentence.
.
.
Example ( )
- ( 1-

2-

a- ( 1-

2-

3- )

b- ( 1-

2-

3- )

c- ( 1-

2-

3- )

d-.( 1-

2-

3- )

e-( 1-

2-

3- )

f- ( 1-

2-

3- )

g-.( 1-

2-

3- )

3- )

197

The Third Question:[]

You have many items in the box. You will listen to five sentences describing the
items in the box. Some of these sentences are true, some are false. Choose ( T )
if the sentence is true, and ( F ) if the sentence is false.
, .
) F ( ) T ( .
.
Example ) )
( T - F)

1- (T - F )

2- ( T - F )

3- (T - F )

4- ( T - F )

5- (T - F )

198

The Fourth Question[ ]

- You will listen to Maha describing her family. The pictures you see show that
description. The pictures are in disorder. Put the number of the sentence next to
the suitable picture while listening to the description for the second time
.
.

(a)

(c)

(b)

(e)

(d)

199

Part Three:()
First Question:[]
You will hear six incomplete sentences, followed by three choices. Circle the
correct choice as shown in the example:

. -

.Example():
( 1- 2- 3-)
a- (1- 2- 3- )
b- (1- 2- 3-)
c- (1- 2- 3-)
d- (1- 2- 3-)
e- (1- 2- 3-)

The second Question:[] :

You will hear eight incomplete sentences, followed by two choices, circle the
correct choice as shown in the example:

. -
.
200

.Example():
.. (1a- (1-

2-)

b- (1-

2-)

c- (1-

2-)

d- (1-

2-)

e- (1-

2-)

f- (1-

2-)

g- (1-

2-)

h-. (1-

2-)

2-)

201

C) Correction Key
Part One:
The First Question:
One: 1- b / 2- p / 3- p / 4- b./ 5- p.

(5 marks)

Two: 1- f./ 2- v./3-.v./ 4- f./ 5-.f.

(5 marks)

The Second Question:

a.1-3 / b. 1-2 / c.2-3 / d. 1-3./ e. 1-3

(5 marks)

The Third Question:

a. 1 / b. 2 / c. 3 / d. 2 / e.3

(5 marks)

The Fourth Question:

a. 2./ b. 3 / c. 3 / d. 1 / e. 2

(5 marks)

Part Two:
The First Question:
a. 1 / b. 3 / c. 2 / d. 1 / e. 3

(5 marks)

The Second Question:

a. 1 / b. 2 / c. 1 / d.2 / e. 3 / f. 1 / g. 3.

(7 marks)

The Third Question:

1- F / 2- T / 3- T / 4- F / 5- F

(5 marks)

202

[25 marks]

The Fourth Question:

a. 4./ b. 3 / c. 2 / d. 1 / e. 5

(5 marks)

[22 marks]

Part Three:
The First Question:
a. 2 / b. 3 / c. 2 / d. 3 / e. 1

(5 marks)

The Second Question:

a. 1 / b. 2 / c. 1 / d. 1 / e. 1 / f. 2 / g. 2 / h. 1

(8marks)

[13 marks]

{Total: 60 marks}

203

Appendix (5)
The Proposed Treatment
A) Description
B) Sample Lesson

204

A) Description
4.1. Introduction
In the treatment proposed for developing the listening comprehension skills of
sixth grade elementary pupils, the researcher tried to tackle the problem of the
pupils' ability to listen and comprehend well. It was noticed that the sixth grade
pupils had difficulty comprehending listening materials. This might be due to:
1- following the traditional method of teaching listening which considers
listening as a skill that is used to give pupils practice in pronunciation and
speaking in the sense that pupils are simply listening to a tape or repeating what
the teacher is saying
2- the lack of listening activities included in the curriculum; there are very few
and these activities usually only ask the pupils to carry out very simple actions
3- the lack of suitable interactive activities for facilitating the listening process
4- the absence of listening as a necessary component in EFL exams.
Consequently, the researcher suggests using interactive scaffolding activities to
develop the listening comprehension skills of sixth grade elementary pupils.
4.2. Aim of the Study
The main aim of the study was to develop the listening comprehension skills of
sixth grade elementary pupils in Jeddah schools. To achieve this aim, interactive
scaffolding activities were designed by the researcher.
4.3. Aims of the Treatment
The treatment included in the present study aimed to:
1- develop the listening comprehension skills of sixth grade elementary pupils
using interactive scaffolding activities
205

2-shed light on the importance of listening in learning English as a foreign

language.
4.4- Objectives of the Treatment
The treatment had certain objectives to be achieved by the end of it. These
objectives were concerned with developing the listening comprehension skills
included in English For Saudi Arabia Sixth Grade Elementary including
a. recognizing and discriminating English speech sounds
b. recognizing word meanings
c. recognizing sentence meanings
d. observing a single detail
e. recognizing syntactic patterns.
4.5. Description of the Treatment
The treatment consisted of six lessons selected from the pupils book English For
Saudi Arabia Sixth Grade Elementary. A number of interactive scaffolding
activities designed by the researcher were integrated with these lessons. Each
lesson was divided into three stages: pre-listening, during listening, and postlistening. Each stage consisted of several interactive scaffolding activities used
to develop the listening comprehension skills of sixth grade elementary pupils.
4.5.1. Content of the Listening Materials and Activities used in the
Treatment
The experimental group received some interactive scaffolding activities based on
games, songs, visual cues, the computer, and taped material of native speakers
talking.

206

The lessons were as follows:

Lesson one: Alphabet Revision

Lesson two: My Family

Lesson Three: My House

Lesson Four: Colours

Lesson Five: Surroundings: Where is s/he?

Lesson Six: Professions: What is s/he?

The researcher designed interactive scaffolding activities to suit each lesson

to give the pupils an opportunity to develop their listening comprehension
skills. These activities trained the pupils to focus on comprehension rather
than structure, and also how to listen for sound discrimination, word
recognition, matching pictures with words, organizing unordered
information, and following instructions.
4.5.2. Steps Followed in Designing the Treatment
In designing the treatment, the researcher followed these steps:
1- implementing the same content as the lessons selected from the pupils
book English For Saudi Arabia Sixth Grade Elementary
2- adopting the pedagogical sequence of pre-listening, during listening, and
post-listening activities because this sequence can guide pupils through the
mental processes for successful listening comprehension
3- integrating a number of interactive scaffolding activities in each lesson
4- using different instructional materials that aid each lesson and each
activity
5- using tape-recorded materials. Live voice (of the researcher) was also
used.
207

4.6 Description of the Lessons of the Treatment

Each lesson in the treatment was described in terms of the specific objectives,
instructional aids, and the teaching procedures. Moreover, each lesson was
divided into three stages: pre-listening, during listening, and post-listening
activities. These stages are explained in detail as follows:
4.6.1. The Pre-Listening Stage
In the pre-listening stage, the researcher used various types of activities which
scaffolded the process of teaching and learning listening comprehension. These
activities motivated pupils to listen to and concentrate on the instructions given
by the researcher and to not be worried or frustrated about what was expected of
them.
These activities facilitated and scaffolded the pupils` comprehension of the topic
of the listening text so that their prior knowledge was activated and they were
then prepared cognitively for the next stage.
4.6.2. The During Listening Stage
In the during listening stage, the researcher gave the pupils another group of
interactive activities to help them concentrate on the listening tasks. In this stage,
the pupils were asked to listen to and to interact with the activities related to the
intended skills. Such activities helped them monitor their comprehension.
During this stage, the researcher scaffolded the pupils cognitively, pedagogically
and psychologically in order to develop their listening comprehension skills. The
pupils gave their responses with the help of the teacher's scaffolding.
4.6.3. The Post-Listening Stage
This stage aimed to check the pupils` comprehension of the listening text and to
evaluate their development. In this stage, the researcher presented a group of
208

similar activities to the pupils to be used as a criterion for judging their success in
the listening comprehension tasks alone (without scaffolding from the
researcher). Post listening activities were used for evaluating the pupils` success
in completing the tasks alone (dependant responses).
4.7. Instructional Aids and Equipment
In presenting the three stages mentioned above, the researcher used some
instructional aids and equipment that scaffolded the pupils in the experimental
group; these materials helped them to successfully interact with the listening
materials and the researcher and included songs, games, models, toys, posters,
flash cards, pictures, the computer, handouts /answer sheets given to the pupils,
and a tape-recorder and tapes.
4.8. Evaluation
The evaluation techniques used when implementing the treatment included
formative and summative evaluation as follows:
4.8.1. Formative Evaluation
This was used for assessing the pupils' progress in listening comprehension as
well as providing the necessary feedback on their listening comprehension
performance (during and post stage activities).
4.8.2. Summative Evaluation
This was conducted at the end of the research after the treatment had been
implemented. It included administration of a post-listening test to investigate the
effect of the interactive scaffolding activities on developing the listening
comprehension skills of the sixth grade elementary pupils.

209

B) Sample Lesson

Specific Objectives:
By the end of this lesson the pupils will be able to :
- listen and differentiate among these colors (black white red blue
yellow green )
-differentiate between singular and plural forms of words.

Instructional Media:
Cassette , poster , colored balloons , colored ribbons, colored mat ,

- The seating of the class will be in U shape.

Teaching Procedures:
Step1: Pre listening activities :

-The teacher will enter the class with

colored balloons in her hand. After
warm-up questions she asks the
pupils about the balloons : What are these?
Are they balls?...... No. They are
She tries to elicit ( balloons )
210

-Then she calls some pupils and asks them

to pick one "each" and asks if they know
what color the balloon is ?
-The teacher distributes different colored
balloons among all pupils.

Step2: During listening activities:

- Then the teacher hangs the poster and asks

the pupils to listen to the cassette.
- While the pupils listen, the teacher points to
each color and asks them to repeat.

Black white red blue yellow green

A red apple

4 yellow bananas

- Then the teacher asks the pupils to listen to the

Color Song carefully, then she sings the song
with them.
Color Song
Black and white, red and blue, yellow and green, too.
Colors, colors, colors all around.
Between the sky and the yellow sand.
211

- While singing the pupils gather in groups according to the

color of the balloons they have.

-The teacher distributes colored ribbons

among them , then she plays the cassette
again and those who have the color they
hear will stand up. e.g. (Black, the pupils
with black ribbons stand up.)

-The teacher will stick a black ribbon on the

board.
Then she asks What color is this ribbon?
Pointing to standing pupils What color are these ribbons? And gives them
choices ( 1- blue -2- black

-3- white )

[The teacher stresses the difference between the singular and the plural forms]

Step3: Post listening activities:

Pupil's Book p. 18
What color is this apple?
It is.

( 1- green

What color are these bananas?

212

2- yellow

3- red )

They are.

( 1- green

2- yellow

3- red )

{They select the suitable number. They can say the color
(not necessary) }

The teacher brings a colored mat and puts it

on the floor, then asks volunteers to play
the game .
The teacher names a color, the pupil puts
one foot on it, when the teacher names
another color the pupil puts the other foot,
next she names another color and the pupil
puts one hand on it. Finally, she names a
color and the pupil puts her other hand on
it. The class will clap for her if she manages putting her hands and feet
on the right colors.
(This game will add fun to the lesson. It will
motivate the pupils. It also builds courage
in the pupils )
- Exercise ( A & B ) Listen and color.
page 20 (Work Book).

213

Appendix (6)
Volume of Effect

214

Volume of Effect

Volume of effect can be explained in the following table which refers to

levels of effect volume.

Volume of Effect
Tool used
Large

Medium

Small

0.14

0.06

0.01

0.8

0.5

0.2

Value of

2
Value of

215

US-China Education Review B 1 (2011) 53-57

Earlier title: US-China Education Review, ISSN 1548-6613

Identifying Information Focuses in Listening Comprehension

ZHANG Hong-yan
Jinan University, Guangzhou, China

The study explains the process of learners listening comprehension within Hallidays information theory in
functional grammar, including the skills of identifying focuses while listening in college English teaching.
Identifying information focuses in listening is proved to improve the students communicative listening ability by
the means of a classroom research, in which 87 students were involved.
Keywords: information focus, information unit, process of listening comprehension, college English classroom

Introduction
Now communicative listening ability, as one of the aspects in the applied linguistic research field, is being
paid an increasing attention to. However, most learners are still weak in listening comprehension. Halliday
(1967) started from meaning and stood for the hearer to analyze the language. Halliday (1967) first put forward
the idea of focus and pointed out that the information focus reflected new information. His approach gives us
some enlightenment in listening teaching.
This study tries to explain the process of learners listening comprehension within Hallidays (1967)
information theory in functional grammar, and tries to illustrate the fact that identifying information focuses
helps learners listening comprehension.

Theoretical Foundation
Information Unit
In Hallidays (2000) opinion, a text consists of information units. The information unit is what its name
impliesa unit of information. Information, in this technical grammatical sense, is the tension between what is
already known or predictable and what is new and unpredictable. This is different from the mathematical
concept of information, which is the measure of unpredictability. It is the interplay of the new and those not
new that generates information in the linguistic sense. Hence, the information unit is a structure made up of two
functionsthe new and the given.
As for the new and the given information, Valin and Lapolla (2002) explained them clearly to us: It is not
that the new information itself has the value of the information but that the relationship between the new and
the given makes the information unit have the information value. The given information is the part initiated by
the utterance and able to constitute the context needed to understand the utterance.
Tone Group and Information Focus
Halliday (2000) maintained that each information unit was realized as a tone, which may be falling, rising
ZHANG Hong-yan (1960-), associate professor, College of Foreign Studies, Jinan University. Research field: applied
linguistics.

54

IDENTIFYING INFORMATION FOCUSES IN LISTENING COMPREHENSION

or mixed. This tone extends over the whole tone group. Within the tone group, one foot carries the main pitch
movement: the main fall or rise, or the change of direction. This feature is known as tonic prominence, and the
element having this prominence is said to be carrying information focus (Halliday, 2000). In general sense,
information focus can be regarded as what the speaker emphasizes on.
Unmarked information focus. When the information unit consists of a given element accompanied by a
new element, that is to say, the unmarked position for the new is at the end of the information unit, which we
call unmarked information focus. Now, the end of the new element is marked by tonic prominence.
Marked information focus. It is possible to have the given materials which follow the new; and any
accented matter that follows the tonic foot is thereby signaled as being given. We call this phenomenon as
marked information focus.
Contrastive information focus. The information focus contains the contrastive relationship between the
focus element and the other information of the information unit.
The Psychological Process of Listening Comprehension
Listening is essentially an active process. To understand what we have heard, we need the communicative
knowledge of the spoken languagephonological and grammatical patters, as well as lexical items, the ability
to predict what is likely to come next, and the contextual clues. It will be helpful to take account of the two
main ways of responding to something we have heard:
(1) Interacting: That is, the listener also participates as a speaker, for example, in a conversation or
discussion;
(2) Reacting: That is, the listener does or says something as a result of what he/she has heard, but is not
involved in an interaction with the speaker. This situation is similar to reading, as the listener is distanced
from the speaker.
As for the process of listening comprehension, there are different answers. With references to these
answers, this study constructs an outline of the process of listening comprehension as in Figure 1.
Perception

Comprehension

Analysis

Knowledge

Code

Application

Decode
Figure 1. The process of listening comprehension.

From this process, we can define the main task of the listening. Cele-Murcia (1995) said that listening
comprehension included both the bottom-up and the up-down processes dealing with the information. These
two processes dealing with information included phonological perception, word recognition, grammatical
analysis and contextual inference (Rost, 2005). While listening, if listeners manage to include the skills of
identifying information focuses, they could gain twice the result with half the effort in the listening
comprehension.

The Design of the Listening Course in College English

The classroom is a convenient place for imparting information and for developing many educational skills.
From the above-mentioned, we can improve the learners listening comprehension by teaching them in the
classroom how to identify information focuses within the process of the listening comprehension. The skills

IDENTIFYING INFORMATION FOCUSES IN LISTENING COMPREHENSION

55

can be trained both from phonetics and syntax and vocabulary perspective.
An Outline
According to the textual function, the speaker usually presents the new and given information in such a
way that suits most state of the listeners knowledge, so that the speaker can input the new information
emphatically to the listener, and expand or repeat the given information to enhance the coherence of the text. A
text is made up of clauses. However, almost every clause contains an information focus, which plays an
important role in a clause, and is restricted by the intention of the speaker, and the textual context.
In college English, the listening materials are presented either in a monologue or in a dialogue way. The
contents cover from formal announcements, discussions or dialogues to informal conversations and stories. For
example (the parts underlined are information focuses):
A: Excuse me. Im looking for the purchasing managers office.
B: Well, go up to the fourth floor. When you come out of the lift, go left. Its the second door on the left. (Go
aheada communication skill course for Business English: 4.1 B)

While listening, the learner, first of all perceives the language code, then tries to comprehend and analyze
the code, after that, he absorbs the identified information focuses into his own knowledge scope and in the end,
applies them to solving the problems. Of course, this is done in one moment. However, by decomposing the
process of the listening comprehension, we can explain the key procedures in listening comprehension and
make clear the activities of identifying information focuses.
Methods of Identifying Information Focuses
Phonetics. Tonic prominence is a common means to realize information focus. Especially in informal
conversations, the speaker can place the information focus in any position by the means of tonic prominence.
For example (the parts underlined are information focuses):
I called last week about the computer system for our offices. (Go aheada communication skill course for Business
English: 2.2 A)
or: I called last week about the computer system for our office.

Syntax. Structurally, an information unit consists of an obligatory new element plus an optional given.
The way this structure is realized is essentially natural in two respects: (1) The new is marked by prominence;
and (2) The given typically precedes the new. In this situation, the focus is marked. Otherwise, the information
focus is unmarked. For example (the parts underlined are information focuses):
Could you tell me something about your company? (Unmarked) (Go aheada communication skill course for
Business English: 3.1 C)
Right. Wednesday the sixteenth. Would the morning suit you? (Marked) (Go aheada communication skill course
for Business English: 8.3 C)

As for contrastive information focus, Dick (1989) divided it into four types according to its different
functions.
Replacement. The speaker thinks that the listener has got some incorrect information, so he/she replaces
the information with the other correct one. For example (the parts underlined are information focuses):
A total of 11.5% of the workforce are professional or technical workers; by that, I mean, people like accountants,
engineers and lawyers. (Contrastive) (Go aheada communication skill course for Business English: 2.1 D)

56

IDENTIFYING INFORMATION FOCUSES IN LISTENING COMPREHENSION

Expansion. The speaker thinks that the listener has got incomplete information about what has been told.

Therefore, the speaker needs to give the listener some additional remarks. For example (the parts underlined are
information focuses):
Well, I do work long hours, if something important comes up, I can be in the office until eight or nine in the evening.
(Contrastive) (Go aheada communication skill course for Business English: 6.3 B)

Restriction. The speaker thinks that what the listeners thinking about is right on the whole, but that there
are still some limitations to the listeners knowledge. Therefore, the speaker tries to make what he/she has said
more explicit. For example (the parts underlined are information focuses):
A lot of my work is routine secretarial work. You know, answering the phone, writing letters, that kind of things.
(Contrastive) (Go aheada communication skill course for Business English: 4.2 D)

Selection. The speaker does not know which piece of the information is correct between the two pieces. In
this situation, selective interrogative sentences are often used. For example (the parts underlined are
information focuses):
Is that Robert Brown or George Braun? (Contrastive) (Go aheada communication skill course for Business English:
2.2 A)

Vocabulary. The properties of vocabulary are exclusive, emphatic and negative. These three properties
can be used to identify information focuses. For example (the parts underlined are information focuses):
They have trainee program for people from university. (Exclusive) (Go aheada communication skill course for
Business English: 11.3 B)
And only 23% said that they spent more on luxury items, like fur coats and jewellery. (Emphatic) (Go aheada
communication skill course for Business English: 19.2 A)
She never takes the train to the office. (Negative) (Go aheada communication skill course for Business English: 6.2 B)

The examples above indicate that information focuses can be identified by the means of a systematical
training in the college English classroom.

A Survey Study on Identifying Information Focuses in Listening Comprehension

As a scientific research on language acquisition, the approach should be both qualitative and quantitative.
Therefore, this study investigates the effect of learners abilities to identify information focuses in listening
comprehension.
Subjects
The participants are 87 first-year overseas Chinese students of Jinan University, who are from Burma, Canada,
Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Macao, Mongolia, Malaysia and Viet Nam. All the participants are non-English majors.
They were divided into two groups: an experiential group (N = 43) and a control group (N = 44).
Research
Before the experiment, a pre-test showed that the English proficiency of the two groups was similar. The
two groups received identical English instruction on Go AheadA Communication Skill Course for Business
English, except that the experimental group received an extra training on identifying information focuses in
listening comprehension. A questionnaire, which covers the learners learning background, motivations,
interests and methods, was also conducted to investigate some extraneous variables. The pre-test and the

IDENTIFYING INFORMATION FOCUSES IN LISTENING COMPREHENSION

57

pre-training questionnaire, on the other hand, identified the difficulties the students often met with and the
strategies they often used in English listening. The training lasted for ten weeks. Each week, the same teacher
gave both two groups two periods of English course on Thursday and two periods on Friday. The difference
was that in the experimental group, the teacher spent 20 minutes on Thursday and 20 minutes on Friday
teaching the students how to identifying information focuses in listening comprehension. In the end, a post-test
was given to both groups.
Results
In the pre-test, the mean score of the control group is 77.8182 and that of the experimental group is
77.3488. The results are nearly similar. According to independent samples test in post-test, the mean score of
the control group is 76.5682 and that of the experimental group is 81.8837. By means of Levenes test for
equality of variances, we get the result: P = 0.048, which is less than 0.05. It is concluded that the two
variances are not equal.

Conclusions
Information focuses are an important concept in linguistics. It reveals the variation of the different
communicative values. At present, however, this theory is only elaborated by linguists and grammarians; it is
seldom applied to practice, even less to solving the problem in language acquisition. This study manages to
combine information focus theory with practice, that is, to solve the learners listening comprehension
problems. The results deserve further consideration and discussion.

References
Cele-Murcia, M. (1995). Discourse analysis and the teaching of listening. In C. Guy, & B. Seidlhofter (Eds.), Principles and
practice in applied linguistics. Oxford University Press.
Dick, S. C. (1989). The theory of functional grammar. London: Cambridge.
Halliday, M. A. K. (1967). Notes on transitivity and theme in English. Journal of Linguistics, 3.
Halliday, M. A. K. (2000). An introduction to functional grammar. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.
Rost, M. (2005). L2 listening. In E. Hinkel (Ed.), Handbook of research in second language teaching and learning. London:
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc..
Valin, V. R., & Lapolla. (2002). Syntax: Structure, meaning and function. London: Press of the University of Cambridge.
Licensed edition by Beijing University Press.

The effectiveness of using an explicit language

learning strategy-based instruction in developing
secondary school students' EFL listening
comprehension skills
By
Dr. Iman Abdul-Reheem Amin
Dr. Mahsoub Abdul-Sadeq ALy
Dr. Magdy Mohammad Amin
Faculty of Education, Benha University
Benha, Egypt
e-mail: mahsoub90@hotmail.com
mahsoubaly@yahoo.co.uk
Publication Date: 01 December 2011
Abstract
The present study aimed at exploring the effectiveness of using explicit
language learning strategy-based instruction in developing secondary school students'
EFL listening comprehension skills. It was hypothesized that using explicit strategybased instruction would develop students' EFL listening comprehension skill and its
sub-skills. The sub-skills were identified according to students' text-book, teacher's
guide, and Ministry of Education Directives for secondary school teachers (20102011). An EFL listening comprehension test was used for measuring students'
development in listening comprehension. The subjects of the study were randomly
drawn from two classes at El-Shimaa Secondary School for girls, Benha, Qalyoubiya
Governorate, Egypt. The experiment lasted for five weeks at a rate of three sessions a
week (90 minutes each). The strategy instruction used in the present research study
was the Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach or CALLA. The sessions
included listening comprehension activities followed the five phases of the CALLA
approach. Findings of the study were statistically dealt with the Statistical Package for
the Social Science software (SPSS) version 17. T-value, mean scores, standard
deviation, and degree of freedom were calculated. It was found out that the
experimental group achieved more gains in their EFL listening comprehension skill
and each sub-skill due to using the explicit language learning strategy instruction.
Keywords: Strategy-based instruction, Listening comprehension skills, EFL, Listening
comprehension strategies, and CALLA.

Introduction

Learning strategy instruction is "a cognitive approach to teaching

that helps students to learn conscious processes and techniques that
1

facilitate the comprehension, acquisition, and retention of new skills and

concepts" (OMalley & Chamot, 1990, p. 96). Learning strategies
instruction improves students acquisition of a foreign language. It helps
them building a repertoire of strategies. In addition, students not only
acquire new strategies, but they also discover how and when to apply
them. Learning strategy instruction increases their ability to use strategies
effectively and to match them appropriately with tasks. The goal of
learning strategies instruction is for students to become independent
learners with the ability to use strategies aptly in a variety of contexts.
This is because effective learners should have a repertoire of strategies,
the skill of selecting appropriately from them, and the orientation to learn
more. (Watkins, Carnell, Lodge, Wanger, & Whalley, 2000, p. 37)

A number of factors has contributed to recent interest in strategy

instruction:
(1) The greatest emphasize on learners and learning rather than
on teachers and teaching.
(2) The concern of researchers dealing with the area of foreign
language learning on how learners process new
information and what kinds of strategies they employ to
understand, learn, or remember information.
(3) The apparent relationship between learner autonomy and
learning strategies, the teach ability of learning
strategies.
(4) The necessity of providing unsuccessful students with a wide
repertoire of strategies in order to become successful
learners.
(5) The possibility of increasing students motivation and range
of strategies through explicit instruction in learning
strategies The recent development in attribution theory
which suggests that learners may attribute their success
to their sense of control over their learning process.
(6) The impossibility of teaching all learners in the same manner
because of differences in learning styles.
(7) The necessity of helping students learns how to learn
(Grenfell & Harris, 1999, p. 84; Harris & Gasper, 2001, pp. 1518; Hismanolgu, 2000, p. 1).
Thereby, instruction in learning strategies enables learners to learn
how to learn more effectively; give them the tools and confidence to
tackle their learning independently, and give them the sense of content so
2

that they are not constantly reliant on the teacher (Macaro, 2002, p. 272).
Learning strategies are the primary tools, students use to meet their
learning goals. They help them generate meaning, monitor their own
learning progress, and store new information in ways that facilitate future
recall and application (Weinstein, Tombelin, Julie, & Kim, 2004, p.
288). Thus they can be described as a mental tool kit for dealing with
language learning tasks (Allison & Harklau, 2010, p. 138).
The value of learning strategy training has been widely recognized
among education researchers. Extensive investigations has shown the
importance of language learning strategies in making language learning
more efficient and in producing a positive effect on learners language
use. The benefits of supporting language learners in being more strategic
learners and users of a second or foreign language have been firmly
established (See for example, Abu-Radwan, 2011, p. 115; Cohen,
2003a, p. 1, 2008, p. 45; Oxford, 2001, pp. 166-172; Goh, 2008, p.
188; Harris, 2003, p. 2; Wakamoto, 2009, p. 29).
Accordingly, most successful students use a greater variety of
strategies and use them in ways appropriate to the language learning task.
Less successful learners not only have fewer strategy types in their
repertoire but also use strategies that are inappropriate to the task. They
often use the same strategies over and over again and do not make
significant progress in their task. They do not recognize that the strategies
they are using are not helping them to accomplish their goals. These less
successful learners seem to be unaware of the appropriate strategies to a
particular language task (Anderson, 2005, P. 757; Chamot & El-Dinary,
2000, p. 1; Harris & Gasper, 2001, P. 15; Kumaravadivelu , 2001, P.
137).
Advocates of strategy instruction for learners would posit that if
learners have a well-functioning strategy repertoire then this set of
strategies will enhance the learning of an l2 (Kinoshita, 2003, p. 1).
Besides, strategies play an important role in giving learners a sense of
control and changing their perceptions of themselves. (Cohen, 2007, pp.
57-71). If learners have a well-functioning repertoire, then these
strategies will facilitate the language learning process by promoting
successful and efficient completion of language learning tasks, as well as,
by allowing learners to develop their own individualized approach to
learning (Cohen, 2008, p. 280; Harris & Gasper, 2001, pp. 15-16).
Due to the importance of language learning strategies, it is
necessary to train learners on the effective use of these strategies.
Learners have to know the meaning of language learning strategies and
3

the classification of these strategies and when, why, how and where to
use them appropriately.
A scheme of language strategies
Strategies have been classified in different ways. The following are
some of the more common approaches to strategy descriptions. One basic
distinction is between language learning strategies (i.e., learning language
material for the first time) vs. language use strategies (i.e., using the
material that has already been learned). In contrast to language learning
strategies, language use strategies are seen to come into play once the
language material is already accessible. Whereas language learning
strategies would be used with an explicit goal of improving learners
knowledge of a given language, language use strategies have their focus
primarily on helping students utilize whatever amount of language they
have already learned. Thus the purpose of strategy use is to improve
performance in the learning and use of ones second or foreign language
(Anderson, 2005, p. 757; Cohen, 2002b, p. 51).
Strategies can be classified by skill area. This classification
includes the receptive skills of listening and reading and the productive
skills of speaking and writing. There are also skill-related strategies that
cut across all four skill areas, such as vocabulary learning. Also grammar
strategies cut across all four skills, since they may play a role in how
learners listen or read as well as in the production of spoken or written
language. There are more ways of classifying strategies such as
good/poor strategy and direct/ indirect strategies. Unlike poor/
inappropriate strategies, good strategies are appropriate strategies for a
given learner at a particular instant on a given task, given the manner in
which the learner is using the strategies. In addition, where direct
strategies are intended to refer to those involving direct use of language
and indirect strategies refer to strategies such as metacognitive or
affective strategies (Anderson, 2005, p. 760).
Another classification of strategies is by purpose in which
strategies are classified as cognitive, metacognitive, and social/affective
strategies. Thus language learning strategies repertoire includes cognitive
strategies for memorizing and manipulating target language structures;
metacognitive strategies for managing and supervising their strategy use;
affective strategies for gauging their emotional reactions to learning and
lower anxieties; and social strategies for enhancing learning: such as
cooperating with other learners and seeking opportunities to interact with
4

native speakers. (Cohen, 2008, p. 46; Fernande, 2008, p. 42; O'Malley

& Chamot, 1990, p. 196).
Guidelines for strategy instruction
Cohen (2008, p. 49); Grenfell and Harris (1999, pp. 98-107) &
Harris and Gaspar (2001, pp. 21-23) provided a summary of strategy
instruction guidelines:
1- Introduce the purpose of strategy instruction explicitly to the
learners.
2- Integrate strategy instruction with regular coursework.
3- Select material that is neither too easy nor too difficult.
4- Teach strategies that are most effective with language skills to
be practiced.
5- Focus on one skill area (e.g. memorizing words) because within
each skill, there is a complex range of strategies.
6- Start instruction with a discussion of what it is like to (read,
write, listen or speak) in one's native language.
7- Raise awareness of the strategies learners are already using.
8- Teach strategies to beginning level as well as to more advanced
students.
9- Do not try to teach many strategies at the same time. Keep it
simple.
10- Model the strategies for students by think aloud about your
own mental strategies.
11- Provide multiple practice opportunities to help learners move
towards autonomous use of the strategies through gradual
withdrawal of the teacher scaffolding.
12- Make the instruction explicit. Mention the strategies by
name. Give the strategies names in the target language.
13- Practice the strategies throughout the school year.
14- Get learners to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of the
strategies used and their efforts to transfer these strategies to
new tasks.
An example of strategy-based approaches is the CALLA approach
that was developed by O'Malley and Chamot. CALLA is based on the
Cognitive learning theory and focuses on explicit language learningstrategy instruction. CALLA has five phases in which teachers combine
the three components of content, language, and learning strategies. It
includes an instructional design sequence to assist teachers incorporate
CALLA's components and principles in their planning instruction and
assessment. The CALLA instructional design is task-based and includes
5

both teacher-directed and learner-centered activities (Chamot, 2007, p.

320). For teacher and students responsibility in CALLA see figure (1)

Figure 1. framework for strategies instruction

Adapted from (Chamot , Barnhardt, , El-Dinary, & Robbins 1999, p. 36)

The instructional sequence designed for CALLA provides a fivestage cycle for introducing, teaching, practicing, evaluating, and applying
language learning strategies. The five stages of the CALLA instructional
sequence are not always followed in strict sequence bur are often
recursive (Chamot, 2001, p. 2). OMalley & Chamot (1990, p .158)
introduced a scope and sequence framework for learning strategy
instruction that should be adopted by CALLAs teachers (see: Table 1)

Table 1
The five phases of the CALLA approach along with the aim of each
phase and its corresponding steps.
Aim
Seps

Stage
Preparation

Develop
student
awareness of
different
strategies
through:

1-small group retrospective interviews about

school tasks
2-modeling think-aloud, then having students
think aloud in small groups.
3-discussion of interviews and think-aloud.

Presentation

Develop
1-providing rational for strategy use.
student
2-descriping and naming strategy.
knowledge
about strategies 3-modeling strategy.
by:

Practice

Develop
student skills in
using strategies
for academic
learning
through:

1-cooperative learning tasks.

2-think-louds while problem solving.
3-peer tutoring in academic tasks.
4-group discussions.

Evaluation

Develop
student ability
to evaluate own
strategy
use
through:

1-writing strategies used immediately after task.

Develop
transfer of
strategies to
new tasks by:

1-additional practice on similar academic tasks.

Expansion

2-discussing strategy use in class.

3-keeping dialogue journals (with teacher) on
strategy use.

2-assignments to use learning strategies on tasks

related to cultural backgrounds of students.

Adapted from OMalley & Chamot (1990, p. 158)

A number of studies investigated the application of the CALLA

approach in EFL classes such as: Rasekh & Ranjbary (2003), Al-Hriree
(2004), Olson and Land (2007), Coskun (2010), Jurkovi (2010), and
Takallou (2011). Rasekh & Ranjbary (2003) investigated the effect of
metacognitive strategy training through the use of explicit strategy
instruction on the development of lexical knowledge of EFL students.
The training model used was based on the framework for direct language
learning strategies instruction proposed by Chamot and O'Malley. The
findings of the study showed that explicit metacognitive strategy training
has a significant positive effect on the vocabulary learning of EFL
students
Al-Hriree (2004) aimed at developing some listening
comprehension skills for first year secondary school students through the
use of some metacognitive strategies. The experimental group received
training through a program to teach metacognitive strategies through the
strategy based approach and the Cognitive Academic Language Learning
Approach (CALLA). The study proved the effectiveness of using
metacognitive strategies in developing students listening comprehension
skills.
The purpose of Olson and Land's study ( 2007 ) was to assess the
impact of CALLA approach on the reading and writing abilities of
English language learners secondary schools. Students receiving
cognitive strategies instruction significantly out-gained peers on
holistically scored assessments of academic writing for seven consecutive
years. Teachers and students were exposed to an extensive set of
cognitive strategies and a wide array of curricular approaches to strategy
use (comprehensiveness) in a manner designed to cultivate deep
knowledge and application of those strategies in reading and writing
(density) over an extended period of time (duration). Findings indicated
the efficacy of using the CALLA approach with English language
learners.
Coskun (2010) investigated the effect of metacognitive listening
strategy training on the listening performance of a group of beginner
preparatory school students at a university in Turkey. The CALLA
approach strategy phases were applied for the metacognitive listening
strategy training. It was concluded that the CALLA approach five phases
had a positive impact on the listening performance of EFL students.
8

Jurkovi (2010) explored the effect of an explicit language

learning strategy instruction-based on the CALLA approach five phaseson the development of English as a foreign language within higher
education students. The findings showed that explicit language learning
strategy instruction did not yield a statistically significant effect on
language progress.
Takallou (2011) examined the effect of metacognitive (planning &
self-monitoring) strategy instruction-based on the CALLA approach on
EFL learners reading comprehension performance (on authentic and
inauthentic texts) and their metacognitive awareness. The findings
showed that experimental groups awareness to metacognitive strategies
and their reading comprehension performance significantly increased
after instruction
CALLA has been used to improve learners' English language
through teaching the students the effective use of language learning
strategies. Previous studies proved the effectiveness of this approach with
EFL learners. The purpose of the present study is to explore the
effectiveness of strategy instruction-based on the CALLA approach in
developing EFL students listening comprehension.
Context of the problem
Although listening is necessary for fostering language learning,
there is little emphasis on teaching listening comprehension skills in
secondary schools. This lack of instruction causes deficiency in
students' listening comprehension skills. In addition, both teachers and
students are exam-oriented and since exams are in the form of pencil
and paper, some teachers completely neglect teaching listening
comprehensions skills. Other times teachers change listening
comprehension tasks into reading passages by reading the transcript
orally to the students or by giving them a written copy to read and
answer questions (Abdel-Hafez, 2006; Abo-Hadid, 2000; Abu-Essa,
2005; Al-Hriree, 2004 ; Hamed, 2003; Mekheimer, 2001; Radwan,
2010; Soliman, 2008).
Another problem that may hinder students' ability to comprehend
listening materials is students' low level of awareness in listening
strategies as well as the neglect in teaching students strategies for
effective listening. Therefore, it is important to teach listening strategies
along with linguistic features. Besides, less successful language learners
can be taught new strategies, thus helping them become better language
9

learners (Abdel-Hafez, 2006, p. 3; Abo-Hadid, 2000, p. 2; Chamot, 2005,

p. 135; Ling-hui, 2007, p. 65; Vandergrift, 2004, p. 4; Wen-sheng,
2007, pp. 73-74).
A number of studies, which pinpoints the importance of listening
comprehension skills, calls for training students on how to listen by
making them aware of the appropriate strategies used before , during and
after listening and training students on how to use them (e.g. Imhof ,
2000; Mekheimer, 2001; Hamed, 2003; Al-Hriree, 2004; Abu Essa,
2005 ; Goh & Taib, 2006; Tuncer & Altunay, 2006; Paquette, Fello &
Jalongo, 2007).
Statement of the problem
There is a lack in EFL listening comprehension skills among
first year secondary school students. Moreover, it is recommended by
previous studies that instruction in listening comprehension strategies
help enhancing students' listening comprehension skills.
(Abo-Hadid, 2000; Al-Hriree, 2004; Hamed, 2003; Radwan, 2010;
Soliman, 2008)
Hence, this study was an attempt to develop students EFL listening
comprehension skills via applying a strategy-based instruction based on
the Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach which highlights
the importance of teaching language learning strategies.
Therefore, the present study attempted to answer the following questions:
1. What are the principles of the language strategy-based
instruction used for the present study?
2. What is the effectiveness of the language strategy-based
instruction used for the present study in developing first
year secondary school students' EFL listening
comprehension skills?
Objective of the study
The present study aimed at developing EFL listening
comprehension skills through using a strategy-based instruction based on
the CALLA approach.
Sample of the study
The sample of the present study consisted of 80 first year
secondary school female students. They were drawn from first year
11

secondary school students at El-Shimaa Secondary School for Girls,

Benha, Qalyoubiya Governorate, Egypt.
Limitations of the study
This study was limited to:
a) Some first year secondary school students
b) Female students at El-Shimaa Secondary School for Girls,
Benha, Qalyoubiya Governorate, according to the permission
given by the security office at Benha Education Directorate.
c) Some EFL listening comprehension skills required for fist year
secondary school students in the light of Ministry of Education
Directives for secondary school teachers and teachers guide of
first year secondary schools.
Tool of the study
An EFL listening comprehension test that was developed and
conducted by the present study researcher. (See Appendix A)
Description of the test
The test consisted of 10 questions in five parts to measure five EFL
listening comprehension sub-skills divided as indicated in table (2)
Table 2
Description of the EFL listening comprehension test
part question
objectives

Total Score

One
Two

A
B

Measuring students' ability to:

Listen for specific information

10

Two

10

Three

Measuring students' ability to:

Listen for making inference

Three

A
B

Measuring students' ability to:

listen for detailed information

10

Four

A
B

Measuring students' ability to:

Listen for prediction

10

11

Five
One

Measuring students' ability to:

B

10

listen for gist

Scoring system
The total score of the test was 50. It was assigned as follows: one
score for each correct answer, zero for incorrect or left questions.
However part 4 was assigned 1.25 for each picture. The scoring system
was determined in that way in order to assign 10 marks for each of the
five EFL listening comprehension sub-skill.
Sources of the test
To develop the EFL listening comprehension test, activities were
adapted, with some additional questions, from students' textbook Hello 6,
(1999) by Don Dallas and Helena Gomm, and from two additonal books
by Jack C. Richards (2005) and Jack C. Richards, Jonathan Hull, and
Susan Proctor (2005)
Hypotheses of the study
1. There are statistically significant differences between the means of
the experimental group and those of the control group students in
the overall EFL listening comprehension skill in favour of the
former.
2. There are statistically significant differences between the means of
the experimental group and those of the control group students in
EFL listening comprehension sub-skills in favour of the former.
Procedures of the study:
To answer the questions of the study, the present study followed the
following procedures:
1. Determining the principles of the strategy-based
instruction that based on Cognitive Academic Language
Learning Approach (CALLA) through:
a) Reviewing literature and studies related to both the CALLA
approach and listening comprehension skills and strategies.
a) Identifying the procedures followed during the
implementation of the CALLA approach
12

b) Preparing a teacher's guide for first year secondary school

teachers.
c) Submitting the teacher's guide to a jury to verify its validity.
d) Modifying and setting the teacher's guide in its final form
according to their suggestions.
2. Identifying the effectiveness of using a strategy-based
instruction based on the CALLA approach in developing first
year secondary school students' listening comprehension skills
through:
a. Assigning a sample of first year secondary school
students randomly into two groups: the experimental and
the control group.
b. Administering the EFL listening comprehension test.
c. Teaching the experimental group using the strategy-based
instruction based on the CALLA approach.
d. Applying the post assessment on the study sample.
3. Interpreting the findings of the study.
4. Introducing the suggestions and recommendations of the study.
Terms of the study:
Listening comprehension
According to Vandergrift (1999, p. 168), listening comprehension
is "a complex, active process in which the listener must discriminate
between sounds, understand vocabulary and grammatical structures,
interpret stress and intonation, retain what was gathered in all of the
above, and interpret it within the immediate as well as the larger sociocultural context of the utterance". Thus, listening comprehension involves
a great deal of mental activity on the part of the listener. Vandergrift's
definition indicates that listening comprehension involves bottom-up and
top-down processing of incoming speech.
For Rost (2005, p. 503) listening comprehension encompasses
receptive, constructive, and interpretive aspects of cognition. Therefore,
listening comprehension is "a complex cognitive process that allows a
person to understand spoken language".
Further, Caldwell (2008) asserted that comprehension is an
unobservable process which is extremely complicated and multifaceted
13

entity. So, he defined listening comprehension as "the process of

simultaneously extracting and constructing meaning through interaction
with oral language" (p.4)
Based on the above definitions, the present study researcher
defined listening comprehension as "a complex process in which listeners
have the ability to use information in the oral text or spoken language to
guess meaning of new items; predict outcomes; understand and construct
meaning; find the specific facts, information or ideas; and determine the
central thought or ideas represented in the text".
CALLA
The Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach (CALLA)
is an instructional approach for second and foreign language learners
based on cognitive theory and research. CALLA integrates instruction in
priority topics from the content curriculum, development of the language
skills needed for learning in school, and explicit instruction in using
learning strategies for academic tasks (Chamot & Robbins, 2006, p. 6)
The present study researcher defined CALLA as an instructional
approach that incorporates learning strategy instruction presented through
five phases (preparation, presentation, practice, evaluation, and
expansion) for helping students learn conscious processes for facilitate
the acquisition of new skills
Sources of the test
To develop the EFL listening comprehension test,
activities were adapted, with some additional questions, from students'
textbook Hello 6, (1999) by Don Dallas and Helena Gomm, and from two
additonal books by Jack C. Richards (2005) and Jack C. Richards,
Jonathan Hull, and Susan Proctor (2005)
Findings of the study
To test the first hypothesis, T-test was used to analyze the
differences between the means of the experimental group and
the control group students on the EFL listening comprehension
test in the post-assessment. Findings are shown in Table (3)

14

Table 3
Findings of T-test between the means of the experimental
group and control group students on the overall EFL listening
comprehension skills.
Groups

Means

S.D

T-value

DF

Sig*.

Experimental 40

35.71

5.33

16.62

78

0.01

Control

15.75

5.40

40

*P < 0.01
From the previous table, it is obvious that the mean of the
experimental group students (35.71) is higher than that of the control
group (15.75) where T-value is 16.62 which is significant a 0.01.
To test the second hypothesis, T-test was used to analyze the
differences between the means of the experimental group and the control
group students on the EFL listening comprehension test in the postassessment of each listening comprehension sub-skill. Findings are
shown in Table (4)
Table 4
Findings of T-test between the means of the experimental group
and the control group students' post-assessment of each EFL listening
comprehension sub-skill.
Listening
comprehension
subskills
1- Listening
for
detailed
information.
2- Listening
for
specific
information.
3- Listening
for
prediction
4- Listening for gist

Experimental
group
mean
S.D
7.05
1.97

Control group T-value DF

Sig.*

Mean
3.77

S.D
2.01

7.33

78

0.01

9.00

1.51

4.12

1.77

13.21

78

0.01

4.93

2.07

2.02

1.87

6.58

78

0.01

8.22

2.39

3.17

1.64

11.00

78

0.01

15

5- Listening
making
inferences.

for 6.42

2.03

2.65

1.57

9.26

78

0.01

*P < 0.01
Findings of Table (4) indicate the following:
1) The mean of the experimental group students (7.05) is higher in
"listening for detailed information" than that of the control group
(3.77), where T-value is 7.33 which is significant at 0.01.
2) The mean of the experimental group students (9.00) is higher in
"listening for specific information" than that of the control group
(4.12), where T-value is 13.2 which is significant at 0.01.
3) The mean of the experimental group students (4.93) is higher in
"listening for prediction" than that of the control group (2.02),
where T-value is 6.85 which is significant at 0.01.
4) The mean of the experimental group students (8.22) is higher in
"listening for gist" than that of the control group 3.17, where Tvalue is 11.00 which is significant at 0.01.
5) The mean of the experimental group students (6.42) is higher in
"listening for making inferences" than that of the control group
(2.65), where T-value is 9.26 which is significant at 0.01.

The total effect size of the explicit language learning strategybased instruction
To calculate the total effect size of the strategy-based
instruction which is based on the CALLA approach on developing
students' EFL listening comprehension skills, the following
formula was used:
t2
2 =
t2 + df
2 is the total effect size of the program.
t is the value of t-test.
df is the degree of freedom.
(Abou-Hatab & Sadek, 2010, p. 441)
Abou-Hatab & Sadek (2010, p. 441) suggested a base for
evaluating the effect size of the independent variable as follows:
(a) The effect is low when 2 equals about 1%.
16

(b) The effect is moderate when 2 equals about 6%.

(c) The effect is high when 2 equals about 15% or more.
The total effect size of the explicit language learning
strategy-based instruction (2 value) for students' overall EFL
listening comprehension skills and each sub-skill was calculated as
presented in the following table.
Table 5
The Total Effect Size of the Explicit Language Learning Strategybased Instruction (2 value) for Students' Overall EFL Listening
Comprehension Skills and each Sub-skill.

EFL listening comprehension skills

Sub-skills
1- Listening for
detailed
information
2- Listening for
specific
information
3- Listening for
prediction
4- Listening for
gist
5- Listening for
making
inferences.
Overall EFL listening
comprehension skills

TDF
value

7.33

78

40

40

13.21 78

69

69

6.58

78

35

35

11.00 78

60

60

9.26

78

52

52

16.62 78

77

77

From findings of Table (5), it is obvious that the explicit

language learning strategy-based instruction is highly effective in
enhancing the experimental group students' overall EFL listening
comprehension skills %77. It is also clear that this instruction
developed listening comprehension sub-skills in different
percentages: (1) Listening for detailed information 40%, (2)
Listening for specific information 69 %, (3) Listening for
prediction 35%, (4) Listening for gist 60 %, and (5) Listening for
making inferences 52%.
17

Figure (2) shows the (2 value) of overall EFL listening

comprehension skills and each sub-skill.

Figure 2. The (2 value) of overall EFL listening comprehension

skills and each sub-skill.
Discussion of findings
EFL listening comprehension skills
The overall EFL listening comprehension skills
skills
Findings of the present study revealed that there are significant
differences between the means of the experimental group and the control
group students in the post-assessment of EFL listening comprehension, in
favour of the former.
Figure (3) shows the means of the experimental group and the
control group in the post-assessment of overall listening comprehension
skills.

18

Figure 3. The means of the experimental group and the control group
students in the post-assessment of the overall EFL listening
comprehension skills.
T-test analysis of data from the EFL listening comprehension test
revealed that there were significant differences at the level 0.01 between
the means of the experimental group and the control group in the postassessment of overall listening comprehension skills, in favour of the
former. Therefore, it could be concluded that the experimental group
students performed much better than those of the control group in the
overall listening comprehension skills.
At the beginning of the treatment, experimental group students
did not realize the value of EFL listening comprehension skills. From
their comments, it appeared that they were exam-oriented. They felt that
listening comprehension was not important because there was no test for
it. They used to study reading comprehension, writing, vocabulary,
grammar, and translation.
The present study researcher tried to draw their attention to the
importance of listening comprehension and how it leads to improvement
in their speaking skill which is also necessary for success in most
universities and work fields. In the first session, there was a discussion
with the class on the importance of EFL listening comprehension skills
and methods for developing them. Students were also told that using
listening comprehension strategies could help them in understanding
auditory texts and answering listening comprehension questions.

19

The purpose of the study was mainly to develop students'

knowledge and use of listening comprehension strategies in order to be
able to use listening comprehension strategies flexibly to answer any
listening comprehension task. This purpose was also sought by other
researchers such as Goh (2000) and Kohler (2002).
Developing students' EFL listening comprehension skills might
be attributed to using the explicit language learning strategy-based
instruction that is based on the CALLA approach. All listening tasks
were represented through the five phases of CALLA, in a method that
incorporated listening comprehension strategies. Using listening
comprehension strategies improved students' understanding of listening
comprehension tasks. Thus, it could be concluded that if learners have a
well-functioning strategy repertoire, then this set of strategies will
enhance the learning and acquisition of a foreign language. This
conclusion is consistence with that of Al-Hriree (2004) & Carrier
(2003).
The strategies taught were classified as cognitive, metacognitive,
and social/affective. Therefore, all the sessions of the treatment included
forms of these strategies. The strategies were taught to the students in
order to use them prior to listening, during listening, and after listening.
Each session aimed at enabling the students to know when, how and
why to use appropriate listening comprehension strategies so as to tackle
listening comprehension tasks. The importance of developing students'
listening comprehension strategy knowledge was pinpointed by the
studies of Liu & Goh (2006), Mareschal (2002), and Vandergrift
(2003b).
Besides, the sessions of the treatment represented a variety of
listening comprehension activities that aimed at developing students'
EFL listening comprehension skills. Some of these activities were done
individually; others were done in pairs or in groups. Examples of these
activities are the following: (a) listen and choose the answer, (b) listen
and complete, (c) listen and take notes, (d) listen and number, (e) listen
and check the answer, (f) listen and correct, (g) listen and match, and (h)
listen and compare.
Moreover, in each session there were tasks for activating students'
background knowledge for listening. The preparation phase of each
session included pre-listening activities to develop students' awareness
of content schemata, lexical knowledge and appropriate listening
comprehension strategies for the coming listening tasks. For example,
21

task (1) in session (2) aimed at activating students' prior knowledge of

the characters there were going to hear about in listening tasks of unit
(1). Task (1) in session (3) aimed at activating students' schemata about
some of the words they were going to listen to in tasks (2 & 3). Task (1)
in session (5) aimed at activating students' prior knowledge about the
appropriate listening comprehension strategies used for the listening
tasks of that session. The importance of providing background
knowledge about listening topics and vocabulary was proven to be
effective by the results of Chang & Read (2006)
In addition, the present study researcher modeled to the students
how to use EFL listening comprehension strategies in understanding and
answering listening comprehension tasks. Teacher-modeling is
fundamentally needed in strategy instruction since most strategies are
hard to understand if they are new to the learner. Modeling strategies by
an expert was suggested by methodologists such as: Harris & Gaspar
(2001, p. 22) & Macaro (2002, p. 187)
Thereby, the purpose of listening comprehension strategy
instruction in the CALLA approach was to help the students became
aware of their own metacognition, cognitive, and social/affective
strategies to help them became better listeners in EFL. Thus, it may be
concluded that using the explicit language learning strategy-based
instruction which employed the principles and phases of the CALLA
approach developed the experimental group students' EFL listening
comprehension skills.
EFL listening comprehension sub-skills
The findings of the present study revealed that there were
significant differences between the means of the experimental group and
the control group students in the post-assessment of each EFL listening
comprehension sub-skill, in favour of the former. Figures (4, 5, 6, 7, and
8) show the means of the experimental and the control group students in
the post-assessment of each listening comprehension sub-skill.

21

(1) listening for detailed information

Figure 4. The means of the experimental and the control group students
in the post-assessment of listening for detailed information
T-test analysis of data from the EFL listening comprehension test
revealed that there were significant differences at the level of 0.01
between the means of the experimental and the control group students'
scores in the post-assessment of " listening for detailed information" in
favour of the former.
Listening for detailed information is one of the EFL listening
comprehension sub-skills (Brown & Smith, 2007, p. x). This sub-skill
implies students' ability to understand and construct meaning from
detailed information stated in auditory texts. This sub-skill was taught to
the experimental group students in most of the sessions. For example,
there were activities that enhanced the development of listening for
detailed information in sessions (2, 3, 6,7,11, 12, &13). These activities
were done individually or in groups.
Students were also taught how to use note-taking, elaboration, and
auditory representation strategies that aided them in remembering
detailed information. Use of listening strategies in order to comprehend
listening texts was proposed by Field (2000, p. 189) and White, (2006, p.
128).Tasks such listen and complete, listen and choose the answer, listen
and select the second half of a sentence from different possibilities, and
listen and choose true or false were examples of tasks used to teach and
assess students' ability to listen for detailed information. These types of
tasks was suggested by Harper, Smith & Beaven (2005, p. 87) .This subskill was assessed in the EFL listening comprehension test. The
22

experimental group got higher scores than the control group in the postassessment of this sub-skill. Thus, the experimental group students'
development in "listening for detailed information" might be attributed to
the treatment which utilized the CALLA approach. This may be because
this sub-skill was taught according to the five phases of the CALLA
approach. This finding was also reached by Al-Hriree (2004).
(2) Listening for specific information

Figure 5. The means of the experimental group and the control group
students in the post-assessment of listening for specific information
T-test analysis of data from the EFL listening comprehension test
indicated that there were significant differences at the level of 0.01
between the means of the experimental and the control group students'
scores in the post-assessment of "listening for specific information" in
favour of the former.
Listening for specific information is one of the EFL listening
comprehension sub-skills. This sub-skill refers to students' ability to find
out the specific facts or ideas stated directly in the text. This sub-skill was
reinforced during most of the sessions (e.g. sessions no. 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10).
Students were taught listening comprehension strategies that helped them
to find specific information or ideas stated in listening auditory texts.
Examples of these strategies are (1) advance-organization, to be prepared
for the listening task, (2) elaboration strategy to help them use the prior
knowledge to remember specific new information stated in the listening
text, and (3) auditory representation to help them recall specific
information.

23

Students were also encouraged to use self-talk, and co-operation

strategies in order to reduce their anxiety towards listening for specific
information. These socio/ affective strategies were important because the
students felt that finding specific information was difficult for them. They
commented that they could get a general idea during listening to EFL
listening text, but concentrating on specific information was hard.
Accordingly, the researcher modeled these important strategies by using
think-aloud protocol. Teaching these listening comprehension strategies
were done through the strategy-based instruction that includes the five
phases of the CALLA approach. Tasks such as listen and choose the right
answer, listen and match, listen and complete were used to teach and test
students' ability to listen for specific information. Students used listening
comprehension strategies to answer tasks on listening for specific
information. Thereby, it could be pinpointed that students' success in this
sub-skill might be attributed to using the strategy-based instruction
through which they knew how to use listening comprehension strategies
in order to listen for specific information. In addition, this sub-skill is the
most developed one (%69) as shown by calculating the total effect size of
the strategy-based instruction.
(3) Listening for prediction

Figure 6. The means of the experimental group and the control group
students in the post-assessment of listening for prediction.
T-test analysis of data from the EFL listening comprehension test
revealed that there were significant differences at the level of 0.01
between the means of the experimental group and the control group
students in the post-assessment of " listening for prediction" in favor of
the former.
24

Listening for prediction is one of the EFL listening comprehension

sub-skills. This sub-skill refers to students' ability to use parts of a text
such as illustrations, images, titles, headings, organization to anticipate
what is likely to occur and make logical guesses about what will happen.
(Vandergrift, 2003b, pp. 494-496)
Listening for prediction was emphasized through sessions no.
3,4,7,11,13. Most listening tasks were accompanied by pictures to help
students predict what is likely to happen. In addition, pre-listening tasks,
in the preparation phase, such as discuss in pairs, check your vocabulary,
read and discuss, look and speak were used to help in developing
listening for prediction. These tasks gave the students information that
helped them predict through listening. These activities also encouraged
the students to discuss and interpret listening texts, and thus activating
their prior knowledge and relating it to the listening exercise.
The present study researcher modeled through think-aloud protocol
how to use listening comprehension strategies that helped the students in
listening for prediction exercises. Examples of these listening
comprehension strategies are the following: (a) co-operation strategy
when students worked in pairs or groups to discuss topics of the listening
tasks, (b) using resources when students used their Active Study
Dictionary1* to check the meanings of vocabularies they were going to
listen to during the listening stage of listening tasks, (c) self-talk and selfencouragement strategies to reduce their anxiety towards listening tasks,
and (d) asking question strategy when they were encouraged to ask
questions for clarification which might help them in listening for
prediction there were also peer-tutoring and class discussions on the use
of listening comprehension strategies. Moreover, during using these
strategies, positive feedback was used to encourage further use of
strategies.
Listening for prediction exercises were conducted through the five
phases of CALLA. First, students were prepared to listening topics and
the appropriate strategies that might help them in listening for prediction.
Second, the researcher presented to the students examples of how to
answer and deal with that type of listening exercises by using appropriate
listening comprehension strategies. Third, in the practice phase, students
were exposed to listening for prediction exercises. They also tried to
*Longman active study dictionary for Egyptian secondary schools (1999).
Cairo, Egyptian International Publishing Company-Longman.

25

apply appropriate listening comprehension strategies to answer listening

questions. Fourth, during the evaluation phase, they were asked to selfevaluate their work. Finally, there were opportunities to encourage them
to further use of listening comprehension strategies that enhanced
listening for prediction sub-skill. Therefore, it might be concluded that
using the explicit language learning strategy-based instruction which
employed the principles and the five phases of the CALLA approach
helped in developing students listening for prediction sub-skill.
Findings of listening for prediction in the present study are
consistence with the findings of Vandergrift (2003a). In his study
Vandergrift found that motivation, positive feedback and collaboration
helped the students to concentrate on the power of prediction for
successful listening.
(4)Listening for gist

Figure 7. The means of the experimental group and the control group
students in the post-assessment of listening for gist.
T-test analysis of data from the EFL listening
comprehension test revealed that there were significant differences at
the level of 0.01 between the means of the experimental group and the
control group students in the post-assessment of " listening for gist" in
favour of the former. Listening for gist is one of the EFL listening
comprehension sub-skills. This sub-skill means concentrating on the
main idea of a text and disregarding irrelevant information. (Brown &
Smith, 2007, p. x)

26

Sessions no. 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12 included activities for

developing listening for gist. Listening for gist exercises included (1)
summarizing in one sentence what the text is about, (2) ordering
pictures as the students listen, (3) making a brief notes on the listening
passage, and (4) identifying key points in a listening comprehension
passage. Most listening for gist activities were done individually and
then the students were asked to work in pairs to check their answers.
Typical tasks were: listen and number pictures, listen and match, listen
and answer, and listen and write.
The listening comprehension strategies that were used to enhance
the development of this sub-skill were advance-organization, selective
attention, note-taking, summarizing, co-operation, monitoring and
evaluation. These strategies were taught to the experimental group
students according to the five phases of the CALLA approach.
Accordingly, the present study researcher modeled to the students how
to listen for gist by using appropriate listening comprehension strategies.
Then the students were asked to work individually to answer similar
listening for gist exercises. After that, they worked on monitoring and
evaluating their answers. During that they were give positive feedback.
Notes were taken on students' performance to see what areas needed
more focus and further practice and teaching. There were also
opportunities for expanding the students' use of listening comprehension
strategies to support further development of listening for gist.
Therefore, it might be concluded that the experimental group
students in this sub-skill was due to using the explicit language learning
strategy-based instruction that includes the CALLA approach phases of
strategy instruction. This finding was also supported by those of AlHriree (2004).

27

(5) Listening for making inferences

Figure 7. The means of the experimental group and the control

group students in the post-assessment of listening for making
inferences
T-test analysis of data from the EFL listening comprehension test
revealed that there were significant differences at the level of 0.01
between the means of the experimental and the control group students in
the post-assessment of " listening for making inference " in favour of the
former.
Listening for making inferences is one of the EFL listening
comprehension sub-skills. This sub-skill was the most difficult listening
comprehension sub-skill for the students. This is because this sub-skill
implies the ability to listen between lines. It refers to students' ability to
use information in the oral text (known words, tone of voice,
background sound, and relationships between speakers, content of the
text, knowledge of language structure, knowledge of text structure, and
prior knowledge of the topic) to guess the meanings of new items,
predict outcomes or completing missing parts (O'Malley & Chamot,
1990, p. 119, Rost, 2005, p. 514, Vandergrift, 2003b, pp. 494-496).
Sessions no. 2, 3, 5, 8, 9, 12, 13 included activities for developing
this sub-skill. Listening for making inference questions included asking
about anything that is not clearly stated but that is deliberately stated by
the speaker (e.g. by choice of words or tone of voice or connotation of
words) (Buck, 2001, p. 19).

28

Typical tasks for listening for making inference were: listen and
complete, listen and chose the correct answer, and listen and write.
These tasks were done in pairs and the students were given positive
feedback.
The sessions included listening comprehension strategies for
developing listening for making inference. Examples of these strategies
were: self-talk, advance-organization, selective-attention, auditory
representation, co-operation, monitoring and evaluation. Students were
often asked to read the questions of listening for making inference
questions. This procedure aimed at enabling the students to be prepared
and listen selectively to the listening comprehension passage. Then, the
present study researcher modeled how to use listening comprehension
strategies to answer listening foe making inference questions. There
were also opportunities for the students to practice, evaluate and expand
their use of listening comprehension strategies and listening for making
inference skill.
Thus, the explicit language learning strategy-based instruction
that included the five phases of the CALLA approach were used to
enhance students' use of listening comprehension strategies and
consequently developing their listening for making inference skill.
Therefore, it might be concluded that the experimental group students'
development in listening for making inference was due to using the
explicit strategy-based instruction.
Conclusion
The main objective of this study was to explore the effect of using
an explicit language learning strategy-based instruction based on the
CALLA approach on developing secondary school students' EFL
listening comprehension skills. Unlike the control group students, the
experimental group students achieved development in their EFL listening
comprehension skills this development might be attributed to using the
explicit language learning strategy-based instruction based on the
CALLA approach. Thus, using the five phases of CALLA (preparation,
presentation, practice, evaluation, and expansion) was proven to be
effective in enhancing students' knowledge and use of listening
comprehension strategies and consequently developing their listening
comprehension skill. The effectiveness of using strategy-based instruction
based on the CALLA approach in teaching different types of listening
comprehension strategies to enhance students listening comprehension
skills or competence was investigated by researchers such as: Al-Hriree (
2004, p. 2) & Coskun (2010, p. 34).The results of their studies are
29

consistence with that of the present study. These two studies dealt only
with metacognitive strategies, but the present study included teaching
metacognitive, cognitive, social and affective strategies.
Integrating metacognitive, cognitive, and social affective strategies
enabled the students to get the benefits of each type. Training the students
on using social/affective strategies such as self-talk and asking questions
for clarifications helped them in overcoming their anxiety towards
conducting listening comprehension tasks. This conclusion has been
drawn by advocates of strategy instruction such as Cohen (2007, pp. 5771), Harris & Gasper (2001, pp. 15-16), and Kinoshita (2003, p. 1).
Different types of listening activities presented through the five
phases of the CALLA approach and its principles provided the students
with opportunities to develop their overall EFL listening comprehension
skill and its sub-skills. So, the traditional idea of only exposing students
to listening texts should be replaced by a more effective approach in
which students receive strategy training in order to develop their
listening comprehension skills. This purpose was also sought by other
researchers such as Abo-Hdid (2000), Carrier (2003), Goh (2000), and
Kohler (2002).
To conclude, it should be noted that the success of strategy
training depends on teachers' awareness of the value of providing
strategy instruction. Hence, foreign language teacher development
should include the area of learning strategies in particular. This
conclusion was also reached by Lawes & Santos (2007, pp. 221-237).
Recommendations
In the light of the findings and conclusions of the study, it is
recommended that:
(1)
(2)

(3)
(4)

More time and effort should be exerted to develop EFL

listening comprehension skill and its sub-skills.
English language tests should include sections for testing
listening comprehension skill which will guarantee
more attention on behalf of both teachers and their
students.
English language courses should include elements of explicit
listening strategy teaching to help students take charge
of their own learning of listening comprehension.
English language strategy instruction should go through the
five phases of the CALLA approach: preparation,
presentation, practice, evaluation and expansion.
31

(5)

Students should learn different types of language learning

strategies
(i.e. metacognitive,
cognitive,
and
social/affective strategies) to use before, during and
after listening to facilitate their understanding of oral
texts.
(6) Positive feedback should be used by teachers to encourage
their students to perform listening comprehension tasks.
(7) Students should be taught how to self-evaluate their listening
comprehension and thus developing their metacognitive
awareness of their listening comprehension process.
(8) Motivational training should accompany listening strategy
instruction. Examples of motivational training are
modeling by teacher, scaffolding instruction and cooperative learning.
(9) Teachers should monitor their students' listening strategies
use by systematic observation and note-taking on their
students' use of strategies to help them in making
decisions about the need for more practice.
(10) EFL teacher preparation courses and in-service staff
development should integrate information and skills to
provide strategy instruction in listening comprehension.

Suggestions for further research

The following ideas for further research were suggested:
1) Investigating the effectiveness of explicit language
learning strategy-based instruction based on the
Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach
(CALLA) in developing reading, writing, and speaking
skills.
2) Developing remedial courses for overcoming learners'
problems on EFL listening comprehension skills among
prep school or university students.
3) Developing in-service teacher preparation courses for
developing their skills in introducing language learning
strategy instruction for their students.
4) Investigating the effectiveness of developing students'
knowledge and use of different EFL language learning
strategies on enhancing students' EFL speaking, reading
and writing skills.
31

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illustrations and oral language to improve comprehension
of expository text. Early Childhood Education Journal,
35(1), 65-73.
51) Radwan, S. (2010). Using dictogloss strategy for
developing some EFL listening comprehension skills
among secondary school students. Unpublished MA
thesis, Faculty of Education, Benha University.
52) Rasekh, Z. E., & Ranjbary, R. (2003). Metacognitive
strategy training for vocabulary learning. TESL-EJ, 7(2).
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53) Richards, J. C. (2005). Interchange: Intro. (3rd ed.).
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
54) Richards, J. C., Hull, J. & Proctor, S. (2005).
Interchange: Students book 2 (3rd ed.). Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.

37

55) Rost, M. (2005). L2 Listening. In Eli H. (Ed.),

Handbook of research in second language teaching and
learning( pp. 503-527). New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates, Inc.
56) Soliman, E. R. (2008). The effect of using the
integrated strategy on developing some listening skills in
English language for secondary stage students. M.A
thesis, Cairo University, Institute of Educational Studies.
57) Takallou, F. (2011). The effect of metacognitive
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comprehension
performance
and
metacognitive
awareness. Asian EFL Journal, 13(10), 272-300.
58) Tuncer, A. T., & Altunay, B. (2006). The effect of a
summarization-based cumulative retelling strategy on
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100(6), 333-365.
59) Vandergrift, L. (1999). Facilitating second language
listening comprehension: Acquiring successful strategies.
ELT Journal, 53(3), 168-176.
60) Vandergrift, L. (2003a). From prediction to reflection:
Guiding students through the process of L2 listening.
Canadian Modern Language Review, 59(3), 425-440.
61) Vandergrift, L. (2003b) Orchestrating strategy use:
Towards a model of the skilled L2 listener. Language
Learning, 53(3), 461-494.
62) Vandergrift, L. (2004). Learning to listen or listening
to learn. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 24(1), 325.
63) Wakamoto, N. (2009). Extroversion / introversion in
foreign language learning: Interactions with learners
strategy use. Bern, Switzerland: Peter Long AG,
International Academic Publishers.

38

64) Watkins, C., Carnell, E., Lodge, C., Wanger, P., &
Whalley, C. (2000). Learning about learning: Resources
for supporting effective learning. Florence, KY, USA:
Rotuledge.
65) Weinstein, C. E., Tombelin, T. L., Julie, A. L., &
Kim, J. (2004). Helping students to become strategic
learners: The role of assessment, teachers, instruction,
and students. In J, Ee, A. Chang, O. Tan (Eds.), Thinking
about thinking: What educators need to know (pp.282310). Singapore: McGraw Hill.
66) Wen-sheng, Z. (2007). Teach more strategies in EFL
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(Eds.), Current trends in the development and teaching of
the four language skills (pp. 111-135). Berlin, DEU:
Walter de Gruyter & Co.Kg Publishers.
**********************

Appendix A

The EFL listening comprehension test

Name:
Class:
Answer the following questions:

Total mark: /
Date:

1- Part one
A) Look at the pictures and listen to what the people say. Number the pictures. ( Listen

for specific information)

39

B) Choose the right answer ( Listen for gist)

What are these people talking about?

1- Mr. Abdel-Aziz (T.V news- modern cars- the weather)

2- Mrs. Abdel-Salam (school classes- shopping-computers)

(a new baby- school inspector-modern cars)
3-Mr. Fahmy
4-Mrs. El-Shazli
(the weather-shopping-a new baby)
5- Mrs. Zakariya
(friends-school classes- sky)
6- Mrs. Leila
(a new baby- friends- the weather)

2- Part two
A.
Azza is talking about her family photograph. Listen and write the phrases
which tell you where the people are. (Listen for making inference)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Hatem is .Mona.
Selim is..Karim.
Aza is..
Nada isMustafa.
Amr is.

B. Now listen again and write the correct name under each member of the family.

(Listen for specific information)

Hatem Karim- - Mustafa -Amr - Selim

41

3- Part three (Listen for detailed information)

A. Listen to four Londoners and their Egyptian friends talking about London. Tick ()
for a favorable comment or cross (X) for unfavorable one on the topics each person
mentions.
Architecture Entertainment Cost of Safety Public transport
living
Dan
Jane
Peter
Rose
Ali
Azza

B. Comprehension
Listen to the tape again and answer these questions.
1) Does Dan think that London is a more dangerous city than Johannesburg?
2) What does Jane complain about?
3) Which city is one of the most polluted in the world?
4) What do you think "the underground" is?
5) Does Azza like life in London?

c.

Listen and complete (Listen

1)
2)
3)
4)
5)

for making inference)

Life in London isn't as..as Johannesburg.

Prices in London are.
The underground in London is..
London is full of .places.
The entertainment in London is

4) Part four (Listen

for prediction)
41

A) Listen to a quizmaster asking questions about animals. Guess the names of the
animals

2-

1-

3-

4-

B) It is 5: 30 p.m and these people are waiting for the bus. What are they going to do?
Listen and look at the pictures to make your guesses then complete the table.

Listen and complete

Name
Michelle
Kevin
Robert
Jane

What is he \ she going to do?

5- Part five (Listen for gist)

Listen to Ted, Wanda, Kim and Mike talking about their evening's activities.
Which subject does each person talk about?

Listen and match

1- Ted

a) Playing football

2- Wanda

b) Going jogging

3- Kim

c) Going to the gum

4- Mike

d) Playing tennis
42

e) Playing the guitar

Scoring table:
part

question
A

Three
One

B
A

objectives

Total Score

Measuring students' ability to:

(1) listen for detailed information,

10

Measuring students' ability to:

(1) Listen for specific information

10

Measuring students' ability to:

(1) Listen for making inference, and

10

Two
Two

B
A

Three

Four

A
B

Measuring students' ability to:

(1) Listen for prediction

10

One

Measuring students' ability to:

(1) listen for gist

10

five
Total

50

END

43

Student score

A Correlation Study between EFL Strategic Listening

and Listening Comprehension Skills among Secondary
School Students
By

Dr. Iman Abdul-Reheem Amin

Dr. Mahsoub Abdul-Sadeq ALy
Dr. Magdy Mohammad Amin
Faculty of Education, Benha University
Benha, Egypt
e-mail: mahsoub90@hotmail.com
mahsoubaly@yahoo.co.uk

20 December 2011
Abstract:
The present study was undertaken to investigate the correlation between
EFL students strategic listening and their listening comprehension skills. Eighty
secondary school students participated in this study. Participants' strategic listening
was measured by a Strategic Listening Interview (SLI), a Strategic Listening
Questionnaire (SLQ) and a Strategic Listening Checklist (SLC) with think-aloud
protocol. Their listening comprehension skills were measured by an EFL listening
comprehension test. A Pearson correlation analysis was run to test the correlation
between strategic listening and listening comprehension test scores. The findings
revealed that the relationship between strategic listening and listening
comprehension was positive and significant. The higher the level of strategic
listening these students obtained, the higher the score they attained on the listening
comprehension test and vice versa.
Introduction:
In the last 15 years there has been an explosion in the understanding of how
students learn and study, and how teachers can help them to be more motivated
strategic and self-regulated learners (Weinstein, Tombelin, Julie, & Kim, 2004, p.
30).This tendency calls for learners' responsibility for their own learning. In other
words, students should become strategic learners who are active participants in
their own learning rather than a passive receiver of what is taught. The role of the
teacher is to help students develop strategies which enable them to become more
independent as learners and to take some of the responsibility for their own
-1-

learning (White, 2006, p. 113). Therefore, the most important issue in education is
how teachers can help their students become more autonomous, strategic, and
motivated so that they can apply their efforts and strategies in a variety of
meaningful contexts beyond school (Paris, 2004, p. 48).
It has been demonstrated that when students are taught strategies and are
given ample encouragement, feedback, and opportunities to use them, they
improve in their ability to process information, which, in turn, leads to improved
learning. In addition, language learning will be facilitated if learners are aware of a
range of strategies that they can select during language learning and language use.
The strategic learner knows the value of using particular strategies through
experience, and is eager to learn others that might prove beneficial. Besides,
learners who consciously make use of language strategies achieve better results in
their language performance than those who are not strategic (Beckman, 2002, pp.
3-4; Cohen, 2007, p. 58).
In the field of listening comprehension, discussions about listening
instruction have emphasized the role of strategy training instruction and learner
metacognition in facilitating comprehension. It is agreed that, among the factors
that affect listening comprehension and cause deficiency in listening skills is lack
of instruction. Students need to learn to listen so that they can better listen to
learn (Vandergrift, 2004, p. 3). Although teachers often emphasize the
development of speaking, reading, and writing skills, they may neglect to teach
students strategies for effective listening. If listening skills are to be acquired, they
must be taught along with certain listening strategies. Besides, to turn more
learners into competed listeners, language teachers should adopt suitable ways to
help learners improve their listening skills and strategies (Coskun, 2010, p. 35;
Ling-hui, 2007, p. 66).
Teaching listening strategies promotes listening comprehension, shapes
students' self-control learning habit and improves independent learning ability.
Listening strategies as well as linguistic knowledge are necessary to successful
listening comprehension. Therefore it is important to teach listening strategies
along with linguistic features. In order for the students to be strategic listeners, they
should be taught listening strategies. In addition, less successful language learners
can be taught new strategies, thus helping them become better language learners
(Chamot, 2005, p. 136; Chamot & Robbins, 2006, p. 5; Wen-sheng, 2007, p.
73).Therefore, becoming a good listener in a second or foreign language requires
using listening strategies when their listening skills fail (White, 2006, p. 128).
Moreover, strategy training activities have become feature of modern language
textbooks (Renandya & Farrell 2011, p. 52).
-2-

In other words, teachers should explicitly teach the students how, when, and
why to use a listening comprehension strategy or a combination of appropriate
strategies. When the students have both the knowledge and the skill of using the
listening strategies, they become strategic listeners.
Accordingly, the present study aimed at investigating the correlation
between EFL strategic listening and listening comprehension.

Strategic listening
Strategic listening can be defined as the process of being aware of
listening processes, having a repertoire of listening strategies, and knowing
which work best with which listening tasks; using various listening
strategies in combination and varying the combination with the listening
task; being flexible in the use of strategies; using both bottom-up and topdown strategies; and planning, monitoring, and evaluating before, during
and after listening (Schwartz, 1998, p. 7).
Strategic listening has two dimensions according to the two features
of metacognition. Metacognition has two key features, namely, control or
executive aspects, and knowledge about cognition state and processes. The
former refers to the use of metacognitive strategies, while the latter includes
the three categories of metacognitive knowledge (McCormick, 2003, p. 79).
See figure 1.

-3-

Strategic listening
components
Listening Strategy
knowledge

Listening Strategy use

1- knowing about strategies

(declarative knowledge)

Using listening strategies

2- knowing how to use strategies

(procedural knowledge

3- knowing when to use strategies

(conditional knowledge)

Figure 1. Components of strategic listening1

Therefore, it can be concluded that strategic listening has two dimensions:

metacognitive knowledge about listening strategies and the use of these strategies.
In other words, strategic listening encompasses the following metacognitive
components: declarative knowledge (what and why of listening strategy use);
procedural knowledge (how to use a listening strategy), conditional knowledge
(when and where to use) and a regulation component of evaluation or monitoring
strategy implementation.

McCormick (2003, p. 82) outlined aspects of metacognition as follows:

Knowing about skills and procedures you can use to improve your
cognitive performance
Knowing about strategies (declarative knowledge-one's repertoire)
Knowing how to use strategies (procedural knowledge-the steps)
Knowing when to use strategies (conditional knowledge-when to use
which strategies)
1

Designedbythepresentstudyresearcher.

-4-

The last three types constitute strategic listening. That is because strategic
listeners must have a repertoire of listening strategies (declarative knowledge),
procedural knowledge or how to use strategies and conditional knowledge or when
to use strategies. In other words, strategic knowledge includes learners knowledge
of strategies that they have used (strategies for particular task), learners' knowledge
concerning why they used a strategy to increase their learning proficiency
(principles for strategy choice), Learners' assessment of a strategy that they have
tried (evaluative of strategy use), learners' knowledge about the strategies that they
will probably use to improve their language skills (possible strategies for
improving skills) (Young & Sim, 2003, p. 33).
Researchers in the field of ESL/EFL listening have emphasized the
importance of students' metacognitive knowledge about listening. Goh & Taib
(2006, p. 223) pointed that development in the three aspects of metacognitive
knowledge will enable learners to appraise themselves and to select appropriate
strategies for improving their performance. In addition, the ability to manage one's
strategies effectively implies a degree of metacognitive awareness, that is,
knowledge about, and management of, cognition (Graham, 2003, p. 65). Thus
knowing how to use listening strategies successfully depends on metacognitive
awareness. Besides, learners with metacognitive awareness are more likely to
transfer strategies from one skill area to another. Carrier (2003, p. 383) affirmed
that explicit strategy instruction that includes metacognitive knowledge about what
the listening strategy is and what it does is more likely to result in the maintenance
and transfer of strategies to other contexts and tasks. Therefore, raising learners'
awareness of strategies that they might use to solve potential comprehension
problems could develop their oral proficiency. Thus, metacognitive knowledge
characterizes the superior performance of high achieving students as compared to
low-achievers in text comprehension (Annevirta, Laakkonen, Kinnunen, &
Vauras, 2007, pp. 21-37; Mareschal, 2002, pp. 23-33).
Vandergrift, in his studies (2002, 2003a, 2005), proved that metacognition
awareness (planning, monitoring, and evaluation) during listening is correlated to
facilitating listening comprehension. Moreover, raising students' awareness of the
listening process through tasks designed to develop effective listening strategies
increase motivation, and understanding of students' own thinking processes during
listening tasks. Vandergrift's sequence for guided listening (2002, 2003) was
adopted for teaching tertiary-level Chinese English as a second language (ESL)

-5-

students, they too reported increased motivation, confidence, and strategy

knowledge (Liu & Goh, 2006, pp. 91-107).
Further, Goh (2008, p. 188) affirmed the role of metacognition in second
language listening by pinpointing the relevance of metacognitive instruction to
listening comprehension development. Coskun (2010, p. 35) proved the
effectiveness of using a metacognitive strategy training based on CALLA in
developing EFL students' listening proficiency. Cross (2011, p. 408) concluded
that meatacognitive instruction helped less-skilled listeners develop their listening
comprehension ability. Kassaian and Ghadiri (2011) suggested that listeners
metacognitive awareness should be cultivated and strategy instruction should be
integrated into the teaching of listening. In the Egyptian context, Al-Hariree (2004,
p. 1) and Abde-Hafez (2006, p. 1) concluded that training in metacognitive
language learning strategies helped develop EFL learners' listening comprehension
skills and raise their language proficiency levels.
The second component of strategic listening includes the use of listening
strategies. Strategies and the ability to use them effectively are particularly
important in second / foreign language listening. Listeners need to actively choose,
use, and continually evaluate the effectiveness of their listening strategies in order
to successfully construct meaning from language oral input (Carrier, 2003, pp.
396-398). When having a repertoire of strategies, good listeners in a second or
foreign language use them when their listening skills fail. Moreover, using
listening strategy assist in planning for listening, comprehending the listening
process, and using, information gained through listening.
Yoshizaw (2002) proved the relationship between strategy use, proficiency,
and foreign language aptitude among EFL students. Wu (2003) compared the
differences in strategy use between effective and ineffective listeners. The study
concluded that effective listeners used more selective attention strategy. The
ineffective listeners used more translation strategy in the listening task than
effective listeners.
Farrell & Mallard (2006) compared the type and frequency of listening
strategies used by learners at three different language proficiency levels. Results
suggested that learners at all proficiency levels were able to use the strategies when
needed without prior training in strategy use. Chen's (2007) study aimed to
discover what listening strategies used by university students, and how the
strategies varied with language proficiency. The results indicated that some
-6-

metacognitive, cognitive, socio/affective, and additional strategies differences

existed between the two proficiency groups.
Graham, Santos, & Vanderplank (2008) investigated the extent to which
listening strategy use is related to listeners' level of linguistic proficiency. The
main finding was that while higher linguistic knowledge often led to more
effective deployment of strategies, this was not always the case, this leading to
conclude that it was not a guarantee of effective listening or effective strategy use.
Worthington (2008) focused on investigating strategy uses at different proficiency
linguistic patterns. Results demonstrated that listeners with both advanced and
beginning proficiency levels yielded higher scores on contrary-to-fact statements,
followed by functional expression and then negative expression.
When students are taught effective learning strategies, they become
equipped to be metacognitively, motivationally, and behaviorally active
participants in their own learning (Ee, Kim, & Potter, 2004, p. 109). Therefore, it
is essential to motivate students to use listening strategies effectively. The
hypothesized relationships among metacognition, listening strategy use,
motivation, and listening proficiency were explored by Vandergrift (2005, pp. 7087). The study revealed that when the listening test scores were correlated with
students' reported levels of motivation and use of cognitive and metacognitive
listening strategies, there was an evidence of high correlations among three levels
of motivation, extrinsic motivation, and intrinsic motivation) and reported use of
metacognitive strategies.
Goh (2000) suggested two teaching strategies essential for helping learners
become better strategic listeners. The direct strategy aimed at improving perception
and strategy use. The goal of the indirect strategy was to raise learners'
metacognitive awareness about listening. Both strategies are needed to help
learners not only improve their listening comprehension but also become more
efficient at directing their own learning and development as listeners.
Mareschal (2007, pp. 105-106) investigated the interrelationships between
language learners metacognitive awareness, self-regulatory abilities, listening
comprehension strategy use, and the overall success in listening comprehension.
Results indicated strong interrelationships between these factors. That is to say
when listeners have self-regulatory abilities and metacognitive awareness about
listening, they use listening comprehension strategies successfully and that result in
their overall success in listening comprehension

-7-

There is a positive relationship between students' listening strategy

knowledge and their perceived listening strategy use. When the students have the
knowledge about their listening strategies and know when, how, and why to use
these strategies, they are more likely to use these strategies appropriately. Those
students can then be described as strategic listeners.
Listening comprehension
Much has been written and discussed about listening comprehension,
learning strategies and their importance to language learning. It is undeniable that
we use listening more than any other language skill. In other words, language
learning depends on listening because most learners spend more time in listening
to the foreign language than in producing it themselves (Celce-Murcia & Olshtain,
2000 , p. 102). Listening is the aural medium that gives the way to language
acquisition and enables learners to interact in spoken communication. Therefore,
students with good listening comprehension skills are better able to participate
effectively in class. In addition, students learn to speak, read and write by listening
to others (Brown, 2001, p. 20; Lin, 2002, p .2).
The critical role of listening comprehension in the teaching and learning of
English as a Foreign Language has been acknowledged by researchers and
language educators. Formerly, listening was the least emphasis skill in EFL
classes, it is now recognized as a language skill which needs an active process in
the learners mind and therefore has increasingly received more attention in
language learning (Flowerdew & Miller, 2005, p. 20; Hamed, 2003, p. 2;
Matheson, Moon & Winiecki, 2000, p. 11; Vandergrift, 2004, p. 3).
Hence, listening is an important skill which needs more consideration in
teaching foreign languages. Researchers estimate that we listen to twice as much
language as we speak four times as much as we read, and five times as much times
as we write (Celce-Murcia, & Olshtain, 2000, p. 102). According to Nation &
Newton (2009, p. 38) "listening is the way of learning a language".
There are certain reasons for the importance of listening for foreign language
learners. First, listening is an essential perquisite for oral communication to take
place. Second, it often influences the development of reading and writing. Third, it
plays a central role in academic success, since students understand teachers or
lecturers through listening (El-Koumy, 2002, p. 63).

-8-

However, of the four skills, listening has historically been the most
forgotten, neglected and misrepresented in language classrooms and hence the least
well taught. In EFL course books, listening is practiced as a skill, but it is often
used as a means of exposing students to new language or of practicing language
which has already been introduced (White, 2006, p. 11; Yang, 2006, p. 2).
Listeners' thereby may be provided with practice in listening but fail to learn the
skill. Besides, their listening skills may not be improved.
Mendelsohn (2006, p. 75) affirmed that much of what is traditionally missnamed teaching listening should be called testing listening. That is because
teaching means showing the learner how to do anything, but testing simply implies
having students do something, and then evaluating how well they did it. Most of
listening class took the form of having the learners listen and answer questions,
without teaching them how to go about it, i.e. testing their listening rather than
teaching them to listen.
Language teaching methods initially did not recognize the need to teach
listening, but subsequent approaches used a variety of techniques to develop
specific or general listening skills (Flowerdew & Miller, 2005, p. 20). Recently,
there has been a growing interest in and concern for the teaching of listening. This
interest is influenced by studies done in foreign language acquisition, discourse
analysis, Cognitive processing theory and language learner strategies.

Three main developments have resulted in the changes in teaching of

listening: a shift in perspectives that leads to consider listening as a skill that takes
priority over details of language content; a wish to relate the nature of listening
practiced in the classroom to authentic listening that takes place in real life; and the
importance of providing motivation and a focus on listening (Field, 2005, pp. 110111). Consequently, teaching listening and the focus of listening instruction have
changed. Initially, listening practices were heavily influenced by models of the
written language and a behaviorist approach. Later, the focus has moved to
developing listening as a skill needed for constructing and communicating
meaning. More recently, the role of strategy instruction and learner metacognition
in facilitating comprehension have become the dominant issue in listening
instruction.
Becoming a good listener in a foreign language requires using listening
strategies when their listening skills fail (White, 2006, p. 128).Textbooks
developers when attempting to incorporate teaching listening skills and strategies,
-9-

they should realize that listening comprehension, thinking, and remembering all go
together (Manjunath & Venkatesh 2005, p.7). Besides, it is important to realize
that the learning goals related to listening are to develop an awareness of skills and
strategies related to listening and to use a variety of listening skills effectively
(Flowerdew & Miller, 2005, p. 16).
Researchers have investigated the effect of knowing and/or using listening
strategies on developing students listening comprehension. See for example the
studies done by Abdel-Hafez (2006); Abu-Essa (2005); Al-Hriree (2004); Carrier
(2003); Chang & Read (2006); Goh & Taib (2006); Kohler (2002); Mareschal
(2007);O'Bryan & Hegelheimer; Ozeki (2000); Soliman (2008); Tuncer &
Altunay (2006), and Coskun (2010) . The present study is a further atempt to
investigate the relationship between strategic listening, which implies the
knowledge and use of listening comprehension strategies, and listening
comprehension.

Statement of the problem

It is supposed by some researches that students' low level of listening
comprehension is basically related to their low level of knowledge and use of
listening comprehension strategies (the two components of strategic listening)
Therefore, the present study attempted to answer the following question:
Does a relationship exist between strategic listening and listening
comprehension skills?
Method:
Participants:
The subjects of the present study consisted of 80 female secondary school
students. They were drawn from first year secondary school students at El-Shimaa
Secondary School for Girls, Benha, Qalyoubiya Governorate, Egypt.
Objective of the study
- 10 -

The present study aimed at investigating the correlation between strategic

listening and EFL listening comprehension skills among secondary school
students.
Tools of the study
The tools of the present study were:
1. An EFL listening comprehension test.
2. A Strategic Listening Iterview (SLI).
3. A Strategic Listening Questionnaire (SLQ).
4. A Strategic Listening Checklist (SLC) with thinking-aloud
protocol.
Hypotheses of the study
1. Students' strategic listening is positively correlated to their
listening comprehension skills.
2. Students' strategic listening is inversely correlated to their listening
comprehension skills.

Procedures
To investigate the relationship between EFL strategic listening and
listening comprehension, the following procedures were followed:
1- Reviewing literature and studies related to listening comprehension
and strategic listening.
2- Using a Strategic Listening Interview, a Strategic Listening
Questionnaire, a Strategic Listening Checklist with thinking-aloud
protocol , and an EFL listening comprehension test .
3- Administering the previous tools to a sample of first year secondary
school students.
4- Treating the data statistically by using SPSS software, version 17.
5- Interpreting the findings of the study.
6- Introducing the suggestions and recommendations of the study.

- 11 -

Terms of the study:

Strategic listening
Based on Schwartz (1998, p. 7) definition of strategic listeners, strategic
listening is the process of being aware of listening processes; having a repertoire of
listening strategies, and knowing which work best with which listening tasks; using
various listening strategies in combination and varying the combinations with the
listening task; being flexible in the use of strategies; using both bottom-up and topdown strategies; and planning, monitoring, and evaluating before, during and after
listening.
According to McBride (2007, pp. 31-32) strategic listening is a behavior in
which listeners (1) use strategies to compensate for impoverished information on
the linguistic side of listening comprehension, and (2) regulate their own mental
processes so as to best focus attention and maximize learning opportunities.
The researcher adopted the first operational definition since it includes the
characteristics of strategic listening and what the students should be aware of in
order to be strategic listeners.

Listening comprehension
According to Vandergrift ( 1999, p. 168), listening comprehension is "a
complex, active process in which the listener must discriminate between sounds,
understand vocabulary and grammatical structures, interpret stress and intonation,
retain what was gathered in all of the above, and interpret it within the immediate
as well as the larger socio-cultural context of the utterance". Thus, listening
comprehension involves a great deal of mental activity on the part of the listener.
Vandergrift's definition indicates that listening comprehension involves bottom-up
and top-down processing of incoming speech.
For Rost (2005, p. 503), listening comprehension encompasses receptive,
constructive, and interpretive aspects of cognition. Therefore, listening
comprehension is "a complex cognitive process that allows a person to understand
spoken language".
Further, Caldwell (2008) asserted that comprehension is an unobservable
process which is extremely complicated and multifaceted entity. So, he defined
- 12 -

listening comprehension as "the process of simultaneously extracting and

constructing meaning through interaction with oral language" (p.4)
Based on the above definitions the present study researcher defined listening
comprehension as "a complex process in which listeners have the ability to use
information in the auditory text to guess meaning of new items; predict outcomes ;
understand meaning; find the specific facts, or information; and determine the
central thought represented in the text".
Findings of the study:
In analyzing the data, certain statistical procedures were carried out in this
study: (1) descriptive statistics including minimum and maximum scores, means
and standard deviations computed to summarize the students' responses to the
strategic listening interview, the strategic listening questionnaire, the strategic
listening checklist with think-aloud protocol and the EFL listening comprehension
test. (2) Pearson correlation was conducted to examine the relationship between the
students' strategic listening and listening comprehension.

Descriptive statistics
Table 1
Descriptive Statistics of the Strategic Listening Interview

No. of
participants
80

No. of items
42

Min.

Max.

Mean

SD

10

200

76.75

55.82

In Table 1, the participants scores on the SLI ranged from a minimum of 10 to a

maxismum of 200 with a mean of 76.75 and a standard deviation of 55.82. what
does it mean
Table 2

- 13 -

Descriptive Statistics of the Strategic Listening Questionnaire

No. of participants

No. of items

Min.

Max

Mean

SD

80

23

20

105

65.03

24.92

In Table 2, the participants scores on the SLQ ranged from a minimum of

20 to a maximum of 105 with a mean of 65.03 and a standard deviation of 24.92.
Table 3
Descriptive Statistics of the Strategic Listening Checklist with Thinkaloud Protocol
No. of participants

No. of items

80

18

Min.
0

Max.

Mean

SD

41

6.88

6.64

In Table 3, the participants scores on the SLC ranged from a minimum of 0

to a maximum of 41 with a mean of 6.88 and a standard deviation of 6.64.
Table 4
Descriptive Statistics of the EFL Listening Comprehension test
No. of participants
80

No. of items
10

Min.

Max.

Mean

SD

4.5

46.5

11.37

25.73

In Table 4, the participants scores on the test ranged from a minimum of

4.5 to a maximum of 46.5, with a mean of 11.73 and a standard deviation of 25.73.
Pearson Correlations
Table (5) shows the findings obtained from performing Pearson correlations
between the total scores of the strategic listening interview (SLI) and the EFL
listening comprehension test (LC).
Table 5
- 14 -

The Correlation between Strategic Listening Interview (SLI) and the EFL
Listening Comprehension Test (LC)
Correlations

LC

SLI

Pearson Correlation
Sig. (1-tailed)
N
Pearson Correlation
Sig. (1-tailed)
N

LC
1
30
.700**
.000
30

SLI
.700**
.000
80
1
80

** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (1-tailed).

As it is reported in Table 5, findings of data analysis in terms of Pearson

correlation showed that there was a statistically significant positive correlation
between the students' listening comprehension strategy knowledge (first
component of strategic listening) as measured by the SLI and their listening
comprehension.
Table (6) shows the findings obtained from performing Pearson correlations
between the total scores of the strategic listening questionnaire (SLQ) and the EFL
listening comprehension test (LC).
Table 6
The Correlation between Strategic Listening Questionnaire (SLQ) and the EFL
Listening Comprehension Test (LC)
Correlations
Pearson Correlation
LC Sig. (1-tailed)
N
Pearson Correlation
SLQ Sig. (1-tailed)
N

LC
1
30
.807**
.000
30

SLQ
.807**
.000
80
1
80

**Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (1-tailed).

- 15 -

Table (7) presents the findings obtained from performing Pearson correlations
between the total scores of the strategic listening checklist (SLC) and the listening
comprehension test (LC) test.
Table 7
The Correlation between Strategic Listening Checklist (SLC) and the EFL
Listening Comprehension Test (LC)
Correlations
Pearson Correlation
LC Sig. (1-tailed)
N
Pearson Correlation
SLC Sig. (1-tailed)
N

LC
1
30
.735**
.000
30

SLC
.735**
.000
80
1
80

** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (1-tailed).

As it is reported in Tables 6 & 7 findings of data analysis in terms of

Pearson correlation showed that there was a statistically significant positive
correlation between the students' listening comprehension strategy use (second
component of strategic listening) as measured by the SLQ and the SLC and their
listening comprehension.
To sum up, findings of data analysis in terms of Pearson correlation
between strategic listening and listening comprehension scores showed a
statistically significant positive correlation between students' strategic listening and
their listening comprehension. These findings indicate that students who obtained
high scores on strategic listening tools had high LC scores and vice versa.
Discussion of findings
The findings of the present study showed a statistically significant positive
correlation between students' strategic listening and their listening comprehension.
In other words, the findings revealed a positive correlation between students
knowledge and use of listening comprehension strategies and their listening
comprehension development. These findings are in consistence with the findings of
Vandergrift (2002, 2003a, 2005) and Liu & Goh (2006, pp. 91-107) who found
- 16 -

out that listening strategy knowledge or awareness of listening comprehension

strategies is correlated to facilitating listening comprehension. The findings of
listening comprehension strategy use were also reached by other researchers such
as Vandergrift (2005, pp. 70-87) and Mareschal (2007, pp. 105-106). They
concluded that when listeners have metacognitive awareness about listening, they
use listening comprehension strategies successfully and that result in their overall
success in listening comprehension. The significant relationship between listening
development and students strategy use was also noted by the findings of Graham,
Santos, & Vanderplank (2011).
Conclusions of the study
1. A statistically significant positive correlation was found out between
students' strategic listening and their listening comprehension.
2. Students who knew how, when and why to use listening strategies
achieved high scores on their EFL listening comprehension test.
3. Strategic listeners may be beter listeners in a foreign language.
4. Developing students listening comprehension skills may depend on
developing their strategic listening through providing listening
strategy instruction.

Recommendations
In the light of the findings and conclusions of the study, it was recommended that
(1)

(2)

English language courses should include elements of listening strategy

teaching to help students take charge of their own learning of
listening comprehension.
EFL teacher preparation courses and in-service staff development
should integrate information and skills to provide strategy
instruction in listening comprehension.

Suggestions for further research

The following ideas for further research were suggested:
1. Replication of this study with other EFL populations at university level.
2. Comparing the findings of this study with the subjects of male students.
- 17 -

3. Replication of this study to validate the current findings and to reveal

whether different study conditions or data gathering methods yield similar
results
4. Investigating the relationship between listening comprehension and strategic
listening and other variables such as motivation and self-regulation.

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Appendix A
The EFL listening comprehension test
Total mark: /
Date:

Name:
Class:
Answer the following questions:

1- Part one
A) Look at the pictures and listen to what the people say. Number the pictures. ( Listen for

specific information)

B) Choose the right answer ( Listen for gist)

- 24 -

What are these people talking about?

1- Mr. Abdel-Aziz (T.V news- modern cars- the weather)
2- Mrs. Abdel-Salam (school classes- shopping-computers)
3-Mr. Fahmy
(a new baby- school inspector-modern cars)
4-Mrs. El-Shazli
(the weather-shopping-a new baby)
5- Mrs. Zakariya
(friends-school classes- sky)
6- Mrs. Leila
(a new baby- friends- the weather)
2- Part two
A.
Azza is talking about her family photograph. Listen and write the phrases which tell
you where the people are. (Listen for making inference)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Hatem is .Mona.
Selim is..Karim.
Aza is..
Nada isMustafa.
Amr is.

B. Now listen again and write the correct name under each member of the family.

(Listen for specific information)

Hatem Karim- - Mustafa -Amr - Selim

3- Part three (Listen for detailed information)

A. Listen to four Londoners and their Egyptian friends talking about London. Tick () for a
favorable comment or cross (X) for unfavorable one on the topics each person mentions.
Architecture Entertainment Cost of
Safety Public transport
living
Dan
Jane
Peter
Rose

- 25 -

Ali
Azza

B. Comprehension
Listen to the tape again and answer these questions.
1) Does Dan think that London is a more dangerous city than Johannesburg?
2) What does Jane complain about?
3) Which city is one of the most polluted in the world?
4) What do you think "the underground" is?
5) Does Azza like life in London?

c.

Listen and complete (Listen

1)
2)
3)
4)
5)

for making inference)

Life in London isn't as..as Johannesburg.

Prices in London are.
The underground in London is..
Londonisfullof.places.
The entertainment in London is

4) Part four (Listen

for prediction)

A) Listen to a quizmaster asking questions about animals. Guess the names of the animals
1234-

B) It is
5: 30 p.m and these people are waiting for the bus. What are they going to do?
Listen and look at the pictures to make your guesses then complete the table.

- 26 -

Listen and complete

Name
Michelle
Kevin
Robert
Jane

What is he \ she going to do?

5- Part five (Listen for gist)

Listen to Ted, Wanda, Kim and Mike talking about their evening's activities.
Which subject does each person talk about?

Listen and match

1- Ted

a) Playing football

2- Wanda

b) Going jogging

3- Kim

c) Going to the gum

4- Mike

d) Playing tennis
e) Playing the guitar

Scoring table:
part

question
A

Three

objectives

Measuring students' ability to:

(1) listen for detailed information,

Measuring students' ability to:

- 27 -

Total Score
10

10

Student score

One

(1) Listen for specific information

Two
Two

B
A

Three

Four

One

Measuring students' ability to:

(1) Listen for making inference, and

10

A
B

Measuring students' ability to:

(1) Listen prediction

10

Measuring students' ability to:

(1) listen for gist

10

five
Total

50

Appendix B
The Strategic listening interview (SLI)

Name:
strategy

Class:
What is meant by
(name of strategy)?

1. Planning
)
2. Monitoring

)3. Evaluation
(
4. Making Inference
()
5. Elaboration

6.Imagery

7. Summarization

8. Note taking

- 28 -

Date:

When do you use it in the Why do you use it in

listening process?
the listening process?
(The reason
behind using the
(pre-during-post)
strategy)
listening

9.Resourcing

10. auditory
representation

11. predicting

12. Questioning for
clarification

13.Co-operation

14.Self-talk

***********************

Appendix C

1. I set goals.( the goal of listening to a specific task)

2. I plan how to accomplish the task (choose
strategies).
3. I connect the topic of the text to my prior
knowledge.
4. I guess the content of the text.
5. I develop a positive attitude toward the task and
believe that it is possible for me to understand
what i will hear.
6. I decide to attend to specific situational details that
assist in understanding the listening task.
7. I use reference materials such as dictionaries,
encyclopedias, or textbooks.
8. I ask for an explanation or verification from the
teacher or a peer.
- 29 -

Never

Rarely

Sometimes

Always

Pre-listening stage

Usually

The Strategic listening questionnaire (the English version)

9. I encourage myself to reduce my anxiety by

reminding myself of my progress
10 I predict the main idea of the text with the help of
pictures or title.
During listening-stage
11 I use information within the text or conversational
context to guess the meanings of unfamiliar
language items associated with a listening task.
12 I listen for specific details.
13 I focus on key information.
14 I use visual images to understand and remember
information.
15 I classify words, terminology, or concepts
according to their attributes.
16 I take notes of key information.
17 I connect my prior knowledge to the existing
information of the heard text.
Post-listening stage
18 I make mental or written summary of key
information of the heard text.
19 I release a word, phrase, or piece of information to
assist with recall.
20 I collaborate with peers to check the task.
21 I collaborate with peers to get feedback on
performance.
22 I decide how effective the strategies were.
23 I identify changes I will make the next time I have
a similar task.

- 30 -

 *2

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

6.

7.
8.
9.
10.

.

) (







.

.

11.

12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.

.
.


.

.
.

.

* -1: / - - -
-2 / - - -

- 31 -


18.

.

.

.

21.

.

.

.

19.
20.

22.
23.

Appendix D
Protocol instructions for the students
:
/ :
.1 - -
.2 ,
:
, .
.3 ,

.
.4 , ,
.
The listening task (used for the checklist)
- 32 -

ListentofourLondonersandtheirEgyptianfriendstalkingaboutLondon.Tick()orcross(X)
thetopicseachpersonmentions.Tickforafavorablecommentandcrossforunfavorable
one.

Architecture

Entertainment

Dan

Jane

Peter

Costof
living

Safety

Publictransport

Rose

Ali

Azza

Source of the listening task (used for the checklist)

Dallas , D. & Gomm, H. (1999). Students' textbook : Hello 6. Cairo, Egyptian international
publishing company-Longman.

Name:

Durin
g

Prior-listening
stage

NO,
1.

Appendix D
The Strategic Listening Checklist (SLC)
Class:
The items to be observed
The student sets the goal of the listening task

2.
3.
4.
5.

The student planes how to accomplish the task

The student asks questions for clarification
The student guesses the content of the text
The students decides in advance to attend in general to the
listening task

6.

The student predicts the main idea of the text with the help
of pictures or titles
The student uses text clues to guess meaning.
The student uses text clues to predict upcoming
information.

7.
8.

- 33 -

Date:
yes No

9.
10.

11.
12.

post-listening stage

13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.

The student takes notes of key words

The student uses information within the text to guess the
meanings of unfamiliar language items associated with the
listening task
The student uses information within the text to fill in
missing information
The student uses visual images to understand and
remember information
The student makes mental or written summary of key
information of the listening text
The student remembers word , phrase or piece of
information to assist with recall
The student collaborates with peers to check the task
The student collaborates with peers to get feedback on
information
The student assesses how well he/ she used the strategies
The student identifies changes that he/ she will make the
next time she has a similar task.

END

- 34 -

Uluslararas Sosyal Aratrmalar Dergisi

The Journal of International Social Research
Cilt: 7 Say: 30

Volume: 7 Issue: 30

www.sosyalarastirmalar.com

Issn: 1307-9581

PROSPECTIVE EFL TEACHERS PERCEPTIONS OF LISTENING COMPREHENSION

PROBLEMS IN TURKEY
Ekrem SOLAK*
Frat ALTAY**

Abstract
Listening skill has been called as the Cinderella Skill which is overlooked by its elder sister
speaking in language learning. Therefore, the purpose of the study was to reemphasize the
importance of listening skill in ELT context and to determine prospective English teachers
perceptions of listening comprehension problems. The study was conducted at ELT Department at a
state-run University in Turkey and subjects were 124 prospective English teachers. The questionnaire
on the Beliefs on English Language Listening Comprehension Problems was used to collect data to
assess prospective teachers beliefs about the English language listening comprehension problems
they could encounter in unidirectional listening. The data was analyzed in SPSS program. The study
revealed that participants used top-down processes effectively during the listening process, but they
were not so good at using bottom-up processes. In addition, no significant difference was found in
terms of genders perceptions of listening problems.
Keywords: Listening Problems, Prospective English Teachers Listening Skill, Listening
Perceptions, Turkish EFL Teachers Listening Problems.

Introduction
The act of listening plays a vital part in our daily life. Celce-Murcia (1995) states that
listening is the most frequently used skill in our daily life compared to the other three skills.
45% corresponds to listening, 30% to speaking, 16% to reading and 9% to writing (Hedge, 2005).
Morley (1991:82) maintains that we can expect to listen twice as much as we speak, four times
more than we read, and five times more than we write in our daily life. However, Nunan
(1997) comments that listening is the Cinderella Skill which is overlooked by its elder sister
speaking in second language learning. Brown (1987) asserts that the number of published
books on listening comprehension and its classroom practices in many countries demonstrate
that listening is regarded as the least important skill in language teaching.
Until 1950s and 1960s, language learning and teaching were limited to grammar,
reading and literacy. Later on, primarily The Direct Method and then The Audio Lingual
Method highlighted the oral skills, listening and speaking. From 1970s on, instructional
programs expanded their focus on pragmatic skills to include listening and other language
skills (Osada, 2004). Researches into listening over the past three decades have emerged that
listeners need to integrate phonetic, phological, prosodic, lexical, syntactic, semantic and
pragmatic information to comprehend spoken messages (Celce-Murcia, 1995).
Review of Literature
Listening Process
Helgesen (2003: 24) states that listening is an active, purposeful process of making
sense of what we hear. There is traditional name for listening as a passive skill. But listening
* Assistant Professor Amasya University, Faculty of Education, Department of Foreign Language Teaching.
** Assistant Professor Hacettepe University, Faculty of Education, Department of Foreign Language Teaching.

- 191 has been called as an active skill that involves many processes. Byrnes (1984) characterizes
listening comprehension as a highly complex problem-solving activity that can be broken
down into a set of distinct sub-skills. A listener benefits from guessing, anticipating, checking,
interpreting, interacting and organizing and accommodating their prior knowledge of meaning
and form (McDonough and Shaw, 1993).
Rost (1990) maintains that listeners co-author the discourse and they construct it by
their responses. Rost also (1994) points out that listening plays a key role in the language
classroom because it can be considered a source of input for the learner. If a learner does not
comprehend the input correctly, any learning cannot be realized. Therefore, listening is vital for
speaking.
Some researchers have proved that comprehensible input and output are equally
important for language acquisition (Swain, 1995). According to Rost (2001), the main difference
between more successful and less successful language learners is their ability to use listening
skill as a means of acquisition.
Language learners may encounter some difficulties in understanding the incoming
speech. Hedge (2005) divides these difficulties into two as internal and external problems.
Internal problems can be listed as the lack of motivation, high level of anxiety, lack of
knowledge of the topic under discussion and unknown vocabulary of what is being heard. On
the other hand, external problems are related to listeners failure in understanding as a result of
the speakers characteristics and environmental noises. According to Luchini (2009), there are
also other external factors which can be a real obstacle for aural comprehension in terms of
phonology like the diversity of speakers accents, the substitution, omission, and addition of
certain sounds and differences. In addition, the length of listening taped-texts, the low quality
of the recordings, the distance between the students and the tape recorder and the lack of
knowledge of some listening strategies also hinder comprehension.
Luchini (2009: 322) also makes some suggestions to overcome comprehension problems.
These are guessing from context, avoiding listening to word by word, using knowledge of the
language to understand key words and activating general knowledge.
Listening Strategies
Buck (2001:104 ) defines strategies as the thought of ways in which a learner
approaches and manages a task. He classifies strategies as cognitive and metacognitive. For
him, Cognitive Strategies are the mental activities related to the comprehending and storing
input in working memory or long-term memory for later retrieval (Richards 2008:11). This
group consists of three processes as Comprehension Process, Storing and Memory Processes,
Using and Retrieval Processes. On the other hand, Metacognitive Strategies are conscious or
unconscious mental activities that perform an executive function in the management of
cognitive strategies (Richards 2008:11). These are assessing the situation, monitoring, selfevaluating and self-testing.
Approaches to Listening
Researchers mainly have paid attention to top-down and bottom-up processing in
listening comprehension. Kurita (2012:32) defines top-down and bottom up processing as the
use of background knowledge in understanding the meaning of a message. Bottom-up
processing, on the other hand, refers to using the incoming input as the basis for understanding
the message. According to (Vandergrift, 2007), top-down and bottom-up processes usually
interact to make spoken input sensible.
Anderson (2009) proposes a different model of language comprehension and divides
the language comprehension process into three stages as perception, parsing and utilization.
The first stage is encoding the spoken message; the second stage is the parsing stage, in which
the words in the message are transformed into a mental representation of the combined
meaning of the words. The third stage is the utilization stage, in which listeners use the mental
representation of the sentences meaning. If the sentence is a question, they may answer; if it is
an instruction, they may obey. (Anderson 2009 cited in Kurita 2012: 33).

- 192 Methodology
The purpose of the study is to determine prospective English teachers perceptions on
their English language listening comprehension problems. Since listening skill is a vital part of
daily life communication, determining the obstacles in listening comprehension can help
prospective English teachers to reach a better comprehension in the target language. In this
study, following research questions will be answered:
1. What are the most common listening problems which prospective English teachers
encounter during listening process?
2. Do the listening comprehension problems differ in terms of gender?
3. What are the factors affecting effective listening comprehension and to what extent do
each factor influence this process?
Instrument
The questionnaire on the beliefs on English Language Listening Comprehension
Problems was used to collect data to assess prospective teachers beliefs about the English
language listening comprehension problems they may encounter in unidirectional listening
(Lotfi, 2012). There are forty-items in the questionnaire with six distinct factors. The six factors
and their Cronbachs alpha values are as follows. Process (.90), input (.86), listener (.87), task (
.84), affect (.72 )and context (.66 ). The reliability coefficient of the questionnaire is (.95).
Subjects
The study was conducted at a state-run University, English Language Teaching
Department in Turkey. The participants were 124 prospective English teachers majoring English
Language Teaching and taking up the lecture of teaching language skills during 2012-2013
academic year. The group had similar characteristics with respect to age and educational
background. Gender distribution was 86 females and 38 males.
Findings and Results
Table 1 presents the three items with the highest and lowest means.
Table 1. Items reported with the highest and lowest means
Items
1 Before listening, it is difficult for me to predict from the visuals what I will
hear.
5 I have difficulty with finding out what the main purpose of the listening
task I am going to do is.
10 I have difficulty to check my understanding of the text based on what I
already know about the topic while listening
18 I find it difficult to understand the listening text when speakers speak
with varied accents
13 I find it difficult to understand listening texts in which there are too many
unfamiliar words
14 I find it difficult to understand the meaning of words which are not
pronounced clearly

sd

M
124

2,66

0,65

124

2,64

0,62

124

2,51

0,71

124

1,41

0,71

124

1,37

0,7

124

1,34

0,68

Participants mostly disagreed with item 1 saying before listening; it is difficult for me to
predict from the visuals what I will hear. This item has a mean of 2,66. Next disagreed item with
the highest mean, 2,64, was the item 5 explaining I have difficulty with finding out what the
main purpose of the listening task I am going to do is. Following this, participants were against
the item 10 with a mean of 2,51 stating they have difficulty to check their understanding of the
text based on what they already know about the topic while listening. On the other hand, As of
the three items which participants disagreed the least, item 14 saying I find it difficult to
understand the meaning of words which are not pronounced clearly had a mean of 1,34. Next,
item 13 came with a mean of 1,37 citing I find it difficult to understand listening texts in which
there are too many unfamiliar words. Finally, participants disagreed with the item 18 at a mean
of 1,41 that I find it difficult to understand the listening text when speakers speak with varied
accents. All in all, while the most disagreed items were related to process, the least disagreed
items were about input.

- 193 Table 2 displays the items which were reported with the highest and lowest means to
male.
Table 2. the items which were reported with the highest and lowest means to male.
Items
6 when I listen to texts in English; I experience difficulty with listening for
the main idea of the text
5 I have difficulty with finding out what the main purpose of the listening
task I am going to do is
9 I find it difficult to make a mental summary of information gained
through listening
7 I find it challenging to focus on the text when I have trouble
understanding
13 I find it difficult to understand listening texts in which there are too
many unfamiliar words.
21 I have difficulty understanding speakers with unfamiliar accents

N (31%)

sd

38

2,65

0,1

38

2,57

0,1

38

2,55

0,1

38

1,52

0,76

38

1,52

0,79

38

1,52

0,79

In this group, there were totally 38 (31%) male subjects. They mostly disagreed with
item 6 when they listen to texts in English; they experience difficulty with listening for the main
idea of the text. This item has a rate of 2,65. Next, item 5 got the highest mean, 2,57, stating I
have difficulty with finding out what the main purpose of the listening task I am going to do is.
Following this, participants disagreed with item 9 at a rate of 2,55 that they find it difficult to
make a mental summary of information gained through listening. On the other hand, three
items, which got the lowest means at a rate of 1,52 each, are items 7,13,21. In item 21,
participants maintained that they have difficulty understanding speakers with unfamiliar
accents. As for item 13, subjects disagreed with the idea that they find it difficult to understand
listening texts in which there are too many unfamiliar words. Finally, item 7 cited that they find
it challenging to focus on the text when they have trouble understanding. All in all, while all the
items with the highest means were related to process, the items with the lowest means were
generally about input.
Table 3 indicates the items which were reported with the highest and lowest means to
female.
Table 3. The items which were reported with the highest and lowest means to female.
Items
1 Before listening, it is difficult for me to predict from the visuals what I
will hear
5 I have difficulty with finding out what the main purpose of the listening
task I am going to do is
2 It is difficult for me to relate what I hear with something from an earlier
part of the listening text
40 Unclear sounds resulting from poor acoustic conditions of the classroom
interfere with my listening comprehension
16 I find it difficult to understand well when speakers speak too fast
18 I find it difficult to understand the listening text when speakers speak
with varied accents.

N (%69)

sd

86

2,73

0,6

86

2,67

0,67

86

2,54

0,71

86

1,4

0,74

86

1,36

0,64

86

1,34

0,64

In this group, there were totally 86 (69%) female subjects. They mostly disagreed with
item 1 saying before listening, it is difficult for me to predict from the visuals what I will hear.
This item has a rate of 2,73. Next, item 5 got the highest mean, 2,67, stating 'I have difficulty
with finding out what the main purpose of the listening task I am going to do is'. Following this,
participants disagreed with item 2 at a rate of 2,54 that it is difficult for me to relate what I hear
with something from an earlier part of the listening text. On the other hand, three items, which
got the lowest means were as follows: In item 18, at a rate of 1,34, participants maintained that I
find it difficult to understand the listening text when speakers speak with varied accents. As for
item 16, subjects disagreed with the idea at a rate of 1,36 that I find it difficult to understand
well when speakers speak too fast. Finally, item 40 stated that unclear sounds resulting from
poor acoustic conditions of the classroom interfere with my listening comprehension. All in all,

- 194 similar to male group, while all the items with the highest means were related to process, the
items with the lowest means were generally about input.
The first factor, labeled process, consists of 12 items and reflects learners beliefs about
listening problems associated with different aspects of listening comprehension process. Process
here refers to the way in which learners use different kinds of signals to interpret what they
hear (Rubin, 1994). In fact, items loading on this factor describe learners beliefs about
problems related to two types of processing identified by Rubin, that is, using cognitive and
metacognitive strategies while listening. These strategies deal with the difficulties learners
believe they have in applying cognitive strategies of between-parts inferencing, prediction,
personal elaboration, linguistic inferencing, summarization, contextualization and listening for
the main idea (Lutfi, 2012). The others deal with the difficulties learners believe they have in
using metacognitive strategies of planning, monitoring and evaluation. In this questionnaire,
while items 4,5,7,10,12 were about metacognitive strategies, items 1,2,3,6,8,9,11 were on
cognitive strategies.
Table 4. Process
Items
1 Before listening, it is difficult for me to predict from
the visuals what I will hear
5 I have difficulty with finding out what the main
purpose of the listening task I am going to do is.
10 While listening, I have difficulty to check my
understanding of the text based on what I already
know about the topic.
6 When I listen to texts in English, I experience
difficulty with listening for the main idea of the text.
2 It is difficult for me to relate what I hear with
something from an earlier part of the listening text.
9 I find it difficult to make a mental summary of
information gained through listening
3 While listening, I have problems making
meaningful personal associations with the new
information
12 After listening, I find it difficult to evaluate the
overall accuracy of my comprehension.
8 While listening, I find it difficult to guess the
meaning of unknown words by linking them to
known words
11 I find it difficult to use the context to guess those
parts of a listening text that I cannot hear clearly
4 During listening, I have difficulty checking
whether I correctly understand the meaning of the
whole chunks of the listening text
7 I find it challenging to focus on the text when I
have trouble understanding.
Total

Strategy type

sd

cognitive

124

2,66

0,65

metacognitive

124

2,64

0,62

metacognitive

124

2,51

0,71

cognitive

124

2,5

0,75

cognitive

124

2,49

0,73

cognitive

124

2,49

0,73

cognitive

124

2,21

0,87

metacognitive

124

2,2

0,79

cognitive

124

2,16

0,84

cognitive

124

1,91

0,88

metacognitive

124

1,78

0,84

metacognitive

124

1,54

0,81

2,25

In this factor, the item which got the highest mean was item 1 at rate of 2,66 mean. That
is, participants mostly disagreed that before listening, it was difficult for them to predict from
the visuals what they heard. Next highest mean, 2,64, had item 5 saying I have difficulty with
finding out what the main purpose of the listening task I am going to do is. Following this,
participants disagreed with the idea at rate of 2,51 that while listening, they have difficulty to
check their understanding of the text based on what they already know about the topic. As for
items with the lowest means, item 7 citing I find it challenging to focus on the text when I have
trouble understanding was marked at a rate of 1,54 mean. After this, participants disagreed
with item 4 at rate of 1,74 mean that During listening, they have difficulty checking whether
they correctly understand the meaning of the whole chunks of the listening text. Finally, item 11
saying I find it difficult to use the context to guess those parts of a listening text that I cannot
hear clearly was scored at a rate of 1,91.The average of 12 items in this factor was 2,25.

- 195 The second factor, labeled input, consists of nine items and represents learners beliefs
about problems related to different aspects of aural input. Input here is defined as the target
language discourse that reaches the learners auditory system in unidirectional listening (Field,
2008). This factor contains learners beliefs about problems related to such input characteristics
as vocabulary, speech clarity, and grammatical structure of the text, speech rate, prosodic
features, accent, and pause and text length (Rubin, 1994).
Table 5. Input
Items
characteristics
15 I find it difficult to understand listening texts
which have difficult grammatical structures.
structure
20 I find it difficult to interpret the meaning of a
long listening text.
text length
19 I find it difficult to understand the listening text
when the speaker does not pause long enough.
pause
17 Unfamiliar stress and intonation patterns of
English interfere with my listening comprehension. prosodic features
21 I have difficulty understanding speakers with
unfamiliar accents
accent
16 I find it difficult to understand well when
speakers speak too fast.
speech rate
18 I find it difficult to understand the listening text
when speakers speak with varied accents.
accent
13 I find it difficult to understand listening texts in
which there are too many unfamiliar words.
vocabulary
14 I find it difficult to understand the meaning of
words which are not pronounced clearly.
speech clarity

sd

124

1,8

0,88

124

1,79

0,85

124

1,61

0,77

124

1,56

0,8

124

1,46

0,75

124

1,44

0,69

124

1,41

0,71

124

1,37

0,7

124

1,34

0,68

Total

1,53

In this factor, Item 15 had the highest rate of mean,1,8. In other words, participants
disagreed that they find it difficult to understand listening texts which have difficult
grammatical structures. The next item which got the highest mean, 1,79, was item 20 saying I
find it difficult to interpret the meaning of a long listening text. As for the items with the lowest
rates, item 14 had a mean of 1,34. In this item, participants disagreed with the idea that they
find it difficult to understand the meaning of words which are not pronounced clearly.
Following this, item 13 stating 'I find it difficult to understand listening texts in which there are
too many unfamiliar words' had a mean of 1,37. The average of all the items in this factor is
1,53.
The third factor, labeled listener, comprises 10 items and reflects learners beliefs about
listeners characteristics identified in the literature as having considerable impact on L2
learners listening comprehension. Therefore, the factor contains learners beliefs about
problems associated with characteristics, such as attention, attitude and memory (Rubin, 1994;
Hasan, 2000).
Table 6. Listener
Items
23 I am slow to recall the meaning of words that sound
familiar.
25 During listening, although some words sound
familiar, it is difficult for me to recall their meaning
immediately.
26 When I hear the new words, I forget the content
which was mentioned before.
31 I have difficulty understanding a listening text
because I cannot understand every single word I hear.
30 I have difficulty comprehending the listening text
because I dont know which strategy to use while
listening.
29 I find it difficult to really concentrate on listening.

characteristics

sd

memory

124

2,37

0,77

memory

124

2,29

0,85

memory

124

2,29

0,83

attitude

124

2,27

0,85

attitude

124

2,26

0,81

attention

124

2,22

0,84

- 196 24 I find it difficult to quickly remember words or

phrases I have just heard.
27 I lose the flow of speech because I concentrate very
hard on understanding every word or phrase I hear.
22 When thinking about meaning of unfamiliar words,
I neglect the next part of the listening text
28 I find it difficult to remember the meaning of a long
listening text

memory

124

2,19

0,83

attention

124

2,12

0,87

attention

124

0,88

memory

124

1,8

0,88

Total

2,18

In this factor, in item 23 participants disagreed at a rate of 2,37 mean that they are slow
to recall the meaning of words that sound familiar. Next highest mean,2,29, belonged to the
item 25 saying 'during listening, although some words sound familiar, it is difficult for me to
recall their meaning immediately'. As for the items with the lowest means, in item 28,
participants disagreed at a rate of 1,8 mean that they find it difficult to remember the meaning
of a long listening text. Following this, item 22 had a mean of 2 stating when thinking about
meaning of unfamiliar words, they neglect the next part of the listening text. All in all, the
average of all items in this factor was 2,18.
The fourth factor, labeled task, includes three items and reflects learners beliefs about
problems associated with characteristics of listening tasks. Task characteristics refer to
variation in the purpose for listening and associated responses (Rubin, 1994). Items on this
factor represent learners beliefs about listening problems associated with task type and type of
responses demanded when answering global and local questions.
Table 7. task
Items
34 I find it difficult to answer Wh-questions in a
listening task.
32 I find it difficult to do listening tasks, such as filling a
grid, for which I need to draw on specific information
from the text.
33 I find it difficult to do listening tasks for which I need
to combine information to make generalization while
listening to the text.

characteristics

sd

task type

124

2,36

2,36

local questions

124

2,25

2,25

type of responses

124

2,23

0,82

2,28

In this factor, while item 34 had the highest mean as 2,36, item 33 had the lowest mean
as 2,23. In item 34, participants disagreed at a rate of 2,36 mean that they find it difficult to
answer wh-questions in a listening task. In item 33 with a mean of 2,23, participants find it
difficult to do listening tasks for which they need to combine information to make
generalization while listening to the text. All in all, the average of three items in this factor is
2,28.
The fifth factor, labeled affect, consists of four items and reflects learners beliefs about
problems related to affective dimension of listening. Learners beliefs about their affective
responses to instances of comprehension failure are reflected regarding the level of anxiety they
experience in L2 listening.
Items
37 I find it difficult to reduce my anxiety before
doing the listening task.
35 I stop listening when I have problems in
understanding a listening text.
38 Before doing listening comprehension tasks, I
fear that I cannot understand what I will hear.
36 If I dont arrive at a total comprehension of an
oral text, I feel disappointed.

Table 8. Affect
characteristics

sd

level of anxiety

124

2,24

0,84

comprehension failure

124

2,18

0,83

level of anxiety

124

2,06

0,94

comprehension failure

124

1,7
2,0

0,82

In this factor, participants disagreed at a rate of 2,24 in item 37 that they find it difficult
to reduce their anxiety before doing the listening task. On the other hand, item 36 had the

- 197 lowest mean in this factor stating If they dont arrive at a total comprehension of an oral text,
they feel disappointed. Finally, the average of four items in this group was 2,0.
The sixth factor, labeled context, reflects learners beliefs about unfavorable
characteristics of the learning context affecting listening comprehension. The factor contains
two items reflecting learners beliefs about the adverse effect of distracters available in the
learning context on their listening comprehension.
Table 9. Context
Items
N
sd
M
39 Unclear sounds resulting from a poor-quality CD-player interfere with my listening
comprehension.
124
1,41
0,67
40 Unclear sounds resulting from poor acoustic conditions of the classroom interfere
with my listening comprehension
124
1,41
0,74

The items under this factor specifically reflect learners belief about the listening
difficulties caused by such contextual features as inferior machine to play recordings and
acoustically unsuitable rooms for the use of recorded materials. In this factor, the mean and
average of both items was 1,41 which could be considered a low value in comparison with other
factors.
Discussion and Conclusion
Listening comprehension is a highly complex problem solving activity that can be
broken down into a set of distinct factors like process, listener, input, task, affect and context.
According to the data collected, participants do not have any problems in finding out the main
idea of the listening task and checking what is already known about a topic. In other words,
participants use top-down processes effectively during the listening process.
On the other hand, participants have difficulties in understanding the words which are not
pronounced clearly and spoken with varied accents. In addition, presence of too many
unfamiliar words in text is a reason for the failure in comprehension. In other words,
participants are not good at using bottom-up processes effectively. Juan and Abidin (2013)
explored the English listening comprehension problems of university international students
from China and their study revealed that the lack of prior knowledge in English vocabulary
inhibited their understanding in the listening process.
Richards (2008;6) suggests the following examples of tasks that develop bottom-up
listening skills in the classroom. a) identify the referents of pronouns in an utterance, b)
recognize the time reference of an utterance, c) distinguish between the positive and negative
statements, d) recognize the order in which words occur in an utterance, e) identify sequence
markers, f) identify key words that occurred in a spoken text, h) identify which modal verbs
occurred in a spoken text.
As for genders perceptions on listening comprehension problems, both groups mostly
do not have any difficulties in terms of process, but they generally have difficulties about input
in listening comprehension. Similarly, while metacognitive and cognitive strategies are used
effectively by the participants; accent, speech rate, speech clarity etc. hinder effective listening.
Al-Alwan et al (2013) investigated metacognitive listening strategies awareness and its
relationship with listening comprehension on tenth-grade EFL learners and they reached
similar results with the findings of the present study. They revealed that students have an
average level of metacognitive listening strategies awareness. They suggested that
metacognitive strategies awareness should be emphasized in listening comprehension activities.
It can be maintained that participants use different kinds of signals to interpret what
they hear. They plan, monitor, evaluate, infer, predict, summarize and listen for the main idea.
However, they have problems with input characteristics like vocabulary, speech clarity,
structure of the text, accent and speech rate.
As for listener factor, subjects generally do not posit problems. In other words, memory,
attitude and attention contribute their effective listening comprehension. Listeners should listen
with a purpose and listen to things that interest them. It keeps the motivation and attention
high (Rost, 1990; Morley, 1991).

- 198 As to task, participants generally are positive on task type and types of responses
demanded when answering local questions. The language should involve a real discourse such
as hesitations, rephrasing, and variety of accents. Level of difficulty can be determined by the
selection of the task (Rost, 1990; Morley, 1991).
In terms of affect factor, anxiety level of the participants does not influence listening
comprehension negatively. The data collected also proves that unfavorable characteristics of the
learning context have a negative effect on the participants.

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College Quarterly
Winter 2012 - Volume 15 Number 1
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Contents

Listening strategies in the L2 classroom: more practice, less

testing
Cecilia Aponte-de-Hanna
Abstract
This paper looks at the history of listening strategies development from
the first studies on strategies used by L2 learners to the most current
studies specific to L2 listening, and how this theory can be incorporated
into classroom teaching that fosters practice, not testing. This paper also
examines the type of needs analysis and diagnostic tools teachers can use
in the listening classroom to raise students' strategic awareness and how
the process of listening from a cognitive perspective can also assist
teachers in designing strategic-based lessons that encourage learners'
autonomy.
Key words: cognitive strategies, metacognitive strategies, socioaffective strategies, bottom-up, top-down, schema, perceptual processing,
parsing, utilisation, orchestration, strategic-based approach, metastrategic
awareness, one-way communication, two-way communication, autonomy.
Theoretical Perspective
Second language (L2) teaching practices have, until recently, focused
mainly on reading, writing, and speaking as the skills necessary in
language acquisition (Vandergrift, 2003, p. 464). This is because before the
1970's, listening was only seen as a receptive skill in language learning
(Johnson, 2008, p. 299) where "students listened to repeat and develop
a better pronunciation" (Vandergrift, 2011). At the time it was believed
students could acquire their listening skill by "osmosis" (Mendelsohn, 1984,
as cited in Mendelsohn 1995). This method of language acquisition, known
as the audio-lingual method, was popular after World War II, and was born
out of the need to teach US soldiers the language spoken in the countries
they were "deployed" in (Johnson, 2008, p. 163). The importance of
listening as a skill, in language learning was not recognized until "the early
70's, [when] work by Asher, Postovsky, Winitz, and later Krashen, brought
attention to the role of listening as a key factor in facilitating language
learning" (Vandergrift, 2011). These studies, however, were based on the
audiolingual method, and looked at listening as a passive, receptive skill
(Johnson, 2008; Mendelsohn 1995; Vandergrift, 2011).
Even though listening is now recognized as an active mental process,
it is still "difficult to describe" (Vandergrift, 2011). However, what
researchers have been able to determine is that for aural information to be
understood, it requires effective use of strategies on the part of the listener.
This is of particular significance in second language learning because
without effective strategies, students' listening comprehension becomes
challenging, problematic, and ineffective (Mendelsohn, 2006). Therefore,
since the early 1980's, researchers have been studying the learning
strategies used by effective learners and recommending to teachers that

one of the main goal in the designing of listening lessons should be to

"instruct students how to go about listening, i.e. how to handle information
that is not 100% comprehensible" (Mendelsohn, 1994, p. 134). This method
calls for a strategy based approach, and empowers students to become
autonomous learners by teaching them how to become aware of the
strategies that work for them (Mendelsohn, 1994; Chamot, 1985). In this
context, "strategies are specific actions, behavio[u]rs, steps, or techniques
students use - often consciously - to improve their progress in
apprehending, internalizing, and using the L2 (Oxford, 1990, as cited in
Oxford 1994).
Rubin (1975) was the first researcher in the field of second language
acquisition who saw a direct relationship between good language learners
and learning strategies. Rubin's (1975) study paved the way to a strategy
based approach of L2 teaching and learning. Rubin (1975) concluded that
good language strategies produce good language learners. Other studies
after Rubin, such as Naiman, Frhlich, Stern and Todesco (1978), further
concluded that good learning strategies were related to effective listening
acquisition skills (Chamot, 1995, p. 14). However, at the time, it was
observed that strategies that learners use in their first language did not
necessarily work the same way when learners adopted them when learning
a second language. Mendelsohn (1984, 1994, as cited in Chamot 1995)
explains this phenomenon by pointing out that what works in L1 might not
necessarily work in L2 (p. 17). Mendelsohn's observation is relevant to
teaching pedagogy because in order for teachers to help their students
learn a second language, L2 teachers need to know how to teach effective
strategies and provide practical exercises to help L2 learners acquire a
second language. There is no doubt that teaching listening is even more
challenging than teaching reading, writing, or speaking.
As stated before, the first studies on learning strategies were based on
Krashen's theory of second language acquisition, where "second language
learning occurred through implicit, unconscious processes activated by
appropriate input" (Chamot, 1995, p. 15). During that period, Mendelsohn
(1995) explains that "teachers of listening [were] merely Krashen's (1983)
providers of comprehensible input," only requiring their students to answer
a set of questions after listening to a prescribed passage (p.132).
Khashen's input theory, however, was quickly questioned and rebutted as
researchers began to observe that L2 learners actively sought ways to
improve their language learning experience. As a result, SLA studies
shifted to looking at language learning from the cognitive learning theory
perspective. Looking at listening from the cognitive theory perspective,
therefore, empowers the learner because it teaches the learner how to
actively seek ways to learn how to differentiate between sounds, identify
words and sentence structures, "interpret stress and intention, retain and
interpret this within the immediate as well as the larger socio-cultural
context of the utterance" (Wipf, 1984, as cited in Vandergrift 2011). It also
gives L2 teachers the tools to design and implement listening lessons that
foster practice instead of testing (Mendelsohn, 1995; 2006).
Chamot (1995) explains that "the classification system that best
capture[s] the nature of learners' strategies [and the process associated
with listening as an active skill is] based on the distinction in cognitive
psychology between metacognitive strategies, cognitive strategies, and

social/affective strategies" (Chamot, 1995, p. 14). This tripartite

classification lists the "strategies that researchers have identified in L2
contexts" (Lynch, Mendelsohn, 2009). The first team of researches to use
this stragegy classification was O'Malley, Chamot, Stewner-Manzanares,
Kpper, and Russo (1985), and were later further validated by Barnard
(1992), Chamot and Kpper (1989), Omari (1992), Absy (1992), Lott-Lage
1993; Nagano (1991), and Vadergrift (1992). Metacognitive strategies deal
with monitoring of learning, and assessing learning. Cognitive strategies
include the activation of schema, classifying, inferring, and note- taking.
Social affective strategies include asking for clarification, positive selftalking, and confidence building (Chamot, 1995, p. 14).
Chamot (1995) further explains the concept of listening as a cognitive
process in terms of stages where information, in the form of sound, reaches
the listener's auditory and/or visual receptors, and is then filtered through
the listener's short-term memory, working memory, and long term memory
(p. 16). The listener, therefore, selects and interprets information in order to
understand it (Vandergrift, 2011). This process, known as Anderson's
model of comprehension, intricately describes what happens to information
the moment the listener receives it by way of audio or audio-visual means
(see fig. 1, p.5). The stages, three in all, are also known as perceptual
processing, parsing, and utilization (Goh, 2002, p. 5). The received
information is first temporarily stored in short term memory (perception),
where only the information associated to the listener's prior knowledge or
schema is selected and moved to working memory, "the mind's blackboard"
(parsing). This first and second stage are significant to second language
teaching and learning because at this stage the listener needs to be aware
of strategies in order to handle the information; otherwise, it will be lost
forever. Therefore, teachers need to help learners recognize what is
relevant from what is not because the goal is for meaningful information to
reach long-term memory (Chamot 1995; Rubin, as cited in Mendelsohn &
Rubin 1995). Once information reaches the listener's long term memory, it
becomes part of either declarative knowledge or procedural knowledge
(utilization). Declarative knowledge "includes concepts, vocabulary, and
images [while] procedural knowledge includes both physical and
cognitive skills and strategies" (Chamot, 1995, p. 16).

Listening as a process, therefore, requires the listener's conscious use

of strategies and should involve the parallel interaction between bottom-up'
and top down' processing. This interactive process known as parallel
processing requires the learner to use background knowledge (top-down)
to interpret meaning and linguistic knowledge (bottom-up) in order to
discriminate between familiar sounds. The goal is for the language listener
to use parallel processing in order to perceive, interpret, and respond to the
information being heard (Lynch & Mendelsohn, 2009, p. 185).
Understanding the process of listening comprehension is important
because it gives clues as to what language learners do when they are
faced with deciphering aural information. Thus, the need to zero in on what
differentiates effective listeners from less effective ones is crucial in the
language classroom. There are two questionnaires that are used in helping
language learners and their teachers determine the type of learning
strategies learners use. These are: 1. The Strategy Inventory for Language
Learners' SILLdeveloped by Rebecca Oxford (1989); and 2. The
Meta-cognitive Awareness Listening Comprehension Questionnaire'
MALQdeveloped by Vandergrift, Goh, Mareschal and Tafaghodtari
(2006). These two questionnaires are useful because they help students
identify their own weaknesses and strengths and help teachers design
strategy lessons that are relevant to their students' needs at any particular
time. "The SILL questionnaire [for example] measures the frequency with
which a student uses memory, cognitive, compensation, metacognitive,
affective and social language learning strategies" (Oxford, 1990, as cited in
Bull & Ma, 2001, p. 172). MALQ as explained in Vandergrift, Goh,
Mareschal and Tafaghodtari (2006), on the other hand, looks at the
metacognitive strategies L2 learners used during listening comprehension.
For example, studies incorporating MALQ such as Vandergrift and
Tafaghodtari (2010) found "an important difference between more skilled
and less skilled listeners [that is] related to metacognition" (p.489).
Vandergrift and Tafaghodtari's (2010) study concluded that with the right
strategy training, less effective learners can improve their listening skills
and achieve parity with the more skilful peers. MALQ is useful in
determining the type of strategies effective learners use at different

proficiency levels of language acquisition. Pedagogically, questionnaires

such as SILL and MALQ can help teachers achieve students' homogeneity
in the language classroom.
Pedagogical applications
Mendelsohn (1995) calls for a strategic based approach to teaching
listening and advises teachers to focus on teaching language listeners
how to develop "metastrategic awareness" in order to help students
become autonomous learners (p. 134). Mendelsohn's (1995) view of
strategy training captures a very concise and explicit L2 listening pedagogy
paradigm because his technique focuses on process instead of product.
Thus, the focus of language listening in the classroom should not be
testing; it should be on practicing listening comprehension through a variety
of sources that takes into consideration the proficiency level of each
listener, and offers ample opportunities for learning (Mendelsohn, 2001, p.
35). Learning listening, therefore, requires the interactive "orchestration"
between metacognitive, cognitive, and socioaffective strategies to facilitate
comprehension and to make learning more effective (Vandergrift, 2011).
For teachers of L2 listening, it is important to keep in mind specific
metastrategic facts, such as the following six suggestions as per
Mendelsohn's (1994) strategy-based approached and Rubin and
Thompson's (1994) guide to second language teachers (as cited in
Chamot, 1995):
Teachers should:
1. Find out what strategies students are using. Ask and record
responses;
2. Select one or two strategies found to be missing and identify
them by name. Then explicitly explain to students why and
when these strategies could be used during the listening
process;
3. Model how to use each strategy by incorporating think aloud'
protocols;
4. Ask students to describe what they heard/observed;
5. Give opportunities for students to practice their listening
strategies, and ask them to assess how well they used them by
engaging them in discussions.
6. Encourage students to practice their strategies on a variety of
tasks on a continuous basis (Chamot, 1995).
1. Find out what strategies students are using. Ask and
record responses.
At the beginning, and mid-way in the term, teachers can ask students
to complete a strategy analysis. The MALQ or SILL could be used for this
purpose. At the beginning these types of questionnaires are useful because
it raises students' awareness as to the type of strategies they use.
"Awareness raising" helps students develop autonomy, which should be the
objective of a strategy based approach model (Mendelsohn, 1995,
Vandergrift & Tafaghodtari, 2009).
2. Select one or two strategies found to be missing and

identify them by name. Then explicitly explain to students

why and when these strategies could be used during the
listening process.
This suggestion has to take into consideration the type of listening skill
students are practicing: perception, parsing, or utilisation. If it is related to
perception, for example, not recognizing the words they hear, the problem
might be related to lack of prosodic identification. If this is the case, then
the listening language teacher would need to plan for authentic listening
activities that require students to hear words in chunks instead of trying to
identify one word at a time. If the problem is related to parsing, it could
mean that students are focusing on the information not understood during
the perception phase, and is not able to identify meaning by context. If the
problem is related to utilisation, then it might be because the intended
message (pragmatics) is not understood even though the individual words
make sense (Goh, 2002, p. 9).
3. Model how to use each strategy by incorporating think
aloud'
Modeling is a technique that allows teachers to explicitly show
students how a behaviour or activity should be completed. This does not
mean students are given the answers, but instead it opens opportunities for
teachers to formulate, for example, pre-listening activities that "facilitate the
perception and parsing phases of comprehension" (Goh, 2002, p. 28).
Hence, during a listening activity, the teacher may play an audio-tape, and
think aloud' the type of information that facilitates comprehension.
Mendelsohn (1994) outlines a set of six questions that "facilitate
comprehension: where, when, who, how, what, and why" (p. 81). These
questions are meant to help L2 learners identify the SIMT: setting,
interpersonal relationships between speakers, mood, and topic of a
particular listening task. This strategy is useful because it "greatly enhances
the chances of successful predicting, hypothesis formation, and
inferencing" (Mendelsohn, 1994, p. 81). So, for example, if the students
hear an audio tape where there are sounds of children laughing and
children's music playing in the background, they might begin to visualize
the setting, the topic, and the mood. They would then be able to narrow
down their focus on interpersonal relationships what the participants are
saying. The teacher, of course, would model this activity first before giving
students opportunities to practice. This strategy is also useful when
students are presented with lexical items familiar to them.
4. Ask students to describe what they heard/observed
What L2 students hear and understand might depend on whether the
type of utterance was accompanied by specific linguistic, paralinguistic,
and/or extralinguistic signals. Linguistics signals might include descriptors
such as "syntax, lexis, morphology, phonology" (Mendelsohn, 1994, p. 82),
and include the type of register used in the speech (formal, informal).
Paralinguistic signals could range from gestures, body language, pauses,
rate of speech, and other variables that can add clues as to the SIMT of
the utterance. Extralinguistic signals, on the other hand, include
"background noise, [and visual signals such as] where something is taking
place, and choice of clothes being worn" (Mendelsohn, 1994, p. 83).
5. Give opportunities for students to practice their listening
strategies, and ask them to assess how well they used them

by engaging them in discussions

Practice is important in a strategy based approach to teaching listening
(Mendelsohn, 1994); therefore, teachers cannot rely on only one type of
listening task or on assessing listening through traditional test questions as
a way of validating comprehension. Some activities to consider are
thoroughly described by Goh (2002). These activities incorporate one-way
and two-way listening. A one-way listening activity, for example, might be
for learners to listen to a story while ordering pictures to create a story
board while a two-way activity may require students to listen to a newscast
and answer questions in groups related to the story they just heard.
However, when designing a listening activity, teachers need to consider the
proficiency level of the students as well as the type of pre-listening activities
that best facilitates the perceptual processing, parsing, and utilization
before, during, and after the listening task (Goh 2002). Ur (1996) explains
that listening activities can be categorized by "the types of response they
elicit" (p. 25, as cited in Goh, 2002). The type of response, therefore, could
be matched to the proficiency level of the learner. Beginner students could
work on strategies while matching pictures to audio; intermediate students
could follow directions by tracing a route in a map as they listen to
instructions; more advanced students could listen to a conversation or
speech and pick up from what they hear last and continue the story by
using inference. These activities, however, are of no value if teachers do
not engage students in discussion since strategy awareness needs to be a
continuous process.
6. Encourage students to practice their strategies on a
variety of tasks on a continuous basis
Ultimately, students need to be able to become autonomous learners.
Therefore, teachers do need to motivate students to use the strategies they
have learned, and to recognize the ones that work from the ones that do
not work. Strategy awareness tools such as Mendelsohn's (1994) SIMT
classification or Lynch's (2009) six descriptors macrostrategies'checklist of
"Predicting, Monitoring, Responding, Clarifying, Inferencing, and
Evaluating" (p. 88) are useful because they foster strategy awareness that
support learners autonomy. However, it is important for language teachers
to keep in mind that some of the strategies needed for one-way listening
tasks are not necessarily the same as in two-way listening. For example,
one way listening does not lend itself for strategies that allow interruptions
among interlocutors, or to the type of compensation strategies listeners can
utilize while waiting to speak. Strategies to determine the main meaning of
an utterance, on the other hand, are useful for both one-way and two-way
listening tasks. Hence, understanding discourse markers, the
stress/unstress system of English, and strategies to activate schemata are
needed to understand all types of utterances (Mendelsohn, 1994).
Conclusion
Studies in learning strategies that focus specifically on L2 listening as
a skill are essential to understanding the process of listening. Language
teachers, therefore, need to understand that they cannot take a laisser faire
stand, hoping students will somehow pick up this skills by "osmosis" any
more than any other L2 skill (Mendelsohn, 1984, as cited in Mendelsohn
1994). With planning and continuous practice, language teachers can help
their students acquire strategic skills that enhance listening comprehension
and develop autonomy.

References
Bull, S., & Ma, Y. (2001). Raising learner awareness of language
learning strategies in situations of limited resources. Interactive Learning
Environments, 9(2), 171-200.
Chamot, A.U. (1995). Learning strategies and listening
comprehension. In D. Mendelsohn & J. Rubin (Eds.). A Guide for the
Teaching of Second Language Listening. San Diego, California: Dominie
Press, 13 30.
Goh, C. (2002). Teachinglisteningin the languageclassroom.
Singapore. RELC.
Johnson, Keith (2008). An introduction to foreign language learning
and teaching (2nd ed.). Harlow, England: Pearson.
Lynch, T. (2009). Teaching Second Language Listening. Oxford.
Lynch, T., & Mendelsohn, D. (2009). Listening. In N. Schmitt (Ed.)
Introduction to Applied Linguistics. London: Arnold. 181-196.
Mendelsohn, D. (2006). Learning how to listen using learning
strategies. In Uso-Juan, E., & Martinez-Flor, A. (Eds.). Current trends in the
development and teaching of the four language skills. Mouton de Gruyter. 1
15.
Mendelsohn, D. (2001). Listening comprehension: we've come a long
way, but Contact (Special Research Symposium), 27 (2), 33 41.
Mendelsohn, D. (1995). Applying Learning Strategies in the
second/foreign language listening comprehension lesson. In D.
Mendelsohn & J. Rubin (Eds.). A Guide for the Teaching of Second
Language Listening. San Diego, California: Dominie Press.
Mendelsohn, D. & Rubin, J. (1995). A guide for the teaching of second
language listening. San Diego, California: Dominie Press.
Mendelsohn, D. (1994). Learning to listen: a strategy based approach
for the second language learner. San Diego, California: Dominie Press, 132
- 149.
Oxford, R (1994). Language learning strategies: An update. Online
resources: digests. Retrieve December 2nd, 2011 from Center of Applied
Linguistics: http://www.cal.org/resources/digest/oxford01.html.
Vandergrift, L. (2011). Listening: theory and practice in modern foreign
language competence. Retrieved December 1, 2011, from Centre for
Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies:
www.llas.ac.uk/resources/gpg/67.
Vandergrift, L. (2003). Orchestrating strategy use: toward a model of
the skill second language listener. Language Learning, 53 (3), 463 - 496.
Vandergrift , L. & Tafaghodtari, M. (2010). Teaching L2 learners how
to listen does make a difference: an empirical study. Language Learning,

60 (2), 470 - 497.

Cecilia Aponte-de-Hanna, School of English and Liberal Studies,
Seneca College of Applied Arts & Technology. Toronto, Canada .Sh can be
reached at cecilia.aponte-de-ha@senecacollege.ca
Contents
The views expressed by the authors are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of The College
Quarterly or of Seneca College.
Copyright 2012 - The College Quarterly, Seneca College of Applied Arts and Technology

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Volume 38 | Issue 8

2013

Impact of Awareness Raising about Listening

Micro-skills on the Listening Comprehension
Enhancement: An Exploration of the Listening
Micro-skills in EFL Classes
Amir Rezaei
University of Malaya, a_rezaie@siswa.um.edu.my

Fatimah Hashim
Department of Language and Literacy, Faculty of Education, University of Malaya

Recommended Citation
Rezaei, A., & Hashim, F. (2013). Impact of Awareness Raising about Listening Micro-skills on the Listening Comprehension
Enhancement: An Exploration of the Listening Micro-skills in EFL Classes. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 38(8).
http://dx.doi.org/10.14221/ajte.2013v38n8.4

This Journal Article is posted at Research Online.

http://ro.ecu.edu.au/ajte/vol38/iss8/1

Article 1

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Impact of Awareness Raising about Listening Micro-skills on the

Listening Comprehension Enhancement: An Exploration of the Listening
Micro-skills in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Classes
Amir Rezaei
Fatimah Hashim
University of Malaya

Abstract: It is common practice in the classes that teachers focus on the

outcome of listening rather than the listening process itself. Based on the
interventionist view of language teaching, one of the ways proposed for
teaching listening is to break it into smaller micro-skills and give
learners awareness about them. But before giving awareness, it is
important to identify the micro-skills that learners need mostly in
performing listening tasks. This study was aimed at exploring the most
frequently used listening micro-skills in EFL classes at lower levels.
Also, an attempt was made to investigate the impact of awareness raising
about these micro-skills on the EFL learners listening comprehension
enhancement. For studying the effect of awareness raising, 252 EFL
female learners took part in the study and 30 experts and teachers from
different universities took part in identifying the most frequently used
micro-skills in the EFL context. After gathering data, 10 listening microskills were identified as being the most frequently used skills for
performing tasks in EFL classes. Also, after awareness raising activities
about these micro-skills, a significant difference was found between the
learners in the experimental and control groups. The results of the study
are discussed in the experimental and control groups. The results of the
study are discussed in the light of teachers language awareness (TLA)
and implications for the educators and task designers
Background
Some researchers have stressed the key role that listening as comprehensible input plays
in acquiring the target language (Krashen, 1985, 1996; Krashen & Terrell, 1983; Mendelsohn,
1998; Rost, 1990, 2001, 2002; Vandergrift, 1999). Rost (2001) points out that since listening is
very prevalent in language use and listening is the main channel of L2 acquisition, the
development of listening as a skill and as a means for language input should receive great
importance in instruction (p. 10).
Compared with other skills in TEFL/TESL, listening has not received much attention
during the past years. Buck (2001, p. 32) notes that listening is an important skill but due to the
practical complexities of providing spoken texts, it is neglected in many language learning
situations. According to Vandergrift (2004), for beginning and intermediate language learners,
who are often unable to process information quickly enough to make sense of spoken language,
listening activities can create stress.
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Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Unfortunately, teachers, especially in EFL contexts, often are not aware about the process
of listening and learners problems in listening comprehension, as a result, the common practice
in the class is that teachers and educators focus on the outcome of the listening rather than
listening itself i.e. the process of listening. Sheerin (1987) asserts that instruction in listening has
too often been associated with testing, focusing on the product of listening. Similarly, Field
(1998) believes that most published courses continue to practice listening rather than teach the
skill, raising the concern that the material tests not teaches. He(Field) notes that success in
listening is based on the criterion of correct responses to questions. Instruction focuses upon the
outcome of listening, rather than on listening itself, upon product rather than process of listening.
When a learner gives a correct answer, there is no question and analysis as to how that answer
has been reached at.
On the other hand, research and observation are constantly extending the scope of
language awareness with the result that the list of skills to be aware of in learning and teaching
are constantly being expanded (Laoire & Aronin, 2003).
On the whole, most of the studies carried out in the second language (L2) classroom (e.g.,
Elbro & Petersen2004; Leow, 1997; Nakatani, 2005; Robinson, 1997a, 1997b; Rosa & ONeil,
1999; Saito, 2007; Shu-Chin, 20121; Slade,1997; Svalberg, 2007), have noted a general positive
impact of awareness giving on learners subsequent post-exposure performances. Altman (1997),
from her personal language learning case study, found that, a key to the success of the language
learner seems to be the extensive employment of awarenessthe focusing of attention on all
aspects of the language to be learned (p. 93). Nakatani (2005) studied the influence of
awareness giving on young Japanese adults use of oral communication strategies such as
maintenance of fluency and negotiation of meaning. The researcher found that the learners in the
experimental group who received awareness produced longer sentences and used more
achievement strategies, and did not leave the message as often as the learners in the comparison
group. Similarly, Shu-Chin (2012) found positive effect of the use of rhetorical consciousness
raising instructional materials in writing research papers. In line with the results found by
Nakatani (2005), Slade (1997) and Jones (2001) found positive impact of explicit training in
conversational story telling. Similarly, Elbro and Petersen (2004) came to this conclusion that
phonological awareness raising of kindergarten children of dyslexic parents was influential. The
children received awareness raising for 17 weeks and it was revealed that the awareness training
had long-term effects as late as grade 7.
Although a review of literature shows that awareness raising plays an important role in the
process of second language acquisition and learning different skills (e.g., Carr & Curran, 1994;
Curran & Keele, 1993; Ghorbani, 2011; Robinson, 1995; Schmidt, 1990, 1993, 1994, 2001),
there are some arguments against the importance of language awareness. For example, Alderson,
Clapham, and Steel (1997) in their study conclude that whilst knowledge about language may be
worthwhile in its own right, there is no evidence to justify the teaching of metalinguistic
knowledge as a means of improving students linguistic proficiency. Tomlin and Villa (1994)
disagree with Schmidt on the necessity of awareness for learning, and Al-Hejin (2004) also takes
a more cautious stance, but concludes that both attention and awareness (and hence noticing)
facilitate learning. The debate includes Norris and Ortegas (2000) synthesis and analysis of 49
published studies, which concluded that on the available evidence explicit instruction is more
effective than implicit instruction.
Most of the studies in the field of awareness have dealt with the learning of grammatical
form. However, it has been claimed that explicit learning within language awareness (LA)

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Australian Journal of Teacher Education

framework is facilitative in a variety of linguistic fields. (Svalberg, 2007). Similarly, in a
discussion of language awareness in relation to teacher education, Borg (1994, p. 62) outlines
that LA methodology aims to develop not only the learners knowledge about understanding of
language but also their learning skills, thus promoting learner independence. In brief, the above
studies imply that awareness raising is not just limited to the forms of language but it can be
expanded to different skills of language.
Recent research on teaching listening demonstrates a heightened interest in enhancing
student awareness of the listening process (Berne, 1998; Mendelsohn, 2001a). This process
approach can assist learners in learning how to listen, leading them through phases of real-life
listening (Field, 2001; Goh, 2002b; Mendelsohn, 2001a; Vandergrift, 2003a). Vandergrift (2004)
states that this approach allows teachers to help beginners learn how to understand authentic
short texts on topics related to their interest and level. Therefore, investigating the awareness of
the listening process and exploring the impact of giving awareness raising activities on listening
comprehension can be of great significance.
Calling for a rethinking of the purposes of the listening lesson, Field (1998) proposed
approaches based on micro-listening exercises, which practice individual sub-skills of listening.
Micro-skills, which are also called sub-skills, are seen as competencies which native listeners
possess and which non-natives need to acquire in relation to the language they are learning. They
involve mastering the auditory phonetics, the word-identification techniques, the patterns of
reference, and so forth. These components make up successful listening processes. In his recent
paper, Field (2010) emphasizes the importance of the strategy training especially in the early
stage learners of L2 to make partial sense of they hear. In separate studies, Freday (2011),
Vandergrift & Tafaghodtari (2010) emphasize the importance of explicit teaching and
metalinguistic awareness about the listening comprehension process. Moran (2005) posits that
listening teachers need to consider the fact that many students at lower levels are unable to
decode foreign language and only through massive amount of input or by raising students
awareness about features of foreign language will this be possible.

Statement of the Problem

In a community where English is learned as a foreign language, English learners are less
exposed to listening materials. Although listening skills are of crucial importance in language
intake and acquisition, listening lags behind the other skills. Consequently, most of the EFL
learners at low levels have problems in listening comprehension and listening seems the most
demanding skill. This is the case in many countries that use English as a foreign language. As a
result, there is a need to do more research on listening in such contexts and present appropriate
methodology, skills and tactics to compensate for the gap. Most educators test listening and
consider it as a product without regarding the processes and skills through which listening takes
place.
One possible way to teach the process of listening is to give learners metacognitive
awareness about listening micro-skills. This view of teaching listening stems from the synthetic
approaches to teaching language (Wilkins 1976), namely those which focus on the teaching of
discrete points of language in accordance with what Rutherford (1987, p. 4) describes as the
accumulated entities view of language learning.

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Cummins research (1979) makes a difference between Basic Interpersonal
Communication Skills (BICS) and Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP).
Cummins believes that while many children develop native speaker fluency (i.e. BICS) within
two years, it takes between 5-7 years for children to be working on a level with native speakers
as far as academic language is concerned. The initial theoretical intent of the BICS/CALP
distinction was to qualify Oller's (1979) claim that all individual differences in language
proficiency could be accounted for by just one underlying factor, which he termed global
language proficiency. However, Cummins (1979) argued that it is problematic to incorporate all
aspects of language use or performance into just one dimension of general or global language
proficiency. Discrete language skills can sometimes be learned in virtual isolation from the
development of academic language competence as proven in the fact that some learners who can
read English fluently may have only a very limited understanding of the words they can
decode (Cummins, Brown & Sayers, 2007).
Long and Robinson (1998) use the label focus on form for this approach. Another view
focus on meaning refers to a range of approaches that Long and Robinson (1998, p. 18) call
noninterventionist. These approaches emphasize abandoning a focus on language forms. Instead
they seek to replicate the process of first language (L1) development in the belief that classroom
language learning will proceed more effectively if language learners are allowed to construct
their interlanguage more naturally, in the same way as they were learning grammar and other
skills through the process of learning to communicate (Ellis, 1994, p. 652). In the case of
teaching listening comprehension, some scholars (e.g., Ridgway, 2000) advocate the noninterventionist view and support the idea that listening should be practiced holistically and
naturally without breaking it into smaller components while some other researchers advocate the
synthetic approach to teaching listening (see e.g., Field, 1998; Moran, 2005). Very few studies
have been carried out on the importance of awareness raising about these skills on listening
comprehension enhancement (Field, 1998; Moran, 2005; Peterson, 2001). Especially in EFL
classes, there is a dearth of research exploring the impact of awareness giving on the language
development of EFL language learners at low levels.
On the other hand, there is little knowledge about how listening takes place. Comparing it
with other language skills, Goh (1997) states that, there are fewer insights about the process of
listening and the way it is learnt (p.361). In the countries where English is not the official
language or the second language, EFL learners face lots of problems in listening; therefore,
delving more into the process of listening and exploring the skills involved in the process of
listening for performing listening tasks is worthwhile. Therefore, besides investigating the effect
of awareness raising about different listening micro-skills on the listening comprehension, the
purpose of this research was to extend the result of previous studies on the synthetic approach
and interventionist view of language learning in general and effectiveness of awareness raising
on skill building in particular.

Research Questions
Based on the objectives of the research, the following research questions were proposed:
1. What are the most frequently used listening micro-skills used in the performing listening tasks
in EFL context classes?

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2. Do awareness raising activities about listening micro-skills have any significant effect on the
listening comprehension enhancement of the EFL learners?
In order to enrich data, as a pre-requisite for the second research question, it was
necessary to explore and identify the most frequently used listening micro-skills in the EFL
context to raise learners awareness about; hence, the first research question was posed.
Therefore, in addition to exploring the frequently used listening micro-skills in EFL contexts, the
current study informs educators on how awareness giving activities may be used to enhance
listening comprehension. In other words, the study reveals the way listening can be enhanced
with the aid of awareness giving.

Listening Micro- Skills

Bottom up processing involves keen attention to input details, whereas top down processing
requires listeners to make inferences and predictions based on the incoming data. According to
Richards (1990), the listening process involves bottom-up and top-down processing whereby
bottom-up processing means direct decoding of language into meaningful segments while topdown processing means using prior knowledge to give meaning to language input; in other
words, enabling our background knowledge of the world to create meaning. Taking these
perspectives into account, there are different taxonomies in the literature proposed by different
scholars. In the listening exams and tasks, at the pre- intermediate levels, the listeners are mostly
expected to have both top-down and bottom-up processing skills (Nunan, 1999; Peterson 2001;
Richard, 1983; Rost, 1994, 2001; Weir, 1993) and, also, in contexts like Azerbaijan, Iran and
other EFL contexts having developed top-down and bottom-up processing listening skills is
required in performing listening tasks and listening exams. Since there are many taxonomies
proposed by different researchers, for the current research, first, based on the top-down and
bottom-up processing, 19 different listening micro-skills which are most agreed-upon by
different researchers in different taxonomies in literature were selected. Since it was not
plausible for the current researchers to raise awareness about all the listening micro-skills, an
attempt was made to identify the most frequently used listening micro-skills which are used in
EFL classes. In order to select the most frequently used skills for the study, 30 EFL teachers in
the field of listening comprehension were asked to rank these skills from the most useful one to
the least useful one in the Iranian context. In effect, they were provided with the list of different
skills and were asked to select and rank the most useful skills used in EFL classes.
After gathering EFL teachers ranking of the micro-skills, in order to select the microskills and analyze them statistically, ranks of judges were summed and, then, the median of
scores distribution was selected as the cutoff score. Hence, skills were divided on the basis of
their ranks, and then a Mann-Whitney test was carried out. The results of this test are displayed
in Table 3. In the first set of the micro-skills selected by the teachers, there are 10 listening
micro-skills that are more frequently used in EFL contexts especially in the context of Iranian
listening classes. As a result, for the purpose of the current research these 10 frequent microskills were selected and used in all stages of the research. The list of these 10 listening microskills is given in the Table 1 below.

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1- Ability to guess the meanings of unfamiliar words from the context

2- Listening for gist
3- Understanding cohesive devices
4- Listening for specific information and important details
5- Recognizing functions of stress and intonation in spoken language
6- Listening to discriminate between distinctive sounds
7- Ability to understand reduced forms of words in spoken language
8- Listening for key words
9- Recognizing the topic
10- Making inferences and understanding the speakers purpose
Table 1. Listening micro-skills frequently used in Iranian EFL classes

Method
For selecting homogenous subjects, first a standard listening comprehension test,
Preliminary English Test (PET), was administered to a group of EFL learners who were learning
English in their first semester. The subjects were 252 pre-intermediate female Iranian EFL
learners studying English at four different universities, namely Saveh Azad University, Zanjan
Azad University, Payamnoor University and Samaparan University in Iran. The average age of
the subjects was between 19 to 22. All the subjects were at the first year of their study in the
university and before that had not received any formal education in listening comprehension. In
order to select homogenous subjects, those who scored between 9-10 out of 25 were selected for
the purpose of the study.
After selecting the homogenous participants, they were assigned to the control and
experimental groups randomly so that every participant had the equal chance of being in the
control or experimental group. For randomization, every subject was assigned a number and then
the odd numbers were selected as the control group and the even numbers were selected as the
experimental group. There were 130 female learners in the experimental group and 125 female
learners in the control group. Female subjects were chosen because it was found in earlier studies
that they are more cooperative. Furthermore inclusion of males would introduce another possible
influence on the results.
During the study the experimental and comparison groups went through different
procedures. While the comparison group did not receive any treatment, the experimental group
received the treatment. They were given awareness about the most useful listening micro-skills
involved in the listening process in EFL contexts. All the classes met twice a week at different
times of the day, covering the same content and material for all the groups with the experimental
groups receiving the treatment and the control group not receiving any awareness raising
activity. To enhance the reliability and validity of the study, the same material was used by the
same teacher (the researcher). The tasks used for the classroom were extracted from American
New Interchange (Richards, 2005) and Tactics for Listening (Richards, 2005). This writers
books are the most quoted ones in the field of listening and speaking. These are the books most
commonly used in Iran for listening classes for lower intermediate learners and the listening
tasks used are authentic and compatible with EFL contexts. The course of treatment lasted 10
weeks. Every week, students were taught on each listening micro-skill during two sessions. The
common practice in such English classes is that the teacher plays the listening text in the class
two or three times and after that focuses on the coming listening comprehension questions. After
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answering the questions, they usually compare the different answers and discuss the right
answers. This typical method goes on in listening classes without teaching listening skills.
Therefore, in this research, to address this issue and to investigate the impact of teaching
listening micro-skills, the above practice was applied for the control group.
Students in the experimental group were taught 10 different listening skills. On the whole,
the classes were held for 20 sessions, with students becoming aware of and practicing one skill in
every two sessions. These awareness giving sessions heavily relied on the instructions and
suggestions given by OMalley and Chamot (1990), Mendelsohn (1994) and Oxford (1990)
which emphasize explicit teaching of the different learning strategies.
When the awareness raising sessions and exercise giving sessions were over for the
experimental and control groups respectively, another PET as a standard listening
comprehension test for post-test was administered to all the groups to test their listening
comprehension enhancement. The scores in both experimental and control groups were
calculated and separated for the data analysis using SPSS package.

Results
Research Question One

1. What are the most frequently used listening micro-skills used in the performing listening tasks
in Iranian EFL classes at low pre-intermediate levels?
The results revealed that there are two groups of listening micro-skills according to the
teachers perspective. One group of micro-skills is used frequently in EFL classes i.e. crank 2
(selected). The mean score for this set of skills is 6.30. The second set of the micro-skills is not
used frequently in EFL classes i.e. crank 1 (unselected) with the mean of 14.11. The result of
descriptive analysis for ranking the micro-skills is presented in the following Table 2.

Trank

Crank:select
1. unselect
2. select
Total

N
9
10
19

Mean
Rank
14.11
6.30

Sum
Ranks
127.00
63.00

Table 2. Descriptive statistics for ranking skills

The significance of the difference between these two sets of micro-skills has been indicated in
Table 3. As evident from the results of Mann-Whitney test in Table 3, the difference between
two sets of the micro-skills is significant statistically, p < .005. The two groups differed
significantly, U = 8, p < .005 with measure of effect size of 0.69 (r= 0.69).

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Mann-Whitney U
Wilcoxon W
Z
Asymp. Sig. (2tailed)
Exact Sig. [2*(1tailed Sig.)]

Trank
8.000
63.000
-3.022
.003
.001(a)

Table 3. Test Statistics for Mann-Whitney analysis

Therefore, it can be concluded that there is significant difference between these two sets of
micro-skills. This result implies that the micro-skills identified by the teachers as being more
frequent and useful are true. In the first set of the micro-skills selected by the teachers, there are
10 listening micro-skills that are more frequently used in EFL context classes at low levels. As a
result, for the purpose of the current research these 10 frequent micro-skills in EFL listening
classes were selected and used in all stages of the research.

Research Question Two

2. Does awareness raising activities about listening micro-skills have any significant effect on
the listening comprehension enhancement of the EFL learners?
This research question addresses the significance of the difference between learners in the
experimental and control groups and explores the effectiveness of awareness raising on both
groups enhancement in listening comprehension. In order to test significance of difference
between both groups, the following null hypothesis was proposed:
H. 1. Awareness raising activities about listening micro-skills do not have any significant effect
on the listening comprehension enhancement of the EFL learners.
In order to see if learners benefited from the treatment and to attribute the learners
enhancement to the awareness giving activities, a comparison had to be made between learners
in the experimental and control groups. The result of descriptive statistics comparing the scores
of control and experimental groups in the post-test has been shown in Table 4.

Group Statistics

P2

Experimental-Control
Experimental
Control

N
130
122

Mean
17.2962
11.5697

Std.
Deviation
2.79236
2.43113

Table 4. Descriptive statistics for experimental vs. control group

By comparing the means of the learners in the experimental and control groups, it is clear
that there is a considerable difference between learners in both groups. Learners in the
experimental group with mean= 17.29, SD= 2.79 did much better than the learners in the control
group with mean= 11.56, SD= 2.43.

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The difference between both groups enhancement in listening comprehension has been
illustrated in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Box plot for experimental vs. control group

The above graph verifies the result of descriptive statistics above. As it is clear, there is
considerable difference between learners in both groups and it seems that awareness raising
about the most frequently used listening micro-skills has positive effect on the listening
comprehension enhancement. But in order to find out if the acquired difference is significant or
not, a T-test analysis was carried out. The result of T-test analysis has been displayed in Table 5.

Independent Samples Test

Levene's Test for
Equality of Variances

P2P1

Equal
variances
assumed
Equal
variances not
assumed

t-test for Equality of Means

Sig.

df

Sig.
(2tailed)

2.932

.088

17.3
15

250

.000

17.3
91

248.
623

.000

Table 5. Result of T-test analysis

As the result in table 5 reveals, there is a significant difference between the learners in the
experimental group(M= 17.29 ,SD= 2.79) and control group, M= 11.56 , SD= 2.43 , t(250)=
17.3, p<0.001. Since the difference between the means of the experimental group and control
group is significant statistically, the proposed null hypothesis for the second research question
can safely be rejected. Therefore, it is concluded that raising awareness of the EFL learners about
different listening micro-skills enhances their listening comprehension significantly.

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Discussion
This study is an extension of research focusing on the synthetic approach and
interventionist view of language learning. It extends the results of previous studies focusing on
skill awareness. As the results reveal, breaking listening into smaller micro-skills and then giving
awareness to the learners about these micro-skills is an effective way to teach listening skill at
the lower levels in EFL contexts. Though there are some counter arguments against breaking
listening into smaller skills, this study has shown that this can be an effective way to improve
listening comprehension.
This study confirms the results of the previous studies advocating the importance of
awareness raising. Based on the findings of the present study, it can be asserted that awareness
giving about different listening micro-skills can be a good solution for teaching listening
comprehension at the lower levels and teaching learners how to tackle their listening problems in
EFL contexts. In a country like Iran in which learners have less exposure to the listening and
listening comprehension tasks, listeners are intimidated while performing listening tasks and
teachers cannot help learners in these cases. The role of explicit teaching especially giving
awareness about grammar is more frequent in EFL contexts than ESL ones; therefore, it can be
understood that in EFL settings learners need more explicit knowledge from the side of the
teacher than the ESL context; as demonstrated in this study breaking listening into smaller
components and then teaching these components help learners improve their listening
comprehension significantly.
In brief, it can be concluded that in EFL contexts teaching listening comprehension by
raising learners consciousness about different listening micro-skills is an effective way to
improve listening comprehension. Accordingly, it can be an effective replacement for the
traditional way of practicing and testing listening skill in EFL classes.

Implications of the Study

The findings in this study have some implications for researchers, educators and task
designers. Based on the results of the study, our recommendation for educators would be to raise
learners awareness about different listening micro-skills in their listening classes. Most of the
teachers have vague idea about how to teach listening at the lower levels and mostly practice
listening or test listening in their classes. Hence, they can benefit from these findings and pay
more attention to the importance of consciousness raising about different skills and thereby
enhance the listening comprehension of their learners in the listening courses. As the findings in
the current research show, raising learners awareness about listening micro- skills can assist
learners to tackle their listening problems to a great extent; therefore, it is suggested that
educators try to raise learners awareness of different listening micro-skills to improve listening
comprehension in the EFL context.
On the other hand, as evidenced in the control group, just providing learners with simple
practices in listening and doing listening exercises and then testing their listening by giving them
some questions would not lead to satisfactory outcomes, so educators are strictly discouraged
from following the typical way of practicing and testing listening in listening classes especially
in the lower levels in which learners have little knowledge about how to improve their listening
comprehension. As EFL teachers, we have experienced that when learners come to university

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and take a listening course they are very confused about it and do not know how to perform
listening tasks and when the teacher cannot teach these skills, they lose their motivation for
learning and this brings up serious consequences. To avoid these issues, it is recommended that
educators in the field raise awareness of their learners about different listening micro-skills
which constitute the components of listening comprehension.
Another implication of this study relates to the importance of language awareness for
teachers. In teacher education courses, the findings can be beneficial for training language
teachers who are to teach English as a foreign language in EFL contexts. Consequently, the
result achieved in this part about the positive effect of awareness giving about different skills
gives awareness to the teachers themselves. With regard to the importance of teacher language
awareness (TLA), research (see e.g., Andrew 1999a, 2007; Mcneill, 2005) suggests that TLA
does have the potential to exert a powerful influence upon teaching effectiveness. Thornbury
(1997) stresses the importance of focusing on language awareness in L2 teacher development
courses. Wright and Bolitho (1993, p. 292) point out that the more aware a teacher is of language
and how it works, the better it is. With regard to the awareness of listening micro-skills, teachers
being aware of the significance of awareness raising about different listening micro-skills in the
enhancement of listening comprehension will give them insights to improve their teaching of
listening comprehension.
Similarly, the findings of this research have important implications for task designers as
well. According to the findings, it is suggested that listening tasks be designed in accord with
listening micro-skills. In the sense that before designing tasks for the EFL listening courses, task
designers should consider the most frequently used listening micro-skills that learners use in
performing the listening tasks. Most of the books available are not based on the different
listening micro-skills; therefore, it is recommended for the material and task designer to design
materials and tasks based on the listening micro-skills that are used more frequently in the EFL
context. It is argued that educators being aware of the importance of listening micro-skills will
help them in designing and adapting the materials according to the listening needs of the learners
in the EFL context. Thornbury (1997) believes that an unaware teacher will fail to interpret the
course book, syllabus and materials and adapt them to the listening needs of the learners. Wright
and Bolitho (1993, p. 292) identify a number of pedagogical tasks where teachers awareness
may have a significant positive impact, including preparing lessons, evaluating, adapting and
writing materials and designing syllabuses.
By considering the findings of the present study about the importance of raising learners
awareness listening micro- skills, teachers can enhance their own awareness of these skills. This
will aid teachers and task designers in modifying the materials and tasks in accord with these
micro-skills. In some cases, designing new tasks based on the listening micro-skills is difficult
and time consuming; consequently, in these cases the teachers can play a significant role in
shaping the tasks and compensating for the shortcomings of the previously designed materials. In
a model about the role of teacher language awareness (TLA), Andrew (1999a, p. 166) believes
that learners may encounter L2 input direct from sources such as the textbook and other
students, but their exposure to output from these sources may also be modified or shaped by the
teacher via the TLA filter. This means that in making use of different materials, the teacher
may change their presentation based on the needs of a specific context. In the same way,
Rahimpour (2010) notes that syllabus should be open so that teachers who are in direct contact
with the specific context and specific learners in that context can modify the syllabus and tasks
based on the learners needs. In teaching listening comprehension in the classroom, the teacher

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can mediate and shape the input made available to the learners. While presenting the input in the
books, an aware teacher can shape or even design new tasks that are based on the learners
listening needs.

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Vol 38, 8, August 2013

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Vol 38, 8, August 2013

15

International Journal
of
English Studies

IJES

http://revistas.um.es/ijes

UNIVERSITY OF MURCIA

Corrective feedback episodes in oral interaction:

A comparison of a CLIL and an EFL classroom
RUTH MILLA & MARA PILAR GARCA MAYO*
Universidad del Pas Vasco (UPV/EHU)
Received: 9/03/2013. Accepted: 26/12/2013.

ABSTRACT
This paper addresses the issue of corrective feedback (CF), a topic widely investigated in the last few decades
(Sheen, 2011), and instructional context. We observed and recorded the oral interaction of an intact class of
thirty Spanish intermediate-level high-school learners and two teachers in two settings: a traditional formoriented English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom and a meaning-oriented Content and Language
Integrated Learning (CLIL) classroom (Dalton-Puffer, 2011). Corrective feedback episodes (CFE; Lyster, 1994)
were used as the unit of analysis. The findings of the study indicate that there are differences in the type,
quantity and manner of CFE between the two learning contexts. Although no significant difference in the
proportion of learners uptake was found between the EFL and CLIL contexts, a qualitative analysis of the data
indicated that the teachers attitude toward CF influenced subsequent learner uptake. Implications for further
research on CF, learner uptake and instructional context are suggested.
KEYWORDS: corrective feedback, oral interaction, EFL, CLIL, instructional setting.
RESUMEN
El presente trabajo versa sobre la retroalimentacin correctiva (Sheen, 2011), un tema ampliamente investigado
en las ltimas dcadas, y el contexto de instruccin. Se observ y grab la interaccin oral de una clase intacta
de treinta alumnos y dos profesores de ingls como lengua extranjera (ILE), asignatura ms centrada en la
forma, y de aprendizaje integrado de lenguas y contenido (AICLE; Dalton-Puffer, 2011), orientada hacia el
significado. La unidad de anlisis utilizada fueron los episodios de retroalimentacin correctiva (CFE por sus
siglas en ingls- Lyster, 1994). Los resultados muestran diferencias en tipo, cantidad y modo de los CFE entre
los dos contextos. Aunque no se encontraron diferencias significativas en la respuesta de los alumnos en ILE y
AICLE, el anlisis cualitativo de los datos indic que la actitud de los profesores con respecto a la
retroalimentacin correctiva influy en la posterior respuesta de los alumnos a la misma. En el trabajo se
sugieren lneas de trabajo para futuras investigaciones sobre la retroalimentacin correctiva, la respuesta y el
contexto de instruccin.
PALABRAS CLAVE: retroalimentacin correctiva, interaccin oral, ILE, AICLE, contexto de instruccin.

_____________________

*Address for correspondence: Ruth Milla Melero. Departamento de Filologa Inglesa y Alemana y Traduccin
e Interpretacin, Facultad de Letras, Vitoria/Gasteiz, Spain. Tel: 00 34 946014734; e-mail: ruth.milla@ehu.es.

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Ruth Milla & Mara Pilar Garca Mayo

1. INTRODUCTION
The present study is framed within a functional approach to second language acquisition: the
so-called interactionist approach (Gass & Mackey, 2007; Long, 1996) and specifically
focuses on one of its tenets: corrective feedback (CF), a reactive type of focus on form (Long,
1991). CF has been claimed to promote noticing of target forms (Schmidt, 1990; Van Patten,
1990) and facilitate second language (L2) learning (Norris & Ortega, 2000; Russell & Spada,
2006; Sheen, 2011; Spada, 2011).
CF has been widely studied and researchers have looked at the frequency and
distribution of CF moves. Regarding frequency of CF moves, research has found evidence of
their occurrence in the classroom in a high proportion (Lochtman, 2002; Panova & Lyster,
2002; Yoneyahm, 1982) and in a lower, but still existing, proportion in laboratory settings
(Mackey et al., 2003; Oliver, 1995). A large number of studies has examined the distribution
of CF types, with the result of an undoubtedly predominance of recasts (teachers
reformulation of learners erroneous utterance providing the correct form) over other types of
oral correction (Doughty, 1994; Lyster & Ranta, 1997; Pica et al., 1989; Sheen, 2004).
As far as the effectiveness of CF, research has found that it has a general positive effect
on learners performance (Carroll & Swain, 1993; Russell & Spada, 2006; Spada, 2011).
Studies have considered different variables as potential factors intervening in the effect of
correction: The type of CF has been widely analysed and the main findings show a tendency
for further uptake to more explicit types of feedback (Norris & Ortega, 2000; Spada 1997,
2011), such as explicit correction or metalinguistic explanations (Ellis et al., 2006; Lyster,
2004; Panova & Lyster, 2002), especially to those types which offer opportunity for selfrepair, such as elicitation or clarification requests (Lyster & Ranta, 1997; Lyster & Mori,
2006). Other studies have looked at the effect of CF on the acquisition of specific language
features (Dabaghi & Basturkmen, 2009; Erlam & Loewen, 2010; Ellis et al., 2006; Sheen,
2011; Yang & Lyster, 2010) or the influence of learners L2 proficiency (Ammar & Spada,
2006; Philp, 2003; Nassaji, 2010) or age (Sheen, 2004; Lyster & Saito, 2010) on the
effectiveness of CF.
Another variable that has been found to play a role on the effectiveness of CF is the
type of instructional context. Most of the studies mentioned above have investigated CF in
foreign language (FL) teaching (Dabaghi & Basturkmen, 2009; Yang & Lyster, 2010) or L2
learning settings (Ammar & Spada, 2006; Panova & Lyster, 2002; Sheen, 2007). Several
researchers have compared these two contexts as far CF provision and learners uptake
(Lochtman, 2007; Lyster & Mori, 2006; Lyster & Saito, 2010; Sheen, 2004; Spada, 2011).
Lyster and Mori (2006) carried out a descriptive study comparing a Japanese as a foreign
language (JFL) and a French as a second language (FSL) classroom. They found that teachers
offered CF in a somehow different way: although recasts where the most frequent type of CF,
the teachers in the JFL classroom tended to offer more explicit types of feedback and used
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Corrective feedback episodes in oral interaction

prompts (feedback moves that push learners to self-correct, such as elicitation or

metalinguistic information) more often with the intention that the learners self-repaired their
errors. The researchers concluded that these teachers were concerned with language form. On
the other hand, teachers in the FSL classroom followed mainly a communicative focus in
their lessons and offered implicit types of correction, especially recasts. On the basis of the
qualitative and quantitative analysis of the data, Lyster and Mori proposed the
Counterbalance Hypothesis (CH), which states that [] instructional activities and
interactional feedback that act as a counterbalance to the predominant communicative
orientation of a given classroom setting will be more facilitative of interlanguage (IL)
restructuring than instructional activities and interactional feedback that are congruent with
the predominant communicative orientation (Lyster & Mori, 2006: 294). That is, the claim is
that those CF moves which differ from the main orientation of the lesson would be more
effective. Thus, prompts would be more effective in meaning-oriented classrooms such as the
FSL, and recasts would be more salient in the more form-oriented context, the JFL. In a
recent meta-analysis of oral CF, Lyster and Saito (2010) did not find significant differences in
the effect of CF in FL and L2 settings. However, the authors call for more qualitative types of
research in order to contribute to the understanding of the contextual factors that might
interfere with the effectiveness of CF types, as they only looked at the potential effect of CF
in general, without looking at intervening variables, such as CF type. This is precisely one of
the motivations of the present study.
A language learning context that is gaining more and more popularity in schools and
universities nowadays is that instructional setting which allows for an integration of language
and content, the so-called Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) approach,
where [...] a foreign language is used as a tool in the learning of a non-language subject in
which both language and the subject have a joint role (Marsh, 2002: 58). In spite of the
relevance of this new teaching approach, not much research has been carried out yet
regarding its potential benefits for L2 learning. A small number of studies has been
conducted to investigate the effects of a CLIL type of instruction on the learners IL
(Basterrechea & Garca Mayo, 2013; Garca Mayo & Villarreal Olaizola, 2011; Lzaro
Ibarrola & Garca Mayo, 2012; Lorenzo et al., 2009; Martnez Adrin & Gutierrez Mangado,
2009; Moore, 2011). However, much more research is still needed on the effectiveness of this
approach (Dalton-Puffer, 2011; Garca Mayo, 2011; Sierra et al., 2011). A gap in research
appears in the type of correction used in these classrooms and its effectiveness in comparison
to what has been found in traditional English lessons. To the best of our knowledge,
Lochtman (2007) is the only study that has been carried out comparing CF in a traditional
foreign language classroom and a CLIL classroom. Lochtman (2007) compared CF in FL
lessons (Lochtman, 2002) with data from immersion classes (Lyster & Ranta, 1997) and
found that teachers in FL settings tend to prompt learners to self-correct errors while
immersion teachers recast erroneous utterances themselves. Her results were similar to those
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Ruth Milla & Mara Pilar Garca Mayo

reported in Lyster and Mori (2006). However, although both settings share some
characteristics, immersion lessons differ from CLIL lessons in several relevant aspects such
as the use of a FL in CLIL and an L2 in immersion programs, mainly non-native teachers in
CLIL and native ones in immersion, and the language and content integrated focus of CLIL
versus a purely content-oriented nature of immersion, among others (Lasagabaster & Sierra,
2010). Therefore, our study aims to explore similarities and differences in EFL and CLIL
settings that have not been researched regarding the issue of CF yet.
The main goal of the present exploratory study is to investigate whether context and
overall lesson orientation to form (EFL) and to meaning (CLIL) influence teacher provision
of CF and learner subsequent uptake. We have adopted corrective feedback episodes (CFEs)
that occur in oral interaction among the teacher and his/her learners as the unit of analysis.
CFEs are based on the error treatment sequence provided in Lyster (1994: 44) and Lyster and
Mori (2006: 281). A CFE consists of three moves: learners error, teachers provision of CF
and learners uptake to this correction (Lyster, 1994). Example (1) below illustrates a CFE:
(1) Learner: *And the boy goed to school (Error)
Teacher: The boy went to school (CF move in the form of a recast)
Learner: The boy went to school (Repair move)
CF moves can be classified according to the implicitness of the correction. Figure 1
below shows the most common types of CF ordered according to the degree of explicitness,
with recasts at the most implicit end and explicit correction at the opposite end and prompts
(clarification requests, repetition, elicitation and metalinguistic clues) in middle positions. In
this study we are interested in examining the provision and uptake of each of the types of CF
and see if the general trend is towards one or the other end of the continuum of explicitness in
each of the settings under study.
IMPLICIT
1.

EXPLICIT

1
2
3
4
5
6
Recasts; 2. Clarification Request; 3. Repetition; 4. Elicitations; 5.Metalinguistic Clues; 6. Explicit
Correction.

Figure 1. Continuum of the types of corrective feedback in order of explicitness.

As to the third move in the CFE, the uptake move, we may find repair of the error by
the learner or there may be some problem with the repair -this would be the needs repair
situation. In this case, the teacher can provide further feedback or the topic can continue.
The following research questions will be entertained in this paper:

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Corrective feedback episodes in oral interaction

RQ1: What type of corrective feedback (CF) do teachers provide to learners errors in oral
interaction? Is there a difference between CLIL and EFL lessons as far as type of CF is
concerned?
We expected recasts to be the most frequent type of feedback, as they were so in
previous studies (Doughty, 1994; Lyster & Ranta, 1997; Pica et al., 1989, Sheen, 2004), both
in FL and L2 settings. Furthermore, we expected a considerable number of prompts in the
form of metalinguistic clues, clarification requests or elicitation in the EFL setting, as in
Lochtman (2007) and Lyster and Mori (2006). On the other hand, we expected rare
occurrences of explicit correction, as reported by previous researchers (Lyster & Ranta,
1997).
RQ2: How do learners react to the different types of feedback in the two contexts examined?
Is the instructional context an intervening factor in the effectiveness of CF?
We expected our data to conform to those reported in previous literature and show a
high proportion of uptake, especially to more explicit types of feedback. Moreover, we
predicted that learners would behave differently in the CLIL and in the EFL classrooms and
would react differently to the different CF types (Lyster & Mori 2006; Sheen, 2004). In other
words, we expected context to influence learners response to the different types of CF.

2. METHOD
2.1. Procedure
In order to examine oral interaction in the two contexts we followed a classroom observation
procedure, as usual in this type of descriptive studies (Chaudron, 1977, 1986; Lyster & Ranta,
1997; Panova & Lyster, 2002). We selected two different contexts in order to compare them.
On the one hand, a traditional English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom where the
language is the learning target and where lessons will be mainly form-focused (Long &
Robinson, 1998). On the other hand, a CLIL classroom (Dalton-Puffer, 2011), where
language is used as a tool to acquire content knowledge and the lessons are expected to be
more oriented to meaning than in the EFL setting.
2.2. Setting and participants
The school selected for the study was a public high school offering post-compulsory
secondary education as well as several professional courses. At the post-compulsory
secondary education level the school offers a trilingual program in Spanish, Basque and
English with a similar proportion of hours in each of the three languages. In order to be
admitted to the program learners have to pass an English test- they are waived if they have

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Ruth Milla & Mara Pilar Garca Mayo

attended any kind of trilingual program in compulsory secondary education (ESO) or they
have an official certificate of their English level.
The learners participating in this study (n=30) belonged to an intact class in the second
year of post-compulsory secondary education in the trilingual program and were 16-17 years
old (mean age =16.83). The learners completed a background questionnaire and the Oxford
Placement Test (Syndicate, U.C.L.E., 2001). The results of this test showed that they had an
intermediate proficiency level.
The learners were observed in two different contexts, Business Studies classes and
English classes, with two different teachers. They had four lessons of Business Studies per
week and three lessons of English language. The length of each lesson was about 50 minutes.
The two participant teachers were non-native speakers of English and, when asked in
informal interviews, they both showed great awareness towards the need of CF (Ferris et al.,
1997; Lasagabaster & Sierra, 2005; Lee, 2004). However, they differed in their preferences
regarding the types of errors corrected and the way to provide these corrections. The English
teacher was a female with 23 years of EFL teaching experience. She followed a methodology
more oriented to form and reported a preference to more explicit and output-pushing
feedback types. On the other hand, the teacher of Business Studies was a male teacher with a
university degree in Economics and Business Studies who had been teaching for 17 years, the
last 5 using English as the language of instruction. He, as many other CLIL teachers,
considers language as the tool to develop content, which is the main aim of his lessons (de
Graaff et al., 2007). Therefore, he tries to convey CF in an implicit way in order not to
deviate learners attention from content.
2.3. Data collection
Neither the teachers nor the learners were told about the specific purpose of the study. They
only knew they were being recorded and observed because we were interested in their oral
interaction. The idea was that they acted as naturally as possible in order to gather authentic
data. That is the reason why we did not give the teachers any indication about their provision
of feedback or the types of tasks that they had to carry out. Each of them used whatever
activities were planned according to the course syllabus, which added to the ecological
validity of the study. That is, the different activities used in both contexts actually feature
what usually occurred in regular classroom sessions.
A total of seven sessions (six hours and seventeen minutes) were audio-recorded with
four digital recorders (Olympus DS-5000) placed in strategic points of the classroom. We
recorded three lessons of Business Studies (147 minutes) and four lessons of English
language (230 minutes). During the recordings, the first author sat down at the back of the
room taking notes of the verbal and non-verbal language expressed in the interaction (See
Appendix for observation scheme) as well as the type of activities conducted and the
organization of the lessons. This information was reflected in the researchers notes following
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Corrective feedback episodes in oral interaction

the Communicative Orientation of Language Teaching (COLT) scheme (Spada and Frhlich,
1995).

2.4. Data analysis

The oral data collected were transcribed using CHILDES conventions (MacWhinney, 1995).
Table 1 features the transcription codes used to classify the data on the basis of the type of
error, CF moves- indicating types of correction- and uptake moves for every type of CF.
CODE
*
CC
CR
EC
ElC
ElR
ER
MC
MR
NR
NU
RC
RpC
RpR
RR
Xxx

MEANING

Error
Clarification correction
Clarification repair
Explicit correction
Elicitation correction
Elicitation repair
Explicit correction repair
Metalinguistic correction
Metalinguistic repair
No repair
No uptake
Recast correction
Repetition correction
Repetition repair
Recast repair
Unintelligible word or phrase

Table 1. Transcription codes.

Only immediate uptake was looked at, as previously done in other studies on CF.
Although we cannot claim that uptake represents learning, it has been found to be indicative
of some kind of awareness that could lead to interlanguage re-structuring, especially if the
error is repaired (Gass & Mackey, 2007; Long, 1996). Uptake moves in this study were
grouped according to the type of CF the learners reacted to. In this case, we operationalized
uptake as any reaction on the part of the learner to the CF move, no matter whether the error
was repaired or not. Uptake moves in examples (2) and (3) illustrate this:
(2) Learner: who is their immediate /*Imediat/ line manager.
Teacher: immediate /mi:.di.t/ [RC].
Learner:

immediate /mi:.di.t/ line manager [RR].

(3) Learner: he admit /*admait/ he didnt know...

Teacher: how do you say this [ElC]?
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Ruth Milla & Mara Pilar Garca Mayo

Learner: admit /*admait/ [NR].

Example (2) belongs to the CLIL setting. The learner mispronounces the word
immediate and the teacher recasts the error by offering the correct form. In this case, the
learner recognizes the corrective nature of the feedback move and repairs the errors by
repeating the teachers correction. Example (3) shows how the EFL teacher provides a more
explicit CF move, an elicitation, to another pronunciation error. In this case, however, the
learner shows uptake by reacting to the corrective move but he is not able to repair the error
yet. We will see in example (9) the whole excerpt for this CFE, where the EFL teacher needs
to use several feedback moves to obtain repair of this specific error.
CLAN was used to quantify the occurrences of each element of interest, as will be
explained below. Fifty-six (56) minutes of classroom interaction were coded by both
researchers resulting in agreement of 95% in the identification and categorization of CFEs.
Once the data were collected and codified, they were quantitatively and qualitatively
analyzed and compared with the results from previous related studies. The next section
discusses the results obtained in the light of the predictions we had made based on the
literature review.

3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The goal of our first research question was to examine the types of CF occurring in the two
contexts. As Graph 1 below shows, the EFL teacher used several correction techniques
whereas the CLIL teacher mainly used recasts. However, we must take into account that the
EFL teacher participating in this study provides a combination of types for the same error in
most CFEs analyzed. Lyster and Ranta (1997) refer to this strategy as multiple feedback
provision. This type of combined correction is much richer than using a specific type of
feedback, as it brings learners attention to the errors in different ways, which clearly shows
the orientation of the lesson towards form.

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Corrective feedback episodes in oral interaction

25
20
15
10

CLIL

EFL

Graph 1. Types of feedback moves in CLIL and EFL lessons

Corrective moves in the EFL lessons were more explicit than in CLIL lessons, where
correction was provided in a more implicit way. These results are in line with those in Lyster
and Mori (2006), where the teacher in the JFL context provided more explicit correction due
to the focus of the lesson, more oriented to form. Similarly, the researchers also found more
occurrences of implicit correction in the more meaning-focused lessons in the FSL context.
These findings seem to be in line with ours as well.
Therefore, it seems that the predictions for RQ1 are fulfilled, that is, the types of CF
provided were different for each of the contexts. In order to offer a more detailed analysis of
these findings, individual ANOVAs were performed to see if there was an effect of the
context in the use of each of the CF types. As Table 2 shows, the two teachers only use
repetition and explicit correction moves in a significantly different way. What these
significant differences seem to indicate is that the EFL teacher has a clear preference for
more explicit types of CF, whereas the CLIL teacher favours more implicit types. A possible
reason for the lack of significance in the other types of CF moves might be found in the
limited amount of moves in our database, a problem that derives from the exploratory nature
of the present study and that will have to be overcome in future research.
Feedback type

F-statistic

p-value

Context effect

RECASTS
CLARIFICATION REQUESTS
REPETITION
ELICITATION
METALINGUISTIC CLUES
EXPLICIT CORRECTION

2.45
2.94
7.55
3.46
5.51
27

0.172
0.147
0.04
0.122
0.066
0.003

NO
NO
YES
NO
NO
YES

Table 2. ANOVA

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Ruth Milla & Mara Pilar Garca Mayo

10

In an attempt to provide a more in-depth analysis of our data, we have analyzed the CF
moves in order to show that there is a qualitative difference in the way the EFL and the CLIL
teachers approach feedback provision. Thus, in the CLIL context the most frequent (and
nearly the only) type of CF move was the recast type as seen in example (2) above.
CF provision in the EFL classroom took different forms. Example (4) shows how the
teacher uses different types of CF moves (the numbers in parentheses refer to each type of CF
type, as follows: (1) Explicit correction, (2) Recast (written feedback), (3) Recast, (4)
Repetition, (5) Metalinguistic clues, (6) Elicitation, (7) Metalinguistic clues, (8) Explicit
correction, (9) Recast (written feedback)):

(4) CF IN EFL
Learner: instead of using the speech and rhyme to express meaning signers
/*sngrs/ use their hands in fact anything that can be expressed through spoken
language can also be expressed through sign /*sng/ language.
Teacher: What was the problem with their speech? There was a very big problem
(1) [EC].No it was this (Teacher writes the word sign on the whiteboard (2)
[RC] that their text was about sign /san/ language (3) [RC] and they invented a
language: singers were singing the language (4) [RpC] and you could see a person
who wasnt singing at all, right? She was moving her hands! Be careful! Some
pronunciation mistakes stop communication altogether! (5) [MC] How do you say
this? (6) [ElC]
Learners: sign /san/! [ElR]
Teacher: sign /san/ and remember that the g should be omitted its a silent letter in
English (7) [MC] so sign language, right? And you dont say singer (8) [EC], say
(She writes the word signer on the whiteboard) signer /san/ sign /san/ language
signer (9) [RC].
Examples (2) and (4) illustrate the difference between both teachers: While the CLIL
teacher just provides a reformulation and tries not to interrupt the learners idea, the EFL
teacher waits until the learner has finished his utterance, stops the topic and devotes time
exclusively to the provision of CF. We can also notice that she does not use one type of
feedback but a combination of types: This EFL teacher uses nearly the whole spectrum of CF
types; even after the learners peer-repair, she offers metalinguistic information and repeats
the recasting of the words pronunciation. She uses this strategy to bring learners attention to
the error and to try to encourage peer-repair. These two sample excerpts illustrate how CF
provision differs in the two contexts.

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Corrective feedback episodes in oral interaction

11

50
40
CORRECTION

30

UPTAKE

20
10
0

CLIL

EFL

Graph 2. Correction and uptake moves in CLIL and EFL contexts

What is interesting now is to know whether the combination of CF moves was more
effective for the learners than the implicit correction that the CLIL teacher provided. That is
why, before looking at uptake to the specific feedback types in each of the contexts, we
examined uptake in a general way in CLIL and EFL. Graph 2 shows the number of corrective
moves as well as uptake moves in each context.
Overall, CF was significantly more effective in EFL (p-value = 0.00004), with 82% of
the CF moves obtaining learners uptake. In CLIL, uptake was considerably lower, but still
52% of the corrections led to a response. Therefore, it seems that this combination of CF
types the EFL teachers uses, or mainly the further attention to form that we have in this
context, is beneficial for CF effectiveness, at least in the short term.
Our second research question aimed to explore the learners reaction (uptake) towards
the different types of CF moves in each of the settings. It also addressed the issue of whether
context influenced uptake and, if it did, in which way the learners behaviour was different.
We have seen the general learners response to CF but we were especially interested in the
differences among the different types of CF and their corresponding learner uptake. Graph 3
features the results of uptake proportions in the two settings:

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Ruth Milla & Mara Pilar Garca Mayo

12

70,0
60,0
50,0
40,0
30,0
20,0
10,0
0,0

CLIL
EFL

Graph 3. Proportion of uptake to the different types of feedback in each context.

Graph 3 shows that elicitation and recasts were the only CF moves that led to some
learner uptake in the CLIL setting whereas there is uptake from other CF moves in the EFL
setting, especially from clarification requests and recasts.
We wanted to explore whether there was an effect of context in the uptake proportion to
each type of feedback. An ANOVA test showed that there was no significant difference
between the proportions of uptake to each of the feedback types in the CLIL and EFL lessons
(F=0.34 and p-value=0.575). One of the reasons for these results might be that the contexts
analysed here are not exactly the same as in Lyster and Mori (2006). Although in our study
there is a setting which is more oriented to form (the EFL lesson here and the JFL classroom
in Lyster and Moris study) and another context which is more oriented to meaning or content
(the CLIL lesson here and the FSL in Lyster and Mori 2006), some differences exist between
the contexts in both studies. First, our CLIL context is oriented to content in a different way
from the French immersion classroom. In CLIL there is a balance between content and
language: language is not only part of the lesson but the tool to develop content (Coyle,
2007). Consequently, it is not surprising that the results differ from those in previous studies
that include more content-oriented contexts than CLIL. Bearing these differences in mind, we
will analyze these data from a more qualitative perspective and see how correction and
uptake work in the specific context of our study. For this analysis, we will concentrate on
those CF types which were actually used by the EFL and CLIL teachers in the present study.
On the one hand, recasts, which were frequently used in both contexts, obtained a
similar proportion of uptake. Graph 3 illustrates that the proportion of uptake is not very high,
just about forty per cent, and this could be due to different reasons. One of them could be the
lack of salience of this type of CF, which might prevent learners from noticing them
(Carroll, 1997; Lyster, 1998; Schachter, 1981). Another reason could be that the focus on
meaning of the activities might be constraining learners attention to form, and so, they do
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Corrective feedback episodes in oral interaction

13

not capture the corrective nature of the reformulation (Mackey et al., 2000, 2007). In the
CLIL lessons, nearly all corrections were recasts, but not all corrective moves were provided
in such a way that learners had opportunities for repair. Example (5) illustrates how, after
providing a morphosyntactic recast, the teacher does not offer the learner the opportunity to
self-repair but, rather, goes on with the lesson.
(5) RECAST IN CLIL
Learner: the value that it has when the company start*.
Teacher: ok, when the company starts [RC] and do you remember that in order to
calculate we have a simple formula ok? it is...? (Addressing another learner) Do you
remember?
In other cases, learners were more focused on meaning and did not pay attention to
recasts, as in example (6) below, which is part of a negotiation of meaning episode about the
word limited.
(6) RECAST IN CLIL
Learner: yes, limited is when you can lose something or the money that you have
invest*
Teacher: that you have invested invested [RC].
Learner: and unlimited when you lose the personal wealth [NU].
In the EFL classroom, as we saw above, the teacher used a combination of methods in
most cases. That is why it seems that recasts were not always effective, as learners had no
opportunity for repair until the teacher finished offering her multiple feedback. Let us
illustrate this with example (7), where the teacher changes the topic after the correction and
allows no repair move:
(7) RECAST+EXPLICIT CORRECTION IN EFL
Learner: the awards presentation ceremony which is celebrated xxx many artists
perform xxx popular televised /*televi:zd/ xxx.
Teacher: televised /tel..vaz / [RC] no televised /*televi:zd/ [EC] televised, right, yes,
so we have got that, yes, so, what do we know about it? In general what, the adjective
they use to talk about the.
On the other hand, we find elicitation, a quite explicit type of feedback. In our study
elicitation was hardly ever used in the CLIL lessons, as shown in Graph 1. However, this type
rendered a very high proportion of uptake, which goes in line with Lyster and Moris (2006)

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Ruth Milla & Mara Pilar Garca Mayo

14

study: prompts obtained greater uptake in the more content-oriented lessons than in the more
form-focused one. Let us consider an example:
(8) ELICITATION IN CLIL
Learner: yes el proceso*.
Teacher: try in English [ElC] because we are
Learner: it is the process [ElR] where the machines do the work more
In this study we can see that elicitation in the EFL lessons obtained a small proportion
of uptake, the same as explicit correction and metalinguistic clues. We can see this in
example (9) below:
(9) COMBINATION OF CF TYPES IN EFL
Learner: he admait* he didnt know (after the whole activity is corrected, she focuses
on the errors)
Teacher: and some things Monica when you say I heard this admit /*dmait/ [RpC] (1)
but you didnt mean this at the beginning you meant [ElC](2)?
Learner: eh [NU]
Teacher: how do you say this [ElC] (3)?
Learner: admit /*dmait / [NR].
Teacher: no you have a double consonant here admit but its not a present [MC] (4)
so
Learner: admit /dm t/ [MR].
Teacher: make it past [MC] (5) cause can you say it no you have to say admitted [RC]
and say it.
Learner: admitted /*dm tt/ [NR].
Teacher: admitted /dmtd/ [RC] (6).
Learner: admitted /dmtd/ [RR].
Teacher: ok, admitted
(1) Repetition, (2) Elicitation, (3) Elicitation, (4) Metalinguistic clues, (5) Metalinguistic
clues, (6) Recast
Example (8) showed how an elicitation move leads to learner repair in the CLIL
classroom whereas in example (9) we can see that the EFL teacher needs to use several CF
types (numbered 1-6 in example (9)). As repetition and elicitation are inefficient, she has to
provide metalinguistic information, and eventually, once the learner has realized about the
error but cannot repair it by himself, she provides a recast, offering the correct form.
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Corrective feedback episodes in oral interaction

15

Nevertheless, we cannot claim that this last type is the only one that triggers repair, but
probably the combination of all the types has led to the learners noticing of the correction.
Therefore, as examples (4) and (9) illustrate, the types of correction and their
combination are not identical to other studies, where each error received only one CF move,
and where uptake (or absence of it) was clearly originated by the type of correction involved
in each case. This difference in the use of CF types in our study might be one of the reasons
why our findings are not in line with results reported in previous studies. Moreover, we must
take into account that uptake in this study was limited by the teachers themselves, as we saw
in examples (5) and (7) above. Besides, although results in the EFL classroom suggest that
uptake was low, actually most of the errors addressed led to uptake.
Summing up, these different ways of CF provision may account for the difference in
the results that we have found in the quantitative analyses of the learners uptake. In the next
section we will conclude by reviewing the interpretations and the possible implications of
these results, pointing out the limitations that might have contributed to these differences too.

4. CONCLUSIONS
The goal of this paper was to investigate CFEs in oral interaction in two different settings: a
meaning-oriented CLIL classroom and a more form-oriented classroom (EFL). Our intention
was to examine the types of feedback provided in each of the settings and to consider whether
there was a context effect for CF provision and learners uptake. The study was motivated by
the lack of empirical research comparing both the more established EFL approach and a
CLIL approach that is becoming very popular in several countries. The present paper was
inspired by the CH (Lyster & Mori, 2006) and, therefore, a second goal was to examine
whether this hypothesis would be of any relevance in these two learning contexts.
Results obtained from the classroom observation procedure indicate that there are
differences in the types, quantity and manner of provision of CF between the two classroom
contexts. A detailed qualitative analysis was carried out in order to find out to what extent the
CFEs in these two settings differed. The behaviour towards CF of the two teachers
participating in the study, which in turn seemed to influence learners uptake (or absence of
it), was also analyzed. In addition, the differences between our EFL context and the JFL in
Lyster and Moris (2006) study were considered as well as the different nature of our CLIL
lessons and Lyster and Moris (2006) FSL lessons.
The CLIL lesson was clearly more content-oriented than any type of EFL or ESL
classroom (Coyle, 2007) and that is probably the reason why the teacher in our CLIL
classroom nearly exclusively offered implicit correction. The EFL lesson was clearly more
form-focused and the teacher used a wider range of CF moves to address learners errors.
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Ruth Milla & Mara Pilar Garca Mayo

The different settings might be accounting for the different results obtained in the two classes
considered in the present study.
Although, as mentioned throughout the paper, this has been an exploratory study and
findings would be hard to generalize, some of the results obtained should make us reflect on
what actually occurs in real classroom settings. What this exploratory study on a CLIL and an
EFL classroom has shown is that detailed classroom observation in both settings should be a
must before any claim about the potential benefits of CLIL is made. Ecological validity
should be seriously considered in future research comparing EFL and CLIL settings. We have
shown that repetition and explicit correction were the only CF moves that were significantly
different across the two settings. The EFL teacher makes frequent use of those moves and
also of a richer range of CF techniques which, as shown in Graph 3, seem to be very effective
as far as uptake is concerned. It still remains an empirical question and one in need of further
research whether or not the use of CF that would be more salient in each instructional setting,
as proposed in the CH, would lead to further uptake by the learners.
We cannot ignore that one of the possible reasons why our results are not in line with
previous literature on CF is the limited number of CFE observations generated. It is likely
that if more data had been recorded and more CFE identified, statistics would have been more
robust. Besides, the teachers different teaching styles might be influencing the results so
future research will have to include data from the same teacher in the two contexts. A third
limitation is one that has been acknowledged in many studies of the kind: effectiveness has
been based on learners immediate uptake but long-term acquisition should be considered in
order to assess the real impact of CF on learners IL. As pointed out by one of the reviewers,
further research on this topic should measure the impact of CF and uptake on particular target
features, although this aspect was beyond the aims of the present study. Finally, we have only
looked at oral correction, when maybe written feedback that learners in these contexts receive
could also be examined, as suggested by Sheen (2011). Future research should take these
shortcomings into account. The sample of participants needs to be increased as well as the
number of lessons in order to be able to create a corpus of CFEs characteristic of each type of
practice. Besides, we consider it necessary to continue the observation of both EFL and CLIL
classrooms and of those individual differences in the participants that might be influencing
the nature of CFEs in teacher-learner interaction.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors gratefully acknowledge funding from research grants IT -311-10 from the Basque
Government and UFI 11/06 from the University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU. We are extremely
grateful to Botikazahar high school for participating in the study and especially to the teachers Susana
Hernndez and Iaki Valencia for allowing data collection in their classrooms.

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Corrective feedback episodes in oral interaction

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20

APPENDIX: OBSERVATION SCHEME

Classroom/Subject:
Date:
Students error

No of learners:
Time:
Type

Teachers feedback

Teacher:
Type

Learners uptake

Type

Type of error: M-morphosyntactic, L-lexical, P-phonological, 1-L1 use (Basque or Spanish)

Type of feedback: R-recast, CL-clarification request, Rp-repetition, E- Elicitation, M-metalinguistic
info, EC-explicit correction
Type of uptake: R-repair, NR-needs repair, NU-no uptake

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Gist Education and Learning Research Journal. ISSN 1692-5777.

No. 8, (January - June) 2014. pp. 29-47.

The Effect of Video-Based Tasks

in Listening Comprehension of
Iranian Pre-intermediate EFL
Learners1
Los Efectos de las Actividades Basadas en Videos en
la Comprensin Auditiva de los Estudiantes Iranes de
Ingls Intermedio
Abdullah Sarani, Esmail Zare Behtash
and Saieed Moslemi Nezhad Arani2*
University of Sistan and Baluchestan,
Chabahar Maritime University,
University of Sistan and Baluchestan, Iran
Abstract
This study aims at finding the effect of video-based tasks in improving the
listening comprehension ability of Iranian pre-intermediate EFL (English
Foreign Language) learners. After determining the level of learners, an
experimental and control group, each of 20 participants, were nominated to
contribute to the study. From the time the pre-test was administered to each
group, the experimental group was taught by a course of instruction based
on video tasks for teaching listening comprehension. The control group was
directed by a course of instruction only based on audio materials. Paired
Samples T-test computation was utilized by SPSS software to calculate the
level of significant difference in pre- and post-tests. Results show that teaching
listening on the basis of video-based tasks has a significant effect on learners
listening comprehension in realizing and understanding the authentic language
more effectively.
Keywords: task, Task-based Language Learning (TBLL), listening
comprehension, motivation, video-based tasks

Received: January 6, 2014 / Accepted: April 20, 2014

saieed91@yahoo.com

No. 8 (January - June 2014)

29

The Effects Of Video-Based Tasks

Resumen
El estudio tiene como objetivo conocer el efecto de usar actividades basadas
en videos para mejorar la habilidad/destreza de comprensin auditiva de los
estudiantes iranes de ingls nivel intermedio. Despus de determinar el nivel
de ingls de los estudiantes, se crearon dos grupos, un grupo experimental
y un grupo de control, cada uno conformado por 20 estudiantes, los cuales
fueron seleccionados para contribuir al estudio. Desde el momento en que fue
administrado el test diagnstico a cada uno de los grupos; el grupo experimental
recibi actividades basadas en videos para la enseanza de la comprensin
auditiva. El grupo de control recibi instruccin basada nicamente en
materiales de audio. Para el clculo de las muestras apareadas del test t se
utiliz el programa de anlisis estadstico (SPSS) versin 20, el cual permiti
conocer el nivel de diferencias significativas en el test diagnstico inicial y los
posteriores. Los resultados revelan que la enseanza de la destreza auditiva
basada en actividades utilizando videos tiene un efecto significativo en la
comprensin auditiva de los estudiantes para desarrollar y entender el idioma
de una forma ms autntica y eficaz.
Palabras clave: tareas, aprendizaje basado en tareas (TBLL),
comprensin auditiva, motivacin, actividades basadas en videos

Resumo
O estudo tem como objetivo conhecer o efeito de usar atividades baseadas
em vdeos para melhorar a habilidade/destreza de compreenso auditiva dos
estudantes iranianos de ingls nvel intermdio. Depois de determinar o nvel
de ingls dos estudantes, criaram-se dois grupos, um grupo experimental
e um grupo de controle, cada um conformado por 20 estudantes, os quais
foram selecionados para contribuir ao estudo. Desde o momento em que foi
administrado o teste diagnstico a cada um dos grupos; o grupo experimental
recebeu atividades baseadas em vdeos para o ensino da compreenso auditiva.
O grupo de controle recebeu instruo baseada unicamente em materiais de
udio. Para o clculo das amostras em pares do teste t se utilizou o programa
de anlise estatstico (SPSS) verso 20, o qual permitiu conhecer o nvel de
diferencias significativas no teste diagnstico inicial e os posteriores. Os
resultados revelam que o ensino da destreza auditiva baseada em atividades
utilizando vdeos tem um efeito significativo a compreenso auditiva dos
estudantes para desenvolver e entender o idioma de uma forma mais autntica
e eficaz.

30

Palavras chave: tarefas, aprendizagem baseada em tarefas (TBLL),

compreenso auditiva, motivao, atividades baseadas em vdeos

No. 8 (January - June 2014)

Sarani, Behtash, Nezhad

Introduction

number of studies indicate that tasks can have a great effect on

learning as well as pedagogy; that is, using tasks is practical
both for teaching and learning effectively. It is clearly stated
by Nunan (2004) that The concept of task has become an important
element in syllabus design, classroom teaching and learner assessment.
It underpins several significant research agendas, and it has influenced
educational policymaking in both ESL and EFL settings (p. 1).
Accordingly, task-based language teaching has strengthened many
other principles and practices. Yousefi, Mohammadi, and Koosha
(2012) propose a number of approaches of task-based exploration:
psychological, interactional, socio-cultural, structure-focused, and
cognitive, information-theoretical approach. It seems that the first and
the third approaches are most closely related to the goal of this study,
which is psychological. It seems that the presence of audio, in addition
to visual information, may convey some sort of feeling for listeners in
which they feel they are experiencing a real context with all its details.
It is also important to consider the fact that standardized tasks are
designed for specific purposes, so they are based on a structure-focused
approach, resulting in expected outputs. The pedagogic considerations
of task-based listening are mentioned by Ellis (2003) as well: The
research based on listening-and-do tasks has shown that such tasks are
effective both as listening comprehension devices and as a means of
presenting new linguistic material to students (p. 66).

This idea of teaching and keeping learners exposed to problemsolving tasks for language teaching easily and effectively can be applied
in listening comprehension ability. As Spearritt (1962) states, Formal
training in listening has been virtually nonexistent; any listening skills that
pupils have acquired have come incidentally in the course of studying other
subjects (p. 22). Accordingly, tasks can create variety and enjoyment for
teaching and learning listening comprehension. Ruso (2009) considers
that increasing learners motivation and performance can be achieved by
using task-based instruction during the course of instruction.
It is worth mentioning that nearly all students with different
proficiency levels are not satisfied by the gained level of listening
comprehension ability. After passing a long course of instruction, still
they have problems in listening comprehension, and may say I could
not understand the spoken texts or any other types of audio materials.
The problems this study treats are those of finding the effect of taskbased instruction on listening comprehension, and proposing the use
of video-based tasks as suitable for instruction in teaching listening
comprehension. Elliss idea about the helpful role of employing tasks
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The Effects Of Video-Based Tasks

in listening comprehension ability proves that task-based instruction

can have a positive effect in increasing listening comprehension ability.
According to Ellis (2003) Like researchers, teachers can use listening
tasks to present the student with input enriched with specific features
they (students) wish to target (p. 37).
The importance of learning and teaching English as a foreign
language has created a daily demand towards applying effective
strategies for teaching and learning the four main skills (listening,
speaking, reading, writing), as they are the ultimate goal of learning a
language. Many difficulties and obstacles on this road oblige us to everyday revisions and apply new methods of teaching for better adaptation
and superior output. The importance of listening comprehension is also
emphasized by Spearritt (1962) Yet listening undoubtedly plays an
important part in the process of communication. Various studies have
indicated that, in terms of the amount of time the four communication
skills are employed, listening is the most important skill (p. 2).
Regarding this, the listening skill has created problems in both teaching
and learning listening comprehension. Students often complain that
even with intensive practices, they cannot comprehend any type of
spoken texts fully. The idea of intensive practices is different from tasks,
where an effective task can have supportive results after just involving
learners with the task once or twice, than providing them some prepared
practices and asking them to do them hundreds of times. Highlighting
the importance of task-based listening, we can refer to the idea of Ellis
(2003) where he believes the task-based listening research has
contributed to our understanding of how specific input properties affect
comprehension and language acquisition (p. 65).

32

Through different studies published in different contexts, such

as India by Mohanraj (1994), Turkey by Tavil (2010), and French by
Graham (2005), it is implied that task-based instruction can improve
listening comprehension ability meaningfully. Still, task-based
instruction, by all of its proponents, has not satisfied some others on its
methodology. Regarding this, the real gap is what Ellis comments, (2003)
However, task-based curriculum still involves making decisions about
content (i.e., what tasks to include in the syllabus) and methodology
(i.e., how the tasks will be used in the classroom), thus, it is important
to maintain the distinction in discussions of task-based teaching (p.
79). Continuing this view of modification, this study considers videobased tasks for teaching listening comprehension. Warschauer (2002)
also comments, Communicative language teaching and learning has
proven that the use of video can accelerate the understanding of learners
to the real use of language (p. 4).
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Sarani, Behtash, Nezhad

The goal behind this study is to investigate the effectiveness

of video-based tasks instruction on Iranian pre-intermediate EFL
learners listening comprehension ability. This intends to see if there
is any noteworthy effect of video-based tasks instruction on improving
listening comprehension ability of EFL learners. The regarded level of
learners is limited to pre-intermediate EFL learners within the Iranian
educational milieu. The question which this study wants to answer can
be stated as follows:
Does task based instruction on the basis of video-based tasks have a
significant effect on improving listening comprehension of Iranian preintermediate EFL learners?

Researchers of this study, after testing the idea of video-based

tasks instruction in some small contexts (such as classrooms, learners
groups) and getting possitive effect, planned to conduct the same
idea in larger context. This is why the hypothesis is defined as a null
hypothesis.
H01 Task-based instruction on the basis of video-based tasks does not
have any significant effect on improving listening comprehension ability
of Iranian pre-intermediate EFL learners.

Literature Review
The perception of a task has become a significant building
block in syllabus design, classroom teaching and learner assessment. It
adds force to several important research programs, and has influenced
educational policymaking in both ESL and EFL settings (Nunan,
2004). Many studies have been done regarding this concept and the
idea of task-based instruction. For example, Willis (1996) and Nunan
(2004) focus on the importance of tasks through language learning.
Ellis (2003) is also one of the pioneers in taking task-based instruction
into the teaching of listening comprehension. This idea and practical
manifestation of Ellis may be accompanied by the Factorial Analysis
idea of listening by Spearritt (1962). Different parts of the world are
experiencing task-based language teaching (TBLT) through different
practical studies such as Carless (2002), Ruso (2009), Yousefi,
Mohammadi & Koosha (2012), and others.
It is believed by many scholars that listening comprehension has
been neglected in the contemporary era in language teaching. This idea
is considered by Vandergrift and Goh (as cited in Long & Doughty,
2009). For year the role of listening in language acquisition and
communication was undervalued and neglected. Second and foreign
language (SL/FL) listening was often developed incidentally through
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33

The Effects Of Video-Based Tasks

language exercises where oral language was used (p. 395). They
argue that listening comprehension in second and foreign language
teaching found its substance during the communicative language
period, in which language is used for face-to-face communication by
having listening comprehension as part of its foundation. Accordingly,
it seems that listening is a kind of base for comprehensible input and
the foremost aspect in inter-language communications. In terms of
language expertise, they describe different aspects involved in listening
comprehension as well as how to teach effectively. Long and Doughty
(2009) describe a variety of theories based on special disciplines. The
review of teaching listening is organized around three main topics: (1)
cognitive and social dimension of listening, (2) approaches to teaching
listening, and (3) assessment of listening (p. 395). The present study
tries to continue the above mentioned framework in order to define and
clear the listening comprehension concept.
By examining the literature on the teaching of listening in different
settings such as SL (Second Language) and FL (Foreign Language),
it is underestood that listening comprehenstion merely used to seize
the meaning from the written or spoken situations disregards teaching
learners how to listen. For a time, teaching listening was mainly
focused on listening itself rather than teaching different strategies to
apply in successful comprehension of spoken language. Later on, the
pre-listening stage was added to teach listening in order to activate prior
knowledge. It was argued that teaching listening comprehension should
offer a kind of framework and ladder-like situation which help learners
in addition to using their own previous knowledge to be able to realize
and try out processes in listening comprehension. In fact, learners
should learn how to listen.

34

Further, research in SL/FL shows how teaching listening

comprehenstion has been conducted in two main frameworks of
bottom-up and top-down approaches. Bottom-up processing in listening
demands an awareness of sounds and words in the stream of speech. It
means that when there is an enough understanding of lexical items,
listeners will be able to use their contextual knowledge to comprehend
the input. According to Long and Doughty (2009) the bottom-up
approach to listening acknowledges the primacy of the acoustic signal
and focuses on helping learners develop critical perception skills (p.
399). It should be reminded that bottom-up processing is not exactly
a method of teaching. Field (2004) supports this idea and believes,
Strictly speaking, however, the terms refer not to particular levels of
processing but to directions of processing. In a bottom-up process,
small (lower level) units are progressively reshaped into larger
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Sarani, Behtash, Nezhad

ones (p. 344). For example, when learners are listening to the spoken
language in order to have a clear comprehension, based on their prior
knowledge about phonemes, they will interpret that the word exists and
is understandable.
Speech segmentation, as its name implies, is defined as
underestanding or realizing different factors, boundaries, and features
in words through speech. Different studies have been conducted to
show the importance of speech segmentation, especially for listeners
in SL/FL contexts. Culter (2001) believes that when individuals are
listening to a new language that is rhythmically different from their
own, they can constrain their own language segmentation procedures.
It is obvious that prosodic features such as stress and intonation are
important cues for defining boundaries of a word. Regarding so, Harly
(2000) concludes that apprehending speech units rather than syntactic
clues could be very helpful in underestanding of English. Field (2005)
also states inserting word boundaries before stressed syllables can
help to identify words in a stream of speech (p. 6). However, it is also
argued that if learners are aware of the difference between their own
lagnguage segmentation and the second language, this consciousness
will help them beneficially.
The top-down aspect of listening comprehension can be defined
as helping learners understand the nature of listening comprehension
in order to become more independent in applying strategies (Goh,
2008). In the top-down approach, promoting learners metacognitive
awareness is the key aim. For example, at the end of the course of
instruction, learners should be able to use different types of strategies
outside the class as successful listeners. Metacognitive knowledge
in top-down processing refers to the learners understanding of the
ways in which different features act and cooperate. Based on Long
and Doughty (2009) this knowledge can be devided into into person
knowledge, task knowledge, and strategy knowledge (p. 401). Person
knowledge refers to personal factors that support or hinder learners
listening such as anxiety or motivation. Task knowledge states that the
purpose of a listening task, its demands, text organization and structure,
features that could obstruct the task, and type of listening skills are
essential to achieve the listening purpose. These useful strategies which
enhance listening comprehension are called strategy knowledge, such
as strategies applied to deal with listening problems and to check
listeners interpretations.
After Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) it is said
that Task-based Language Teaching (TBLT) is a new and up-todate generation of CLT point of view toward language teaching
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The Effects Of Video-Based Tasks

methodology. According to Ellis (2003), tasks are an important feature

of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) (p. 27). It seems that
if we are capable of making language in the classroom meaningful,
students can process language more naturally. Prabhu (as cited in Ruso,
2009) defines a task as an activity which required learners to arrive at
an outcome from given information through some process of thought,
and which allowed teachers to control and regulate that process (p.
24). Ruso also emphasizes the following:
Using tasks in teaching is a popular method and the implication of using
these tasks in a classroom context is observable after conducting research,
many people have studied the implementation of TBL and tasks within
their classrooms and have advised using tasks in language classrooms
suggesting that the motivation of students rises through assigned tasks,
on looking at the positive results that the use of tasks may bring about
in the EFL classroom, it can be said that using a variety of tasks in class
gives positive results. (p. 4)

A fundamental pedagogic concern in Task-based Language

Teaching (TBLT) showed that a task can be fit into a sequence of
instruction. Willis (as cited in Ellis, 2003) Willis envisages a task
cycle consisting of three broad phases: (1) pre-task, (2) task, and (3)
language focus (p. 33). The term task cycle, in fact, refers to the steps
or phases that one task should involve in order to be as effective as
it can be. Through these three stages, the basic concentration can be
upon the form. Ellis explains, In the pre-task phase one option is for
the teacher to highlight useful words and phrases. The task phase ends
with a report where the learners comment on their performance of
the task. In the final phase, learners perform consciousness-raising and
practice activities directed at specific linguistic features that occurred in
the input of the task and/or in the transcripts of fluent speakers doing
the task (p. 33).

36

In the context of the present study, the idea underpinning the use of
task-based instruction with video-based tasks is based on the viewpoint
that with video, the student can not only hear the speakers; he can see
the speakers, the background situational cues, the paralinguistic features,
and the non-verbal communication of the exchange (Wilkinson, 1984,
p. 1). In audio-based materials, which are very commonly used, there
is no visual element and the script be required to contain more verbally
explicit language than is usual in real life to make-up for the absence of
the visual cues. According to Candlin (1982) the danger is, of course,
that students get used to more than usually explicit language and find
real life interaction very difficult to cope with, being less explicit (p.
14). Video, clearly, does not comprise this shortcoming. The language
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Sarani, Behtash, Nezhad

situation presented on video can be both authentic and meaningful

because an important part of the overall message is conveyed by the
visual image. As well, the technical features of video (freeze frame,
review, and preview) provide the teacher with the control required to
facilitate student analysis and comprehension of the language presented
(Candlin, 1982). It seems that no matter how authentic or meaningful
the language presented on video is, it is not true in real life. In real life
situations, a student must not only listen and understand, he or she must
also initiate language. However, Candlin (1982) argues that because
video is such a dynamic medium, well designed video-based activities
can provide an effective stimulus to take students from a passive
listening comprehension to an active oral interaction (p. 1).
Wilkinson (1984) started to use videos with the purpose of applying
activities that define the pedagogical and technical features of video
and involve students in interactive viewing situations that develop both
receptive and productive skills (p. 83). Through this study he used
those learning activities which are increasingly more communicative as
the video progresses, that students contribute energetically during the
total watching, not simply at the end. These activities were regarded as
information retrieval activity (introducing characters), discussion/
consensus activity (Powers of Observation), view and speculate
activity (Possible Motives), jigsaw viewing activity (Whos Guilty?),
and report/debate activity (The Accusation).
Another theoretical study, done by Aulia (2005) evaluates utilizing
video in the testing of listening. He argues:
It is inevitable since it was introduced in language testing assessment
the use of video in listening comprehension still leaves some pros and
cons, some pros are the use of video in pedagogy and the ability of video
to bring salient pragmatic competence and paralinguistic features of the
video, whereas the cons are the distractions that happen due to video and
the inability of video to avoid the ambiguity of interpretation. (p. 6)

Wagner (2004) administered a video listening test and reports that

the results seem to provide some evidence for the validation of a twofactor model of listening based on the ability to comprehend explicitly
stated information, and the ability to comprehend implicit information
in aural texts (p. 1) However, this pilot study mainly focused on
testing of listening comprehension using videos. On the other hand, it
seems that no studies have been done on the basis of teaching listening
comprehension through the video-based tasks. This gap is exactly what
this study wants to explore and to discover.
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The Effects Of Video-Based Tasks

Methodology
Research Design
The conducted plan for this investigation is experimental. Two
groups of subjects (participants) with the same level of proficiency were
nominated to embark on the study, an experimental group and a control
group. Each group involved twenty subjects. Pre- and post-tests were
administrated at the beginning and end of the course of instruction, and
then the data was statistically analyzed.
Materials
The related instruments and materials for this research proposed
as following. Standard English video clips (Top Notch TV Programs),
video-based tasks (such as true-false, multiple-choice, fill-in-the blank,
etc.), pre-and post-tests of listening comprehension directed to both
groups of students from the same intermediate proficiency level. The
required video-based listening comprehension tasks were developed
based on the task-based instruction criteria and also were extracted
from Top Notch TV program worksheets. For the experimental group
the content was designed for 10 sessions of instruction in different
learning objectives.
Data Collection Instruments
This division of subjects into control and experimental groups
was made based on the placement test, which was implemented among
nearly 60 students from different universities in Zahedan, Iran. Two
classes were created: Class A, or the experimental group and Class
B, the control group. Subjects were assigned to either group randomly.
Both groups were given 10 sessions of instruction of 60 minutes for
each session. Then, before the first session, the pre-test of listening
comprehension was administrated to both groups: to Class A as a
video-based listening test and Class B as an audio-based listening test.

38

Class A, the experimental group, was given the pre-test of

listening based on the planned video materials. Five video clips were
selected randomly accompanied by their tasks and activities from the
textbook. For Class B, the same pre-test with identical learning
objectives was given, based on the audio only. After gathering the primary
data from the pre-test, the tasks and activities were implemented using
ten sessions of video material for the experimental group Class A.
Meanwhile, the control group, Class B, used the audio-based material
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Sarani, Behtash, Nezhad

as the course of instruction for teaching listening comprehension. The

process of teaching or instructing this class (experimental group) for
all ten sessions followed the overall lesson planning framework as
succeeding in which comes from task-cycle notion.
Step 1 Preview (Pre-task Phase). To help prepare students
expectations about what they are going to watch and to aid in their
comprehension, teachers used warm-up questions, brainstormed
relevant vocabulary, and conducted other preview activities.
Step 2 View (Task Phase). After a preview activity, instructors
played the video clip first for general comprehension to allow students
to get the main idea or the general story. Then, replayed it several
times for students to grasp more details. The pause button was used
as needed to focus on sections students had difficulty understanding.
Next, students were asked to complete an exercise on the corresponding
activity while they were watching.
Step 3 Review (Post-Task Phase). In this step, we asked
comprehension questions and testified that students had understood the
gist of the video clips. Questions included a variety of question types
yes / no questions, simple wh- questions, and inferential questions.
In addition, or alternatively, students were asked to complete exercises
after they had watched a segment.
Data Analysis and Interpretation
The next stage, the last step through the procedure of this study
was the post-test (final exam) that measured both groups of Class
A and Class B based on their own learning objectives and course
materials. These post-tests, the same as pre-tests, were not the same. By
this time, the data (scores) was collected. The test scores were compared
statistically using a Paired Sample T-Test by SPSS software version 20
(Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) in order to see if there was
any significant difference between the pre- and post-tests in each of the
two groups of learners to determine their level of progression after their
own course of instruction.
Results
The present study tried to answer one basic question established by
one null hypothesis. This hypothesis arose from the idea that task-based
instruction including video could help the listening comprehension
ability of pre-intermediate EFL (English Foreign Language) learners.
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The Effects Of Video-Based Tasks

Through the rest of this section we will define research null hypotheses
and their related questions one by one.
The basic question that this study considered was whether taskbased instruction using video-based tasks have a significant effect on
improving listening comprehension of Iranian pre-intermediate EFL
learners. To answer this question, we conducted Paired-Sample T-Test
computation in order to compare the scores obtained from pre-test and
post-test.
Table 2. Paired Samples Statistics for pre-posttests in experimental
group

As is shown by Table 2, the Paired Samples Statistics, the mean

obtained for the pre-test is 37.4500, and the computed mean for posttest shows 51.0000. At first sight, it is clearly understood that this large
difference in pre- and post-tests mean scores promises a progress.
However, for an exact description, Paired Sample T-Test is providing a
clear notion on the degree of significance.
Table 3. Paired Sample T-Test computation for pre-posttest for
experimental group

40

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Sarani, Behtash, Nezhad

What is implied from Table 3 is that the level of significant

difference between these two pre- and post-tests is defined as .000.
That is, the value of sig. (2-tailed) equals to .000. This value is the
indication of signified difference and the valid progression of students
in the experimental group. So, it seems that learners in the video-based
listening class showed a positive growth in their listening comprehension
ability. Table 4, below, introduces the correlation between the pre- and
post-tests of the above mentioned group.
Table 4. Paired Samples correlations for pre-test and post-test,
experimental group

We also analyzed the attained statistics from the pre-test and posttest in control group. This control group was only instructed based on
audio-based materials.
Table 5. Paired Samples Statistics for pre-test and post-test in control
group

Paying attention to the above table, it is clear that the mean score
for pre-test of listening comprehension is known as 16.5000, and the
same score for post-test shows 15.2500. Apparently, mean scores do not
give evidence on any kind of advancement for learners in the control
group because the pre-test mean score is, surprisingly, higher than the
post-test mean score.

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The Effects Of Video-Based Tasks

Table 6. Paired samples T-Test for control group

Based on Table 6, it is found that there is no significant difference

between the pre-test and the post-test of listening comprehension in
control group of this study. This idea is powered by considering the Sig.
(2-tailed) score. Through the above mentioned table, the Sig. (2-tailed)
score is determined as .279. This score is higher than .05, and regarding
so, the SPSS computation did not detect any significant difference.
Table 7. Paired Samples correlations pre-test and post-test of listening
comprehension in control group

According to Table 7, the sig. level computed as .417. This score

in level of significant difference is quite higher than .05. Totally, it
means that teaching listening comprehension on the basis of audiobased material only had no any positive advancement on the level of
learners listening ability.

42

Based on what was discovered by the pre- and post-tests of

listening comprehension in control group, the question arises as
to what happened to this group in which the pre-test mean score is
somehow higher than the post-test. As already mentioned regarding the
real intention of this study, it seems the reason is lying on the base
of instruction. A focus on the right answer is only, when the listener
is incapable of keeping up with the speech rate, often creates a high
level of anxiety, which, in turn, affects attention capacity (Arnold,
cited in Vandergrift, 2004, p. 8). Vandergrift (2004) also specifies that
while a focus on product allows the teacher to verify comprehension,
the answer (correct or incorrect) reveals nothing about the process; i.e.,
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Sarani, Behtash, Nezhad

how students arrived at comprehension. This is what usually happens

when the basic concerns of our English teachers are devoted towards
the listening and repeating the lessons. Accordingly, based on what we
detected from our control group, relying just on audio-based instruction
never guarantees teaching listening comprehension improvement.
Besides, Buck, upholding that listening capability can only
be attained by listening to many realistic texts for communicative
purposes, also advocates that listening instruction can be greatly
facilitated if teachers understand the nature of listening comprehension
and can sensitize student to important issues and provide the optimum
listening practice (1995, p. 128). This optimization in teaching
listening comprehension is something which can be implied directly
from task-based language teaching accompanied by video. Through
the present study, in which the main concern was placed on teaching
listening comprehension by task-based criteria methodology and using
video, the above mentioned idea has been the matter of attention. This
is the reason when we compare pre-test and post-test mean scores in
our experimental group, obviously, the progression uncovers itself
distinctively. Furthermore, the Paired Samples T-Test detects the level
of .000, which proves the significance difference and the usefulness of
video-based task instruction applied to the experimental group.
However, as it is cited by Vandergrift, (2004), The recent
literature on the L2 listening instruction suggests that students can
benefit from an approach where strategies are taught in an integrated
fashion (p. 10). The on-hand study by its results in testing the first
null hypothesis substantiate with evidence that this integrated approach
can be achieved through instructing listening comprehension through
video-based tasks. Hence, the hypothesis that task-based instruction on
the basis of video-based tasks does not have any significant effect on
improving listening comprehension ability of Iranian pre-intermediate
EFL learners is strongly rejected. It means that our instruction based on
video-based tasks provided students a good development in listening
comprehension ability.
Conclusions

43

Based on the data analysis and related discussion, it is clearly

revealed that video is a very suitable and appropriate tool accompanied
by different types of tasks for teaching and improving listening
comprehension skill. For ELLs (English Language Learners), watching
a person during communicative acts helps scaffold comprehension
because an ELL will also look at a persons body language and facial
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The Effects Of Video-Based Tasks

expressions to help encode the meaning of a message (Erben, 2009).

Besides, video has a vast variety of features in which nearly all types
of tasks within TBLT (Task-Based Language Teaching) are applicable.
Wishfully, the present study will open a new road toward serious use of
videos in teaching as course materials.
For language teachers, a visual element increases the possibilities
for using any text in the classroom. In other words, there are more
things that you can do with words and pictures than with words alone.
This is when video comes and helps us in teaching and learning. In
our todays world of technology, we could access to the mass of online
video with all that is new and at the most advanced stage of creativity.
And, of course, the growth of video sharing has allowed for availability
of various videos. The World Wide Web is commonly not defined by
restrictions. Language teachers can make use of video material from
their learners particular experiences for listening, speaking, reading,
and writing activities and to evaluate their progress.
Finally, video as a worthy listening instrument can improve the
listening knowledge for EFL students. Rarely does it happen that we
provide our students this opportunity that they learn the course objectives
through the video activities. We constantly ask our students to work
with recorded conversations of people they never see. However, we
can add a full innovative dimension to hearing practice in our English
classrooms by using video. The setting, action, emotions, gestures, etc.,
that our students can perceive in a video clip, afford a central visual
motivation for language production and practice.
Obviously it is proved that video-based tasks are totally effective
in improving the listening ability of EFL learners. Not only looking
from a teaching methodology point of view, but considering from
psycholinguistics point of view, based on the present study, it gives the
impression that one of the best ways of teaching and learning listening
skill which is a real, actual, active, and operational approach can be
considered as video-based tasks.

44

Unfortunately, on the level of academic research, there is a

serious lack of studies on using videos for offering video-based courses
of instruction. As it was discussed and as it comes from the title of
the study, even less attention has been paid to listening comprehension
ability. Still, there are some suggestions in which this investigation and
its results encouraged the researcher to propose more studies in this
field.
Based on the present study, it seems that teaching and improving
other skills of English language based on video can be put under
No. 8 (January - June 2014)

Sarani, Behtash, Nezhad

the matter of investigation, for example, courses of instruction for

improving speaking, reading, and writing on the basis of video-based
tasks. Also, the notion of task design for listening comprehension or
other language skills is recommended for future studies. The matter of
gender and their level of satisfaction can be applied to the same study.
Also the concept of age could be put under the investigation.

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The Effects Of Video-Based Tasks

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46

Yousefi, M. H., Mohammadi, E. G., & Koosha, M. (2012). Task

complexity and its implication for pedagogy. Theory and Practice in
Language Studies, 2(7), 77-92.

No. 8 (January - June 2014)

Sarani, Behtash, Nezhad

Authors
*Abdullah Sarani is Associate Professor in the Department
of English Language and Literature, University of Sistan and
Baluchestan. He completed his Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics
at the University of Delhi, India in 2005. His primary research
areas are second language acquisition, language teaching,
discourse analysis, psycholinguistics and stylistics. His research
articles have appeared mainly in international journals.
*Esmail Zare Behtash is a faculty member and the convener
of M.A. students in Chabahar Maritime University, Iran. At
the moment he is a visiting scholar at Oxford University in
Oriental Institute. His publications cover two main areas:
Victorian literature and lexicography, writing bilingual
dictionaries. Professor Behtash has presented a paper on the
Literature Review of FitzGeralds Rubiyt at the University
of Sydney (1992) and another paper on FitzGeralds Rubiyt:
A Victorian Invention in the Nishabour International Seminar
on Omar Khayyam (1999). He has also published articles in
Persian on Faith and Doubt in Victorian Poetry (Shahid
Beheshti University, Tehran) and FitzGerald and Persian
Literature (Orientalia Suecana, Uppsala, Sweden). In July
2009 he presented a paper on the Reception of the Rubiyt by
the Victorians at Cambridge University. Professor Behtash has
published many books, and since 2001, he has been working on
a large-scale project of a Comprehensive Collegiate Persian-toEnglish Dictionary, expected to be published in 2012.
*Saieed Moslemi Nezhad Arani is an M.A. student of TEFOL at
University of Sistan and Baluchestan. He did his undergraduate
work at Payam-e-Noor University of Aran, Iran, and received
his Bachelor of Arts in English translation studies in 2010. Then
he moved to the University of Sistan and Baluchestan, Chabahar
International Campus and started TEFOL studies in 2011.
Meanwhile he started to publish some articles in discourse and
CALL studies He has been an English teacher and translator at
various institutions and schools. He graduated on Master of Arts
in TEFOL Studies in 2013 with the purpose of combining tasks
with videos for teaching English listening comprehension skill.

No. 8 (January - June 2014)

47

The Electronic Journal for English as a Second Language

Factors Affecting Learners Attention to Teacher Talk in Nine ESL

Classrooms
May 2015 Volume 19, Number 1

Weiqing Wang
Xiangtan University, China
<wangweiq@xtu.edu.cn>

Abstract
With classroom observation and stimulated recall interviews as research instruments,
the present study investigated some of the factors that affected learners attention to
teacher talk in nine English as a Second Language (ESL) classrooms. The results
revealed five such factors, namely, learners self evaluation of their language knowledge,
the way teachers provided language information, learners role in language episodes,
peer behavior, and learners concern for face. Specifically, learners paid more attention
to teacher talk when they thought they did not understand a language feature, when
they were the initiator of a question or at least involved in a language episode, when
peers reacted to their mistakes, and when teachers used various techniques to explain a
language point.
Keywords: attention; teacher talk; classroom observation; stimulated recall interview
Introduction
Attention is a process that encodes language input, keeps it active in working and
short-term memory, and retrieves it from long-term memory (Robinson, 2003, p. 631).
It has been identified as an important cognitive process in second language acquisition
(SLA). Noticing is the part of the attentional system that involves the detection and
consequent registration of stimuli in memory (Philp, 2003; Robinson, 1995). It has
generated heated discussion in the field of SLA.
In the second language (L2) literature, almost all theories of L2 learning recognize the
significance of input in the acquisition process (Gass & Selinker, 2001). In L2
classrooms, teacher talk is (one of) the major source(s) of input. Feedback, an important
component of teacher talk, has attracted great attention from researchers. A plethora of
studies have been conducted to examine the effect of the characteristics of particular
teacher feedback moves (e.g., Loewen & Philp, 2006; Sheen, 2006) or the characteristics
of whole teacher feedback episodes (e.g., Ellis, Basturkmen, & Loewen, 2001a, 2001b;
Loewen, 2004, 2005) on L2 learning.

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Given the importance of both attention/noticing and teacher talk in SLA, the study
reported in this paper attempted to investigate some of the factors that affected
learners attention to teacher talk in nine ESL classrooms in a North American context.
Literature review
The role of attention and noticing in SLA
The role of attention and noticing in selecting input for L2 learning is a controversial
issue in the SLA literature. Some researchers believe that attention/noticing is not
important in SLA. Krashen (1982) makes a distinction between language acquisition, a
subconscious process, and language learning, a conscious process. He believes that only
the acquired system can be used to produce language while the learned system can only
serve as a monitor for the former. According to Krashen (1985, 1994), in acquiring a
second language, adult learners can access the same unconscious processes and innate
mechanism that guide first language acquisition, and that conscious learning is of
minimal use for L2 communication. Unlike Krashen, some researchers see a significant
role for attention in SLA. Schmidt (1990, 1993, 2001), for example, argues that we must
pay attention to and notice input in order to learn it. In his famous Noticing
Hypothesis, he proposes that the subjective experience of noticing is the necessary
and sufficient condition for the conversion of input into intake; noticing is therefore the
first step of language learning.
Numerous studies have been conducted to investigate the role of attention and noticing
in SLA (e.g., Gass, Svetics, & Lemelin, 2003; Leow, 2000, 2001; Robinson, 1996, 1997;
Rosa & Leow, 2004; Rosa & ONeill, 1999; Schmidt & Frota, 1986; Williams, 2005).
Although some studies found that there could be learning without awareness, the
cumulative findings from these studies show that attention and noticing are important
in SLA. It has been argued that even if noticing is not the necessary and sufficient
condition for L2 learning, it certainly facilitates L2 learning. In less technical words,
people learn about the things that they attend to and do not learn much about the
things they do not attend to (Schmidt, 2010, p. 722).
The findings of attention/noticing studies in turn have generated a considerable amount
of research which focused on or touched upon factors that can possibly affect learners
attention to or noticing of the L2 information they receive, such as input enhancement
(e.g., Han, Park, & Combs, 2008; Jourdenais, Ota, Stauffer, Boyson, & Doughty, 1995;
White, 1998), output (e.g., Izumi & Bigelow, 2000; Song & Suh, 2008; Swain, 1993, 1995,
2005); feedback type (e.g., Amar, 2008; Amar & Spada, 2006; Iwashita, 2003; Lyster,
1998, 2004); feedback characteristics (e.g., Ellis et al., 2001a, 2001b; Loewen, 2004,
2005; Loewen & Philp, 2006; Sheen, 2006), task type (e.g., Hanaoka & Izumi, 2012; Qi &
Lapkin, 2001; Thornbury, 1997), and task repetition (e.g., Birjandi & Ahangari, 2008;
Bygate, 2001; Hawkes, 2012). Probably as a result of the powerful influence of the
noticing hypothesis, an overwhelming majority of these studies focused on attention at
the noticing level. In the present study, attention was treated as a unitary concept, with
no special emphasis on noticing.


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Wang

The role of feedback in SLA

Feedback in conversational interactions can provide input to learners either as positive
evidence or negative evidence or a combination of the two. Upon receiving feedback,
learners may try to correct themselves. The new utterance can be regarded as pushed
output, which can then help with language learning by realizing the three functions of
output: the noticing function, the hypothesis testing function, and the metalinguistic
function (See Swain, 2005).
The role of feedback in SLA is exemplified by recasts, a type of implicit negative
feedback. Long (2007) thoroughly discusses the role of recasts in L2 learning. With a
detailed review of both cross-sectional and longitudinal studies, Long concludes that,
although they are not necessary for acquisition, recasts appear to be facilitative, to
work better than models, and to do so incidentally, without interrupting the flow of
conversations and participants focus on message contents (p. 94).
This facilitative role of recasts in particular and feedback in general is reflected in the
notion of negotiation:
Negotiation serves as a catalyst for change because of its focus on incorrect
forms. By providing learners with information about incorrect forms, negotiation
enables learners to search for additional confirmatory or nonconfirmatory
evidence. (Gass & Selinker, 2001, p. 283)
While the focus of this claim is negotiation, it points to the importance of feedback. To a
large extent, feedback is what initiates changes in learners interlanguage system.
Without feedback, learners may not notice the gaps or holes in their L2 knowledge; they
may not modify their inappropriate language production; and they may not get the input
they need in order to confirm or disconfirm their hypotheses about a language structure.
Attention and noticing in feedback contexts
In studies which examined the effectiveness of different types of feedback (e.g., Amar,
2008; Amar & Spada, 2006; Iwashita, 2003; Lyster, 1998, 2004), the features of
particular feedback moves (e.g., Loewen & Philp, 2006; Sheen, 2006) or the
characteristics of whole feedback episodes (e.g., Ellis et al., 2001a, 2001b; Loewen, 2004,
2005), noticing, although not always directly operationalized as a focal variable, has
frequently come up in the discussion of the level of explicitness of feedback, which is an
issue of primary concern in feedback research.
Other than these studies, there have also been some studies that specifically examined
learners perception or interpretation of teacher feedback. One such study that has been
frequently cited is Mackey, Gass, and McDonough (2000). The characteristic the
researchers focused on was the linguistic target of interactive feedback. Drawing on
stimulated recall comments, they found that learners were more accurate in their
perception of lexical, semantic, and phonological feedback than morphosyntactic
feedback. In a more recent study carried out in Arabic foreign language classrooms,
Mackey and other colleagues (2007) found that learners perception of and teachers
intention about the linguistic target of corrective feedback overlapped the most when
the feedback concerned lexis and was provided explicitly.
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Wang

Another study that deserves special attention is Egis (2007) in which he explored how
linguistic targets, length, and number of changes might affect learners noticing and
interpretation of recasts. Recasts of morphosyntactic and lexical errors were provided
to learners during task-based activities. Information about their noticing and
interpretation of recasts was gathered with immediate recall and stimulated recall. The
results indicated that recasts were occasionally interpreted as responses to content
when they were long and substantially different from learners problematic utterances.
In contrast, when recasts were short and closely resembled the original utterances,
learners were significantly more likely to attend to the linguistic evidence. The patterns
were observed in both morphosyntactic and lexical recasts. These findings suggest that
length and the number of changes might partially determine the explicitness of recasts
and thus affect learners abilities to interpret them.
To sum up, learners noticing of feedback can be greatly affected by the nature of
feedback itself. All the feedback studies reviewed above had the type or characteristics
of feedback as the key variable. Feedback interaction is a multifaceted phenomenon. The
current study is an attempt to look beyond at some other factors that may affect
learners attention to the language information teachers provide.
It is important to point out that although feedback as one of the most researched
components of teacher talk was specifically reviewed above, in the present study the
language information teachers provided was not just corrective feedback or feedback in
response to erroneous learner production. Sometimes teachers questioned students
about certain language features. When learners were not able to (correctly) answer the
questions, teachers would provide information about those language features. There
were also times when learners inquired about certain language structures and teachers
provided information to them. In both cases, the information teachers provided was
similar to corrective feedback, serving as a type of input. For this reason, the present
study is targeted at teacher talk in general rather than corrective feedback in particular.
Research question
The present study is part of a larger study on the noticing and effectiveness of teacher
talk. The question the current study attempted to answer is: In addition to the type and
characteristics of feedback, what are some other factors that affected learners attention
to teachers talk about language form in nine ESL classrooms?
Method
Teaching context
The study was conducted in an intensive English program at a large university in the
United States. The program was designed to help students learn communicative and
academic skills and to prepare them for their future study and life in the country.
Accordingly, the courses offered to students were based on a communicative
curriculum. The lessons covered topics such as grammar, reading, writing, speaking, and
listening skills.


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Wang

Participants
A total of 8 teachers (6 women and 2 men) and 9 intact classes participated in the study.
There were only 8 teachers because one of the teachers taught two parallel classes. Of
the 8 teachers, 7 were English L1 speakers, and 1 was a Spanish L1 and English L2
speaker who grew up in the United States. The teachers teaching experience varied
from
1.5
to
37
years,
with
an
average
of
10.3
years.
A total of 117 students participated in the study. The students, with an average age of
20.4, came from a variety of L1 backgrounds, including Chinese, Arabic, Korean,
Japanese, Russian, and Bambara. Their length of English study ranged from 5 to 11
years, with an average of 7.3 years. The majority of students had been in the U.S. for
around 6 months. Only a few had been in the country for 12 months or more.
Instruments
The first instrument used in the present study is classroom observation. Altogether, 4
integrated listening and speaking classes, 2 integrated reading and writing classes, 2
academic reading classes, and 1 grammar class were observed. In all classes observed,
learners participated in all kinds of communicative activities, such as comparing
answers in groups, writing summaries in pairs, and working on information gap tasks.
During the lessons, teachers provided language information to students by correcting
students errors, addressing students queries, asking students questions, etc. The
language information provided included various domains, such as pronunciation,
spelling, word meaning, and grammar. During the observations, the researcher served
as a non-participant observer in the classrooms, monitoring the recording instruments
and taking notes, without getting involved in any of the class activities. A Sony digital
voice recorder with a clip-on microphone attached to the teachers and a Sony high
definition video camera located in a corner of the classrooms were used to record
teacher-student exchanges.
In the larger study, 4 to 6 observations were conducted in each class. Each observation
lasted an average 80 minutes. Among the 4 to 6 observations in each class, 1 or 2 were
followed by stimulated recall interviews. For the present study, 2 observations were
selected from each class. When there were 2 observations with stimulated recall
interviews for a class in the larger data set, both the 2 observations were selected for
that class. When there was only 1 observation with stimulated recall interviews for a
class, this observation was selected and the other one was randomly chosen from other
observations for supplementary information. Consequently, there were a total of 18
observations, with 14 followed by stimulated recall interviews.
The second instrument used in the present study is a stimulated recall interview (see
Gass & Mackey, 2007). Video clips from the classroom observations served as stimuli.
Before the interviews, the researcher explained to the learners, with specific examples,
that they should talk about what they were thinking at the time the language episodes
occurred, not their thinking at the time they watched the video clips. During the
interviews, they were reminded to comment on what they were thinking then, not
what they were thinking now. If learners could speak their L1 in the interviews, they
would be able to express themselves better and more information would be elicited.
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Wang

Unfortunately, this was very difficult with 40% of the learners because the researcher as
a student herself did not have the resources to understand these learners comments in
various L1s (e.g., Arabic and Bambara) or to have their comments translated into a
language she understood. Consequently, for these learners, the interviews were held in
English. As for the other 60% of learners, they reported that their native language was
Chinese, which was also the researchers native language. For these learners, the
interviews were held in either Chinese or English as the learners preferred.
Procedure
Before starting formal observation in a class, the researcher distributed the consent
forms and conducted a small background survey of the class. With the teachers consent,
she then stayed in the classroom for an hour or two to get familiar with the teachers
teaching style and to select possible positions for the video camera. This also gave the
researcher the opportunity to talk to learners and to try to establish a rapport with
them.
After each observation, the researcher listened to the recordings, transcribed them, and
identified all language episodes. She then selected high-quality video clips and
conducted stimulated recall interviews with learners. Ideally, the stimulated recall
interviews should be conducted immediately after the observations. However, this
turned out to be impossible. For one thing, it took time for the researcher to identify
language episodes and to select recall cues. In fact, just importing the videos from the
camera to a laptop and converting them into an easily viewable format took a long time.
For another thing, learners often had other classes to attend right after an observation
or they were simply too tired to participate in the interview session after a long day of
study. More often than not, it was even difficult to arrange a meeting time the following
day. For these reasons, a range of 1 to 2 days was necessary to allow some leeway for
the interviews.
Data analysis
The first part of data analysis involved the identification of language episodes. A
language episode was defined as a sequence beginning with an erroneous learner
utterance, a query by the learner, or a question by the teacher, followed by information
provided by the teacher, and ending with the learners reaction to the teachers talk
where applicable (adapted from the definition of error treatment sequence by Lyster &
Ranta, 1997). Episodes in which one learner provided language information to another
learner and episodes in which a learner self-repaired were not included.
Learner comments from the stimulated recall interviews were also audio recorded and
transcribed. The researcher identified all the comments where learners implicitly or
explicitly referred to the direction and degree of their attention. Comments that
concerned unrelated issues, such as the difficulty level of the task at hand and what the
interviewee had done on the previous day, were excluded from further analysis. The
researcher then scrutinized the resulting comments in the light of corresponding
episodes and categorized the comments into different groups.

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Wang

Results and discussion

Altogether, there were 609 language episodes, with 5.21 episodes per student. Analysis
of interview comments along with the language episodes revealed five factors that
affected participating learners attention to teacher talk: learners self evaluation of their
language knowledge, the way teachers talked about language form, learners role in
language episodes, peer behavior, and learners concern for face. Table 1 below shows
the frequency of stimulated recall comments illustrating the five factors.
Table 1. Frequency of comments illustrating the five factors affecting learner
attention
Classes

Self evaluation
of knowledge

Concern
for face

Role in
episodes

Peer
behavior

Way
teachers
talked

2 (28.6%)

Total

C1

0 (0.0%)

3 (42.9%)

2 (28.6%)

0 (0.0%)

C2

4 (57.1%)

2 (28.6%)

0 (0.0%)

1 (14.3%) 0 (0.0%)

C3

5 (50.0%)

0 (0.0%)

3 (30.0%)

1 (10.0%) 1 (10.0%)

10

C4

16 (33.3%)

1 (2.1%)

9 (18.8%)

4 (8.3%)

18 (37.5%)

48

C5

14 (33.3%)

2 (4.8%)

14
(33.3%)

4 (9.5%)

8 (19.0%)

42

C6

16 (57.1%)

1 (3.6%)

3 (10.7%)

3 (10.7%) 5 (17.9%)

28

C7

9 (39.1%)

0 (0.0%)

4 (17.4%)

0 (0.0%)

23

C8

15 (38.5%)

6 (15.4%)

5 (12.8%)

7 (17.9%) 6 (15.4%)

39

C9

0 (0.0%)

1 (12.5%)

2 (25.0%)

1 (12.5%) 4 (50.0%)

Total

79 (37.3%)

16 (7.5%)

42
(19.8%)

21 (9.9%) 54 (25.5%)

212

Mean

8.78

1.78

4.67

2.33

6.00

23.56

SD

6.72

1.86

4.30

2.35

5.55

16.47

10 (43.5%)

Among a total of 212 recall comments, the most frequent are those concerning the effect
of learners self evaluation of their language knowledge (37.3%, mean=8.78, SD=6.72)
and those concerning the effect of the way teachers talked (25.5%, mean=6.00,
SD=5.55), followed by the ones about the effect of learners role in language episodes
(19.8%, mean=4.67, SD=4.30). The last two are comments related to the effect of peer
behavior (9.9%, mean=2.33, SD=2.35) and learners concern for face (7.5%,
mean=1.78, SD=1.86).
Self-evaluation of language knowledge is the factor with the highest percentage. This is
probably because the students were adult learners; they therefore well understood how
important it was to appropriately use their learning resources, thus frequently
allocating their attention resources according to how well they understood the language
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Wang

feature under discussion. The way teachers talked has the second highest frequency rate
among the five factors. In all the classrooms observed, the teacher was the most
important source of input and the most authoritative figure. It is not surprising, then,
that the way the teacher talked would significantly affect students attention. The role
learners played in language episodes was another factor frequently referred to. This is
natural because the more learners were involved in a language episode, the more they
would be concerned with the language feature under discussion, and the more attention
they would pay to teachers feedback or explanation. Compared with the other three
factors, both peer behavior and learners concern for face have a lower frequency rate.
However, the percentages of both categories are close to 10%. This indicates that peer
behavior and learners concern for face also played a non-negligible role in the degree
of learners attention to teacher talk. Below is a detailed discussion of the five factors.
Learners self evaluation of their language knowledge
According to the stimulated recall comments, learners evaluation of their own language
knowledge affected their attention to teacher talk in three circumstances.
When learners thought they had already understood a language feature, they often paid
little or no attention to what the teacher was saying. For example,
(1)
Episode:
T: When I say oh Im bankrupt, I dont have enough money this month.
Ira: Like poor.
T: No, its a legal term. If you file bankruptcy, or youre bankrupt, that means there is
really no hope of me getting out of debtIts hopeless.
Xin: Declare bankruptcy?
T: Yeah, declare bankruptcy.
Comment by Xin:
I learned this word when I was preparing for the TOEFL, so I thought, hmm I know this
word; I learned it when I was preparing for the TOEFLThen I thought, its going to be
really bad if you go bankrupt. When I know a word, I may not listen carefully but think
of other things. Its easy for me to think of other things when I know a word.
In this example, the teacher was explaining the meaning of the word bankrupt to the
class. Although Xin was listening to the teacher, the focus of his attention was not the
specifics of bankrupt as provided by the teacher. The reason Xin gave is that he had
learned about the word in the past and that he knew it already. The level of Xins
attention to the teachers talk was therefore largely affected by Xins appraisal of his
own knowledge of the word under discussion. As Xin explicitly put it, When I know a
word, I may not listen carefully but think of other things.
In contrast to the first situation, when learners thought they did not know a language
feature or did not have a good understanding of it, they would listen more carefully. For
example:

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Wang

(2)
Episode:
Rus: What do you call this?
T: Ok, Ill say it exactly. Its called a riot baton or riot stick. Riot stick or riot baton or a
night stick. They hit people with a night stick.
Fu: (Smiles)
Comment by Fu:
I was listening to the teachers explanation because I didnt know what to call the stick
either.
In this example, a learner initiated a question about a riot stick during a class
discussion. Although the question was not initiated by the interviewee, he was listening
to the teachers explanation too because he did not know the answer either.
In the third case, learners paid attention to the teachers talk because they did not
understand the language feature under discussion. Once they thought they understood
it, however, their attention would shift somewhere else. For example:
3)
Episode:
T: Its a, its a type of market. They did say flea market.
Xin: Flea market?
T: Do you know what a flea market is? You know what a flea is? Its really small in size.
Dogs and cats sometimes have them and they bite them and they get itchy.
Xin: Yeah.
T: Whats a flea market? A place where you buy fleas?
Xin: No, something like garage sales.
T: Exactly. Yes, its like really big garage sale. Garage sale or yard sale.
Jea: ,
T: I might sell baseball cards, and Abraham sells, sometimes things youve made
yourself, sometimes theyre old things
Comment by Bib:
When she first said flea market, I didnt know what she was talking about but it looked
familiar to me. I was thinking of the meaning of the word flea.After I heard garage
sale from the teacher, I realized what flea market is in Chinese. Then my neighbor gave
the Chinese name of flea market too. Then I didnt pay more attention.
This example is about a class discussion of the term flea market. It shows how a
Chinese learners attention shifted as his evaluation of his own knowledge of the term
changed. At first, he did not understand flea market, so he was thinking about the
meaning of the word flea even though he did not say anything in the episode as shown
here. Later, after the teacher explained flea market with a synonym and the student
next to him gave the equivalent term in Chinese, he stopped paying attention to the
discussion even though the teacher gave more details about flea market.

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From Examples 1, 2, and 3, we can see that participating learners appraisal of their own
language knowledge affected their attention to teacher talk to a large extent. In general,
the more they thought they knew a language feature, the less attention they would pay
to the teachers talk about it. The result can be both positive and negative. Given the
limited capacity of attention (Anderson, 1983; Kahneman, 1973), if the learners had
appropriately appraised their knowledge about a language feature, they would be able
to save their attention resources from what they already knew for what they believed
they indeed needed to attend to. However, learners do not always have a correct
evaluation of their own interlanguage system. If the learners had overestimated their
knowledge about a language feature, they would have lost the opportunity to learn what
they should have paid attention to.
The way teachers talked
Two major aspects were mentioned in the stimulated recall interviews concerning the
way teachers provided language information: paralinguistic cues and extralinguistic
cues.
When the teacher used paralinguistic cues such as pauses, stresses, and a drawling
voice, learners would reflect on their own language production or think about an
alternative answer to a question, and thus pay more attention to the language feature
the teacher was trying to explain. For example:
(4)
Episode:
T: Help me. What kind of grammar is this?
Mato: Do that for me today.
Sal: (Indistinguishable)
T: Im- (Drags voice)
Class: Imperative.
T: Imperative. Right? Imperative.
Class: Imperative.
Comment by Sal:
She was explaining to the students imperative. She said IM-(also drags voice). I paid
more attention and think harder when I heard her dragging voice.
In this example, seeing that the students were not able to give the right word for the
imperative, the teacher provided the first syllable of the word and dragged her voice to
elicit the answer. The learner interviewed clearly indicated that he paid more attention
and thought harder after he heard this voice.
When teachers used extralinguistic cues such as hand gestures and facial expressions,
learners often found it easier to understand the teachers explanation. In the example
below, the learner explicitly talked about the benefit of extralinguistic cues.
(5)
Episode:

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Maj: Whats the meaning of dumpling?

T: Whats a dumpling? Cho can you explain it?
Cho: Its a kind of food. A Chinese kind of food.
T: Yeah, its a kind of food, sometimes Chinese. Its like eh theres meats and vegetables
inside a wrapper. (Hand gestures dumpling) And you boiled it or steam it. If you go to a
Chinese restaurant you can order dumplings or wantons. (Hand gestures dumpling
again)
Comment by Maj:
And I dont understand what Leh say. And then when she used eh (hand gestures
dumpling) inside, and when Leh used this, I understand. Whats the name of this?
Gesture? Yeah, its useful. Useful for people, for students to understand. I think its
important to education. It makes class more interesting and easy, and so we pay more
attention.
In this example, the teacher was explaining to students the meaning of the word
dumpling. Before she used hand gestures, Maj did not understand what she was
saying; but after she used hand gestures, he did. To Maj, gesture is important because It
makes class more interesting and easy, and so students pay more attention.
A series of studies have been conducted to understand, directly or indirectly, the
relationship between the way teachers give feedback and the attention learners pay to
teacher feedback (e.g., Amar, 2008; Amar & Spada, 2006; Ellis et al., 2001a, 2001b;
Iwashita, 2003; Loewen, 2004, 2005; Lyster, 1998, 2004; Sheen, 2006), but few
researchers have included the paralinguistic and extralinguistic aspects of teacher
feedback in their analysis and discussion. The results of the few studies which did
examine the paralinguistic cues and extralinguistic cues in teacher feedback (e.g., Davies,
2006; Faraco & Kida, 2008; Loewen & Philp, 2006; Wang, 2010) indicate that these
aspects of teacher feedback can have a positive effect on student learning, mostly by
promoting the explicitness of the feedback and making it more perceivable by learners.
The learners comments in Examples 4 and 5 lend support to the findings of these
studies and point to the importance of the paralinguistic and extralinguistic components
of teacher talk.
Learners role in language episodes
Learners recall comments indicate that there is a close relationship between learners
degree of involvement in language episodes and the amount of attention they paid to
teacher talk.
When learners were the initiators of questions, their comments were often very
detailed, indicating the possibility of more attention. For example:

(6)
Episode:
Adu: No no we have to change the word.
T: What word are you trying to not use?
Adu: Change the equipment. Can I say material?
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T: Um yeah, its ok I think in this case to use equipment even though its the same from
the original text because its a technical word and sometimes its hard to find another
word that is exactly the same. You can use materials but materials is less specific. Maybe
machinery. Machinery is kind of like equipment.
Adu: Whats machinery? Ive never heard about it.
T: Yeah, machinery is like the parts of the machine.
Stor: Ah!
T: Machine parts, you can say machine parts or machinery.
Adu: Uh-huh.
Comment by Adu:
For my problems, equipment, I want to change. I dont want to say the word again
cause were summarizing.So I tried to write material, but it wasnt good enough. So
she gave me a new word. Thats a good thing, but also I know that I can, theres like
different, before I dont know the difference between material and equipment, but
now, yeah. So machinery is a good one.
In this episode, two learners were discussing how to write a summary for an article. Adu
suggested that they use a different term for the word equipment. When the teacher
came up to their group, he asked about it. In his comment, Adu provided a detailed
explanation about why he wanted a different word, what word he suggested, what word
the teacher suggested, and which one was better. The reason why Adu could give such a
detailed comment is probably that he as the initiator of the question was paying full
attention to what the teacher was saying.
Learners who were not the initiators of a question might give a detailed comment too if
they were involved in the discussion of a language form. For the same episode, Adus
partner Stor gave a comment as below:
(7)
He asked her how to say the word. She said like machinery. She explained it to us. I
didnt know the word. She said part of the machine. So I, I thought it was machine
accessories. I was thinking, oh, we can use that. We were writing the, the summary. We
thought the word was too simple. So we asked her how to be more specific. And she
explained it to us.
Stor was discussing how to write the summary with Adu, and he was involved in the
episode. From his comment one can see that he heard Adus question, the word the
teacher gave, and the meaning of the word. He actually did not exclude himself from the
question-initiator position by saying so we asked her. To him Adu was probably just a
representative of his group to ask the question. Even though he was not the one who
asked the question, Stor seemed to be listening to the teacher and gave a detailed
comment too.
In a third case, when learners were not involved in a language episode, they often paid
no attention at all even when the teachers talk was within their hearing. For example:
(8)
Episode:
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T: What else?
Adu: It take up a lot of place like, I dont know.
T: It takes a lot of place? I think I know what you mean. It takes a lot of land. Right?
Adu: Yeah.
Comment by Joah who was sitting right next to Adu:
Thats not meAnd also he was answering thatI dont remember if I was thinking of
anything.
In this episode, the teacher asked about the disadvantages of landfills. Adu offered an
answer and the teacher corrected the errors in his utterance. Joah, a learner who was
sitting right next to Adu, did not remember if he was thinking of anything at the
moment. On the surface, this is simply a result of memory loss. However, this loss of
memory could have resulted from Joahs ignoring the conversation between the teacher
and Adu.
It can be seen from Examples 6, 7, and 8 that the more learners were involved in an
episode, the more they would pay attention to teacher talk. Specifically, the initiator of a
question and the partner of the question initiator would pay more attention to teacher
talk than a learner who was less involved or not involved at all. In effect, learners who
are not involved in a language episode may not understand the language feature under
discussion. When teachers notice such a possibility, they can take extra measures to
draw these learners attention to teacher talk.
Peer behavior
According to learners recall comments, peer behavior could both promote their noticing
of teacher talk and reduce their attention to teacher talk, depending on the nature of the
behavior.
On some occasions, learners noticed their own mistake from the reaction of other
students. For example:
(9)
Episode:
T: Athens is-
Stor: The most smallest.
T: The most smallest?
Class: Smallest.
Stor: Oh oh oh I just said it wrong.
Class: (Laugh)
Stor: The, the smallest.
T: Yeah the smallest. Ok, so thats just a good example we havent talked about yet. So
just like the comparative form, we wont use most and we wont use least with the
ending, ok? We either use the ending or use the whole word. Thats ok Stor.
Stor: I just said it wrong.
Comment by Stor:

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This one?.I read smallest too fast and added most before it. I was emphasizing
smallest. I dont know why I said most.At first I didnt know I said it wrong. Then I
heard other people laughing. Then I realized the mistake and heard the teachers
explanation.
In this example, Stor made a mistake that he thought he could have avoided. From Stors
comment, it is clear that he was not aware of his mistake until he heard other students
laughing. The reaction from peers therefore helped to draw Stors attention to his
erroneous utterance and the teachers talk about it.
In some circumstances, learners did not pay attention to teacher talk as a result of the
distraction from peers. Below is an example.
(10)
Episode:
T: Do you know the meaning of desire?
Class: No.
T: Desire means want. You want something.
Sar: (Indistinguishable)
T: Reversible?
Sar: Vegetable.
T: Vegetable?
Sar: Yeah.
T: No. No, desire is something you want. So I want, I want more fruit. Thats the meaning.
Comment by Nass:
I cant listen what Leh said because the twins left, right, were talking. I cant study.
In this example, the teacher was explaining the meaning of the word desire in a class
discussion. The learner interviewed was not able to hear what the teacher was saying
because two fellow students who were twins were talking by his side at the same time.
The distractive peer behavior therefore prevented him from attending to the teachers
talk.
As illustrated in Examples 9 and 10, peer behavior can alert learners to the mistakes
they have made and push them to pay attention to the information provided by the
teacher. Peer behavior can be distracting too. On such occasions, it pulls learners
attention away from teacher talk. The effect of peer behavior on learners attention to
teacher talk, therefore, can be both positive and negative, depending on the nature of the
peer behavior and the context it is situated in.
Learners concern for face
Concern for face is virtually the learners concern for their own image in the teachers
and fellow students eyes. This is shown in the case of losing or gaining face.
Some learners were so upset for having lost face that they kept thinking about the
mistake they had made and were not able to concentrate on the teachers talk. Below is
an example that shows this losing face complexity.

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(11)
Episode:
T: Lin, whats your sentence about your partner Ye?
Lin: What is Ye?
T: Why? Shes sitting right by your side and she was talking to you just now.
Lin: Ye was born while she was living in Saudi Arabia.
T: Ye was born while she was living in Saudi ArabiaWell, I guess she was living in
Saudi Arabia in her moms tummy and then she was born. So she was already living in
Saudi Arabia before she was born.
Tal: How can, how can she live in Saudi Arabia before she was born?
T: Yeah, she did not exist before she was born.
Comment by Lin:
I felt embarrassed. I didnt know the name of the girl in the same class. So I no longer
listened after I answered the question.
In this example, Fu was asked to give his sentence about his partner. Before answering
the teachers question, Fu asked about the meaning of the word Ye, which was actually
the name of his partner. The teacher and other students discussed the mistake in Fus
sentence about Ye. However, feeling so embarrassed, Fu was no longer able to pay
attention to the conversation.
In other cases, learners were so busy making it known to the teacher or peers that they
were the knowing student that they concentrated on their own thinking and ignored
what the teacher was saying. The example below is a good illustration.
(12)
Episode:
Mar: Whats the spelling and meaning of solitude?
T: But you dont know what it is?
Mar: So-, I, I, yeah, I know its like eh real life, eh
T: Being by yourself.
Mar: Yeah, I talk Ryn its like independence something.
T: Yeah, but its not being with, you would like to be alone.
Mar: Solitude like-
T: Not loneLY but alone. (Stresses -ly)
Mar: The, the root word of the solitude is solid right?
Comment by Mar:
I just wanted to express my ideas about the solitude to the teacher and, and let her
know what I know to this word, the meaning of this word.
In this example, as the teacher tried to explain the word solitude to the learner, the
learner seemed to be constantly stressing what he himself thought of the word by using
expressions such as I know and I talk. He did not seem to have paid much attention
to the difference between the teachers definition of solitude and his own incomplete
or incorrect understanding of the word. This is confirmed by his comment that he just
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15

wanted to let the teacher know what he knew about solitude. Consequently, his
attention was focused on how to create the image of the knowing student in the
teachers mind, not the information the teacher provided to him.
Examples 11 and 12 suggest that learners concern about face can also significantly
affect the direction and level of their attention. When learners worry too much about
losing face, they will not be able to concentrate on the teachers talk. When they are
too anxious to gain face, they will not be able to focus on the teachers talk either. It is
possible that the desire for a good self-image has a positive effect in some
circumstances. For example, it may push learners to think more actively and listen to the
teacher more attentively. However, this was not found in the present study.
Conclusion
With classroom observation and stimulated recall interviews as key instruments, the
present study investigated some of the factors that affected a group of learners
attention to teacher talk. It was found that learners paid more attention to teacher talk
when they thought they did not understand a language feature, when teachers used
various techniques to explain a language point, when the learners were the initiators of
questions or at least involved in a language episode, and when peers reacted to their
mistakes. On the other hand, learners often paid less or no attention to teacher talk
when they thought they had understood a language feature already, when they were not
involved in a language episode, when peers behaved in a distracting way, and when
learners were concerned with losing or gaining face.
In line with these findings, teachers can take certain measures to draw learners
attention when providing language information. For instance, they can help students
correctly evaluate their own language knowledge and take the right attitude toward
face, try to involve as many learners as possible when discussing a language feature,
purposefully draw learners attention to their incorrect language production through
peer reaction, and use various techniques such as paralinguistic cues and extralinguistic
cues when talking to students. By raising learners level of attention with these
strategies, the effectiveness of teacher talk can be largely enhanced.
It should be pointed out that the analysis in this study is far from thorough. Restricted
by the design of the larger study, the analysis only focused on observable factors that
affected participating learners attention to teacher talk. Some covert factors were left
unexamined. Personality and culture, for instance, may affect the degree of learners
concern for face, which in turn, as illustrated above, may affect learners degree of
attention to teacher talk. Motivation may play a role in the amount of learner attention
to teacher talk too. Further research is needed to understand these potential factors.

About the Author
Weiqing Wang received her Ph.D. degree from Michigan State University and is
currently teaching at the Department of English, Xiangtan University, Hunan, China. Her
major research interest is form-focused L2 instruction.

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Note: The preparation of this paper was partially supported by Grant 11C1245 from the
Education Department of Hunan Province, China.

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Copyright rests with the authors.

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International Education Studies

Vol. 1, No. 3

The Three Stages of Coding and Decoding in Listening

Courses of College Japanese Specialty
Fang Yang
School of Foreign Languages, Hunan Agricultural University
Foreign Language Department, School of Eastern Science and Technology
Hunan Agricultural University
Changsha 410128, China
E-mail: wangzitougao@yahoo.cn
Funds Topic: Hunan Agricultural University Teaching and Reform Research Topic, project number:
XiangNongJiaoFa[2007]86
Hunan Agricultural University School of Eastern Science and Technology Education and Reform Project, project
number: XiangNongDongFang[2007]79
Abstract
The main focus of research papers on listening teaching published in recent years is the theoretical meanings of
decoding on the training of listening comprehension ability. Although in many research papers the bottom-up approach
and top-down approach, information processing mode theory, are applied to illustrate decoding and to emphasize the
significance of the existing background information in ones memory on listening comprehension, the formation process
of the background information, i.e. the formation process of the code or scheme, is not explained and explored.
This papers discusses and explores the three stages in listening comprehension of students of Japanese specialty, that is,
the stage of coding, of decoding and of making notes and aims at clarifying the inherent characteristics of
Japanese listening courses.
Keywords: Japanese listening, Coding, Decoding, Making notes
Many academic papers on listening comprehension repeatedly state and explain that the process of listening
comprehension is where the listeners analyze and process the language sound waves transmitted into their brains and
then transform those sound waves into information codes; subsequently, the listeners will make notes to those codes
based on the lexical meanings and grammatical structures they master. To put it simply, it is a process of decoding.
Although many research papers put forward bottom-up approach and top-down approach, the information processing
mode theory, the papers do not explain and emphasize the fundamental basis of the decoding, that is, the formation of
codes. This paper analyzes the cognitive and psychological process of students of Japanese specialty when they are
listening Japanese and divides the process into three stages. The first stage is coding; the second decoding and the third
making notes. This papers emphasizes the significant meanings of coding, does not view listening comprehension
process as a mechanical and passive process of receiving information symbols, but rather defines the process as a
learning process where students are actively involved, can make selection and are constructing their knowledge trees.
1. The formation process of codes
Each consumption symbol (note) has particular background relationship formed by its own symbol network. The result
of the symbolization of hearing makes listening activity not longer just listening of the physiology sense, but a kind of
information exchange activity. Listening becomes the interpretation of symbols (notes). However, what are the
meanings of the symbols? Who indeed endows the symbols with meanings and how? How do listeners interpret the
symbols and understand their meanings? Is there any discrepancy in the interpretation? To solve those problems, we
must make analysis on the formation process of the codes.
1.1 To expatiate coding from the perspective of semiology
From the perspective of semiology, the process of listening comprehension is indeed a process of recognizing the codes
and decoding. Correct decoding depends on the coded information of large volume existing in order in the brains of
78

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human beings. The process of decoding needs to eliminate the

pragmatic blocks of foreign culture. In language acquisition, the acquisition process of a learner on certain category is
a process where the principal part sets up parameters for objects, while the setting-up pf parameters is based on exterior
language stimulus. (Dunkel, 1991 and Feyten, 1991). It is obvious that the said the principal part sets up parameters
for objects is the process where the listeners decode the sound symbols of listening context. Cognitive psychology
compares interior psychological process of human beings as computers: computers receive symbol input, conduct
coding, make decisions on the code input and store them, and then output the symbols. This is similar to how human
beings receive listening comprehension information. The first step of listening comprehension is to divide the sound
information into small units according to pronunciation, vocabulary and syntax. Sometimes, the boundary is not that
obvious when dividing the sound information. For example, there are lots of homophony words in Japanese and people
have to guess based on the context. Only the common rules will be analyzed in this paper. Small pronunciation unit will
all have a code. Let us presume that the information code for the word flower is 011010. In listening
comprehension process, human beings will instinctively search in their mind for the code 011010 stored in their
minds. What is connected to this stored code is the image of flower. Therefore, listening comprehension process
transforms the language information codes into material images and then the information transferring process is
completed. The Schemata Theory of F.C. Barlett could be applied to explain such process. For decoding newly input
information, the coding relies on the existing information scheme, frame or networks of human beings brains. Only
when the input information is consistent with the scheme, can the information process be completed, that is the process
from receiving information, to decoding, to re-organizing and to storing. (Yang and Yi, 2005)
As mentioned in the above, the coding is of two meaning levels. One is the coding for splitting the information and the
other is that exists in the brains for a long or temporary period, which, hence, brings about two problems. How do the
codes existing in the brains for a long or temporary period come into existence? Some of the language symbols formed
by the language information (children) are able to find their matrix, while others could not find their correspondent
matrix, which causes that the imagination and images that are connected to the listening comprehension cannot be
generated and the blind spots of comprehension appear. The generation process of code is divided into two parts. Some
codes formed by the listening comprehension could find correspondent matrix while others become the memory. The
part that becomes memory will follow the forgetting rules of memory, remained or missed. Therefore, the more
information codes a person has in his or her brain, the wider his or her knowledge is and it is more easier for him or her
to understand information transmitted. Therefore, to improve listening level, students need to listen more, practice more
and try their best to enlarge the codes related to Japanese notes or information schemata in their brains (F.C. Barlett).
1.2 To explain coding from the perspective of linguistics
It is mentioned in many academic papers that the process of listening comprehension is the process of decoding. The
sound goes into ears in the form of audio frequency, which vibrates the eardrums and is then transformed into nerve
pulse which reaches the frontal area of the brain following hearing nerve. The brain analyzes and processes the
language waves and transforms them into information codes. The listener applies his or her own lexical meaning and
grammatical structure knowledge to make notes. Information codes being given the notes are endowed with true
meanings. (Yang and Mo, 2005; Wang, 2004). Nerve pulse involves circuit and coding. The on and off switches
shunt-wound in the circuit brings about nerve pulse of different forms and power. These the symbols for the switches,
on or off, are the presuming information codes, such as 011010 for flowers.
2. The stage of decoding
Chinese students majoring in Japanese study Japanese without Japanese culture. In addition, most of them start to learn
Japanese at the age of 18 or 19. Although Chinese and Japanese are seemingly similar, they actually belong to different
language families. It is impossible for students to apply Chinese code systems existing in their brains to interpret
Japanese code system input in Japanese listening comprehension. Therefore, students have to re-construct Japanese
code system in their brains. Even though students have constructed new language code systems, due to different
experiences, cultures and statuses, listening comprehension units of the same code system could still generate different
interpretation according to their own conditions. According to the decoding theory of Hall, roughly, the decoding status
of students in listening comprehension can be divided into three types.
The first could be defined as complete understanding. Listeners of this type (refer to the students majoring in Japanese)
feel that the codes in the listening comprehension (they are actually the codes that the speakers establish in the listening
comprehension context under the presumption that the target group is Japanese) are the same as or similar to their
codes. They could completely understand the coding in the listening comprehension context and could correctly
transform the speeches of the speakers into images that are easy for them to understand, which shows that the listeners
have established the information code system that is related to the listening comprehension context.
The second type could be defined as uncertainty. Listeners could not find the codes that are in full consistence with
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the coding of the listening comprehension context. They are not sure about the meanings the speakers want to express.
If with the supplementation of the following listening comprehension context, their listening status may become the first
type. Whilst, if there is no supplementation in the following listening comprehension context, they will develop towards
the status of completely failure of understanding, which shows that the listeners have not constructed a perfect
information code system that is related to the listening comprehension context.
The third type is defined as complete failure of understanding. Listeners could not find the codes that are consistent
with the coding of the listening comprehension context and do not understand at all the contents of the speakers in the
listening comprehension context, which shows that the listeners have not yet established in their brains the information
code system that is related to the listening comprehension context.
After analysis on the differences of the formation of listening comprehension abilities of students, it is found that to
construct comparatively perfect Japanese code system is the key to improve students listening ability. To construct
comparatively perfect Japanese code system, students must listen more and practice more. The accumulation of
Japanese knowledge of learners (especially, the familiarity on Japanese vocabulary, common phrases, common syntax)
prompts their knowledge structure. When the knowledge comes to be perfect, the cognitive structure and ability of
Japanese listening will have a substantive improvement.
3. The stage of making notes
Listening comprehension is a process of listening and comprehension. Listening is a passive act while
comprehension is a subjective and active psychological process. The active and positive psychological process is
related to self-judgment and selection. While the judgment and selection of individuals is based on their culture
experience. Therefore, cultural differences must be mentioned here. Because different peoples have long been lived in
different cultures, traditions and atmospheres and have formed special aesthetic customs of their own, which build up
particular aesthetic receiving blocks. To put it other way, because of different social and cultural environments and
psychological structures and that the detailed conditions determine human beings aesthetic value tendency, culture
differences are formed among different peoples.
In listening comprehension process, listeners compare the independent language meaning unit with the information
stored in their brains and apply their knowledge on lexical meaning and grammatical structure stored in their brains to
make notes. After the notes are made, the information is meaningful. However, due to cultural difference in the
sub-consciousness of listeners, the information, after notes are made on, obtain different meanings. Therefore, the
meaning of the speech after the notes are made may not be in consistent with the original meaning of the speaker.
Chinese students majoring in Japanese are confronted with two kinds of cultural differences when having Japanese
listening comprehension class. One is culture difference between Chinese and Japanese culture. Students shall not use
Chinese cultural knowledge system that have already been established to interpret language ideas of foreign cultural
knowledge system. The other is that students come from different culture regions and there is individual cultural
difference among them. In Japanese listening comprehension, the influence of regional cultural difference is not the
influential element.
At this stage, teachers shall focus on introducing the social and cultural background of Japan to students. It could be
seen from the characteristics of top-down information processing mode that the knowledge obtained previously is the
key for decoding. Cultural difference between China and Japan is large and the difference brings about different
languages, living customs and behavior rules. To improve Japanese listening ability, one must understand and could use
Japanese social and cultural knowledge. Many students lack knowledge in cultural background of Japan and do not
master the imagination meanings, social meanings and pragmatic rules of some of the Japanese vocabulary. Or, under
the condition that they do not have a full understanding of Japanese cultural background information, they
misunderstand the meanings of the speakers. Hence, comes the situation that the listeners understand each word but sill
do not understand or misunderstand the meanings of the speakers.
4. Conclusion
Thought analysis on the three stages in listening comprehension process, it is understood that Japanese listening course
integrates human beings ability in memory, summing up, forecasting, and language transformation. With clear
understanding of the nature of Japanese listening course, teachers will be able to avoid blindness in designing Japanese
listening course and in teaching practices, to change from the single teaching mode, i.e. vocabulary teaching, tape
playing and answer checking, and to organize Japanese listening teaching activities systematically and gradually with
aims and key points by following scientific teaching mode of listening system decoding rules.
Let us take the activities before the listening comprehension as an example. First, the students shall be informed of the
knowledge related to the listening comprehension context, the information combination of different contexts, relevant
culture background, the aim of the listening, and the to what extent that the students should master the listening
comprehension context. Such activities will be conductive to helping students to forecast before they listen and to listen
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to the context with aim, which will get twice the result with half the effort in training listening comprehension ability.
References
Dunked, P. A. (1991). Listening in the native and second/foreign language: Toward and integration of research and
practice. TESOL Quarterly 25/3: 431-457.
Feyten, C. M. (1991). The power of listening ability: an overlooked dimension in language acquisition. Modern
Language Journal 75/2: 173-180.
Lang, Hongqin. (2003). The construction of cultural difference concepts and culture introduction in listening teaching.
China Adult Education, 2003(9).
Wang, Wudong. (2004). The application of English decoding theory in listening teaching. Shanghai Motor Technology
College Paper, 2004(6).
Yang, Juan & Yi, Demo. (2005). To realize the breakthrough from appreciation-imagination to symbol-cognition.
Xinhua University Paper, 2005 (12).
Yu, Shanzhi. (2003). Context, scheme and the second language listening decoding. Henan University Paper, 2003 (3).

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An Emqirical Study on Teaching Listening in CLT

Tsinghong Ma
School of Foreign Languages
Shandong Econonic University
Jinan250014, China
Abstract
In the traditional ELT in China, much emphasis has been put on the students mastering vocabulary and grammar.
Language form was regarded as the content of teaching. And listening skill has been ever neglected for a fairly long
time in ELT in China. Recent years, more and more attention has been drawn to learners listening ability. This paper
introduces teaching listening course at college level in communicative approach, which involves background
knowledge introduction and into which various skills: speaking, reading and writing are integrated. It discusses the task
design, strategy training, possible teaching plan, classroom arrangement; and presents an empirical study in this
approach.
Keywords: Communicative language teaching, Listening comprehension, Skills integration, Background knowledge
1. Introduction
In modern times, the world has shrunk and in many cases interpersonal communication is now more vital than academic
usage. It is now important for the learner to be equipped with the command of English which allows him to express
himself in speech or in writing in a much greater variety of contexts. Learning to use a language thus involves a great
deal more than acquiring some grammar rules and vocabularies and a reasonable pronunciation. It involves the
competence to suit the language to the situation, the participants and the basic purpose. Conversely, and equally
important, it involves the competence to interpret other speakers to the full.
It is observed that language students are best motivated by practice in which they sense that language is truly
communicative. The teachers skills are moving them forward to a fuller competence. In the traditional ELT in China,
much emphasis has been put on the students mastering vocabulary and grammar. Language form was regarded as the
content of teaching. There are signs that linguists are turning language teachers attention to the communicative
properties of language and the functioning of language in social context. Influenced by these functional and
social-cultural linguists, language teachers are paying more attention to the function of language.
Listening skill has been ever neglected for a fairly long time in ELT in China. This led to that graduates who have been
studying English for about 10 years dont have a satisfying proficiency on listening comprehension and speaking.
Actually a persons speaking proficiency is directly related to his listening ability. However, this problem has been
realized and measures have been taken to improve the situation. For example, many colleges and universities have
opened listening or listening and speaking courses, listening textbooks are being developed, language lab has been
improved and increased. Moreover, listening test has been added to CET and PETS. Listening as an important way of
getting information is getting more and more attention.
2. An Analysis of Current Listening Teaching Situation
Although more and more colleges are opening listening course for undergraduates of non-English major, the situation is
far from satisfying. The main complaints are: the text is too hard; there is no interest in this course (boring); its easy to
get tired and sleepy; the improvement is not obvious, etc.
A questionnaire was ever carried by the author during her students, and the only one question is what are your
problems in listening to English? According to their answers, the problems concentrate on the following items:
1) Trouble with sounds: I have trouble catching the actual sounds of the foreign language.
2) Have to understand every word: I have to understand every word; if I miss something, I feel Im failing and get
worried and stressed.
3) Cant understand fast, natural native speech: I can understand people if they talk slowly and clearly; I cant
understand fast, natural native-sounding speech.
4) Need to hear things more than once: I need to hear things more than once in order to understand.
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5) Find it difficult to keep up: I find it difficult to keep up with all the information I am getting and cant think
ahead or predict.
6) Get fired: If the listening goes on a long time I get tired, and find it more and more difficult to concentrate.
7) Insufficient vocabulary: My vocabulary is smaller than the text demands and there are some words that I cant
understand.
These problems are typical among college students in their listening to foreign languages. When we analyze these items,
we can see some of them are concerning the bottom-up process (e.g. Item 1, 3, and 7) The core difficulty for them lies
in discriminating sounds in connected speech: strong and weak forms and modification of sounds, including
assimilation, elision and liaison etc.
Some of the items are concerning the top-down process(e.g. Item 5). They show that there is a lack of background
knowledge in listening comprehension. Item 2 and 5 show that the students need listening strategy-training (selective
listening and prediction).
The reasons that bring these problems are various. They relate to teaching material (too difficult for most cases),
teaching plan (too much content in limited time), teaching purpose (teaching for passing exams) , students motivation
(attention paid to listening is not enough), so on and so forth. Among them the most important cause, in fact, should be
teaching methods.
The general teaching mode in listening classroom at colleges is quite simple and widely used: the teacher play the
recorder and the students do exercises after listening. No background knowledge introduction, no strategy training, no
discussion and negotiation, no speaking, reading and writingskills integration, the tasks and exercises are boring, no
encouragement for response Actually testing is far more than training during this class. It is hard to see that the
students are being taught any particular skill in such a class. What weaker students inevitably and rapidly learn is that
they are weak in listening comprehension in the foreign language. Naturally the students are becoming less and less
motivated. And these directly lead to the students poor communicative competence on listening comprehension.
In order to solve the problems and improve the situation, a variety of measures can be taken. Besides strengthening the
students linguistic competence (pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, discourse,etc.) , we have other means to help
them improve their communicative listening competence.
3. Measures to Improve Communicative Listening Ability
3.1Teaching Stages
Harmer (1991) suggests a basic methodological model for the teaching of receptive skills, which in the authors opinion
is to a large extent acceptable:
The model has five basic stages which are:
1) Lead-in
Here the students and the teacher prepare themselves for the task and familiarize themselves with the topic of the
listening tasks and exercises. One of the major reasons for this is to create expectations and arouse the students interest
in the subject matter of the spoken or written text.
2) Teacher directs comprehension task:
Here the teacher makes sure that the students know what they are going to do. Are they going to answer question, fill in
a chart, complete a message pad or try and re-tell what they heard/saw? This is where the teacher explains and directs
the students purpose for listening.
3) Students listen for task
The students then read or listen to a text to perform the task the teacher has set.
4) Teacher directs feedback
When the students have performed the task the teacher will help students to see if they have completed the task
successfully and will find out how well they have done. This may follow a stage in which students check their answers
with each other first.
5) Teacher directs text-related task
Teacher will then probably organize some kind of follow-up task related to the text. Thus if the students have filled a
form based on a heard discussion, the text-related task might be to discuss in groups the same or related topic.
3.2 Background Knowledge Introduction
According to schema theory, listeners might need to use their background knowledge to work out what various
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reference items might refer to. Here we are dealing with the prepositional level of language. Let us now look at how
background knowledge might help us interpret discourse on a functional level. When studying functions, the question is
not what is the speaker trying to tell us about events and things in the world? but what is the speaker trying to
achieve through language? Widdowson provides an interaction to demonstrate the points he wishes to make:
A: I have two tickets to the theater tonight.
B: My examination is tomorrow.
C: Pity.
What are our fictional speakers trying to do here? According to Widdowson, there are implicit assumptions on both
sides that As first statement is an invitation. Bs response, which, on the surface, has little to do with As statement, is
taken as a refusal of the invitation. This is recognized in As final remark. Of course, the encounter may not have gone
quite as smoothly as this. Consider the following exchange, in which As opening gambit is intended as an invitation.
Shat do you think the speakers are trying to do in the other utterances in the exchange?
A: I have two tickets for the theater tonight.
B: Good for you. What are you going to see?
A: Measure for Measure
B: Interesting play. Hope you enjoy it.
The negotiation is not going to plan, and A has to renegotiate to return to his original discourse strategy.
A: Look, are you free tonight?
B: Im not sure, why?
The message is still not getting across, so he tries again.
A: Well, Id like to invite you to come to the theater with me.
B: Well, actually my exam is tomorrow.
Now Widdowson allows A to be obtuse.
A: I know, so is mine. Whats that got to do with it?
These negotiating procedures depend crucially on the participants knowing what each utterance stands for functionally
(that is as invitation, polite refusal, etc.) The implication on ELT is, the student must have enough background
knowledge of the culture, knowledge which is relevant to the particular instance of the language he is concerned with,
to enable him to assess why what is being said is being said. We would assume that the more the background knowledge
which is assumed in a particular discourse, the more difficult that discourse will be for the student to understand if he
does not share that knowledge. Therefore, background knowledge is an important part of listening teaching.
3.3 Important Listening Strategies Training
From the former chapter we have seen learning strategy training is beneficial to foreign language or second language
learning. For listening comprehension, there are a variety of strategies. According to Nunan (1999), the following are
some of the most important strategies with examples:
1) Listening for gist:
e.g. Is the speaker describing a vacation or a day in the office?

Is the radio report about news or weather?

2) Listening for purpose:

e.g. Are the speakers making a reservation or ordering food?
suggestion?

Is the speaker agreeing or disagreeing with the

3) Listening for main idea:

e.g. Why is the speaker asking the man questions?

Did the speaker like or dislike the movie?

4) Listening for inference:

e.g. What are the speakers implying by what they said?
1) Listening for specific information:
e.g. How much did they say the tickets cost? Where did she say the meeting was being held?
2) Listening for phonemic distinctions:
e.g. Did the speaker say first or fourth?
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3) Listening for tone/pitch to identify speakers attitude:

e.g. Did the speaker enjoy the wedding or not?

Is the speaker surprised or not?

4) Listening for stress:

e.g.What is more important, where he bought the watch or when?
In the process of listening class, the teacher should integrate these strategies into listening tasks and get them introduced
to the students naturally.
3.4 Skills-integrated task design
In designing listening tasks, now we can naturally conclude that teachers couldnt take listening as the sole skill and
goal. Since in real life, skills are actually combined for people to communicate; and in language learning the learner can
directly see the value of one skill in the general language development when it is integrated into the others. This is also
a good way for students to give proper responses to what they have heard.
So teachers should bear in their mind the principle of skills-integration when designing and carrying on a listening task.
That is, in completing a listening task, the other three skills--speaking, reading and writing can possibly involved.
The following case as an example to communicative listening teaching can illustrate the above ideas.
4. A Lesson Plan of Listening Teaching
This is a case based on the theory of CLT, which is carries out in the English reading course to the students at college
level.
4.1 Text
The teaching material is Listen To This: 1 , Lesson Ten, Section Two.
Tapescript
A. Discussion
Eddie is talking to Tom.
Eddie: Have you ever been really frightened?
Tom: I suppose so, once or twice.
Eddie: Can you remember when you were most frightened?
Tom: That isnt difficult.
Eddie: What happened?
Tom: Well, we used to have a favorite picnic place beside a lake. We had a boat there. I was there with some friends and
I decided to swim to a little island. It didnt look far and I started swimming but half way across I realized it was a lot
further than I thought. I was getting very tired. I shouted. Luckily my friends heard me and brought the boat. I thought I
was going to drown. Ive never been more frightened in my life.
B. Forum:
Should school children take part-time jobs?
This is a discussion which will appear in a magazine.
Editor: This month our panel looks at part-time jobs. Are they good for school children or not?
Headmaster: Definitely not. The children have got two full-time jobs already: growing up and going to school. Part-time
jobs make them so tired they fall asleep in class.
Mrs. Barnes: I agree. I know school hours are short, but theres homework as well, and children need a lot of sleep.
Mr. Barnes: Young children perhaps, but some boys stay at school until theyre eighteen or nineteen. A part-time job
cant harm them. In fact, its good for them. They earn their pocketmoney instead of asking their parents for it. And
they see something of the world outside school.
Businessman: Youre absolute right. Boys learn a lot from a part-time job. And we mustnt forget that some families
need the extra money. If the pupils didnt forget that some families need the extra money. If the pupils didnt take
part-time jobs they couldnt stay at school.
Editor: Well, we seem to be equally divided: two for, and two against. What do our readers think?
4.2 Teaching goal
Title: Should School Children Take Part-time Jobs
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Function: Describing a series of actions

Stating views and the arguments
Notion: agree, be for , be against
4.3 Teaching Procedure
Lead-in
1) Questions: Do you have experience of being really frightened?
Can you describe it to us?
Do you have a part-time job?

Why do you take it? How do you like the experience?

Method: discussion in the whole class

2) Vocabulary Study: panel, full-time, absolutely, extra, picnic, drown
Teacher directs comprehension task
In this section well listen to a description on an experience of being frightened first and then the second part will be a
forum on whether taking part-time job is good for children or not.
Students listen for task
A. Discussion
1. Listen to the tape once and then try to work out a summary for this conversation.
Summary: Tom is telling Eddie about_______________________________ ____________________
( strategy: general listening )
2. Fill in the missing words.
We used to __________ place beside ____________. We had ______________. I was there with _________and I
decided to ___________. It didnt look far and I _________but _________ I realized it was __________than I
thought. I was _________. I shouted. Luckily _______and brought __________. I thought I ________. Ive never been
more_________in my life.
(strategy: listening for specific information)
B. Forum
3. Complete the remarks given by the four participants at the forum so as to show each ones answer to the question:
Should school children take part-time jobs?
Headmaster:
(1) The two full-time jobs that children have already got are:
a.____________, and
b._____________.
(1) Part-time jobs make them ______________that they ____________ in class.
Mrs. Barnes:
(2) What children need is ______________.
Mr. Barnes:
(3) A part-time job cant ___________________boys.
(4) They _____________________ instead of asking their parents for And they _____
________of the world ______________.
Businessman:
(1) Boys __________from a part-time job.
(2) If the pupils _______________ they couldnt _____________.
(strategy: listening for gist)
Teacher directs feedback
After the students finish the tasks, they check their answers with each other first. Then the teacher talked about the
answers with them.
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Teacher directs text-related task

1) Write a short passage describing as vividly as you can an experience of being extremely happy.
2) The task is to discuss in a small group Do you agree that taking part-time job is good for school children? Why or
why not? Then each group will recommend a representative to present the (may be) different views of the members in
his group and his own opinion on this issue with the argument.
4.4 Conclusion
The whole procedure of teaching listening section is designed according to the functional/notional and task-based
syllabus. At each stage of reading, a definite task is proposed and the class is student-centered. Pair and group work, as
language learning activities, is a useful technique for guiding the language learners towards better and easier
communication. This type of practice gives the whole class maximum opportunities for practicing the language. The
students are encouraged to discuss in groups and state individually. Some listening strategies which greatly help their
listening are presented. Speaking and writing are integrated into the tasks. The students keep interest in the target text
all the time. The atmosphere in the classroom is active and pleasant.
Through the tasks, the students get a deep impression of how to express their views and communicate with each other.
They have desired the language function.
5. A Case Study on Effect of Teaching Listening In CLT
5.1 Objectives
The recent developments in language teaching have been motivated by a number of factors, such as changes in
linguistics, in learning psychology, and in the social environment, with the increasing importance of global institutions.
Also, increasing dissatisfaction with the results of earlier methods leads to a search for more efficient methods and
approaches.
As we mentioned in the former part, listening as an important means of input has been neglected for a long time. It
seems a hut nut for most students; while the present teaching of listening comprehension is generally unefficient. The
main reason, as we have analysed, lies in the teaching methods. The traditional method is simple, dull, unscientific,
discouraging and more seriously, it can not help the students improve their communicative competence.
Starting from the current needs of foreign language learning, we have found some of Communicative Language
Teaching principles can be borrowed to apply to English teaching classroom. On listening teaching it is also of value. In
Chapter 4, we have discussed the possible ways to realize the ideas of making listening training more efficient in CLT.
The specific suggested ways are vivid Background knowledge introduction, Strategy training, and skills-integration
Tasks, which, for the sake of convenience, will be referred to as BST in the following part.
The experiment to be introduced here is a preliminary study of listening comprehension at college level in the light of
CLT, which advocates the importance of communicative competence. This study intends to Investigate how the
instruction affects the listening comprehension performance, and how language proficiency relates to the results. Thus,
two research questions are formulated:
1)

Does BST affect the listening performance of the students?

2) Does BST help the students improve communicative competence as demonstrated by an increase in reading
comprehension?
5.2 Research Design
5.2.1 Sample
The general principles of sampling in this study are: 1) taking intact classes as subjects; 2) the subjects being typical and
representative. The particiants in this study were two classes, 89 first-year non-English majors of Shandong Institute of
Commerce and Technology. The two classes are from the oldest and largest departmentEngineering and Technology
Department, whose students English Proficiency has generally been in the middle of all departments. The selection of
the two classes also intended to control as many variables as possible. The subjects were of very similar academic and
family background. They were all engineering students and most of them from rural areas.
A background questionnaire was designed to determine how similar the two classes were in the following areas:
previous listening experience, types of high school, sex proportion, grades in the placement test, family background.
Analysis of mean difference of the data obtained between the two groups using Chi-square test and t-test found that the
two groups did not differ significantly on any of the background characteristics (Table 1). Then one of the two classes
was randomly appointed as an experimental group and the other as a control group.
Insert Table 1 Here
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5.2.2 Treatment
The experiment consisted of an 18-week BST instruction program. Both of the control and experimental groups took
part in the regular first semester /English listening course. They met twice a week in 50-minute classes, used the same
course materials (Listen To This: 1 edited by Beijing University For Foreign Studies), and followed the same syllabus,
the only difference being that the experimental group students were given BST instruction. Both the experimental and
the control group were taught by the author. Different lesson plans for the experimental group focused on introducing
necessary background knowledge, listening strategy training and completing various tasks
5.2.3 Instrumentaion
Measures of Teaching Listening in CLT
1) Background knowledge Introduction
In order to help the students understand the listening material by Top-down processing, necessary such kind of
knowledge was introduced in various and attracting forms: teachers presentation, pictures-showing, video-showing,
discussion, etc.
2) Listening Strategy Training
The strategies training was integrated into the regular coursework rather than as a separate component and usually
underlined in listening tasks.
3) Skills-integration Tasks
One of the outstanding features of CLT is task-based classroom activities. In the listening classroom for experiment
group, besides the tasks in the course book, the author designed other text-related tasks for most of lessons. In these
tasks, not only listening skill but also speaking, reading and writing skills are involved.
Time Arrangement
Since the two groups have the same syllabus and class time is also equal, while in the class of experimental group there
are more interactive activities, time should be controlled properly. The treatment is: usually in class for control group,
the last 10-15 minutes would be used to re-listen all of the content that the students had heard during that class. For
experimental group this period of time was employed to carry on BST measures.
Measures of Listening Comprehension Performance
Two parallel tests were designed especially for the study to measure the subjects listening comprehension performance.
Four teachers sere invited in the designing job. Each presented one type of listening tasks for four samples. One sample
included: 1) multiple-choice for understanding short conversations; 2) multiple-choice for understanding short passages;
3) compound dictation; 4) answering questions. These types of tasks are corresponding to those suggested for the
National College English Test (Band IV). Then the experimenters organized the sample test papers into the final ones.
To guarantee reliability and a moderate difficulty, and to see if the two tests are parallel ones, a pretest was first
administrated to 30 randomly selected first year students (none of the students involved in this present study was
included). For the test lasting less than half an hour, the students were asked to finish the two tests at one time with only
an interval of twenty minutes. Table 2 shows that the two tests can be used as parallel tests.
Insert Table 2 Here
5.3 Data Collection and Analysis
After the students had experienced the listening course for one week, both the experimental and control group were
given a pre-test to measure the listening comprehension performance and the questionnaires to elicit what they actually
did in listening activities. At the end of the semester, a posttest and the questionnaires were administrated again to
determine students improvement in listening performance and the change of strategies use. The data thus obtained were
analyzed by means of SPSS. The analysis procedures involved are as follows: To determine the studentl improvement
in listening comprehension performance, the pre- and post-test mean scores were first compared using one-way ANOVA
between the experimental and the control group. Then the significant difference in the gain scores ( post-test score
minus pre-test score) between the two groups was tested by paired sample t-tests separately within the treatment and
control group.
5.4 Statistical Results
The results of the statistics generated by One-way ANOVA analysis in Table 3 show that there is no difference in pretest
between the experimental group and the control group (P= .924), whereas a significant difference is seen in the posttest
(P= .001), indicating that the treatment to the students seems to have caused some change.
Insert Table 3 Here
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The result was further tested by the paired sample t-test. Compared with the pretest, the experimental group made a
significant progress (P .000 .05) in the posttest, while the control group found no clear improvement Table 4). Thus, a
couclusion may be drawn here that the explicit strategy training is successful for improving listening proficiency. In
addition, the P-value obtained from the ANOVA analysis for the posttest is .001, indicating that this is a very strong
effect.
Insert Table 4 Here
5.5 Discussion of the Statistical Results
From the data collected and the subsequent statistical analysis of the data, it would seem that adding BST training
component to listening course has a significant effect in the areas investigated in this study. It appears to have greatly
improved the experimental subjects listening comprehension performance.
Compared with the control class, the experimental class achieved significant improvement in listening performance.
The result is consistent with the objectives of the treatment since emphasis was placed on effective BST for improving
listening performance.
Generally, unlike the traditional listening classes attended by the control group in this study in which the teacher only
used listening activities to test the listening abilities of the students, emphasizing outcome and leading to anxiety and
apprehension, BST teaching focused on the process by exposing students to a rich background knowledge and various
effective and efficient listening strategies for approaching listening tasks of different types, opening up less frustrating
routes to successful listening. These activities might become more relevant and interesting for the learners. Being
actively involved and strategically smart, the students are more likely to make greater progress.
It is obvious that this study is not a strictly complete one. With regard to what roles each part of BST plays on the
students respectively, no answer is supplied. To achieve this goal, more experiments need to be put up.
References
Brown G. (1990). Listening to Spoken English (second edition). New York: Longman Group UK Limited.
Dornyei, Z. (1995). On the teachability of communicative strategies. TESOL Quarterly, 29-1.
Harmer, J. (2000). How to Teach English. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.
Johnson, K.E. (1995).Understanding Communication in Second Language Classrooms. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Larsen-Freeman, D. (2000).Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Nuan, D. (1989). Designing Tasks for the Communicative Classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nuan, D. (1999). Second Language Teaching and Learning. Heinle & Heinle.
Oxford, R. (1990). Language Learning Strategies: What Every Teacher Should Know. Boston: Newbury House.
Rost, M. & Ross, S. (1991). Learner use of strategies in interaction: typology and teachability. Foreign Language
journals, 29-3.
Rost, M. (1990). Listening in Language Learning. New York: Longman.
Savignon, S.J. (2002). Interpreting Communicative Language Teaching. New Haven & London: Yale University Press.
Widdowson, H.G. (1990). Aspects of Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Xu, Tsiang. (2000). Communicative English Language Teaching and Testing. Shanghai Foreign Language Education
Press.

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Table 1. Background Characteristics of the Sample

C Group
Female
Male
Total

Sex

Family source

Test
2

8
37
45

9
35
44

X = .153
Df = 1
P = .695

Key
Ordinary

18
27

21
23

Total

45

44

X2=.939
Df =1
P=.331

Yes

11

12

No
Total
Urban

34
45
14

32
44
15

Rural

31

29

45

44

69.8

70.6

High school

Previous
listening

E Group

Total
Placement test

X2 = .908
Df = 1
P = .757
X2 = .288
Df = 1
P = .592
P = .717 .05

Table 2. Statistical Results of the Two Tests

Mean

SD

P-value

Test 1

18.80

5.04

.53

Test 2

18.60

4.67

.52

R
.903

Note: P-value: index of difficulty

Table 3. One-way ANOVA of Pre- and Post-test of Listening Comprehension across Experimental and Control Group
Source

SS

Between Groups
Pre-Test

Within Groups
Total

Post-Test

df

.22

MS

1997.83

83

1998.05

84

.22

Sig.

.009

.924

24.08

Between Group

258.80

258.80

Within Group

1961.25

83

23.63

Total

2220.05

84

10.95

.001

Table 4. Paired Sample t-test on Pre- and Post-test of Listening Comprehension in Experimental and Control Group
Group

Pretest

E Group

15.26
( 4.96)

C Group

15.36
( 4.85)

Mean
Posttest

Gain

df

19.42
(4.96)

+ 4.16

44

7.96

.000

15.93
(4.75)

+ .57

43

1.15

2.57

Note: E Group: experimental group; C Group: control group.

Below the means in parentheses are standard deviations.
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The Priority of Listening Comprehension over Speaking in the

Language Acquisition Process
Fang Xu
Foreign Language College, Qingdao University of Science and Technology
PO box 502, 69 Song Ling Road, Qingdao 266061, China
Tel: 86-532-8190-0652

E-mail: sailqd_2008@163.com

Abstract
By elaborating the definition of listening comprehension, the characteristic of spoken discourse, the relationship
between STM and LTM and Krashens comprehensible input, the paper puts forward the point that the priority of
listening comprehension over speaking in the language acquisition process is very necessary.
Keywords: Listening comprehension, Speaking, Short-term memory, Long-term memory
1. Introduction
Traditionally in the field of foreign language teaching, both teachers and learners have tended to underestimate the
complexity of the learning task. This tendency can be traced directly to such common sense notions as learning by
doing and practice makes perfect and to the position assumed by behavioristic psychology that language learning
can be described by the imitation-repetition and analogy paradigm.
Applying the new concept of learning, we can show that imitation of a foreign utterance is impossible without the
use of processing devices that have been established in the human brain by prior learning. In recent years there has
been an increasing interest in listening comprehension. While the audio-lingual methodology places listening first in
the sequence of language skills, the listening that has taken place has been largely a listening for speaking rather
than a listening for understanding.
2. Literature Review
2.1 The definition of listening
Traditionally, listening was viewed as a passive process, in which our ears were receivers into which information
was poured, and all the listeners had to do was passively register the message. Today we recognize that listening is
an active process, and that good listeners are just as active when listening as speakers are when speaking.
Active listening is also an interpretive process. Listening used to be thought of as the exact decoding of the message.
In fact, listening involves subtle interpretation. This interpretive notion has long been recognized in reading, but it
has taken a long time for it to be accepted in terms of listening. Its acceptance directly affects our notions of
correctnessit requires an acknowledgement of the inherent variation in listeners comprehension of what they
hear, and of the importance of context and non-linguistic variables in this interpretation.
A representative definition of listening is propounded by Clark and Clark (1977: 43-44). They give both a narrow
and broad definition:
Comprehension has two common senses. In its narrow sense it denotes the mental processes by which listeners take
in the sounds uttered by a speaker and use them to construct an interpretation of what they think the speaker
intended to convey... Comprehension in its broader sense, however, rarely ends here, for listeners normally put the
interpretations they have built to work.
2.2 The characteristic of spoken discourse
To understand the nature of listening processes, we need to consider some of the characteristics of spoken discourse
and the special problems they pose for listeners. Spoken discourse has very different characteristics from written
discourse, and these differences can add a number of dimensions to our understanding of how we process speech.
For example, spoken discourse is usually instantaneous. The listener must process it online and there is often no
chance to listen to it again.
Often, spoken discourse strikes the second-language (L2) listener as being very fast, although speech rates vary
considerably. Radio monologs may contain 160 words per minute, while conversation can consist of up to 220
words per minute. The impression of faster or slower speech generally results from the amount of intraclausal
pausing that speakers make use of. Unlike written discourse, spoken discourse is usually unplanned and often

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reflects the processes of construction such as hesitations, reduced forms, fillers, and repeats.
Spoken discourse has also been described as having a linear structure, compared to a hierarchical structure for
written discourse. Whereas the unit of organization of written discourse is the sentence, spoken language is usually
delivered one clause at a time, and longer utterances in conversation generally consist of several coordinated clauses.
Most of the clauses used are simple conjuncts or adjuncts. Also, spoken texts are often context-dependent and
personal, assuming shared background knowledge. Lastly, spoken texts may be spoken with many different accents,
from standard or non-standard, regional, non-native, and so on.
Therefore, research has also thrown considerable light on the complexity of spoken interaction in either a first or
second language. For example, Luoma (2004) cites some of the following features of spoken discourse:
Composed of idea units (conjoined short phrases and clauses)
May be planned (e.g., a lecture) or unplanned (e.g., a conversation)
Employs more vague or generic words than written language
Employs fixed phrases, fillers, and hesitation markers
Contains slips and errors reflecting online processing
Involves reciprocity (i.e., interactions are jointly constructed)
Shows variation (e.g., between formal and casual speech), reflecting speaker roles, speaking purpose, and the
context
2.3 The definition of STM and LTM
Jack C. Richards, John Platt and Heidi Platt (2000: 283) define short-term memory (STM) as: Short-term memory
refers to that part of the memory where information which is received is stored for short periods of time while it is
being analyzed and interpreted. Once the message or information in an utterance is understood the data may become
part of permanent memory (or long-term memory). The utterance itself is now no longer needed and may fade from
short-term memory. They also describe long-term memory (LTM) as that part of the memory system where
information is stored more permanently. Information in LTM may not be stored in the same form in which it is
received.
STM is transient memory. It has a limited capacityit can only retain about seven or so unrelated chunks (a chunk
is a meaningfully coded unit) once. LTM, on the contrary, is the place where more permanent information is stored.
It is unlimited in capacity and holds information over a much longer interval, but it often takes a fair amount of
effort to get information into it. LTM serves as a data base into which information is inserted through STM, and
from which information is retrieved to be used in STM. STM plays the role of a gateway into LTM. In Calls (1985)
view, memory is made up of three parts: sensory store, short-term memory and long-term memory. Information
comes in from the environment through a series of sensory memory systems (iconic and auditory memory) from
which it is lost unless attended. The transitory sensory store preserves information for a few hundred milliseconds;
its characteristics are for the storage of visual information. Then the information goes into an intermediate STM
where it has to be rehearsed before it can go into a relatively permanent LTM. Information is lost within 20-30
seconds if it is not rehearsed in STM. If the item leaves STM before a permanent LTM representation is developed,
it will be lost forever. One cant retain information in STM forever since new information would always be coming
in and would push out old information from the limited STM. STM can combine information from both the
environment and LTM whenever a person tries to learn new information, make decisions, or solve problems. Once
in STM, an item can be retained there by rehearsal. As an item is rehearsed, information about it is transferred to
LTM. As soon as rehearsal of an item is brought to an end, the item soon will be displaced by a new incoming item
and thus lost from STM.
2.4 Krashens comprehensible input
To be useful to the learner, the input must be neither too difficult to understand nor too easy. This is conceptualized
by Krashen in terms of the learners current level, called i, and the level that the learner will get to next, called i+1.
For the learner to progress rather than remain static, the input has always to be slightly beyond the level at which he
or she is completely at home; the gap between the learners i and the i+1 that he or she needs is bridged by
information drawn from the situation and from the 1earners previous experience. We also use context, our
knowledge of the world, our extra-linguistic competence to help us understand (Krashen, 1982, p. 21).
Comprehensible input relies on the actual language forms being incomprehensible, not the total message. This
concept has indeed been called incomprehensible input because the learners always have to struggle to derive
meaning for the parts they do not understand rather than understanding the sentence completely (White, 1987). The
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learners progress continually from stage i to stage i+1, along a pre-set series of stages. So the model requires a
precise developmental scale on which i and i+1 can be located. This scale invokes the natural order hypothesis: we
acquire the rules of language in a predictable order, some rules tending to come early and some late (Krashen, 1985,
p. 1).
Krashen claims that language acquisition occurs through understanding messages or, in other words, through
receiving comprehensible input. That is, in Krashens view, perceptive language behaviours such as listening or
reading play the major role in the learning process, while everything else, including the development of speaking
skills or the knowledge of grammar rules, will follow automatically as long as a sufficient amount and type of input
is provided. Therefore, a student cannot be expected to produce i+1 output without learning first about the +1
element, that is, without receiving some sort of i+1 input.
Listening is the crucial activity. Second language learners acquire a new language by hearing it in contexts where
the meaning of sentences is made plain to them. Speaking is either unnecessary or is positively harmful; active
knowledge of how to use an L2 never comes from production; its only positive virtue may be that it provokes other
people into speaking themselves, thus providing more listening material for the learner to work on. Speaking is a
result of acquisition and not its cause (Krashen, 1985, p. 2). This emphasis on listening at the expense of production
distinguishes Krashens theory from most others, for instance from communicative teaching theories, which stress
the importance of the learner speaking.
3. The Priority of Listening Comprehension over Speaking
In practical terms, listening comprehension is of paramount significance. When speaking a language, a learner can
manipulate a relatively narrow range of vocabulary at his or her own pace to express an idea, but when listening to
the reply he or she no longer controls the choice of vocabulary. One must be prepared to assimilate those words
which are a part of the speakers active vocabulary and must adjust to the speakers rate of speech. In order to
handle a simple conversation, an individual must have a much broader competency in listening comprehension than
in speaking; this is especially the case when conversing in a foreign language with a native speaker of that language.
In terms of range of lexicon and structure, the comparable capabilities might be illustrated by the areas of two
concentric circles (see Figure 1.).
Insert Figure 1 Here
Moreover, in a dynamic sense, as a learners language skill improves, we can visualize both concentric circles
enlarging simultaneously with the outer (listening comprehension) circle always embracing a far greater range than
the inner (speaking) circle. Emphasis on the inner circle (speaking) severely retards the expansion of the outer circle
(listening comprehension). The requirement to respond orally imposes listening for speaking and results in impaired
comprehension. Asher (1969, p.13) concluded that the stress of trying to pronounce the alien utterance may retard
listening fluencyThe optimal strategy may be serial learning in which one achieves listening fluency just before
one attempts to speak. Ley and Locascio (1972) state: One must make association to verbal materials during
learning in order that the material can be later recalled, and that some procedure such as repeatedly saying the
material aloud interferes with the association process and, therefore, has a detrimental effect on learning.
Attempting to speak before listening comprehension is acquired may cause problems in speaking. The requirement
to speak before one completely comprehends brings about the detrimental effect of task overload (of stress and
anxiety) on language learning. High anxiety has detrimental effects on speaking: there is a tendency to force the
speaker back to his or her native grammatical structure or vocabulary when the speaker becomes over-anxious (and
this in turn usually leads to greater anxiety). As Gaier (1952, p.11) has expressed it: It leads to impairment in the
ability to improvise in an unstructured and/or new situation. This results in stereotyped, habitual, and familiar
approaches that may be maladaptive in the situation. Speaking too soon is detrimental to both listening
comprehension and speaking.
When students are tasked with production of a foreign sentence, they have to retrieve phonological, morphological,
syntactical, and lexical elements stored in their memory and control their production on all these levels
simultaneously and with the speed of speech output. When this task is assigned to beginning students, they are
actually asked to retrieve something they have not yet stored in their memory and for which no processing strategies
have been developed. Another consequence of premature oral practice, closely related to the problem of interference,
is the problem of short-term memory overload. Speech is too rapid and the sentences are too long and/or complex to
permit the STM to sort out the basic recurring elements. Children learning a first language are spoken to in short
phrases; in many instances, one-word expressions (Broen, 1972). Short meaningful units apparently must be
presented and learned so they may later be chunked into larger and larger meaningful units. Excessive exposure to a
second language without meaningfulness may even be detrimental to learning the language. If the listening materials

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are very easy for the L2 learners, they cant make progress in listening practice. On the contrary, if the listening
materials are more difficult for the L2 learners, the learners STM will be overloaded and the learners will lose
interest in listening acquisition. Comprehensible input is very important in the language acquisition process. It
seemed to us that the building of listening comprehension through meaningful listening exercises must be as
carefully researched, tried, and tested as the building of speaking ability had been attempted in the audio-lingual
methodology. Most, if not all, of the foreign language material learned by the student is the type that needs to be
habituated rather than conceptualized. Therefore, in the production-oriented approach, which is characteristic of the
contemporary methodology of instruction, the students short-term memory is constantly overloaded with FL
(foreign language) material which he or she holds for active and instantaneous recall. Since the rate of presentation
of new material is always greater than the rate of assimilation (that is, development of habitual control and
automaticity of response), the short-term memory early in the course reaches a point of saturation, thereby causing
considerable inhibition of the learning process. If we remove the requirement for premature speech production, the
function of short-term memory will be greatly facilitated, for it will be left relatively free for new perceptual
learning. Once listening comprehension is achieved, transfer to the speaking skill is very rapid.
The insights that are drawn from the above-mentioned are:
Comprehensible input is very important in the language acquisition process.
Delay of oral practice in the early stages of language learning is a key factor in reducing task overload.
Proficiency in listening comprehension is readily transferable to other language skills (including speaking and
reading).
4. Conclusion
Therefore, listening comprehension of a foreign language should be developed as a single skill, and that
development of linguistic competence is facilitated when training in oral production is not attempted until
considerable fluency in aural comprehension has been developed. The second-language acquisition process can be
made less strenuous and more productive by reversing the emphasis in the initial phase of instruction from intensive
training in oral production to rapid development of aural comprehension.
References
Asher, J. J. (1969). The Total Physical Response Approach to Second Language Learning. The Modern Language
Journal, 358, 3-17.
Broen, P. A. (1972). The Verbal Environment of the Language Learning Child. American Speech and Hearing
Association Monographs, 17.
Call, M. E. (1985). Auditory Short-Term Memory, Listening Comprehension, and the Input Hypothesis. TESOL
Quarterly, 19/4, 765-781.
Clark, Herbert H. & Clark, Eve V. (1977). Psychology and Language: An Introduction to Psycholinguistics. New
York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Inc.
Gaier, R. L. (1952). Selected Personality Variables and the Learning Process. Psychological Monographs,66
(349),1-28.
Krashen, S. D. (1982). Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Pergamon Press.
Krashen, S. D. (1985). The Input Hypothesis: Issues and Implications. London: Longman.
Ley, R., and Locascio, D. (1972). Associated Reaction Time in Language Acquisition. Paper Presented at the
American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting, Chicago.
Luoma, Sari. (2004). Assessing Speaking. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Richards, Jack C., Platt, John & Platt, Heidi. (2000). Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching & Applied
Linguistics. Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.
White, L. (1987). Against comprehensible input: The input hypothesis and the development of L2 competence.
Applied Linguistics, 8, 95-110.

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Figure 1. Normal range of receptive and expressive language ability

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International Education Studies; Vol. 6, No. 4; 2013

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The Use of Games to Foster Fluency among ESL Learners

Aylar Fallah Vazirabad1
1

University of Essex, UK

Correspondence: Aylar Fallah Vazirabad, University of Essex, UK. E-mail: aylarfallahvazirabad@yahoo.com

Received: January 21, 2013
doi:10.5539/ies.v6n4p205

Accepted: February 26, 2013

Online Published: March 26, 2013

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/ies.v6n4p205

Abstract
This study focused on five particular Communication Strategies (CSs) namely: Paraphrase, approximation,
hesitation, reduction, borrowed words and invented, or anglicised. The aim was to investigate the link between
the use of approvable and positive CS-types and the impact of ESL students beliefs about CSs in a
game-activity. It aims to promote students fluency based on positive CSs. The study used a series of videoed and
transcribed task-observations based on Spot the Differences information-gap activities. In addition, the views
and beliefs of 6 teachers and 6 students were sampled using structured interviews. The results interestingly
revealed that hesitation was one of the most approved and positive strategies. The teacher interviews revealed
that the more experienced teachers focused attention on fluency and helping student to 'keep going', and using all
types of CSs while less experienced tutors focused attention on both fluency and vocabulary learning in
communication tasks. Less experienced teachers also uttered that hesitation and reduction strategies should not
to be encouraged and it is better that teacher tell the word if student needs it or paraphrase them. The observation
also highlighted that there is a relation between the teacher's inner beliefs and the student's fluency level. Data
from the videoed observations revealed that body language was an important element in communicating
meaning. The results also revealed what strategies these teachers encourage students to use in a communication
activity. That are mostly avoided because of their misconception about a communication activity. Analysis of
CSs also showed the link between teacher and students beliefs about approvable CSs and their level of achieved
fluency.
Keywords: games, communication strategies, fluency in the English language, communicative ability, ESL
1. Introduction
Celce-Murcia and Macintosh, (1979), state that in games, language-use takes precedence over language-practice,
and games bring the student closer to the real-world situation through its task-oriented characteristics. Most of
the researchers, however, believe that adult learners require a language if they are involved in a real and
meaningful language environment (Alemi, 2010).
The literature on CSs is replete with contradictory findings. Researchers such as Tarone (1980), Faerch and
Kasper (1980), Maleki (2007) believe that during usage of time-gaining strategies [here, hesitation fillers]
students are not utilizing words and they are just hesitating, so that they have not mentioned this CS types as a
tool to foster fluency. Several other researchers, however, have highlighted the significance of using Fillers and
Hesitation devices as a means to remain in communication in the face of difficulties (Canale, 1983; Canale &
Swain, 1980; Ellis, 1985; Hasstrup & Phillipson, 1983).
Besides, Avoidance strategies would also fall short of qualifying as real CSs because by using them, ones
meaning is not negotiated but reduced. Williems (1987) identifies them as Reduction CSs, and views them as
negative, whereas, other researchers believe that topic Avoidance and Replacement-skills could improve a
learners fluency reinforcing the old view that Language learners should be encouraged to say what they can
rather than retreat silently from what they cant. While one put explanation in paraphrasing CSs, the other
considers it in a different category. As an example, Corder (1981) divided CSs into two groups: message
adjustment and resource expansion strategies. Other researchers such as Faerch and Kasper, 1983; Ellis, 1985
have used different terms: reduction and avoidance strategies for the first, and achievement strategies for the
second. Willems (1987) also divides them into receptive and productive. In sum there is clearly a need to provide
what strategies teachers believe as productive and positive in real classes, among teachers and students.

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In addition, despite the significant amount of educational research and the growing interest in CSs, there is a lack
of practical research on the negative or positive effects of CSs in a fluency activity. According to Willems (1987)
article, CSs are divided in to two kinds: positive (achievement/compensatory) or negative (reduction strategies).
So for example in one of its subcategories which is Message abandonment, learner avoids using the word by
changing the topic, e.g. Lets talk about how the other part of the filtering machine works rather than talking
about that part of the machine. But Faerch and Kasper categorize it as a positive CS type. In language classrooms,
learners are producing CSs. On the other hand, the main objective of language learning is to be the learners'
ability to communicate in real-world situations, which in turn requires serious attention to be paid to various
types of CSs (Willems, 1987). However, this investigation and the outcome advise that a general plan is required
to affect a fundamental change in the teachers and students belief. Given such a necessity, the present study is
intended to provide a clear picture of the strategies that teachers and students need to know in fostering fluency.
This study clearly shows how this belief affects the students and teachers perspective on the game. It also
highlights the beliefs on CSs that play an affective role in promoting fluency through a game-activity.
Goals might be powerful motivators. Learners who do set appropriate goals and beliefs seem to sustain their
learning (here, fluency) (Ames, 1992 and Dweck, 1991, cited in Clark, 2007). Games, of course, are linked with
goals, and require specific beliefs and strategies. Research has sought to investigate the root of goal-setting. It
appears that the learners thoughts, beliefs and efforts have been the fundamental contributing factors to
goal-setting (Kanfer, 1992).
We should be aware of disapproval or approval factors within the students speech act, and within the teachers
and students own beliefs (Mowrer, 1960, cited in Clark, 2007). There should be an in-depth observation and
investigation into these factors so that we can come to a definite conclusion on how games foster fluency when a
student is doubtful or has a misconception about using appropriate CS type. Thus this is important to reveal what
type of strategies are considered as positive and the impact of teachers belief on students and also the effect of
students previous beliefs on their success or failure in communicating and fostering fluency.
2. Purpose of the Study
The researchs goal as discussed earlier is to categorize effective CSs based on students productivity and
experienced teachers beliefs that made the students fluent. Therefore, we developed four main questions:

What types of CSs the students at intermediate level use when engaged in information-gap activity?

Does teacher and students self-belief, have an influence on students use of CSs?

Is hesitation a positive or negative strategy?

Is reduction a positive or negative strategy?

3. Method
3.1 Participants
Six students participated in this study. They were students from pre-sessional classes all from University of
Essex. The participants in this study represented adult intermediate level international students who were
studying English to improve their English before starting a degree. They are between 18- 24 years old. Overall,
they had an IELTS score of 5.0-5.5. The teacher participants were the class tutors of the student participants.
Teachers who were interviewed were from the same university and taught pre-sessional students. They were all
British, native speakers of English. One was male and the rest were female. Teacher A and B have 3 years
teaching experience. Teacher C has 4 years of experience. Teacher D taught English for 7-8 years. While
Teacher E and F have 10 years and 20 years teaching experience, respectively.
3.2 Instruments and Data Collection
3.2.1 Systematic Video Recording of Information-Gap Task
In this study, we video recorded students during the task-based activity. The aim was to notice consciously and
very detailed observation of the participants behavior in a natural setting. In this study, observation took place
among pairs working on the information-gap activity and after class hours. They were seating in pairs. Each
volunteer in pair work had a separate picture. The partner had a similar picture with a few differences on each of
them. Each pair had 20-25 minutes to communicate and spot the differences. Focus was on individuals and in
pair activity. The video recording and analysis of CSs were related to individual students rather than the whole
class. Participants were volunteers coming from the six-mentioned teachers classes. They were also took part in
interview section. The sights, sounds, gestures and mimes of students while doing an activity, even their silence,
led us to know what type of CSs was used. In fact, it was a systematic observation, and aimed to produce
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qualitative data, which were pre-coded and were ready to analyze. Observation was used by accompanying with
other methods of data collection to triangulate or provide additional evidence for a research study; therefore,
teacher and student interviews were also done.
3.2.2 Interviews
We utilized semi-structured interviews that were a number of questions written as the main research questions,
while adding prompts to have freedom to ask additional questions if needed. The teacher interview questions are
as follows:
Teacher Interview Questions
1) How long have you been teaching English?
2) What is your point of view about using hesitation? (such as hmmm, eee)
3) Do you teach them hesitation devices? ( such as: well, you know, I see)
4) Do your students know how kind of communication strategies they are not allowed to use? (such as
hesitation- mother tongue sentences mother tongue words saying I do not know.)
5) Do you think they know which one of the above mentioned strategies they are not allowed to use?
6) What is your opinion about using I dont know in an Information gap activity?
7) What is your opinion about changing the topic if students do not know the exact word?
8) Do you teach them Communication Strategies?/ (prompt: Do you believe in teachability of Communication
activities?)- paraphrase, approximation, Non-linguistic means, reduction strategies, smurfing)
9) Are there anything else you would like to add to this interview section?
3.3 Data Analysis
This study was composed of quantitative and qualitative analyses. Systematic observation through video
recording while students were doing an activity, was analyzed and all CSs were coded. All student speech was
recorded and then were typed, and then each utilized CS type in their speech was highlighted. Then the number
of occurrences were calculated and added to the list of specific category. For example, Non-linguistic means
were used in a students speech for 101 times. Then the numbers were mentioned and highlighted to be
compared with other strategy and in the attached table. However as far as this research is concerned, I will be
using the combination of the most popular terms by my own definitions and based on the purpose and relation to
this study. Moreover, List of the CS categories are also attached into Appendix 1. Quantitative part of this study
was done through calculating frequency of different types of CSs and then qualitative part was done by
analyzing the observed data as well as the interview parts.
4. Results and Discussion
As mentioned earlier, this study was aimed at designing a specific code system for analysing CSs. The
quantitative part in means of frequency is shown in Table 1. It provides a brief overview of the analyses, and the
different categories are illustrated in a colour scheme.
Table 1. Video-recorded analysis of students communication strategies
Analysis of CS SA
SB
Use Among
Syria-m IranStudents
ale
Female
A. Paraphrase
A1.ParaphraseDefinition
A2.ParaphraseDescription
A3.Approximati
on
B. Hesitation
B1.Hesitation
with Filler

SC
SD
Japan- JapanMale
Female

SF
SE
Group
Saudi
WHOLE
ItaliaA
Arabia- GROUP
Female
(purple)
Female

Group
B (pink)

12

32

26

17

14

11

18

11

42

40

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B2.Hesitation
with retrieval
C. Foreignizing
C1.Words from
L1
C2.Anglicized
Words
C3.Literal
Translation
D. Reduction
D1.Reduction
abandonment
with switching
to a different
topic
D2.Reduction
Abondonment
without
switching the
topic (give up)
E.Nonlinguistic

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25

10

24

68

50

18

17

13

24

37

25

101

86

15

4.1 Teacher and Student Interviews

In the qualitative part, teachers and students interviews were analyzed. A total number of six teachers were
interviewed for this study. All are British speakers of English. The most significant difference between them is
their teaching experience: teachers A, B, and C having taught ESL for 3 years, teacher D for 7-8 years, teacher E
for 10 years and teacher F having 20 years.
The results indicate that teachers tended to have different views on the balance between promoting CSs and
stepping into providing more language. Teacher D, E, and F who are the most experienced have positive
comments on hesitation, and paraphrasing. Conversely, teacher A, B, and C are more concerned to teach
vocabulary as means of promoting fluency. These teachers are more worried by hesitation, and do not report
paraphrasing. Moreover, the following Table gives a summary of a brief student and teacher interviews:
Table 2. A brief student and teacher interviews
A Summary of
Student
Interview

HESITATION

REDUCTION

A Summary of
Teacher
Interviews

HESITATION

REDUCTION/
TEACHER
SUGGESTIONS

Student A

If it gives you
time to think,
why not. Only
in exams, they
want to test us.

Prefers to define
a word rather
than use I
dont know

Teacher A

Not to be
encouraged

Completely
acceptable/ Its
teachers
responsibility to
paraphrase

Student B

Focuses on
learning new
words and
believes that
hesitation
should be
avoided, I do
not like to talk
fast without
following
grammar, or

If I dont know I
ask the word.

Teacher B

Common and
Acceptable

A cry for
attention/
Vocabulary
should be taught
before the
activity

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correct words
Student C

Focuses on
learning new
words and
believes that
hesitation
should be
avoided, I do
not like to talk
fast without
following
grammar, or
correct words

I prefer to deny
hesitation, it is
not good, If I
dont know I
ask the word.
Unfortunately,
the teacher
helped me with
defining a word
or telling me the
word but they
dont tell me
exactly what to
do to define a
word.

Teacher C

Its a good sign

Student should
find the answer
not the teacher

Student D

Has never been

told about
hesitation,
sometimes
hesitation is
fluency

Asks for words

rather than
reduction, but it
not good when
you just say
nothing. We are
allowed to use
hesitation

Teacher D

A good learning
tool

Willing to make
suggestions

Student E

It is better to
know the exact
word. Hesitation
has negative
impact. It means
you do not
know proper
vocabulary

Try to say
something
instead of
reduction.
Teachers never
teach us
hesitation
devices during
my language
lessons in my
life

Teacher E

Encourages her
partner to help

Encourages
students to
paraphrase

Student F

I try to use exact

word...if I dont
know... I
apologize... I
prefer to say...I
dont know
when I dont
know the exact
word and never
define words

I apologize and
say I do not
know anything.
It is not bad. I
ask the teacher
and in most of
the cases
teacher says the
word

Teacher F

Hesitation
means that they
are thinking

Not mentioned
teacher input

With regard to the interviews with the students, however, the results also revealed that SA displayed a positive
attitude towards CSs, including Hesitation. SB also had a positive disposition towards CSs preferring to define
a word rather than using I dont know. However, SC tended to focus on learning new words and believed in
avoiding hesitation. Similarly, SD and SE maintained that it is better to know the exact word, while SF asserted,
I try to use the exact wordif I dont know I apologizeI prefer to say I dont know ...rather than define
words. She also believes that the goal of a game-activity, especially the goal of a fluency activity, can be
achieved if she pays attention to her speech-errors. She adds: I did not have self- confidence when I played the
game-activity because I was worried about my speech errors. I was not capable of saying everything fluently,
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even if the instructor told me to just speak and not pay attention to the errors. Well, our teacher normally
corrects us. We normally ask the teacher. I personally do not like to fail, so I keep silent and let the teacher help.
There is no fun in the game-activity after all. SA, on the contrary, believes that: I like being involved in the
game-activity. After all, what is important is to try to be independent. If I do not know a word, I try to
paraphrase. I do not think that hesitation is a sign of failing. I like the competition, and I really enjoyed the fun
of finding the differences, no matter how. I liked the challenge in the game-activity. I am very confident, and try
not to depend on the teachers instructions. I can do it by myself in most cases.
4.2 Review of Observation and Interviews
The systematic observation of students in this study reveals the fact that students used various types of CSs to
convey their meaning. While this revealed to be true, analysis of CSs usage shows that students generally used
body language more than other types of strategies and as the most practical strategy among students and from
teacher interviews.
The second highly useful strategy is hesitation and among the two types of hesitation, HES-RET was highly used,
this conveys the meaning that students used any kind of strategies to convey their meaning to their partner and
not to be silenced. In contrary, HES_Fill even though was used less than HES-RET, but still is one of the most
used type of CS.
Paraphrasing is the third highly useful strategy; PARA-DESC, approximation, and PARA-DEF are used
respectively. Paraphrasing also is described as a very good strategy among teachers, although there are different
point of views about it, and will be discussed under the next hypothesis. Reduction strategy is considered as one
of the less popular strategies.
Applied linguistics determines development of CSs as an evidence for learners fluency and conversational skills
(Dornyei and Thurrel, 1991). This is clearly seen among half of the students in this study, however the other half
do not meet this criteria, and it could be obviously observed in the video-recorded section. The students are
namely S3 and S4 from Japan, and student 6 from Saudi Arabia, which their CS usages can be seen in CS
analysis section and in the separate bar designed for each group, below:
Based on interview with teacher A: .if they give a list of synonyms they can look around it, and then find the
word. Or if not in that moment I clarify with them did you mean that you are looking for a word that means
this? & if they say yes, I will give them more, but if they say no, I will say try to describe this word again. & they
go back to same cycle that either they guess on their own or they convince me with the word and I provide them
with that.
For Teacher A if student do not know a word describes it or give synonym herself, and do not expect it from the
student to do paraphrasing. If students could not guess the meaning, she herself provides students with the word
itself in a communication activity.
Teacher B however has a different point of view:
maybe they are asking for a different learning style, or a different teaching approach. & then you should find
a different approach with this learner & address their learning needs, because they are maybe are bringing a
learning style that are bringing from school or somewhere, where the teacher spent lots of time with them. They
may had a teacher who explained the words on wall, gave definition, and wanted less from students. So you
should try to change their styles a little bit.As a teacher you are aware of it. So maybe they are not adapted to
new communicative approach, because maybe they bring their style from 10 years, 8 years agoes style, so better
to adapt them to new style. I dont know, I think it is cry for help.
This statement is supported, by Little (1995) that sometimes teachers should focus on the cognitive demands of
the communicative tasks our learners need to master rather than their previews perceived learning styles for a
successful task performance. However, how to master and lead learners in this success seem to be a grey area
that this hypothesis answers.
He also adds this point that:
Well, you should pre-told & taught the vocabulary. as a teacher you have to think on your feet, that you
missed something in your planSo if this vocabulary is not known, .I think you should pre-plan it, and
pre-teach all vocabulary beforehand. So its all about good preparation.
Although this might be an appropriate approach, but as a reply against this statement, emphasizing in
communication and fluency improvement, and as quoted in the literature, River (1981) argues that through
language learning memorized vocabulary might be forgotten while having spontaneous speech, so students who
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encounter a real communication situation seems that need to use CS, for an unpredictable situation in the time of
speaking.
Teacher C: We believe in letting them to have their own mistakescommunication is just to be understood, if you
made a mistake it doesnt really matter in communication, because people just keep going with all these things.
So its hard to teach that but then you can try to promote these methods.
This statement also is supported, when the focus is on communication and not correctness to use CS to convey
their meanings (Ellis, 1984). However, it does not give depth knowledge about the method used to lead students
to gain the new learning style.
Teacher C, paraphrases and summaries, and gives them the exact word just after describing the word herself. She
believes in having cognitive reasoning by students and trying to describe the words by them, but does not
emphasize it too much. She also believes that not attempting to try to convey meaning will lead to the lack of
opportunity in having fluency.
On the contrary, teacher D believes that:
I normally ask them can you describe or can you tell us a sense of what that means. As an example whats the
other word for this or what were the other words for this. Saying them, what do you mean? for understanding.
Suppose can you give us an example? Or you can say can you look it up in your dictionary and let us know I
suppose looking at dictionary should be the last option. If they really couldnt find it I just told them just look it
up and to see what the dictionary gives the definition. Then once we had a definition, and then I talked about it
some more.
It shows that the last option of teacher D is the first option of the three first teachers. She emphasized on
paraphrasing, and explanation of a word rather than an exact word. Her last option might be looking up in
dictionary but it happens very rarely. By looking at dictionary, she wants them to see the exact word but also the
definition.
Finally, one of the two experienced EFL teacher, teacher E describes that:
Well, I try to get them to say anything about it, just saying something, doesnt need to be perfect. Dont be shy,
or something like that.I guess sometimes when you are doing a game, you just want some language to be
produced.
Her ideas convey the meaning that she does not focus on exact word. What she really wants in the game activity
is to let them produce speech without being sensitive about perfection. She suggests using some strategies:
I tell them if you do not know the exact word can you describe the function of it, what is it, in a general class,
to take some objects that they might not know those words in English, such as driver, employers or something,
and get them to get the other person to guess it. Someone has a picture of a can opener, and explains it, that it is
something to open the thingsI ask them just to say anything they know about the object, the color or something.
You know help your partner and even you could ask him questions to help them.
It seems that the controvert belief of this teacher from other less experienced teachers arises by experience, and
is influenced in her teaching as well. Even though still it is vague how students in this class might learn to be
fluent compared to the previews students. But it seems that experience plays a fundamental role. Teachers should
be experienced by natural process to promote students fluency or rather to be taught to do it.
The most experience EFL teacher, however says:
Talking about problems of fluency I mean speaking fluently is somewhat difficult in speaking foreign language.
I think it is with processing difficulties. I think if you are speaking, you are very aware of the other person, and
what they need, and you are also trying to teach grammar and vocabulary. So there is sort of a lot of things
going on, I think actually it is difficult to be, to achieve both fluency and accuracy, I think something has to go
usually. & one way I give that to students is to be quiet explicit about that, and if they are doing an speaking
activity, to say that do try to be fluent, if we are focusing on fluency or we are focusing on accuracy. It seems
that it is challenging to be accurate that causes the problems of accuracy. Sometimes I think its good to keep
going, just to go with the kind of speed, and focus about the mistakes later. Therefore, if you are constantly
worried about having mistakes, it leads to pauses that can cause problems. So thats one thing I do, really to
make people think about whats going on and actually its a very ambitious thing to be both fluent and accurate.
She also suggested story-telling designs and speech bubbles as a support for communication activities and as a
support for the spot the difference activity:
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I think peoples mind are designed to be story-telling mind. To tell stories, so I think if you can encourage doing
narrative that encourages people to be fluent as well. If this is something that personally happened to you then
its deeply meaningful & its easy, its easier if you can talk about it to be fluent about something like that. The
activities, because they know that subject matter, as the subjects matters itself. Actually when I am teaching, I
use speech bubbles with things: like having spell, how do you say this in English. You know all those kind of
words that help them to be more independent, and to find the information themselves there are some
cardboards, and there are bubbles, all around them, how do you spell, how do you and learn how to use those
questions, how do you spell that, how do you define that word. To help them learn how to ask those questions.
To make this argument clear that why some students do not use CS and therefore, have fluency problem, we
divided students into two groups. The first group is student 1, 2, 5, which used CS a lot, and student 3, 4, and 6
who did not use CS, in contrary, and to match them with teachers point of view:
Student A- I try to find synonym for it, I try to find other words to describe what I want, use my hands to point to
something related to, anything that help me, to say the definition of the word. If I dont know the exact word I
try to say the definition of it. My teachers can help me to say what word I am looking for.
Communication Activities. Sometimes we talk about, about daily life things. When we go to shops when we
try to buy stuff for ourselves. When we have friendly speech not in the main course only when we have friendly
speech we, they teach about these stuff. Because they normally speak and they normally use these strategies, so
we learn from them. When you are learning from talking from native speaker, its a normal, you learn normally
from it.
All this strategies overlap with the strategies that experienced teacher E and F used to use. As we discussed
earlier during teacher discussion section, teachers also are divided in to two, the ones who emphasized teaching
exact words and the experienced teachers who in fact believe in just conveying meaning. The last teacher
believes in story-telling, and this student also had to use it as a technique.
Student E also adds that:
Or I can explain with a phrase. If I do not know the meaning of table, I can explain like, its a place I can put
my stuff, my paper or my pen, in another way.sometimes I use invented words. Sometimes when I dont know
what to say I try to invent a word.
In conveying her meaning student E even uses invented words which is quiet weird to be used by students who
believe in using the exact word. Student E mentions that:
teachers divide us into groups like making a cross word. You have to speak about the meaning of the word.
The other group has to guess the word, but if they cant guess they normally use dictionary. To have some advice
how to play the meaning of the word. If they do not know the word you also may do some drawing.
On the contrary, the students who lack fluency to a large extent prefer not to have any attempt to define what
they want to convey:
...I will ask the persons, I mean others. Yes. Maybe if I have a dictionary or a dictionary machine, I will give that
dictionary to that person so to say look person and give me the word. & what it means.Using synonym.
Because you know that it has meaning, or it has a synonym, but easy words.
Student C directly asks the word, or uses dictionary, just he uses synonyms sometimes, even though they might
use paraphrasing but not very appropriate ones which can be again seen in analysis section and in appendix.
Student D:
Yes, teacher more explains about the vocabulary. Yes, to how to use a vocabulary. She tells us the differences
between vocabularies, and its meaning. Just google it.Maybe I check in dictionary or ask someone for word
meaning. I do not use any other strategies, I just directly ask them.Teacher told us when we dont know some
words, just ask the teacher. Or imagine the words meaning from the sentences. Checking the word, using
dictionary is very easy.
Student F, even just and just emphasized that uses exact word, by saying:
I prefer to have exact word.sometimes I made a mistake but I dont like
Her teacher suggests that:
you can build up your vocabulary, as much as possible. ..you can then easily communicate with people.

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According to our arguments, it seems to me that there is a correlation between teachers experience and students
fluency. Student 1,2, and 5 show lots of CSs and fluency in their conversation, interview also revealed that their
teacher prefer fluency rather than correctness or using exact word in a communication activity. On the contrary,
student 3, 4, and 6 believe mostly on using exact words based on influence of their teachers notion.
Table 1 shows that the number of Hesitations used generally is more than other CSs in this study. In both cases
all hesitations used are from simple hesitation types such as: [hmmm, aaaa, yeeeeeees, deeeeeeeeesk]
The interview with the teachers shows that all teachers are satisfied with students hesitation and they call it as
natural, common and useful tools.
Teacher C even pointed out that:
I think it ok. I think when one uses hmmm, that looks someone is thinking
It is also mentioned that even if students are not able to retrieve words in this level that is fine, because it is the
process of their learning.
To support this notion however Dornyei states that:
The ability to use fillers and hesitation devices plays an important role in helping a person to remain in the
conversation and gain time to think; we have found in the past that teaching fillers brings about an improvement
in students fluency. (1995)
However, Canale (1983) specifically listed the use of pause fillers among the CSs making up strategic
competence. Haastrup and phillipson (1983) included in their taxanomy a set of strategies which they termed
strategies aimed at solving retrieval problems (e.g., er now I have to think), Rost (1994) also mentions using
conversational fillers to keep the conversation going in his list of communication strategies. However, whether to
use this devices instead of simple hesitation devices was always questioned among researchers. The interview
with teachers seems to support this view that teachers are not quite sure how to promote this strategies but all of
them except one are interested to use them.
Interestingly teacher A mentions that:
. I think hesitation or a pause is something fine because if you substitute those words with Hesitation Devices,
I think they might think those phrases are preferable so I think I havent.
It seems that the teacher can substitute those words by clarifying that they are facilitators and could mention that
they are not preferable speech devices.
In contrary, Teacher B thinks that:
. I think if they are using them, they are good signs of fluency. In my experience, I never taught that. But I
think its interesting because using hesitation techniques to give you time to think about an answer means you are
a very strong learner
Teacher C adds to this point that:
It gives them the feeling of human being, instead of feeling like robot. But I never taught about it, but I can
see how might be useful. Maybe you want to say: hmmm, let me think about that. & let your audience know,
you are not justinteresting point. Lets consider that. Because if they just keep silent they might, it might look
awkward. So I see how useful it might be. & I think after they speak it is better to tell them you can use them.
Teacher E points out:
hmm it depends, like very formal hesitation devices, for example students who have to defend their Viva in this
university, they should know phrases like aaa thats a good question. You know meaningless phrases to give
them a couple of seconds to think. I think they are good devices if they are employed correctly.Well, because
they are usually rather specific phrases, we just teach them the word chunk as it were. To say when to use them,
when it is appropriate. Practice with them talking etc. But students should be aware because they normally do
not have those devices. We do not usually teach, the textbooks normally do not teach them.
On the other hand, interview with students shows that student A is the only exception to use Hesitation Devices,
which using the Hesitation Devices was obviously seen while he was talking to me in the interview section
(using hesitation devices such as well), he mentioned that:
.Well, I use hesitation (hmm, eee) sometimes, it gives me the time to think. Its ok to use it, why not.So we
dont focus usually on communication skills which help us in our daily life. I learned Hesitation Devices from
TV. Not from any English class, from movies.
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Interviewer) So you were taught about them? Or? Did you have it in your coursework?
No , no I just listen to them in media, movies films, maybe friends. A lovely movie.
The interview with him clarified the fact that he used the hesitation devices, but formal hesitation devices and
not the ones for games or informal speech. He mentioned that he learned them by listening to media, movies or
friends.
Interestingly, student C was the exception to say that:
..Hesitation is not good for fluency. I think but we are allowed to use hesitation, its not compulsory.
Students C even do not agree to have fluency. And he uses HES_Fill and HES-RET against his belief.
It is significantly useful to mention that all students used HES-Fill and HES-RET in the game activity, and all
mentioned in the interview that having hesitation has a good impact; even hesitation as very long pauses is not
recommended. However, all of them mentioned that Hesitation Devices were not taught or told by their teachers,
but they seem willing to be taught or know them.
As another significant statement, student D also uttered this statement about Hesitation Devices that:
I never been told such as these words, But I want to use these words because I think when I use these words
the conversation become more fluency. But in Japan using these words is not good. So our culture dont use
these words, so I cant use these hesitation words. We I mean use hesitation words but people dont use these
words such as not a good speaker. Its negative thing in my country.
It supports the belief that highlighting cross-cultural differences in CS use might be very significant, as in some
languages particular CSs may be seen as indications of bad style (Dornye, 1995)
Other students believe that hesitation is a positive communication activity, unless until it is used for very long
pauses, which show students, lack of knowledge and should be avoided.
If this is the case that HES-Fill & HES-RET are being used 42 and 68 times respectively as one of the most
useful and fundamental communication tool and none of them in the game activity included the Hesitation
Devices, then this seems to be an area in which there could be improvement. As students have never focused on
using them in an informal setting such as a game activity, it is evidence that students may lack the appropriate
hesitation devices to use as strong language learners.
Student C also is from a sample of six students and it might mean that some students generally do not believe
hesitation as a natural communication tool, so they should be told about it, even though in this analysis he used
hesitation naturally and in a number of times.
In addition, for student D, it seems ideal to remember cultural differences as well as other issues.
Therefore, the students who believe that they should use the exact word do not have fluency in a Communication
Activity.
Teachers and students believe that having HES_FILL & HES-RET is a good communication strategy, but they
are unsure of how to promote Hesitation Devices.
The interview with teachers shows that generally using reduction strategies [I do not know] is seen as an
unproductive strategy among students:
Teacher D: .when you say I dont know thats ok, but just do try to say something else, too.
Teacher E: Maybe I try to get them to say anything about it hhh just saying something, doesnt need to be
perfect, Dont be shy, or something like that.
There is however, a correlation between teachers belief and students interview answers and what they really did
in real conversational setting:
Student C: If I say I dont know, first I try, instead of saying it.
Student D: I say [I dont know but.] to keep conversation going
Interestingly we can see the correlation between what teachers and students believe are similar and students do
believe that using reduction strategies are allowed but because it is not productive they try to try and do their best
to convey their meanings by other means. Therefore, mostly they use REDUC-ABAN-SW instead of
REDUC-ABAN-0.
5. Conclusion
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Results from this study shows that students and teachers believe that hesitation is a natural and common tool that
shows someone is thinking. And even if students are hesitation without retrieval we should let them do it, as it is
the process of learning and thinking about how to convey their meanings and should not be interrupted. Students,
however, are hesitating many times in their speech, and all teachers and students except one teacher would like
to teach and learn hesitation devices, to facilitate students thinking process. Interview with students revealed that
teachers are not utilizing them as helpful strategies. One student learned them in media, and movies. One teacher
also uses formal hesitation devices in presentation sessions, but how she teaches them was quiet vague. She also
mentioned the lack of these devices in their textbooks. One teacher also uses it during game activity and telling
how to use it, directly. However, there was no systematic strategy mentioned, through game activity.
The interviews revealed that teacher experience has an impact on students fluency. Experienced teachers prefer
students to be free from vocabulary learning during a communication activity. They use other activities such as
story telling, or bubble game that focuses on vocabulary paraphrasing and fluency rather than structure,
correctness or learning the exact vocabulary. Student 5 also mentioned using cross word in class as a definition
and paraphrasing activity. They never mention vocabulary learning in a fluency activity. This promotes their
students fluency, while on the other hand students who believe to learn both vocabulary and fluency, correctness
and fluency in the same way , prefer not to make mistakes are under the influence of teachers which believe in
teaching exact vocabulary while communication or after communication activity and as a feedback. This teacher
seems to avoid the role of paraphrasing and using communication strategies, which is mentioned by experienced
teachers.
On the other hand, this study revealed that there is a correlation among all teachers and students about avoidance
strategies. It seems that all teachers had an influence on students, and on not using I dont know. If they do not
know a word, they try their best, in most of the cases. It also shows that most of the students prefer to
communicate rather than just say I dont know. Most of the teachers let their students to communicate freely.
Body language seems to be used as the most useful and fundamental strategy among students, and seems to have
a positive impact on conveying meaning, however it seems that there is a correlation between students who lack
fluency and the frequency of using body language. Hesitation is the next most useful strategy and later
paraphrasing strategies. Students used reduction strategies, and mostly tried to convey their meanings even after
that. Foregnizing strategy however, could not be tested based on lack of comparable pairs of students from same
L1 country. However, invented and anglicized strategy could be tested and seems that no one used them. Overall,
the research revealed a relationship between teacher and students belief on their communication abilities. The
more experienced teachers students were fluent compared to the students who believed that communication
strategies such as hesitation devices is better to be avoided.
References
Alemi, M. (2010). Utilizing game-based learning to develop vocabulary knowledge: Utilizing game words, LAP
LAMBERT Academic Publishing, Germany.
Canale, M. (1983). From communicative competence to communicative language pedagogy. In Richards, J. C.,
& Schimidt, R. (Eds.), Language and Communication. New York: Longman
Canale, M., & Swaine, M. (1980). Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to second language teaching
& testing. Applied Linguistics, 1, 1-47. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/applin/1.1.1
Celcel-Murcia, M., & Macintosh, L. (1979). Teaching English as a second or foreign language, 241-257.
Rowley, Ma.: Newbury House.
Clark, D. (2007). Games, motivation and learning. Caspian learning, engaging minds. Retrieved from
http://www.caspianlearning.co.uk/Whtp_Games_Motivation_Learning.pdf.
Corder, S. P. (1981). Error analysis and interlanguage. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Drnyei, Z. (1995). On the teachability of communication strategies. TESOL Quarterly, 29, 55-85.
http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3587805
Dornyei, Z., & Thurrell, S. (1991). Strategic competence and how to teach it. ELT Journal, 45, 16-23.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/elt/45.1.16
Ellis, R. (1985). Understanding second language acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Faerch, C., & Kasper, G. (1980). Process and strategies in foreign language learning and communication.
Interlanguage Studies Bulletin, 5, 47-118.
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Faerch, C., & Kasper, G. (Eds). (1983). Strategies in Interlanguage Communication. Longman.
Haastrup, K., & Phillipson, R. (1983). Achievement strategies in learner/native speaker interaction. In C. Faerch,
& G. Kasper (Eds.), Strategies in interlanguage communication (pp. 140-158). New York: Longman Inc.
Kanfer, R. (1992). Work motivation: New directions in theory and research. In C. L. Cooper, & I. T. Robertson
(Eds.), International review of industrial and organizational psychology (Vol. 7, pp. 1-53). New York:
Wiley.
Little, D. (1995). Learning as dialogue: The dependence of teacher autonomy on learner autonomy. System,
23(2), 175-181. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0346-251X(95)00006-6
Maleki, A. (2007). Teachability of communication strategies: An Iranian experience. System, 4, 583-594.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2007.04.001
Rivers, W. M. (1981). Teaching foreign-language skills (2nd ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Rost, M. (1994). Communication strategies: Are they teachable? Paper presented at TESOL'94, Baltimore.
Tarone, E. (1980). Communication strategies, foreigner talk and repair in interlanguage. Language Learning, 30,
417-431. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-1770.1980.tb00326.x
Williems, G. M. (1987). Communication strategies and their significance in foreign language teaching. System,
15, 351-364. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0346-251X(87)90009-1
Wright, A. Betteridge, & Buckby, M. (2002). Games for language learning. Cambridge University Press.
Appendix 1. List of CS categories- Categorized Based on the Purpose of this Study
A: Paraphrase or Circumlocution
Explanation:
The student seems not know or cannot recollect the right word for the meaning s/he wishes to convery. S/he
therefore uses an alternative word or phrase.
Examples :
A.1. Definition: A sign for stopping cars = (a halt sign)
A.2. Description: Its the green part of the flower (leaf)
B. Approximation
The student seems not know or cannot recollect the right word for the meaning s/he wishes to convey. S/he
therefore uses a more general term.
Example:
Shes wearing a kind of shoes (sandals)
C. Hesitation
The student stops because s/he is aware that they cannot remember or does not know the right word.
Hesitation with fillers
The student uses typical words and phrases to give themselves time to think about what they are going to say.
Hesitation with retrieval
The student cannot at first recall the correct word or phrase but continues to reformulate in an effort to reach the
correct target phrase.
Example:
C.1. Well..erI think that.. what do you saythis is a strong problem because
C.2. I was /wok/../wor/.. I was walking
D. Words which are borrowed, invented or anglicized
The student does not know or is not sure of the correct form of a word, so uses their L1, possibly anglicizing in a
number of ways. Alternatively, the student may invent a word using a similar known expression.
Example:
D.1. Is it a /viorent/ =tape-recorder (borrowed from L1)
D.2. There is many /muscot/ (anglicizing L1 for grape)
D.3. (Literal translation)
E. Reduction
The student would like to communicate something but decides that they do not have the necessary language.
Example
E.1. Oh! I cant say thislets talk about something else (the students abandons the topic and switches)
E.2. I am sorry I dont know the word. ( the student gives up)
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ISSN 1913-9020
E-ISSN 1913-9039
Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education

EFL Learners' Listening Comprehension and Awareness of

Metacognitive Strategies: How Are They Related?
Ahmed Al-Alwan1, Sahail Asassfeh1 & Yousef Al-Shboul1
1

Facuty of Educational Sciences, Hashemite University, Zarqa, Jordan

Correspondence: Ahmed Al-Alwan, Facuty of Educational Sciences, Hashemite University, Jordan. Tel:
962-797-549-992. E-mail: alwan@hu.edu.jo
Received: May 20, 2013
doi:10.5539/ies.v6n9p31

Accepted: July 15, 2013

Online Published: August 16, 2013

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/ies.v6n9p31

Abstract
Metacognitive strategies play an important role in many cognitive activities related to language use in oral
communication. This study explored metacognitve listening strategies awareness and its relationship with
listening comprehension on a convient sample of 386 tenth-grade EFL learners using two instruments: (a)
Metacognition Awareness Listening Questionnaire (MALQ) (Vandergrift, Goh, Mareschal, & Tafaghodtari, 2006)
and (b) a Listening Comprehension Test (LCT) developed by the researchers for the purpose of this study. The
results indicate that students' possess a moderate level of metacognitive listening strategies awareness.
Additionally, whereas directed attention and personal knowledge fail to explain the variance in students' listening
comprehension performance, problem solving, planning and evaluation, and directed attention are capable of
explaining 56% of the variance in students performance on the LCT. It is recommended that metacognitive
strategies awreness be emphasized in listening comprehension instruction.
Keywords: EFL learners, listening comprehension, metacognition awareness
1.Introduction
Since we spend up to 40-50% out of our communication time listening (Mendelsohn, 1994), the fundamental role
listening plays in both communication and language learning cannot be overemphasized. Listening is an active
process that involves deciphering and constructing meaning from verbal and non-verbal messages (Nunan, 1998).
Effecive communication therefore necessitates that learners develop the lisetining skills deemed essential for
understanding input for any learning to begin (Nunan, 1998; Rost, 1994).
The listening comprehension process involves two steps. The first encompasses receiving, memorizing, and
repeating the sounds whereas the second, comprehension, entails the ability to explain the conent of the message to
which the listener is exposed (Zhang, 2001). Demanding in nature, this process requires engagement in a variety
of complicated tasks that range between discriminating sounds and full understanding of the speakers message.
It requires that listeners invest an array of mental processes typicadly referred to as listening comprehension
strategies (Coskun, 2010) viewed as learner actions that make language learning more effective and enjoyable
(Oxford, 2002). Research suggests that this process poses a challenge that is hard to meet for many L2 learners
(Chang & Read, 2006), especially in EFL settings where learners lack sufficient exposure to the target language
(Graham, 2006).
O'Malley, Chamot, Stewner-Manzanares, Russo, and Kupper (1985) categorize learning strategies into three
types: (a) cognitive (e.g., repeating, translation, grouping, note taking, deducting, imagery, auditory
representation, key word, contextualization, elaboration, and transfer); (b) socioaffective (e.g., social-mediating
activity and transacting with others); and (c) metacognitive strategies (e.g., planning for learning, thinking about
the learning process as it is taking place, monitoring of one's production or comprehension, and evaluating
learning after an activity is completed). Among these, metacognitive strategies are considered as the most
essential in developing learners skills.
Metacognitiive stratgies, which reflect thinking about ones own thinking (Flavell, 1976), the individuals level of
consciousness (Wenden, 1998), or the level of control over ones mental processes (Nelson, 1996), play a critical
role in the cognitive processes of language as a means of communication. According to this understanding,
metacognitive strategies are higher order executive skills that may involve planning for, monitoring, or evaluating
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activities to manage, direct, regulate, and guide learning (O'Malley & Chamot, 1990). They are considered a
mental tool and a sign of successful learning that occupies the position of a seventh sense (Birjandi, Mirhassani, &
Abbasian, 2006).
Under the influence of advancement in linguistics and cognitive psychology, research reviews during the last two
decades, (Flowerdew & Miller, 2005; Macaro, Graham, &Vanderplank, 2007; Rubin, 1994;Vandergrift, 2004)
have motivated scholars to consider well-informed, evidence-based approaches to listening instruction including
metacognitive awareness (Goh, 2008). Researchers from different parts of the world have tried to outline the
characteristics of strategic learners and the type of strategies those learners use in specific language learning tasks
(Birjandi, Mirhassani, & Abbasian, 2006). For example, Oxford (2002) suggests that the development of learners'
communicative competence and language proficiency is associated with the strategies they use. Al-Shaboul,
Asassfeh, and Al-Shaboul (2010) draw attention that EFL learners may favor some strategies over others. This
raises a concern regarding the identification of commonly used strategies and less frequently used ones and their
impact on improving language learning. The top preference of Jordanian EFL learners was the metacognitive
strategies. Bremners (1999) research on Hong Kong learners strategy use shows that those learners favor
compensatory and metacognitive strategies over the affective and memory ones.
2. Review of Related Literature
The extant literature supports the responsibility metacognitive abilities embody in learning as they allow learners
to be consciously aware of the learning processes taking place; a learning task entails some cognitive requirements
and necessitates searching for the most effective strategies learners have at their disposal to select. Vandergrift,
Goh, Mareschal, and Tafaghodtari (2006) pointed out that learners with high degrees of metacognitive awareness
are better at processing and storing new information, finding the best ways to practice and reinforce what they have
learned. Metacognitive strategies, being the most essential in developing learners' skills (Anderson, 1991), activate
thinking and have the power to guide and improve the learning performance (Anderson, 2003). This stance is
supported by Goh (2002) who argues that learners' metacognitive awareness correlates well with the effective
learning taking place in all learning contexts. In a nutshell, literature in cognitive psychology and second language
acquisition does support and document this line of research (Bolitho et al., 2003; Fernandez- Duque, Baired, &
Posner, 2000).
In the context of second language acquisition, and pertinent to listening in specific, Goh and Yusnita (2006)
approve the direct and positive impact of listening strategies on the listening performance. According to Yang
(2009), instructing listeners about the role of metacognition in L2 listening helps learners to tackle the listening
task more effectively, differentiating successful listeners from unsuccessful ones. Following this line of reasoning,
Coskun (2010) conducted an experimental study on a sample of 40 (male and female) Turkish EFL learning
beginners to examine the impact of a five-week metacognitive listening strategy training program on listening
comprehension. The results showed a significantly higher performance by the experimental group, implying that
metacognitive strategy training be integrated within regular listening classes to foster EFL listening performance.
Bozorgian (2012) studied twenty-eight, Iranian, high-basic level EFL listeners who took part in a
strategy-based approach including: advanced organization, directed attention, selective attention, and
self-management. The strategy-based approach was applied to four listening lessons focusing on improving
listeners comprehension of IELTS listening texts. Pretest and posttest comparisons revealed that less-skilled
listeners show higher improvement than more-skilled ones on the IELTS listening tests. This supports the
contribution of metacognitive instruction to empowering listeners and endorsing the listening comprehension
ability.
Sheorey and Mokhtari (2001) viewed metacognitive strategies awareness as planning and consciously executing
appropriate actions to achieve a particular goal. In fact, metacognitive strategies are employed to manage the
overall learning process. It includes identifying ones own learning style preferences and needs, planning for an
L2 task, gathering and organizing materials, arranging a study space and a schedule, monitoring mistakes, and
evaluating task success, and evaluating the success of any type of learning strategy. Among native English
speakers learning foreign languages, Purpura (1999) found that metacognitive strategies had a significant,
positive, direct effect on cognitive strategy use, providing clear evidence that metacognitive strategy use has an
executive function over cognitive strategy use in task completion. Studies of EFL learners in various countries
like South Africa (Dreyer & Oxford, 1996) and Turkey (Yesilyurt, 2013) uncovered evidence that metacognitive
strategies are often strong predictors of L2 proficiency.
Based on metacognition theory, the metacognitive awareness of listening strategies involves the language learner
to realize the extent of his awareness of the strategies under his disposal, and how far he can organize and
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manage the listening comprehension process (Vandergrift, Goh, Mareschal, & Tafaghodtari, 2006). Literature
names such strategies like: task-requirement analysis, activation of appropriate listening-processes, making
appropriate predictions, monitoring comprehension, and evaluating success of the adopted approach. For
Vandergrift (1997), those are considered landmarks that could differentiate skilled from the less skilled listeners.
Vandergrift, Goh, Mareschal, & Tafaghodtari (2006) consider learners metacognitive awareness of listening to
include the learners' self-perception awareness, their realization of listening demands, their cognitive goals, and
the approach and strategies they reserve to including problem-solving, planning and evaluation, mental
translation, person knowledge, and directed attention. Problem solving includes a group of strategies that
listeners use to make inferences and to monitor these inferences. Planning and evaluating strategies are those
types of strategies that listeners use to prepare them for listening and to evaluate the results of their listening
efforts (Richards, 1990). Mental translations are those types of strategies that listeners must avoid if they want to
become skilled listeners (Vandergrift, 2003). Person knowledge strategies include listeners' perceptions and
attitudes concerning the difficulty of the listening task and their self-efficacy about second language (L2)
listening (Sparks & Ganschow, 2001). Directed attention represents strategies that listeners use to concentrate
and stay on listening task (Rost, 2002).
The importance of metacognitive awareness in listening comprehension has been recently highlighted. The
extant literature hosts evidence that the use of metacognitive strategies leads to better listening performance
(Vandergrift, 2003: Thompson & Rubin, 1996). Goh (2002), for example, found more skilled listeners to display
a higher level of awareness of their own listening problems. Following an investigation carried out on the
relationship between metacognition, motivation and listening proficiency, Vandergrift (2005) found a
remarkable pattern of increasingly higher correlations among the levels of motivation and the reported use of
metacognitive strategies. Two years later, Vandergrift (2007) explored the relationship between metacognitive
instruction and listening performance; findings approved a causal relationship between the two.
Literature also has studies in the EFL context that have explored the relationship joining metacognitive listening
awareness and listening self-efficacy (Vandergrift, 2005), motivation (Sutudenama & Taghipur, 2010), and
learning style (ShiraniBidabadi &Yamat, 2010). Despite the prevalence of communicative language approaches
that emphasize well-balanced development of learners' communicative competence, listening and speaking are
neglected in the lessons EFL teachers design, resulting in students' limited listening comprehension ability
(Gilakjani & Ahmadi, 2011).
It is documented that EFL learners encounter difficulty in listening comprehension due to more than one factor.
For example, they lack control over the speakers speed, are unable to get things repeated, and fail to recognise
pauses. Additionally, they have difficulty in interpretation, concentration and developing learning habits
(Underwood, 1989). Moreover, they fail to develop listening habits or to enhance the capacity to process
information (Chen, 2005). Other factors that add to EFL students' suffering in listening comprehension include
limited vocabulary and/or poor grammar, and misconceptions about listening activities (Graham, 2006). Some
other difficulties in listening comprehension may arise because of the type of listening material adopted.
In fact, listening is not getting the due attention and is not given the due importance; students receive neither
sufficinet nor adequate training in listening strategies (Seferoglu & Uzakgoren, 2004). Based on the available
literature, it is evident that EFL learners suffer from weakness in listening comprehension performance
(Mehrpour & Rahimi, 2010). In Jordanian schools, metacognitive listening strategies are not embedded in
listening courses or curricula, and language art teachers do not seem to pay attention to these strategies while
designing their lessons. Jdetawy (2011), for example, concludes that Jordanian EFL learners have serious
problems in listening, speaking, reading and writing.
Goh (2008) emphasizes that more research is needed to investigate the role of metacognitive listening strategies
in listening performance in different contexts. Therefore, the current study predicts there will be a direct link
between metacognitive listening strategies awareness and listening comprehension. In light of both theoretical
claims and evidence from previous studies, the present study examined the following questions:
1)

What is the tenth grade students' level of metacognitive listening strategies awareness?

2)

Is there any correlation between EFL tenth graders metacognitive listening strategies awareness and their
listening comprehension performance?

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3. Method
3.1 Participants
This study was conducted on a convenient sample of 386 (207 female and 179 male) 10th graders from public
schools in Amman, the capital city of Jordan. The partricipants, with an average age of 16-years old, were native
speakers of Arabic who had been learning English for ten years. Their proficiency level, as reported by their
teachers, is low intermediate.
3.2 Instruments
Two instruments were used in this study: (a) Vandergrift, et al.s (2006) Metacognitive Awareness Listening
Questionnaire (MALQ) and (b) a listening comprehension test developed by the fesearchers, specifically for the
purpose of this study. The first instrument was designed for researchers and instructors to assess the extent to
which language learners are aware of and can regulate the process of L2 listening comprehension (Vandergrift,
et al., 2006, 432). It has 21 items, each is rated on a six-point Likert scale (1=strongly disagree- 6=strongly
agree). The instrument comprises five components of metacognitive awareness: (a) problem-solving; (b)
planning and evaluation; (c) mental translation; (d) person knowledge; and (e) directed attention--represented by
6, 5, 3, 3, and 4 items, respectively. The reliability coefficient of MALQ calculated in this study was 0.79.
The second instrument, aimed at measuring participants listening comprehension performance, was a 24-item
Listening Comprehension Test (LCT) that was developed for the purpose of this study. The test was based on
two listening passages purposefully selected from the English textbook for the 10th grade/second semester with
the aim of avoiding the interference of participants prior exposure to them, hence background knowledge
interference. These passages had a comparable length (366 and 375 words). They were read by a native speaker
of English and recorded on a CD that was used as a source of input for the participants on the test. The test
addressed fundamental listening comprehension skills including main ideas (e.g., The main idea in first pergraph
is), inference (e.g., The purpose of the writer in the last pargraph is ...), and specific details in the passage (e.g.
The sentenct that refers to effort is). The test used three formats familiar to students: multiple choice, gap
filling, and short-answer questions.
The test validity was ensured by presenting it to a panel of school teachers of English and English supervisors
who had expertise in teaching English to basic school learners in general and 10th graders in particular. They
were asked to indicate the comprehensiveness of the test to the target listening comprehension skills,
appropriateness for students' linguistic and general background knowledge, and clarity of instructions. The test
reliability was established by presenting it twice to a sample of 40 students, with a Cronbach alpha coefficient
of .77. Since one point was credited for each correct item response, a student's maximum possible score on the
test was 24.
3.3 Data Collection
The data for this study was collected during the second semester of the academic year 2012/2013. Students were
approached in their regular classes. They were informed about the purpose of the study and requested to sign the
consent form. It was also emphasized that their participation would be anonymous and confidential. In order to
avoid retaliation in case of not doing well on the LCT, MALQ was introduced first. The time students were
given for the entire task was around 45 minutes: 30 for the LCT and 15 for the MALQ. Data from both MALQ
and LCT were fed into and analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20.
4. Results
4.1 Students' Level of Metacognition Listening Strategies Awareness
To answer the question about students level of metacognitive listening strategies awareness, descriptive
statistics (mean and standard deviation) of students responses were calculated at the level of MALQ, its
subscales, as well as individual items (Table 1). The overall level of metacognitive listening strategies awareness
was 3.56 suggesting a moderate level of awareness. At the level of MALQ subscales, however, the highest mean
response was 4.21, associated with problem solving whereas the lowest was 2.77, associated with personal
knowledge.

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Table 1. Descriptive statistics of students' perforemance on MALQ and its subscales (N=386)
Sub-scale

No. of items

Mean Per subscale

SD

Problem solving

4.21

4.10

Planning and evaluation

3.90

3.16

Directed attention

3.73

3.05

Mental translation

3.17

2.35

Person knowledge

2.77

2.99

MALQ

21

3.56

11.58

4.2 Correlation between Metacognitive Listening Strategies Awareness and Listening Comprehension
The second question that addresses the relationship between listening comprehension and metacognitive
listening strategies awareness was answered using correlation. The results (Table 2) indicate a statistically
significant correlation (r2= .56) between listening comprehension and overall MALQ. Moreover, the correlation
was significant between listening comprehension and each of the subscales: problem solving, planning and
evaluation, personal knowledge, and directed attention. The only insignificant correlation was associated with
mental translation.
Table 2. Inter - correlation among variables
Variables

1.

1. Listening comprehension

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

.56*

.53*

.20*

.31*

.41*

.11

.85*

.07*

.12

.64*

.52*

.51*

.55*

.55*

.09

.01

.35*

.28*

.01

.18*

2. MALQ
3. Problem solving
4. Planning and evaluation
5. Person knowledge
6. Directed attention

.19*

7. Mental translation
P 0.05*
In order to determine the proportion of the variance in listening comprehension explainable by MALQ and its
subscales, multiple regression was performed. The results (Table 3) show clearly that the three dimensions of
problem solving, planning/evaluating, and directed attention explain (24%, 17%, 15%, respectively) 56% of the
total variance in listening comprehension. The other two subscales of personal knowledge and mental translation
failed to have a significant explanation in the variance in students' listening comprehensibility.
Table 3. Stepwise multiple regression predicting listening comprehension from MALQ subscales

R2

Problem solving

.32

.440

.24

Planning/evaluation

.25

.381

.41

Directed attention

.11

.361

.56

R2 change

9.52*

0.000

.17

8.52*

0.000

.15

7.81*

0.000

*p. 0.05
5. Discussion
This study investigated the relationship between public basic (10th) EFL students' listening comprehension and
metacognitive listening strategy awareness. The results indicated that students possessed a general moderate,
satisfactory level of metacognitive awareness. This finding goes in line with the view that a threshold level of
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metacognitive strategy awareness is required for language learners so that they can manage their learning process
as well as they can manage a specific learning task (Oxford, 2002). This also goes in congruence with
Vandergrift's (2003) assertion that metacognitive awareness is an area wherein an important difference lies
between more skilled and less-skilled L2 listeners since metacognitive awareness helps in making the listening
task less problematic, leading to better listening comprehension ability and a better language proficiency (Dreyer
& Oxford, 1996).
Our results revealed that our sample had variability in using different strategies that contribute to their listening
comprehension. Thus, their highest performance was associated with using problem solving. This means that
they resort to their repertoire of vocabulary and main text idea and incorporate their own experience and general
knowledge in text interpretation to deduce the meaning of unknown words. Towards general understanding of
the text, they monitor self inferences of text and compare it to text-emerging interpretation.
In terms of planning, the participants of this study had a satisfactory level of planning and evaluation strategies.
For example, they are keen on developing listening plans, manipulating similar texts, establishing their own
purposes behind listening, continuously checking their self-satisfaction with the emerging interpretation, and
constantly assessing their listening strategy effectiveness.
Relative satisfaction is also associated with students' use of directed attention strategies. Thus, students were
capable of redirecting their focus when distracted. They also tended to focus harder in order to manage
difficulties in understanding text rather than give up. On the other hand, participants' weakness in strategy use
was associated with personal knowledge represented in assessing the perceived difficulty in listening. They also
experienced difficulty in assessing their self confidence and anxiety related to English listening. From a wider
perspective, our results revealed that the different subscales have a variable contribution to the listening
comprehension of EFL learners. Thus, problem solving, planning/evaluating, and directed attention had a
significantly more explanatory power of variance in EFL students' listening comprehension than personal
knowledge and mental translation. The strongest predictor was problem solving strategies that enable students to
analyze related information, search for possible solutions, check the accuracy of alternative solutions, brainstorm
a variety of alternative plans or solutions, and activate what has already been learned and relate it to the current
problem (Vandergrift, 2003; Rost, 2002).
6. Conclusion and Recommondations
This study aimed at investigating the relationship between listening comprehension and metacognitive awareness
among Jordanian EFL learners. The results lend support to EFL students' possession of a moderate level of
listening strategy metacognitive awareness. They also indicate that students' manipulation of these strategies
varies across different subscales (problem solving, planning and evaluation, mental translation, person
knowledge, and directed attention). Students' highest use of strategies was in association with problem solving,
and the lowest was associated with personal knowledge. The predictability of students' listening comprehension
ability was associated with problem solving, planning and evaluation, personal knowledge, and directed
attention.
Given the above findings, it is necessary that EFL teachers enhance students' use of strategies such as personal
knowledge and mental translation. Additionally, EFL students are urged to avoid word-for-word or key-word
translation while listening. Literal translation, a commonly used practice in EFL classrooms, is probably
attributed to students' attempts to compensate for the lack of exposure to L2 in authentic communication. Calis
and Dikilitas (2012), for example, reported that students with positive attitudes toward translation believed
translation was helpful in memorizing L2 vocabulary. This, in turn, reflects a focus on form rather than meaning
in interaction mediated by L2.
In light of the results of this study, metacognitive strategies awreness should be targeted in classroom instruction.
Further research is invited not only to describe the impact of metacognitive strategies on listening performance
but also carry out interventions that foster metacognitive awareness.
Finally, whereas this study addressed basic EFL students' listening comprehension ability and its relationship
with listening strategies metacognitive awareness, its sample comprised 10th graders only. Therefore,
generalizations are to be made carefully.
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Copyrights
Copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal.
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39

English Language Teaching; Vol. 8, No. 2; 2015

ISSN 1916-4742
E-ISSN 1916-4750
Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education

The Relationship between Listening Strategies Used by Egyptian EFL

College Sophomores and Their Listening Comprehension and
Self-Efficacy
Hassan M. Kassem1
1

Tanta University, Egypt & Shaqra University, Saudi Arabia

Correspondence: Hassan Kassem, Faculty of Education, Tanta University, El-Gish St., Tanta, Egypt. E-mail:
hkassem2007@hotmail.com
Received: October 19, 2014
doi:10.5539/elt.v8n2p153

Accepted: November 21, 2014

Online Published: January 20, 2015

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/elt.v8n2p153

Abstract
The present study explored listening strategy use among a group of Egyptian EFL college sophomores (N = 84).
More specifically, it aimed to identify 1) the strategies used more often by participants, 2) the relationship
between listening strategy use, and listening comprehension and self-efficacy, and 3) differences in listening
comprehension and self-efficacy between students with high and low strategy frequency. A Listening
Comprehension Test adapted from paper-based Longman TOEFL test was used to assess participants listening
comprehension. Listening strategy use and self-efficacy about listening were assessed by two instruments
developed by the researcher based on relevant literature: a Listening Strategy Questionnaire and a Self-efficacy
Questionnaire. Descriptive statistics, correlation coefficients and t-test for independent samples were computed
to answer the research questions. Results revealed that cognitive strategies were used more often by participants,
followed by metacognitive and socioaffective strategies. Listening strategies correlated significantly with both
listening comprehension and self-efficacy. Except for socioaffective strategies, participants with high frequent
overall strategy use, cognitive strategies and metacognitive strategies outperformed their counterparts with low
frequency in both listening comprehension and self-efficacy. Implications and suggestions for further research
are reported.
Keywords: listening strategies, listening comprehension, listening self-efficacy, EFL, English sophomores
1. Introduction
Being the two main channels of language input, reading and listening play a vital role in FL learning. The more
learners read and listen, the more they are exposed to language. This exposure is what leads to language
acquisition (Krashen, 1985; Peterson, 2001). It is therefore safe to say that language learning is contingent on
how much learners read and listen to the FL. Listening is even of more importance to language development than
reading because it is the most frequently used language skill (Ferris, 1998; Vogely, 1998; Morley, 1999).
Through listening, language learners internalize linguistic information without which they cannot produce
language (Brown, 2001). Listening is also crucial to the development of other language skills, especially
speaking (Rost, 2002).
For FL learners, listening is more demanding than reading. This demanding nature is evident in Purdys (1997, p.
8) definition of listening as active and dynamic process of attending, perceiving, interpreting, remembering, and
responding to the expressed (verbal and nonverbal) needs, concerns, and information offered by other human
beings. The ability to comprehend spoken language entails complex, instant and simultaneous processing of
different types of information. To comprehend spoken language, one needs to coordinate sounds, vocabulary,
grammatical structures, and background knowledge (Vandergrift, 1999). Many scholars therefore assert the
difficult nature of listening (Vogely, 1999; Gonen, 2009). Empirically, several factors have been found to
contribute to the problematic nature of FL listening (e.g. Underwood, 1989; Long, 1990; Griffths, 1992; Higgins,
1995; Zhao, 1997; Vogely, 1998; Goh, 2000). For instance, Underwood (1989) identified seven problematic
areas that may hinder listening comprehension: lack of control over the speed of delivery, lack of repetition in
the listening material, limited vocabulary, failure to recognize discourse markers, lack of contextual knowledge,
inability to concentrate in a FL, and established learning habits such as a wish to understand every word.
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Listening comprehension entails online processing (Gonen, 2009) of linguistic and background information, and
coping with the uncontrollable speed of delivery. It therefore involves a great deal of mental processes
(Vandergrift, 1999). This makes listening anxiety provoking (Vogely, 1999; Gonen, 2009), especially for FL
learners whose limited linguistic proficiency worsens the situation. Another important cause of FL listening
anxiety is what Joiner (1986) calls negative listening self-concept. This negative self-concept is another face of
anxiety and lack of self-efficacy or confidence. Research has documented a negative relationship between
listening anxiety and listening comprehension (e.g. Elkhafaifi, 2005; Golchi, 2012; Ghapanchi & Golparvar,
2012; Tsai, 2013; Serraj & Noordin, 2013). Conversely, self-efficacy or confidence in listening has been found to
correlate positively with listening achievement (Chen, 2007; Magogwe & Oliver, 2007; Rahimi & Abedini,
2009).
Possessing strong linguistic proficiency, language learners can overcome the problematic areas of listening and
be effective listeners. Unfortunately, this does not apply to most FL learners. The use of listening comprehension
strategies can therefore be of great help to such learners since strategies help them to compensate for limited
proficiency. This explains the focus placed on strategic listening over the past decades. There seems to be a
consensus that strategy use is what makes the difference between skilled and less skilled listeners (Vandergrift,
1997). Strategy use is recommended not only for bettering listening comprehension (Yang, 2002; Cross, 2009),
but also, as suggested by Goh (2008), for improving learners confidence and making them less anxious when
involved in listening events.
Research into strategic listening has focused on identifying and classifying strategies used by learners, especially
good ones, when involved in the listening process (e.g. Vandergrift, 1997, 2003; Goh, 2002; Liu, 2008). A
second trend has investigated the frequency of listening strategies in different groups of language learners (e.g.
Piamsai, 2005; Bidabadi & Yamat, 2011; Tavakoli, Shahraki, & Rezazadeh, 2012; Rahimia & Katala, 2012). A
third line of research has examined the relationship between strategy use and such variable as listening
comprehension, anxiety, and self-efficacy (e.g. Chen, 2007; Magogwe & Oliver, 2007; Liu, 2008; Mohseny &
Raeisi, 2009; Rahimi & Abedini, 2009; Golchi, 2012; Serraj & Noordin, 2013; Tsai, 2013). A fourth research
trend has tested the reflection of strategy instruction on listening achievement and other factors that relate to the
listening process (e.g. Carrier, 2003; Graham & Macaro, 2008; Cross, 2009; Cokun, 2010; Rahimi & Katal,
2013; Bozorgian & Pillay, 2013; Rasouli, Mollakhan, & Karbalaei, 2013; Dousti & Abolfathiasl, 2013; Yekta,
Jahandar, & Khodabandehlou, 2013). The area of listening strategy use still captures researchers interest
everywhere in the world. The present study was an attempt to provide a picture of listening strategy use among
Egyptian EFL learners. It aimed to investigate the strategies used frequently by Egyptian EFL college
sophomores. It also examined the relationship between students strategy use and their listening comprehension
and self-efficacy. The identification of frequent strategies can illuminate subsequent endeavors to provide
effective strategy instruction to any given group of language learners.
2. Statement of the Problem
Listening comprehension is problematic for many FL learners. Researchers attribute this to factors that relate to
characteristics of the listener, text, task, and process (Rubin, 1994). Goh (2000) empirically identified several
barriers that hinder EFL learners listening comprehension. These are affective barriers, habitudinal barriers,
information processing barriers (e.g., processing speed, input retention, interpretation), English proficiency,
strategic barriers (e.g., having problems conducting the proper strategies), belief barriers (e.g., attending to every
word or demanding full comprehension of text), and material barriers (e.g., difficulty level of materials, text
genre, topics). To overcome all these sources of difficulty, FL learners need to be strategic listeners. The
identification of listening strategies used more often by FL learners in a given context can provide valuable
information for strategy training interventions. The area of strategic listening has not so far received the due
attention in the Egyptian context. Accordingly, the present study aimed to investigate the listening
comprehension strategies that Egyptian EFL learners use more frequently when they listen to English material.
The study also explored the relationship between EFL learners listening strategy use, and their listening
comprehension and self-efficacy. Affective variables like anxiety and self-efficacy play a significant role in
listening comprehension. The use of effective listening strategies may help learners gain self-confidence in their
listening ability. This is the reason for including self-efficacy as a dependent variable along with listening
comprehension. More specifically, the study addressed the following questions:
1) What are the listening comprehension strategies used more often by Egyptian EFL college sophomores?
2) What is the relationship between Egyptian EFL college sophomores listening strategy use and listening
comprehension?
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3) What is the relationship between EFL Egyptian college sophomores listening strategy use and listening
self-efficacy?
4) Do students with high and low strategy frequency differ in listening comprehension?
5) Do students with high and low strategy frequency differ in listening self-efficacy?
3. Review of Literature
3.1 Listening Strategy Use and Listening Proficiency
Listening comprehension is important for language learning in general and FL learning in particular because it
allows learners to internalize language items through exposure to the target language (Brown, 2001). Scholars
agree that effective language learning cannot occur without receiving sufficient language input (Krashen, 1985;
Peterson, 2001). Listening is a main avenue of such input. Long ago, listening was thought of as a passive skill
(Jung, 2003; Vandergrift, 2004). Recently, this view has been replaced by a more accurate view that listening is
an active process that entails listeners constructing meaning by interacting with the material being listened to
(Bentley & Bacon, 1996; Nunan, 1998; Holden, 2004). This recent conception is reflected in the definition of
listening offered by OMalley, Chamot, and Kupper (1989, p. 19), listening comprehension is an active and
conscious process in which the listener constructs meaning by using cues from contextual information and from
existing knowledge, while relying upon multiple strategic resources to fulfill the task requirement. With the
advent of this recent view and the interest placed on learner variables, language learning strategies in general and
strategy use within specific language skills in particular began to capture researchers interest. This movement
began by researchers exploring strategies used by successful language learners on the belief that successful
learners use strategies which, if identified and described, can be taught to less successful learners to better their
learning. Listening research of this type has produced several, but similar taxonomies of listening strategies.
Initially, researchers based their work in listening strategies on general language learning strategy taxonomies
(e.g., Oxford, 1990; OMalley & Chamot, 1990). The strategy model proposed by OMalley and Chamot (1990)
was used extensively. Later, strategy models were developed especially for listening. Two of such models were
based on OMalley-Chamots model (Vandergrift, 1997, 2003; Flowerdew & Miller, 2005). Strategies in these
two models are organized under the three main types of metacognitive, cognitive and socioaffective strategies.
Metacognitive strategies are management techniques employed by learners to control their learning through
planning, monitoring, evaluating, and modifying (Rubin, 1987). Metacognitive strategies include planning
(advance organization, selective attention, self-management), monitoring (comprehension monitoring and
Double-check monitoring), and evaluating (self-assessment). Cognitive strategies are strategies listeners use to
manipulate the material to be listened to by understanding the linguistic input. Cognitive strategies includes
resourcing (finding and using appropriate resources), grouping, note-taking, elaboration of prior knowledge,
summarizing, deduction/induction, imagery, auditory representation and making inferences. Socioaffective
strategies, as defined by Vandergrift (2003), are techniques listeners employ to collaborate with others, to verify
understanding, or to lower anxiety. Socioaffective strategies encompass questioning for clarification, cooperation
and self-talk. In more recent work, Vandergrift, Goh, Mareschal, and Tafaghodtari (2006 developed a wider
taxonomy of listening strategies that used different labels of strategy categories: problem-solving, planning and
evaluation, mental translation, person knowledge, and directed attention. Problem-solving includes strategies
used by listeners to inference and monitor inferences. Planning and evaluation represent the strategies listeners
use to prepare themselves for listening, and to evaluate the results of their listening efforts. Mental translation
represents strategies that listeners must learn to avoid if they are to become skilled listeners. These strategies
represent an inefficient approach to listening comprehension. Person knowledge includes listeners perceptions
of the difficulty presented by L2/FL listening and their self-efficacy in L2/FL listening. Directed attention
includes strategies that listeners use to concentrate and to stay on task.
A positive relationship between listening strategy use and listening proficiency has been supported empirically.
Vandergrift (1997) explored the strategies of proficient and less proficient learners of French as L2. Twenty one
learners from four ability levels participated in the study. Data collected from think-aloud sessions revealed
differences in strategy use between proficient and less proficient listeners. The biggest difference was in the
reported use of metacognitive strategies. Proficient listeners reported using more metacognitive strategies than
less proficient listeners. Less proficient listeners used more surface-processing strategies such as translation and
transfer, whereas proficient listeners used more deep-processing cognitive strategies such as comprehension
monitoring. More recently and using the same technique (i.e. think-aloud), Vandergrift (2003a) replicated the
1997 study with 36 French learners. Results revealed that cognitive strategies were most frequent among
participants, followed by metacognitive and socioaffective strategies respectively. The results also showed
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significant differences between proficient and less proficient listeners in the use of metacognitive strategies, as
well as in individual strategies for comprehension monitoring, questioning for elaboration, and translation.
Proficient listeners used metacognitive strategies more frequently than did less proficient listeners. The
variations in metacognitive strategy use had a statistically significant relation across listening ability. Similarly,
Liu (2008) investigated, among other things, the relationship between listening strategy use and listening ability
of 101 Taiwanese university non-English major students. Subjects who were divided into three ability groups
completed a strategy questionnaire adapted from Vandergrift (1997). Overall, results revealed a significant
positive relationship between strategy use and listening proficiency. Proficient listeners proved to possess higher
metacognitive (e.g. using more planning strategies), cognitive (e.g., using top-down processing) and
socioaffective (e.g., controlling emotions) awareness. Of all strategies, managing attention, directed and selective
attention, and advance organization were highly correlated with listening proficiency.
Mohseny and Raeisi (2009) explored the relationship between language proficiency of Iranian EFL learners and
their listening strategy use. Statistical analysis showed a significant positive correlation between proficiency
level and listening strategy use. Cognitive strategies proved to be the most frequent among participants. Bidabadi
and Yamat (2011) identified the listening strategies employed by 92 Iranian EFL freshman university students
and the reflection that strategies had on their listening proficiency. Learners from all ability levels employed
metacognitive strategies more often, followed by cognitive and socioaffective strategies. A significant positive
correlation was found between listening strategies employed by participants and their listening proficiency.
Tavakoli, Shahraki, and Rezazadeh (2012) investigated the relationship between metacognitive awareness
(planning and evaluation, problem Solving, directed attention, mental translation and person knowledge) of
proficient (N = 32) and less proficient (N = 34) Iranian EFL learners and their performance on the listening
section of IELTS. Data obtained from the strategy questionnaire developed by Vandergrift, Goh, Mareschal, and
Tafaghodtari (2006) indicated that metacognitive awareness had a positive relationship with listening
performance. Proficient listeners reported significantly higher use of problem solving and directed attention
strategies than less proficient listeners. Less proficient listeners tended to use mental translation. No difference
was found between proficient and less proficient listeners in planning and evaluation and person knowledge.
The aforementioned studies supported the existence of a positive relationship between listening strategy use and
listening proficiency. In other studies, researchers provided strategy training to FL learners on the hope that such
training would have a positive reflection on their listening proficiency (Carrier, 2003; Vandergrift, 2003;
Vandergrift, & Tafaghodtari, 2010; Cross, 2009; Chen, 2009; Cokun, 2010; Bozorgian & Pillay, 2013; Rahimi
& Katal, 2013; Rasouli, Mollakhan, & Karbalae, 2013; Dousti & Abolfathias, 2013). Because this research line
is beyond the scope of the present study, just a few intervention studies would be presented as examples.
Vandergrift and Tafaghodtari (2010) trained 59 students of French as a second language in the use of some
metacognitive strategies, namely prediction, planning, monitoring, evaluating and problem solving. A control
group of 47 students listened to the same texts without metacognitive instruction. The experimental group
outperformed the control group in listening comprehension. Less proficient listeners in the experimental group
made greater gains than their more proficient counterparts. Rahimi and Katal (2013) investigated the effect of
metacognitive instruction on pre-university EFL learners awareness of listening strategies, listening
comprehension, and oral language proficiency. Learners who received the proposed metacognitive instruction
achieved significantly higher gains in metacognitive awareness and speaking proficiency than learners who
received conventional listening instruction without strategy training. A difference between the listening
performance of the experimental and control groups was found in favor of the experimental group, but it did not
reach the level of statistical significance. Bozorgian and Pillay (2013) delivered a 14-week listening strategy
instruction to Iranian EFL lower intermediate female learners using learners first language, Persian. Instruction
covered five listening strategies: guessing, making inferences, identifying topics, repetition and note-taking.
Students who received the proposed instruction performed significantly better on a listening comprehension
posttest than students who did the same listening activities without strategy training.
3.2 Listening Strategy Use and Listening Anxiety/Self-Efficacy
FL listening is highly anxiety provoking for several reasons. One important reason is that listening
comprehension entails online processing (Gonen, 2009) of linguistic and background information, and coping
with the uncontrollable speed of delivery. It therefore involves a great deal of mental processes (Vandergrift,
1999). This demanding nature of FL listening can be accompanied by what Joiner (1986) calls negative listening
self-concept. This negative self-concept is another face of anxiety and lack of self-efficacy or confidence. In a
study (Tsai 2013) probing, among other things, causes of FL listening anxiety from the perspective of FL
learners, 102 Taiwanese high school students attributed their anxiety to listening time constraint, fast speaking
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speed, lack of prior knowledge, and lack of adequate knowledge about vocabulary and topics. Besides, less
proficient listeners were found to have higher listening anxiety than their proficient counterparts. Research has
documented a negative relationship between listening anxiety and listening comprehension. Serraj and Noordin
(2013) examined the relationship between listening comprehension, foreign language anxiety and foreign
language listening anxiety. Questionnaire data of 210 Iranian EFL students revealed a negative correlation
between foreign language listening anxiety and listening comprehension. Elkhafaifi (2005) documented a
negative correlation between general FL learning anxiety and listening comprehension of 233 postsecondary
students of Arabic as a FL. Based on the findings, the researcher concluded that reducing student anxiety and
providing a less stressful classroom environment might help students improve both their listening comprehension
proficiency as well as their overall course performance. Golchi (2012) explored the relationship between
listening anxiety, listening strategy use and listening comprehension among Iranian learners. Three instruments
were administered to 63 IELTS learners from two language institutes in Shiraz: a listening anxiety questionnaire,
a listening comprehension strategy questionnaire and an IELTS listening test. The results revealed that listening
anxiety had negative correlation with listening comprehension and listening strategy use. Moreover, the findings
showed that low anxious learners used metacognitive strategies more often than did high anxious learners.
Self-efficacy, i.e., learners beliefs in their capability to succeed in listening tasks can be seen as an opposite of
listening anxiety. Bernhardt (1997) describes self-efficacious learners as learners who: feel really confident
because of the experiences they have gained in solving problems and the approaches they have developed based
on those problem solving experiences. It is therefore argued that self-efficacy is a major predictor of student
achievement in addition to knowledge, skill, value, and expectation (Schunk, 2003), for it determines learners
willingness to expend effort in the activity concerned (Wigfield & Guthrie, 1997). The significance of
self-efficacy is reflected in Banduras proposition that perceptions of self-efficacy influence motivation; they
determine the goals individuals set, the effort they expend to achieve these goals, and their willingness to persist
in the face of failure (1994, p. 72). The positive reflection of self-efficacy beliefs on FL achievement was
documented in a study by Chen (2007) using a sample of college Taiwanese students. A significant and positive
relationship between self-efficacy beliefs and listening achievement was found. The results also showed that
students self-efficacy beliefs were much stronger predicators of language performance in the area of listening
than students anxiety and perceived value were. Similarly, Rahimi and Abedini (2009) examined the relationship
between self-efficacy and listening comprehension among 61 Iranian EFL college freshmen. Data collected by
an author-designed self-efficacy questionnaire and a listening test indicated that listening self-efficacy correlated
significantly with listening proficiency.
The use of listening strategies can enhance students listening self-efficacy, as they can help students overcome
barriers that hinder listening comprehension and develop a more positive listening self-concept. This proposition
has been supported in a number of studies conducted in FL settings. Siew and Wong (2005) investigated the
relationship between language learning self-efficacy and language learning strategies among 74 graduate
Malaysian English pre-service teachers. Two author-designed questionnaires were used to probe participants
self-efficacy about English language learning and language learning strategy use. A significant positive
relationship was found between language learning strategies and language self-efficacy. This same finding was
reached by Magogwe and Oliver (2007) in a study conducted on 480 students from primary schools, secondary
schools, and a tertiary institution. Data collected by a modified version of Oxfords Strategy Inventory for
Language Learning (SILL) and the Morgan-Jinks Student Efficacy Scale (MJSES) revealed a significant and
positive relationship between self-efficacy and overall use of language learning strategies for students from the
three proficiency levels. Graham and Macaro (2008) investigated the effects of strategy instruction on the
listening performance and self-efficacy of 68 lower-intermediate learners of French in England. As expected by
the researchers, strategy instruction improved participants listening proficiency and confidence about listening.
4. Method
4.1 Participants
Eighty four male and female sophomore English majors at Tanta Faculty of Education participated in the study.
Students majoring in English at Egyptian faculties of education are prepared to be teachers of English at the
pre-university stage. The mean age of the participants was 20 years. Their average experience in studying
English was seven years.
4.2 Instruments
Three instruments were used for data collection in the present study: a Listening Comprehension Test, a
Listening Strategy Questionnaire and a Listening Self-efficacy Questionnaire. The Listening Comprehension
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Test was adapted from paper-based Longman TOEFL test (Phillips, 2001). It consisted of two parts with 40
multiple choice items. In part A, students heard 30 short conversations and answered a question after each
conversation. In part B, they heard three long conversations and answered 10 questions on them. Conversations
that are culturally-laden were avoided so that cultural knowledge would not interfere with results (See appendix
C for sample conversations and questions). The Listening Strategy Questionnaire (See appendix A) was
constructed based on a survey of relevant widely used questionnaires (Vandergrift & Tafaghodtari, 2010;
Vandergrift, Goh, Mareschal, & Tafaghodtari, 2006; Harris, 2007; Cheng, 2002; Lee, 1997; Teng, 1996). It
consisted of 39 items probing students use of three types of listening comprehension strategies: metcognitive (N
= 18), cognitive (N = 18) and socioaffective (N = 3). Participants were asked to rate each strategy statement on a
5-point rating scale ranging from 5 Always to 1 Never. Two items were reverse coded so that higher scores
indicated higher strategic awareness: the item about translating into the mother tongue (item 2) and the item
about stopping listening when having comprehension difficulties (item 19).
The Listening Self-efficacy Questionnaire (See appendix B) consisted of 40 items. Relevant literature on
self-efficacy and anxiety questionnaires (Hortwiz, 1986; Henk & Melnick, 1995; Nezami, Schwarzer, &
Jerusalem, 1996; Jinks & Morgan, 1999; Seeger, 2009; Rahimi & Abedini, 2009) helped the researcher in
developing the items of the questionnaire used in the present study. It is noteworthy that the researcher followed
the framework of the Reader Self-Perception Scale (RSPS) developed by Henk and Melnick (1995) in
constructing the present studys self-efficacy questionnaire. The RSPS is a reading scale, yet the researcher used
it as the main reference since the self-efficacy construct in reading and listening is similar to a large extent. More
specifically, the researcher adapted and developed items under three of the RSPSs dimensions: (1) progress:
how ones perception of present performance compares with past performance, (2) observational comparison:
how a student perceives his or her performance compared with the performance of classmates, and (3)
physiological states: internal feelings that one experiences during listening (Henk & Melnick, 1995, p. 472). Two
other dimensions were added by the researcher: (1) strategic awareness: knowing how to handle the listening
task and overcome difficulties, and (2) challenge: willingness to do challenging listening tasks. Participants were
asked to respond to items by indicating how far they agree to the statements on a 5-point rating scale. Each
response was associated with a point value, where Strongly agree was assigned a point value of 5 and the
response Strongly disagree a point value of 1. Items with negative statement were reverse coded so that higher
scores indicated higher self-efficacy.
The three instruments were content validated by three EFL professors to decide on their face validity and
appropriateness for the target population. They were then pilot tested on 30 students (rather than those who
participated in the main experiment) to check their internal consistency. The alpha estimates for the internal
consistency of the Listening Comprehension Test, the Listening Strategy Questionnaire and the Listening
Self-efficacy Questionnaire were .76, .94, .92 respectively.
4.3 Data Collection Procedure
The instruments were administered to participants in two sessions so that fatigue and boredom would not affect
results. The Listening Strategy and the Listening Self-efficacy Questionnaires were given to the participants in
one session in a regular classroom, and the Listening Comprehension Test was administered in another session in
the Language Lab. Participants were told that their scores on the three instruments would be used only for
research purposes.
4.4 Data Analysis
The data obtained from the instruments were coded for statistical treatment. The Statistical Package for the
Social Sciences (SPSS, version 15) was used for statistical analysis. Descriptive statistics were applied to obtain
patterns of strategy use. Pearson correlations were computed to explore the relationship between strategy use and
listening comprehension and self-efficacy. To make sure that Pearson correlation statistics was appropriate for
the current data, One-Sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was used to determine whether scores followed a
normal distribution. The results showed that the p-values of the variables were not significant (p = .235, .647
and .172 for the Strategy Questionnaire, the Self-efficacy Questionnaire and the Listening Comprehension Test
respectively), i.e., the data followed a normal distribution. Independent samples t-test was also conducted to
determine if there were significant differences in listening comprehension and self-efficacy by strategy use.
5. Results
5.1 Pattern of Listening Strategy Use
Means and standard deviations were computed to investigate students pattern of listening strategy use. In
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calculating the frequency of strategies, the researcher followed Oxfords (2001) scoring system: high (mean of
3.5 or higher), medium (mean of 2.5-3.4), and low (mean of 2.4 or lower). Descriptive statistics in table 1 below
showed that the mean of overall listening strategy use is 3.217 (SD = .43), which indicates an overall medium
strategy use. As to strategy categories, participants used cognitive strategies more often (M = 3.479; SD = .32).
Using Oxfords scoring system, participants use of cognitive strategies is high. The second frequently used
category of listening strategies is metacognitive strategies (M = 3.360; SD = .49), followed by socioaffective
strategies (M = 2.780; SD = .55). Thus, the frequency of both metacognitive and socioaffective strategies among
participants is medium.
Table 1. Descriptive statistics of listening strategy use
N

SD

Cognitive strategies

84

3.479

.32

Metacognitive strategies

84

3.360

.49

Socioaffective strategies

84

2.780

.55

Overall strategy use

84

3.217

.43

5.2 The Relationship between Strategy Use and Listening Comprehension

Pearson correlation coefficients were computed to explore the relationship between students listening strategy
use and listening comprehension. The strength of correlation was interpreted according to Cohens rule (1988): r
= 0.10 to 0.29 shows small correlation; r = 0.30 to 0.49 indicates medium correlation; and r = 0.50 to 1.0 reveals
large correlation. As listed in table 2, the results indicated a strong positive correlation between overall listening
strategy use and listening comprehension (r = .62). As to strategy categories, strong positive correlations were
found between listening comprehension on one hand and metacognitive (r = .62) and cognitive (r = .60)
strategies on the other hand. Socioaffective strategies correlated moderately (r = .25) with listening
comprehension.
Table 2. Correlations between listening strategy use and listening comprehension
Listening Comprehension
Cognitive
strategies
Metacognitive
strategies
Socioaffective
strategies
Total

Pearson Correlation

.60(**)

Sig. (2-tailed)

.000

84

Pearson Correlation

.62(**)

Sig. (2-tailed)

.000

84

Pearson Correlation

.25(*)

Sig. (2-tailed)

.022

84

Pearson Correlation

.62(**)

Sig. (2-tailed)

.000

84

**p<0.1 *p<.05.
5.3 The Relationship between Strategy Use and Listening Self-Efficacy
Pearson correlation coefficients in table 3 below pertain to the relationship between students listening strategy
use and listening self-efficacy. A strong positive correlation was found between self-efficacy about listening on
one hand and cognitive strategies (r = 60), metacognitive strategies (r = .58) and overall strategy use (r = .60) on
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the other hand. The relationship between socioaffective strategies and self-efficacy proved to be moderate (r
= .24).
Table 3. Correlations between listening strategy use and listening self-efficacy
Listening Comprehension
Cognitive
strategies
Metacognitive
strategies
Socioaffective
strategies
Total

Pearson Correlation

.60(**)

Sig. (2-tailed)

.000

84

Pearson Correlation

.58(**)

Sig. (2-tailed)

.000

84

Pearson Correlation

.24(*)

Sig. (2-tailed)

.028

84

Pearson Correlation

.60(**)

Sig. (2-tailed)

.000

84

**p<0.1 *p<.05.
5.4 Differences in Listening Comprehension by Listening Strategy Use
An independent samples t-test was conducted to assess differences in listening comprehension by listening
strategy use. For this purpose the participants were divided into two groups: high and low strategy users
(participants whose strategy frequency exceeded the average were considered high strategy users and those
whose strategy frequency was under the average were low strategy users). This was done with overall strategy
use and individual strategy categories. Significant differences were found in listening comprehension between
high users of metacognitive (M = 32.12; SD = 3.67) and cognitive (M = 32.73; SD = 3.24) strategies, and low
users of metacognitive (M = 27.97; 3.32) and cognitive (M = 27.58; SD = 3.27) strategies in favor of high
strategy users (t = 5.42, 6.80 and 2.33 respectively; p<.05). No difference in listening comprehension was found
between high and low users of socioaffective strategies (t = 1.80; p>.05). The difference in listening
comprehension by overall strategy use was significant. High strategy users (M = 32.53; SD = 3.39) outperformed
their low counterparts (M = 27.80; SD = 3.23) in listening comprehension (t = 6.55; p<.05). These statistics are
presented in the following table:
Table 4. Means, standard deviations and t-values for the mean differences between high and low strategy users
on listening comprehension
Group

SD

HSU

41

32.12

3.67

LSU

43

27.97

3.32

Cognitive
strategies

HSU

37

32.73

3.24

LSU

47

27.85

3.27

Socioaffective
strategies

HSU

39

30.84

4.38

LSU

45

29.26

3.64

Overall
strategies

HSU

39

32.53

3.39

LSU

45

27.80

3.23

Metacognitive
strategies

Note. HSU = High Strategy Users & LSU = Low Strategy Users
160

t-value

Sig.

5.42

.000

6.80

.000

1.80

.075

6.55

.000

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5.5 Differences in Listening Self-Efficacy by Listening Strategy Use

The independent samples t-test statistics in the following table shed light on the differences in self-efficacy about
listening by listening strategy use. Data reveal a significant difference in self-efficacy by overall strategy use.
High strategy users (M = 137.17; SD = 14.90) outperformed their low counterparts (M = 120.24; SD = 11.25) in
self-efficacy about listening (t = 6.55; p<.05). As to individual strategy categories, significant differences were
detected in self-efficacy between high users of metacognitive (M = 135.70; SD = 16.25) and cognitive (M =
137.69; SD = 14.94) strategies and low users of metacognitive (M = 121.34; SD = 11.44) and cognitive (M =
120.26; SD = 11.24) strategies in favor of high users (t = 4.69 and 6.08 respectively; p<.05). No difference was
found in self-efficacy between high and low socioaffective strategy users (t = 1.07; p>.05).
Table 5. Means, standard deviations and t-values for the mean differences between high and low strategy users
on listening self-efficacy
Group

SD

HSU

41

135.70

16.25

LSU

43

121.34

11.44

Cognitive
strategies

HSU

37

137.69

14.94

LSU

47

120.26

11.24

Socioaffective
strategies

HSU

39

130.36

17.70

LSU

45

126.69

14.30

Overall
strategies

HSU

39

137.17

14.90

LSU

45

120.24

11.25

Metacognitive
strategies

t-value

Sig.

4.69

.000

6.08

.000

1.07

.288

6.10

.000

6. Discussion
The study explored the pattern of listening strategy use among a group of Egyptian EFL college sophomores.
Descriptive statistics of the Listening Strategy Questionnaire revealed that participants used cognitive strategies
more often, followed by metacognitive and socioaffective strategies. This same pattern was reported by Mohseny
and Raeisi (2009) who experimented with a comparable sample of Iranian EFL learners. Vandergrift (2003) also
reported this pattern with 36 French learners. Some other studies reported metacognitive strategies as the most
frequent among EFL learners, followed by cognitive and socioaffective strategies (Bidabadi & Yamat, 2011).
This means that cognitive and metacognitive strategies alternate being the most preferred among EFL learners.
Socioaffective strategies always come last. A possible explanation for the high frequency of cognitive strategies
in the present study is popularity of inferencing and use of background knowledge. Strategies that incorporate
inferencing and use of background knowledge received highest mean values (See appendix A for the mean
values of all the 39 strategies presented in a descending order). This seems logical since inferencing and use of
background knowledge help FL learners overcome limited language proficiency and cope with the complexities
of the listening task. The somehow infrequent use of socioaffective strategies can be due to a tendency to
individuality in some EFL settings, like the Egyptian one. Noticeable infrequent use of socioaffective strategies
led researchers to omit them from analysis in a study that explored the relationship between listening strategies
and learner factors like motivation (Serri, Boroujeni, & Hesabi, 2012). Another possible explanation is that
socioaffective strategies need to be taught to EFL students. For instance, EFL students may need to be taught
how to relax so as not to lose concentration while listening. Riazi (2007), based on similar findings, emphasized
the important role of the instructor in encouraging the use of social and affective strategies compared to the other
types of strategies.
The study also investigated the relationship between listening strategy use and both listening comprehension and
self-efficacy about listening. Listening comprehension correlated positively with overall strategy use and the
three individual strategy categories. These findings are in line with previous studies (e.g. Mohseny & Raeisi,
2009; Bidabadi & Yamat, 2011). Similarly, self-efficacy correlated positively with overall strategy use and the
three individual strategy categories. This concurs with the findings of the studies conducted by Magogwe and
Oliver (2007), Graham and Macaro (2008), and Siew and Wong (2005). Magogwe and Oliver (2007), and Siew
and Wong (2005) found a significant positive relationship between overall use of language learning strategies
and language self-efficacy beliefs for EFL students with different proficiency levels. Strategy instruction, in the
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study conducted by Graham and Macaro (2008), was reported to have positive reflection on learners confidence
about listening. Similarly, several studies reported negative correlation between listening strategy use and
listening anxiety (e.g. Maeng, 2007; Gonen, 2009; Sioson, 2011; Lu & Liu, 2011; Golchi, 2012). A possible
explanation for this finding is that having a good repertoire of listening strategies gives students a sense of
confidence and enables them to cope with the demanding nature of the listening task. Finally, concurring with
other studies, high users of overall, cognitive and metacognitive strategies in the present study outperformed low
users in listening comprehension (e.g. Goh, 2002; Vandergrift, 2003; Mohseny & Raeisi, 2009; Bidabadi &
Yamat, 2011; Afshar & Hamzavi, 2014) and self-efficacy about listening (e.g. Siew & Wong, 2005; Magogwe &
Oliver, 2007; Graham & Macaro, 2008). No differences were found in listening comprehension or self-efficacy
of high and low users of socioaffective strategies, which is an issue that needs to be researched.
7. Implications
The present study revealed that frequent listening strategy use is good for FL learners listening comprehension
and self-efficacy about listening. The importance of possessing enhanced listening comprehension and higher
self-efficacy about listening in the population of the present study is twofold. It helps them with their academic
study and furnishes them with skills and attitudes that they need to impart to their students when they are full
teachers. These results therefore provide a rationale for teaching listening strategies in the FL classroom. What
makes the teaching of such strategies to FL learners of great significance is the demanding nature of the listening
task. Listening comprehension, as confirmed by Gonen (2009), entails online processing of linguistic and
background information, and coping with the uncontrollable speed of delivery. For this reason, listening involves
a great deal of mental processes (Vandergrift, 1999). Thus, direct teaching of listening strategies to FL learners,
especially those with poor listening proficiency and/or high levels of anxiety associating listening is
recommended not only for bettering listening comprehension, but also, as suggested by Goh (2008), for
improving learners confidence and making them less anxious when involved in listening events. A topic that
needs to be further researched as revealed in the present study and several other studies is FL learners infrequent
use of socioaffective strategies. Research in this area needs to investigate the reasons for infrequent use and the
effect on teaching socioaffective strategies on listening proficiency.
The small sample in the present study makes it difficult to generalize the findings of this research to the entire
population of EFL learners in Egypt. Future research needs to be conducted on a wider scale in order to
generalize the findings to the entire population. However, the study outlined the pattern of listening strategy use
among 84 English majors at Tanta Faculty of Education. This pattern can be made use of in any future endeavors
to update curricula in English departments at faculties of education.
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Appendix A
The listening strategy questionnaire
St. type

Statement

SD

COG

35. I use linguistic clues to comprehend the scripts, such as prefixes and suffixes.

3.72

.733

MET

4. I focus harder on the text when I have trouble understanding.

3.65

.783

COG

10. I use my experience and knowledge to help me understand.

3.63

.756

MET

27. Before listening, I concentrate my mind on the listening task and keep away
things that distract my attention.

3.63

.707

COG

5. I use the words I understand to guess the meaning of the words I dont
understand.

3.63

.724

COG

20. I use the main idea of the text to help me guess the meaning of the words that I
dont understand.

3.59

.713

MET

9. When theres something I dont understand, I pursue trying to compensate for it.

3.58

.853

MET

28. I listen to what is said without paying much attention to every new word.

3.54

.718

MET

21. I skip over words that I do not understand so that I dont miss what is said next.

3.54

.841

MET

13. I try to get back on track when I lose concentration.

3.51

.768

COG

29. As I listen, I try to predict incoming content using the information being
delivered.

3.48

.843

MET

6. When my mind wanders, I recover my concentration right away.

3.48

.828

COG

7. As I listen, I compare what I understand with what I know about the topic.

3.44

.733

COG

22. As I listen, I try to think in English without having to translate into my own
language

3.41

.946

COG

14. Before listening, I try to predict the words I am likely to hear based on the title.

3.41

.907

MET

16. I identify my problems in listening and work on solving them.

3.40

.746

MET

39. I watch TV shows or movies or listen to the radio in English to enhance my

listening ability.

3.39

.760

COG

26. I use pronunciation aspects like stress and intonation to enhance my

understanding.

3.38

.834

COG

3. Before listening, I make predictions about the listening material based on the title.

3.36

.788

SOA

34. I try to relax whenever I feel tense as I listen.

3.35

.551

MET

17. After listening, I think back to how I listened, and about what I might do
differently next time.

3.35

.913

COG

36. I use the setting and the relationship between speakers to guess the meaning
of unknown words.

3.32

1.00

MET

37. After listening, I reflect on my problems or difficulties and how to overcome

them.

3.27

.948

MET

33. After listening, I evaluate how much I could understand.

3.25

.890

COG

38. I use the speakers tone and intonation to better understand what I listen to.

3.21

.945

COG

15. As I listen, I quickly adjust my interpretation if I realize that it is not correct.

3.21

.945

MET

25. After listening, I reflect on the listening task with my classmates.

3.10

1.00

SOA

32. I talk to my teacher and classmates about how to be a better listener of English.

3.01

.630

COG

12. I use my knowledge of the text organization to understand the text.

3.01

1.35

COG

31. I picture the setting of the conversation to understand what the speakers are
talking about.

3.00

1.06

COG

23. When I guess the meaning of a word, I think back to everything else that I have

2.76

.939

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heard, to see if my guess makes sense.

COG

2. I translate in my head as I listen.

2.71

.951

COG

18. After listening, I make a mental summary of what I have listened to.

2.70

1.02

MET

1. Before I start to listen, I have a plan in my head for how I am going to listen.

2.53

.783

MET

30. As I listen, I repeat important words mentally.

2.51

.911

MET

24. As I listen, I periodically ask myself if I am satisfied with my level of

comprehension.

2.46

.924

MET

19. When I have difficulty understanding what I hear, I give up and stop listening.

2.35

.770

SOA

8. As I listen, I encourage myself through positive self-talk.

2.27

.811

MET

11. Before listening, I think of similar texts that I may have listened to.

2.26

.778

COG = Cognitive, MET = Metacognitive, SOA = Socioaffective

Appendix B
The self-efficacy questionnaire
1

Listening to English is a pleasant activity for me.

When I compare myself to other students in my class, Im a good listener.

Before I listen to an English text, I dont feel that Ill understand it well.

I often end up translating word by word without understanding what Ive listened to.

I can handle more challenging listening materials than I could before.

I believe that Im a poor listener.

Listening material for EFL learners should be delivered at a slower rate than the rate of native speakers.

When listening to English, its easy for me to make guesses about the parts I miss.

I feel stressed when I listen to English material.

10

I believe that my listening comprehension improves with time.

11

When I listen, I dont have to try as hard to understand as I used to do.

12

When I listen, I can answer more questions than other students.

13

I have the ability to improve my listening skill.

14

It bothers me if the teacher gives me listening assignments.

15

I understand what I listen to better than I could before.

16

I feel more relaxed and confident when I read than when I listen.

17

When listening to English material, I know how to guess difficult vocabulary items.

18

In the listening class, I like to volunteer to answer questions.

19

I often get so confused that I cannot remember what Ive heard.

20

I can make a plan about the listening task before I begin to listen.

21

When I find listening difficult, I usually give up.

22

When I listen, I recognize more words than before.

23

I have no problem listening to someone who speaks English fast.

24

I have the ability to concentrate on the content to which I listen.

25

I dont feel confident in my English listening skills.

26

I know what strategies to use when I listen to English.

27

I feel uncomfortable listening without a chance to read the transcript of the speech.

28

Im one of the best listeners in my class.

29

If listening gets difficult for me, I am successful at fixing it up.

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30

I can concentrate more when I listen than I could before.

31

When I listen, I need less help than I used to.

32

I know what to do when I dont understand what Im listening to.

33

When listening to English, I get nervous when I dont understand every word.

34

Listening is easier for me than it used to be.

35

My understanding of difficult listening material doesnt improve.

36

The more difficult the listening task is, the more challenging and enjoyable it is.

37

I feel good about my listening comprehension skill.

38

I am less confident in my listening skill than other students.

39

I can understand what I listen to even if I dont know several vocabulary items.

40

Lack of control over listening material isnt a problem for me.

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Appendix C
Listening comprehension test
Part A: directions: In this part you will hear short conversations between two people. After each conversation,
you will hear a question about the conversation. The conversations and questions will not be repeated. After you
hear a question, read the four possible answers in your test book and choose the best answer.
Example:
On the recording, you hear:
(Woman)

The lawyer spent hours and hours working on that case.

(Man)

Its true that he prepared hard for the case, but his work was for nothing.

WHAT DOES THE MAN MEAN?

In your test book, you read:
(A) All the lawyers work did no good.

(B) The lawyer prepared nothing for the case.

(C) It wasnt work for the lawyer to prepare for the case.

(D) The lawyer didnt work to prepare for the case.

You learn from the conversation that the woman thought the lawyer worked hard on the case and that the man
thought the lawyers work was valueless. The best answer to the question What does the man mean? is (A)
All the lawyers work did no good.
Sample questions from this part:
(Man)

Are you pleased with the exam results?

(Woman)

I couldnt be happier.

WHAT DOES THE WOMAN MEAN?

(A) Shes not very happy

(B) She didnt do very well on the exam

(C) She could be somewhat happier

(D) Shes delighted with the results

(Woman)

Did you enjoy the biology lecture?

(Man)

The professor droned on and on about cell division.

WHAT DOES THE MAN MEAN?

(A) The professor drowned the cell in a lab

(B) The lecture was long and boring

(C) The professor divided the lecture into parts

(D) The biologist tried to sell the results of the experiment

(Woman)

Did Betty listen to what her boss said?

(Man)

She followed the directions to the letter.

WHAT DOES THE MAN MEAN?

(A) Betty wrote the letter as directed

(B) The directions were given to Betty in a letter

(C) Betty will follow the instructions later

(D) Betty worked exactly as instructed

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(Man)

I cant find a typist to finish my term paper by tomorrow morning.

(Woman)

Why not do it yourself?

Vol. 8, No. 2; 2015

WHAT DOES THE WOMAN MEAN?

(A) The man should try another type of paper

(B) The man should locate a typist tomorrow morning

(C) The man should make a tape in the morning

(D) The man should complete the paper without help

Part B: directions: In this part you will hear longer conversations. After each conversation, you will hear several
questions. The conversations and questions will not be repeated. After you hear a question, read the four possible
answers in your test book and choose the best answer.
Sample questions from this part:
(Narrator)

Listen to a welcome address by a member of c club.

(Woman)

Welcome to this introductory meeting for new members of the Sierra Club. The Sierra Club is an
organization whose goals are centered on the protection of the environment. It was founded in
1892 in San Francisco by naturalist John Muir, who was intent on preserving the natural beauty
and harmony of the Sierra Nevada in eastern California.

Today the Sierra Club boasts almost 200,000 members in all fifty states of the United States. Through activities
such as conferences, lectures, exhibits and films, the organization works to continue the effort begun by John
Muir. The Sierra Club also publishes a weekly newspaper, a bimonthly magazine, and various books.
WHAT IS THE MAIN OBJECTIVE OF THE SIERRA CLUB?
(A) To protect its members

(B) To save the natural environment

(C) To honor the memory of John Muir

(D) To improve San Franciscos natural beauty

APPROXIMATELY HOW LONG HAS THE SIERRA CLUB BEEN IN EXISTENCE?

(A) For less than a year.

(B) Only for a decade

(C) For more than a century.

(D) For at least two centuries.

WHAT AREA WAS JOHN MUIR SPECIALLY INTERESTED IN SAVING?

(A) San Francisco

(B) All fifty states

(C) The Sierra Nevadas

(D) The eastern United States

WHERE DOES THE SIERRA CLUB HAVE MEMBERS?

(A) All over the world

(B) In the entire United States

(C) Only in California

(D) Only in the Sierra Nevadas

Copyrights
Copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal.
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution
license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).

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English Language Teaching; Vol. 8, No. 2; 2015

ISSN 1916-4742
E-ISSN 1916-4750
Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education

The Influence of Topics on Listening Strategy Use for English for

Academic Purposes
Mu-hsuan Chou1
1

Department of Foreign Language Instruction, Wenzao Ursuline University of Languages, Taiwan

Correspondence: Mu-hsuan Chou, Department of Foreign Language Instruction, Wenzao Ursuline University of
Languages, Kaohsiung, Taiwan. E-mail: mhchou@gmail.com
Received: October 21, 2014
doi:10.5539/elt.v8n2p44

Accepted: November 27, 2014

Online Published: January 20, 2015

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/elt.v8n2p44

Abstract
Listening is an essential skill for English as a Foreign Language learners studying in English-speaking
universities to succeed in various fields of study. To comprehend subject material and improve listening
effectiveness, learners are generally advised to develop strategies which help them process the target language in
specific contexts. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate what strategies were adopted to listen to
general and subject-specific English material. Furthermore, the study examined the process of listening
comprehension in relation to the effectiveness of strategy use. The study was carried out with 92 Taiwanese
final-year university students taking EAP courses. Questionnaires, listening comprehension questions, and
retrospective interviews were used. The results showed that strategy use varied markedly between the two types
of listening materials. The effectiveness of certain strategy adoption was influenced by topical familiarity and
personal experience.
Keywords: listening strategies, English for Academic Purposes, tests, EFL
1. Introduction
The last three decades have seen a wealth of research into language learners strategy use for listening in first
(L1), second (L2), and foreign language (FL) settings and how strategy use relates to successful listening
comprehension and individual cognitive processing (Macaro, Graham, & Vanderplank, 2007). One of the most
fruitful areas of listening strategy research has been in cognitive nature of listening and listening in
communication; however, L2 listening still remains the least researched compared with the other three language
skills (Flowerdew & Miller, 2005; Lynch, 2011; Vandergrift, 2006). In recent years, as English for academic
(EAP) and/or specific purposes (ESP) courses has become increasingly prevalent and important in FL contexts at
tertiary level where English is used as the language for instruction (Chou, 2011; Chou, 2013; Hyland, 2006),
listening to English for academic purposes (EAP), or more specifically, English for general/specific academic
purposes (EGAP/ESAP), has been increasingly recognized as essential for university students. While much of
linguistic processing (such as recognition of words and syntactic parsing) of first language users is automated,
L2 and FL learners, who lack linguistic and content knowledge, need to work out the meaning of words and
sentences under the constraints of limited working memory for listening (Frch & Kasper, 1986; Goh, 2002).
For the purposes of enhancing and facilitating learning, there is a general agreement that learner strategies help
language learners perform and solve specified tasks (Cohen, 2007; OMalley, Chamot, & Kpper, 1989; Oxford,
2011). Therefore, investigation into listening strategy use in a range of foreign language academic contexts helps
shed light on how EFL learners process and comprehend the target language with respect to specific topical
content.
While coping with tasks in language tests, test-taking strategies are important cognitive skills that can influence
students performance (Dodeen, 2008), and test-taking strategies share the features of language-use strategies in
which metacognition and cognition are involved. To date, research on test-taking strategies have mostly been
explored with reading comprehension tests using different types of test techniques (Cohen, 1998; Cohen, 2006)
or reading materials (Chou, 2013), and test-taking strategies for listening remain relatively under-researched
(Field, 2013). As a result, the purposes of the present study were to examine what listening strategies were
adopted by EFL university students to comprehend two types of academic English (i.e., EGAP and ESAP) and
the effectiveness of strategy use in association with the listening processes in the two contexts. In doing so, this
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study seeks to contribute to our growing understanding of the influence of topics on listening comprehension,
strategy use and its effectiveness of listening to EAP materials.
2. Literature Review
When learning and listening to an L2 or FL, learners may employ a number of strategies to help them
comprehend efficiently in a variety of learning contexts or solve tasks in tests (Chamot, 2005; Cohen, 1998,
2007, 2010; Oxford, 2011). Similar to learning strategies, language use strategies refer to mental operations or
processes that learners consciously select when accomplishing language tasks (Cohen, 1998, p. 92). Language
use strategies also comprise test-taking strategies in which language learners operationalize their basic listening
skills, vocabulary knowledge, as well as the related skills of grammar and translation to respond meaningfully to
test items and tasks during test-taking processes (Cohen, 2006). According to Cohen (2010), learning strategies
and language use strategies (including test-taking strategies) have been categorized in numerous ways, but
generally speaking, two major types are metacognitive and cognitive strategies. These strategies involve a large
degree of cognitive and metacognitive processing in comprehending the target language and the test items.
Metacognitive listening strategies, according to Vandergrift (1997), include planning (e.g., directed attention for
main ideas, selective attention for details), monitoring, and evaluation. When answering questions in listening
exercises or tests, these strategies are used for managing responses. For example, learners may select options
through the elimination of other options, consider or postpone dealing with a question, find answers in the text
through same vocabulary or synonyms, or change answers after completing other questions. Cognitive listening
strategies, on the other hand, cover making inferences (from language and voice), elaboration (e.g., knowledge
of the world or personal experience), translation, summarization, and resourcing (Vandergrift, 1997). Another set
of strategies relating to test-taking is test wiseness, which are, according to Cohen (2006, p. 308), strategies for
using knowledge of test formats and other peripheral information to answer test items without going through the
expected linguistic and cognitive processes. For example, test-takers may choose an option that seems to
deviate from the others or take advantage of clues appearing in other questions or options.
Over the past few decades, research on FL listening strategies has been primarily concerned with the relationship
between strategy use and successful listening comprehension (Goh, 1998; Jurkovi, 2010; OMalley et al., 1989;
Osada, 2001; Vandergrift, 1997). Although these studies were carried out with learners of different language
backgrounds and widely varying control over linguistic ability level, successful listeners have repeatedly been
found to use more metacognitive strategies (like elaboration, making inferences, and self-monitoring) and to
activate top-down processing, so that they overcome cognitive constraints during the process of encoding
semantic cues in working memory. For example, Shang (2008), comparing the listening strategy use of advanced,
intermediate, and beginner level Taiwanese EFL university students, discovered that the advanced listeners
tended to combine a range of strategies, while the beginners relied heavily on memory strategies. Another
important topic in research on listening strategy use involved using prior knowledge in listening comprehension
(e.g., Bonk, 2000) and its relation to task type (Chiang & Dunkel, 1992; Field, 2004; Tsui & Fullilove, 1998). It
has been discovered that prior knowledge can be an advantage when the learners lexical ability is sufficient to
understand the information in the text and connect it with their knowledge of the text. To enhance listening
comprehension, research on strategy-based instruction (SBI) in the listening classroom has increased in recent
years (Bommelje, 2012; Graham & Macaro, 2007; Imhof, 2001; Seo, 2005). The results have shown that SBI
can serve as positive reinforcement for developing listening strategy use. Although much work has been done to
date, more studies need to be conducted to ascertain listening processes, comprehension, and strategy use for a
variety of academic topics in different English learning contexts.
EAP courses can be divided into two main categories: English for general academic purposes (EGAP) and
English for specific academic purposes (ESAP) (Jordan, 1997). While the former has been established for the
purpose of training university students to develop their listening skills and language use in everyday situations,
the latter has focused on comprehending subject-specific materials, such as politics, economics, business, science,
technology, environment, health and medicine, crime, or war, where specific terminologies associated with
particular domains are used. In Taiwan, English education is compulsory in primary and secondary schools
where English is taught for general purposes. The focus of English education has shifted at university level,
however, from general English training to learning of subject-specific English. Listening skills have, as a result,
become essential for students studying in English. Listening comprehension in EAP contexts involves a
complicated set of processes, from decoding and interpreting multi-modal input, to constructing a discourse
representation, and monitoring comprehension, all of which place huge cognitive demands on ESL and EFL
students (Taylor & Geranpayeh, 2011). Up to this point, however, there have been few empirical studies of the
connection between types of academic topics and the effectiveness of strategy use for listening comprehension in
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EFL contexts. With the increasing popularity of EAP courses in many EFL countries, especially in China and
Taiwan, it is worth examining how Taiwanese EFL university studentswith Mandarin Chinese as their
L1process and comprehend EGAP and ESAP topics in listening tests. Students strategy use for listening to
EGAP materials can serve as a benchmark in comparison to their strategy use in ESAP contexts. Within the
extensive literature available on academic listening, comparatively little research has focused on the influence of
different topics, say general and subject-specific, on EFL undergraduate students choices of listening strategies
and the effectiveness of strategy use in the two contexts. The present study addressed the following two research
questions:
1) What strategies were used for listening to English for general and subject-specific academic materials?
2) Which strategies were found the most and least useful for listening to the two types of materials? Why?
3. Research Method
Listening strategies are usually elicited via a variety of methods: think-aloud protocols, retrospective verbal
reports, interviews, questionnaires, and diaries (Goh, 1998, 2002; Lynch & Mendelsohn, 2010; Macaro et al.,
2007; OMalley et al., 1989). While think-aloud protocols yield valuable qualitative data, the types and numbers
of strategy reported during listening, and researchers prompting may affect the elicitation process. Retrospective
interviews, which require the participants to report their listening and question-answering process immediately
after the listening, may not be influenced by the intervention of listening. Questionnaire surveys provide a more
comprehensive list of strategies that may be used in listening tests, although the data obtained can be superficial.
In-depth and detailed retrospective interview data can help compensate for the limitations of questionnaires.
Macaro et al. (2007) accordingly suggest that triangulating multiple methods might provide more reliable data.
Cohen, Manion, and Morrison (2011) similarly noted that the multi-method approach provides a more complete
view of the complexity of human behaviour and of situation in which human beings interact. Additionally, the
multi-method helps overcome the problem of method-boundedness, which comes from using one single research
method. Hence, in the present study, questionnaire surveys and retrospective interviews were adopted.
The listening strategies in the questionnaire were adopted and modified from The Comprehension Strategies of
Second Language (French) Listeners by Vandergrift (1997) and the test-taking strategies listed in the article The
Coming of Age of Research on Test-taking Strategies by Cohen (2006) (Appendix 1). The questionnaires were
piloted with a group of students whose language proficiency was similar to that of the target participants. A few
modifications of wording were suggested before the formal administration of the questionnaire. The reliability of
the questionnaire was .91 by Cronbachs , which was considered adequate for the purposes of the present study.
3.1 Research Participants
The study was carried out with 92 Taiwanese university undergraduates from two intact classes who took EAP
courses in their final year of study. The participants majored in modern foreign languages (French, German,
Spanish, and Japanese) and Communication Arts and were required to take EAP courses throughout their four
years of study. The EAP courses in this university integrated the four language skills, so the students agreed to
participate in the listening activities as an extra listening practice (in class time) and to answer comprehension
questions related to the listening test tasks. The contents of the EAP courses ranged from general topics in
everyday life situations, such as friendships, world cultures, social life, movies, or personal interests, to
subject-specific issues, including technology, the environment, crime and law, economic issues, health and
medicine, and science. The English proficiency level of the participants was at the B1 threshold (i.e.,
intermediate) level of the Common European Framework (CEFR).
3.2 Research Design and Data Collection
The EAP course was divided into two semesters with 18 weeks in each semester. In the first semester, the
participants listened to EGAP topics once a week. The topics selected for the present study were based on the
aforementioned topics in the EAP courses to decrease the variables resulting from listening to unrelated topics.
During the listening process, the participants took notes on what they heard for the first time before answering
ten comprehension questions. Next, the participants listened again and answered the questions. The whole
process lasted 15 minutes. In Week 17, retrospective interviews were carried out with the 20 participants who
agreed to recall and share how they processed the listening inputs. Before the retrospection, the students listened
to an EGAP topic similar to those they had listened to in the past 16 weeks, and then they took notes and told the
researcher what they had listened to. Next, they answered ten listening comprehension questions regarding.
Afterwards, they chose the most and least useful strategies from the questionnaire items. In the second semester,
the data collection procedure for ESAP listening was similar to that of the first semester.The retrospective
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interviews took place in the library discussion rooms, where the surroundings were quiet and comfortable. The
participants were asked to report their strategy use immediately after answering all of the test items. The
techniques used for both the EGAP and ESAP listening comprehension items in the present study consisted of
multiple-choice, one-word short answer, gap filling, and information transfer items, all of which are common
techniques for testing listening (Hughes, 2003).
3.3 Data Analysis
Because the participants had taken two types of listening tests (EGAP and ESAP), the data were compared using
Paired-sample t-tests. SPSS software (v. 20) was used to calculate the t-tests. The participants retrospective
interviews of listening strategy use were transcribed, translated, and codified into similar categories. The
translation of interview data was checked by two bilingual students who were proficient in both Mandarin
Chinese and English.
4. Results
4.1 Strategies Used for Listening to EGAP and ESAP Materials
Paired-sample t-tests were conducted to evaluate differences in strategy use for EGAP and ESAP listening. The
results showed that the participants paid more attention to the main ideas and details in the EGAP topics (Q1, M
= 3.17, SD = .53; Q2, M = 2.85, SD = .55) than the ESAP ones (Q1, M = 2.85, SD = .66, t = 3.42, p = .001; Q2,
M = 2.63, SD = .64, t = 2.35, p = .021). The eta squared statistic (.11 and .06) indicated medium effect sizes
(Table 1).
Table 1. Paired samples test result of strategies in EGAP and ESAP listening
Variable

95% CI

Mean Time Mean Time N1/

1 (SD1)
2 (SD2)
N2

t-value p-value

Effect size (eta

squared)

Metacognitive Q1 G&S
Strategies
Q2 G&S

.14,.52

3.17 (.53)

2.85 (.66)

92

3.42

p = .001

.11

.03,.40

2.85 (.55)

2.63 (.64)

92

2.35

p = .021

.06

Q3 G&S

-.08,.29

2.98 (.65)

2.87 (.54)

92

1.17

p = .247

.02

Q4 G&S

-.14,.22

2.76 (.64)

2.72 (.83)

92

.48

p = .630

.00

Q5 G&S

-.42,.02

2.85 (.63)

3.04 (.78)

92

-1.77

p = .080

.03

Q6G&S

-.25,.20

3.07 (.61)

3.09 (.78)

92

-.19

p = .847

.00

Q7G&S

-.40,.01

2.48 (.62)

2.67 (.87)

92

-1.88

p = .063

.04

Q8G&S

-.38,.08

2.57 (.65)

2.72 (.88)

92

-1.32

p = .191

.02

Q9G&S

-.02,.42

2.98 (.65)

2.78 (.78)

92

1.77

p = .080

.03

Q10G&S

-.09,.35

2.67 (.70)

2.54 (.72)

92

1.16

p = .250

.01

Q11G&S

-.15,.24

2.70 (.69)

2.65 (.70)

92

.45

p = .657

.00

Q12 G&S

.21,.66

2.89 (.67)

2.46 (.86)

92

3.85

P < .0005

.14

Q13G&S

.15,.54

2.76 (.60)

2.41 (.74)

92

3.54

p = .001

.12

Q14G&S

-.54,-.03

2.59 (.77)

2.87 (.83)

92

-2.23

p = .028

.05

Q15G&S

-.60,-.27

2.59 (.58)

3.02 (.57)

92

-5.38

p < .0005

.24

Q16G&S

.25,.71

2.74 (.68)

2.26 (.95)

92

4.15

p < .0005

.16

Test Wiseness Q17G&S

Strategies
Q18G&S

-.56,-.14

2.91 (.59)

3.26 (.74)

92

-3.30

p = .001

.11

-.61,-.22

2.30 (.59)

2.72 (.80)

92

-4.27

p < .0005

.17

Q19G&S

-.48,-.05

3.13 (.54)

3.39 (.77)

92

-2.41

p = .018

.06

Q20 G&S

-.63,-.24

2.89 (.73)

3.33 (.63)

92

-4.38

p < .0005

.17

Cognitive
Strategies

Note: G means EGAP, S means ESAP.

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In addition, the use of several cognitive strategies varied more markedly between EGAP and ESAP audio-only
listening. There were statistically significant decreases in the use of three cognitive strategies:
1) Using mental imagery to create a picture of what was happening (Q12) from EGAP (M = 2.89, SD = .67) to
ESAP listening topics (M = 2.46, SD = .86), t = 3.85, p < .0005 (two-tailed). The mean score decrease was .43
with a 95% confidence interval. The eta squared statistic (.14) indicated a large effect size.
2) Making a mental summary of what was heard (Q13) from EGAP (M = 2.76, SD = .60) to ESAP listening (M =
2.41, SD = .74), t = 3.54, p = .001 (two-tailed). The mean score decrease was .35 with a 95% confidence interval.
The eta squared statistic (.12) indicated a medium effect size.
3) Taking notes of key words or information as participants followed the spoken texts (Q16) from EGAP (M =
2.74, SD = .68) to ESAP listening (M = 2.26, SD = .95), t = 4.15, p < .0005 (two-tailed). The mean score
decrease was .48 with a 95% confidence interval. The eta squared statistic (.16) indicated a large effect size.
The participants found it harder to make mental connections between what they heard and what they imagined in
ESAP contexts, possibly due to lack of vocabulary knowledge. On the other hand, the participants resorted to the
knowledge in their primary language, in this case Chinese, for help more frequently in the ESAP than the EGAP
listening. In addition, different types of listening topics also influenced the strategies the participants used to
answer the test items. There were statistically significant increases in the use of two cognitive (Q14 and Q15)
and all test wiseness strategies (Q17 to Q20):
1) Translating what was heard in English to Chinese verbatim (Q14) from EGAP (M = 2.59, SD = .77) to ESAP
listening (M = 2.87, SD = .83), t = -2.23, p = .028 (two-tailed). The mean score increase was .28 with a 95%
confidence interval. The eta squared statistic (.05) indicated a small effect size.
2) Using knowledge about Chinese to facilitate listening to English (Q15) from EGAP (M = 2.59, SD = .58) to
ESAP listening (M = 3.02, SD = .57), t = -5.38, p < .0005 (two-tailed). The mean score increase was .43 with a
95% confidence interval. The eta squared statistic (.24) indicated a large effect size.
3) Answering the questions in chronological order (Q17) from EGAP (M = 2.91, SD = .59) to ESAP listening (M
= 3.26, SD = .74), t = -3.30, p = .001 (two-tailed). The mean score increase was .35 with a 95% confidence
interval. The eta squared statistic (.11) indicated a medium effect size.
4) Choosing an option that seemed to deviate from the others (Q18), from EGAP (M = 2.30, SD = .59) to ESAP
listening (M = 2.72, SD = .80), t = -4.27, p < .0005 (two-tailed). The mean score increase was .42 with a 95%
confidence interval. The eta squared statistic (.17) indicated a large effect size.
5) Selecting the option because it appeared to have a word or phrase (Q19), from the listening text from EGAP
(M = 3.13, SD = .54) to ESAP listening (M = 3.39, SD = .77), t = -2.41, p = .018 (two-tailed). The mean score
increase was .26 with a 95% confidence interval. The eta squared statistic (.06) indicated a medium effect size.
6) Selecting the option because it had a word or phrase that appeared in the question (Q20), from EGAP (M =
2.89, SD = .73) to ESAP listening (M = 3.33, SD = .63), t = -4.38, p < .0005 (two-tailed). The mean score
increase was .44 with a 95% confidence interval. The eta squared statistic (.17) indicated a large effect size.
4.2 The Most and Least Useful Strategies for Listening to the Two Types of Materials
The interviewees considered the strategies of listening in terms of key ideas, using imagination, making
inferences from personal experiences, world knowledge, and knowledge about Chinese, guessing from the tone
of voice, making a mental summary, and utilizing the options from other test items very practical in EGAP
listening. On the other hand, metacognitive strategies including paying attention to how much listeners
understood the listening task, making decisions as to whether the words they heard were right in the context, and
cognitive strategies such as translation, and taking notes were viewed as the least helpful strategies in EGAP
listening. One possible explanation was that, owing to our limited working-memory capacity, the words and
sentences processed during listening are quickly forgotten, and only a few key lexical items will remain in
long-term memory (Rost, 2011). Using these strategies requires a longer time to obtain resources, organize,
coordinate, monitor, and evaluate the whole set of information, so they were simply considered ineffective,
possibly placing a burden on the part of the EFL listeners when they needed to decode the incoming information
efficiently. The following excerpts illustrated the effectiveness of strategy use in the EGAP listening:
For me the most useful strategy in listening [EGAP topics] was using prior personal experiences or world
knowledge to comprehend the task. Making decisions as to whether the words I heard were right in the context
was not helpful. Since I was listening at that moment, all I hope was to understand it. I didnt have time to care
whether or not the context matched the words I heard. (Participant 11; translation)
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Listening to main ideas was the most helpful strategy. Translation or taking notes of key words were not effective.
Id rather answer the test items quickly than spend time taking notes. (Participant 19; translation)
I think imagining the listening scenes facilitated me in understanding the contexts, because Id imagine the facial
expressions or emotion of the interlocutors that could help me deduce the answers. But, translating English into
Chinese was useless, because it slowed down my listening process. Id probably forget what was said.
(Participant 20; translation)
Nevertheless, guessing by the tone of voice and using imagination in ESAP listening was not found particularly
effective. The students did not think the stress or the intonation in the ESAP spoken language was noticeable
because the topics were academic, and the tone of the language seemed to be strict and descriptive in nature.
Additionally, due to the limited size of their subject-specific vocabulary, it was difficult for participants to
imagine the listening scene. Compared with EGAP listening, the participants struggled more at the phonetic and
lexical level, trying hard to comprehend and make inferences from uncertain vocabulary and their existing
schemata in ESAP listening. Rost (2011, p. 132) notes that L2 listeners have to decode incoming speech that they
might perceive as degraded phonetic quality due to assimilation, prosodic patterns disguising unstressed words
and varying speed of input. Even though the learners had learned particular words, it does not necessarily mean
they can recognize them in connected speech (Field, 2011; Vandergrift & Goh, 2009).Listening to main ideas,
taking notes of key words or information, and test-wiseness strategies such as choosing an option that seemed to
deviate from the others were regarded as more effective strategies in ESAP listening. The interview data agreed
well with comparisons between EGAP and ESAP questionnaire findings (Table 1) where these reported effective
strategies were used more frequently in ESAP listening, except for the note-taking and translation strategies. The
note-taking strategy was reported effective by some participants. It appeared that the effectiveness of using this
strategy was associated with individual listening experience. The translation strategy, though adopted more
frequently in the ESAP listening in the questionnaire survey, was not considered useful. As the excerpt showed:
It was useless to translate English from Chinese, because it wasted too much time and disturbed my processing
of listening content. Id try to read through the questions or options in the test items and pay more attention to
key vocabulary in listening. Id delete impossible options or guess listening content via key words. (Participant
18; translation)
Although listening and reading are both receptive skills, the strategies the EFL learners used to cope with
subject-specific texts were different. In the present listening study, test wiseness strategies were more frequently
adopted by the participants. In the case of taking ESAP reading tests, nevertheless, similar EFL undergraduate
learners tended to resort to metacognitive strategies more frequently (Chou, 2013). Unlike with reading tests, one
student specifically indicated that taking listening tests required them to catch known words heard in the fast and
transient speech and make judgments or inferences based on them making it impossible to remember or review
the whole sentences. Interestingly, the interviewees held opposite opinions towards using strategies to guess the
meaning of unknown words by linking them to known words and to make inferences from personal experiences.
For example:
Imagining the listening scenes was not helpful. Because I was not familiar with subject-specific vocabulary, I
could only guess the meaning of unknown words by linking them to the words I knew, but I was very uncertain
about the words I guessed. So it was like patching together all the words and sentences in a mess. I think
listening to main ideas, paying attention to keywords, and making inferences based on my own experience would
be more practical. (Participant 5; translation)
I tended to find the answers from words or options in other questions. If I couldnt understand, I could still guess
the information from the test items. I didnt think using personal experiences was helpful, since I wasnt usually
involved in the subject-specific fields, and I didnt have many relevant experiences. (Participant 9; translation)
Table 2 summarized the most and least effective strategies reported by the interviewees. To conclude, topical
familiarity influenced how listening was processed and what strategies were adopted to decode linguistic,
semantic, and pragmatic meaning, and determined what strategies were effective in facilitating comprehension.
In comparison to ESAP listening, the listening strategies for EGAP topics were used in a more various, frequent,
and effective way. The effectiveness of certain strategy used in ESAP listening, on the other hand, depended
more on individual experiences and ones familiarity with the topics.

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Table 2. Summary of the most and least helpful strategies for EGAP and ESAP listening
EGAP

Most helpful

Least helpful

- Listening to main ideas

- Using imagination

- Paying attention to how much listeners

understood the listening task,

- Making inferences from personal experiences

and world knowledge

- Making decisions as to whether the words they

heard were right in the context

- Knowledge about chinese

- Translation

- Guessing from the tone of voice

- Taking notes

- Making a mental summary

- Using the options from test items
ESAP

- Listening to main ideas

- Guessing by the tone of voice

- Taking notes of key words or information

- Using imagination

- Test wiseness strategies such as choosing an

option that seemed to deviate from the others

- Translation

5. Discussion and Implications

With the increasing prevalence of ESAP courses in universities where English is used as a medium of instruction,
listening strategies have become essential for EFL learners to manage a variety of subject-specific topics.
However, misinterpretation of content occurs when the lack of vocabulary and schemata fails to provide correct
connections between linguistic and non-linguistic contexts during language processing. Accessing schemata can
be influenced by a number of factors, such as the relative importance to ones value system and subject
familiarity, and can be interrelated and cross-referenced in a variety of ways (Churchland, 1999; Rost, 2011). For
example, the data from the questionnaire and interviews showed that certain strategies relating to accessing
schemata, such as using ones imagination, making inferences, drawing on knowledge about Chinese, guessing
by the tone of voice, and making a mental summary, were considered more effective strategies in understanding
familiar, say EGAP, than unfamiliar ESAP topics. Test wiseness strategies, on the other hand, were used more
frequently to compensate for listeners inability to recognize unfamiliar vocabulary and accessibility of schemata
in the ESAP listening. To help EFL learners attune to subject-specific topics, a number of studies have shown the
advantages of using video-mediated materials in class to increase higher content validity and to facilitate
listening comprehension in EAP settings (e.g., Kashani, Sajjadi, Sohrabi, & Younespour, 2011; Lynch, 2011;
Mac Donald et al., 2000; Sueyoshi & Hardison, 2005). Additionally, Coyle, Hood, and Marsh (2010) and Rost
(2011) suggest that learning of and through the target language should take place in an environment that provides
learners with comprehensible inputs, such as warm-up brainstorming activities with familiar content and
vocabulary, to help them activate prior knowledge before moving on to subject-specific topics. Nonetheless, in
the study of testing the listening sections of the TOEIC to Taiwanese EFL learners, Chang and Read (2006)
discovered that vocabulary instruction was the least effective support method for listening comprehension, while
the provision of background knowledge and repetition of inputs were the most effective. Vocabulary instruction
is likely to fail because listening comprehension not only involves becoming familiar with the pronunciation of
new or learned words but also adapting to phonetic features, prosodic patterns, and pacing in different spoken
contexts. When opportunities to practice and familiarize oneself with the newly learned vocabulary are not
sufficient, introducing subject-specific words before listening may not have the intended effect on the EFL
learners. In addition, although repetition of listening inputs was found particularly beneficial to listening in the
case of EFL learners (Chang & Read, 2006; Sakai, 2009), Sakai notes that this should be limited to the situation
in which learners possess sufficient target language ability to understand the lexis in the listening passages.
Flowerdew and Miller (2005) suggest that exercises should be given via an integrated approach to develop
critical listening skills. The integrated approach included a discrete-item-based approach for practicing the
sounds of words, a grammar-based approach to comprehend sentences, a task-based approach when all of the
exercises revolve around a similar topic, and a strategy-based approach to ask students to reflect on how they
listen.
What differentiates the difficulty of a topic lies not only in the choice of lexis in the listening texts but also in the
complexity of the content, which Brown (1995) called the intrinsic cognitive difficulty. Brown proposed that the
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degree of complexity of the relationship between the interlocutors, the order of events, the familiarity of topics,
and the presentation of information in the listening texts dominate the cognitive load of listeners. Processing the
information involves mapping words on to grammatical, contextual, and communicative concepts (Nation, 2006).
However, when the topics are less familiar to language learners, it is highly unlikely they will access these
mental lexicons successfully. Furthermore, one potential problem of the acquisition of lexis in L1 and the target
language is the possibility of lexical transfer between two related languages. In the present study, unfortunately,
the participants first language, Chinese does not share a close etymological origin with English. It would thus
take a longer time for the Chinese participants to transfer and process the new words. Ellis (2006) considers
frequency of input an important factor of the quality and speed of processing listening, in the sense that frequent
exposure to new words of various types of subject-specific text, listening, reading, and interaction are the means
of learning lexis in a foreign language. Nation (2008), and Tseng and Schmitt (2008) support the idea that
accessing vocabulary can be improved through frequency-based practice in coping with affixed forms and
recognizing words, as well as utilizing metacognitive strategies to monitor ones listening processes.
6. Conclusion
The present study was carried out with 92 Taiwanese final-year university students taking an EAP course,
including both EGAP and ESAP topics. While earlier research regarding listening strategies has focused on
strategy use and successful listening, the influence of background knowledge in listening comprehension,
strategy use differences between L1 and L2 listening, and the SBI (Bommelje, 2012; Bonk, 2000; Goh, 1998;
Imhof, 2001; Jurkovi, 2010; Osada, 2001; Seo, 2005; Vandergrift, 1997), the present study took a closer look at
what listening strategies were used, what strategies were effective and ineffective, and how listening was
processed to comprehend different types of materials in an EFL context.
Listening to EGAP and ESAP materials involved a different degree of strategy adoption to facilitate the process
of word recognition and the efficient mapping of words, grammar, schemata, and contexts. While strategies were
used in a versatile and flexible manner in EGAP listening, the lack of relevant language and topical knowledge
limited the cognitive processing in comprehending subject-specific contents. As a result, Vandergrift and Goh
(2009) suggest that listening instruction should focus on a bottom-up approach to reinforce the lexicon in
subject-specific domains to help learners reduce the problem of word segmentation and recognition in a
rhythmically different language and only later move on to a top-down approach that helps train listening to a
higher-order of metacognitive process involving organizing, monitoring, and reflecting linguistic and
non-linguistic information.
Although the present study has yielded findings that have both theoretical and pedagogical implications, its
design is not without flaws. First, the generalizability of the results to another EFL population may be limited.
Additionally, the participants language proficiency and cultural background can influence their choices of
strategy use and language processing. Other limitations involve using different types of tasks, groups of language
learners with different cultural backgrounds, and that successful and unsuccessful listeners clearly need further
exploration. Despite the limitations, the results of this study provide evidence on which listening strategies were
used to comprehend general and subject-specific topics in an EAP setting, thus shedding light on the
effectiveness of strategy adoption, and have implications for teaching ESAP listening to EFL learners with
intermediate English proficiency.
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Academic Purposes, 10(2), 79-88. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2011.03.001
Lynch, T., & Mendelsohn, D. (2010). Listening. In N. Schmitt (Ed.), An introduction to applied linguistics (2nd
ed., pp. 180-196). London, UK: Hodder Education.
Macaro, E., Graham, S., & Vanderplank, R. (2007). A review of listening strategies: Focus on sources of
knowledge and on success. In A. D. Cohen, & E. Macaro (Eds.), Language learner strategies (pp. 165-185).
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
MacDonald, M., Badger, R., & White, G. (2000). The real thing? Authenticity and academic listening. English
for Specific Purposes, 19(3), 253-267. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0889-4906(98)00028-3
Nation, P. (2006). Vocabulary: Second language. In K. Brown (Ed.), Encyclopedia of language and linguistics
(2nd ed., pp. 448-454). Oxford: Elsevier.
Nation, P. (2008). Teaching vocabulary: Strategies and techniques. Boston: Heinle Cengage Learning.
OMalley, J. A., Chamot, A. U., & Kpper, L. (1989). Listening comprehension strategies in second language
acquisition. Applied Linguistics, 10(4), 418-437. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/applin/10.4.418
Osada, N. (2001). What strategy do less proficient learners employ in listening comprehension? A reappraisal of
bottom-up and top-down processing. Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics, 5(1), 73-90.
Oxford, R. L. (2011). Teaching and researching language learning strategies. Harlow, UK: Pearson Education
Limited.
Rost, M. (2011). Teaching and researching listening (2nd ed.). Harlow, UK: Pearson Education Limited.
Sakai, H. (2009). Effect of repetition of exposure and proficiency level in L2 listening tests. TESOL Quarterly,
43(2), 360-372. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/j.1545-7249.2009.tb00179.x
Seo, K. (2005). Development of a listening strategy intervention program for adult learners of Japanese.
International Journal of Listening, 19(1), 63-78. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10904018.2005.10499075
Shang, H.-F. (2008). Listening strategy use and linguistic patterns in listening comprehension by EFL learners.
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Sueyoshi, A., & Hardison, D. M. (2005). The role of gestures and facial cues in second-language listening
comprehension. Language Learning, 55(4), 661-699. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.0023-8333.2005.00320.x
Taylor, L., & Geranpayeh, A. (2011). Assessing listening for academic purposes: Defining and operationalizing
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4.x
Vandergrift, L. (1997). The comprehension strategies of second language (French) listeners: A descriptive study.
Foreign Language Annals, 30(3), 387-409. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1944-9720.1997.tb02362.x
Vandergrift, L. (2006). Second language listening: Listening ability or language proficiency? Modern Language
Journal, 90(1), 6-18. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.2006.00381.x
Vandergrift, L., & Goh, C. (2009). Teaching and testing listening comprehension. In M. H. Long, & C. J.
Doughty (Eds.), The handbook of language teaching (pp. 395-411). Chichester, UK: Blackwell Publishing
Ltd.
Note
Note 1. In the present study, the CEFR B1 threshold level of the participants English proficiency was based on
their test scores of the General English Proficiency Test (GEPT), which they had taken and passed at
Intermediate level in 2014. Because the GEPT test was developed based on the CEFR, the conversion table of
CEFR and GEPT showed that GEPT Intermediate level is equal to the CEFRs B1 threshold level (LTTC, 2014).

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Appendix 1
Questionnaire of Listening Strategy Use for EGAP and ESAP Listening
1 = Strongly disagree
Metacognitive 1.
strategies

2 = Disagree

3 = Agree

4 = Strongly agree

I paid attention to the main points in listening task to get a general 1

understanding of what is said.

2.

I paid attention to details in the listening task.

3.

I paid attention to how much I understood the listening task.

4.

I made decisions as to whether the words I heard were right in the context.

5.

I skipped the parts I didnt know and completed the task.

6.

I used the process of elimination.

7.

I changed my responses as appropriate.

8.

I guessed the meaning of unknown words by linking them to known words.

9.

I guessed by means of the tone of voice.

10. I used prior personal experience to comprehend the task.

11. I used my world knowledge to comprehend the task.

12. I used mental imagery to create a picture of what was happening.

13. I made a mental summary of what I heard.

14. I translated what I heard in the foreign language (i.e., English) to my first 1
language (i.e., Chinese) verbatim.

15. I used knowledge about Chinese to facilitate listening to English.

16. I took notes of key words or information as I followed the spoken texts.

1
Test wiseness 17. I answered the questions in chronological order in the listening.
strategies
18. I chose an option that seemed to deviate from the others, was special, was 1
different, or conspicuous.

19. I selected the option because it appeared to have a word or phrase from the 1
listening text possibly a key word.

20. I selected the option because it had a word or phrase that appeared in the 1
question.

Cognitive
strategies

Copyrights
Copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal.
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution
license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).

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The Role of Teachers in Reducing/Increasing Listening Comprehension

Test Anxiety: A Case of Iranian EFL Learners
Naser Atasheneh (Corresponding author)
Abadan Branch, Islamic Azad University, Abadan, Iran
E-mail: naseratasheneh@gmail.com
Ahmad Izadi
Abadan Branch, Islamic Azad University, Abadan, Iran
E-mail: izadi53fa@yahoo.com
Received: November 7, 2011

Accepted: December 7, 2011

Published: March 1, 2012

doi:10.5539/elt.v5n3p178

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/elt.v5n3p178

This paper is funded by Abadan branch, Islamic Azad University, Abadan, Iran.
Abstract
Three components have been introduced for foreign language learning anxiety in the literature: Test anxiety, fear of
negative evaluation and communication apprehension. This study teases out the first of the three components with
special focus on listening comprehension test to investigate the correlation between listening test results and foreign
language anxiety. More importantly, the study aims at questioning the role teachers can play in either alleviating or
aggravating the anxiety which has been triggered in the listening test takers. For this purpose, a number of 60
intermediate-level EFL learners participated in the study. To measure the level of anxiety in the testees, a modified
and translated version of foreign language class anxiety scale (FLCAS) (developed by Horwtiz, Horwitz, and Cope,
p. 1986) was used to be correlated with the testees scores in listening comprehension test. The results showed a
moderate but significant negative correlation between FLCAS and listening comprehension (r=-.469). To answer the
second research question, the high anxious participants underwent a treatment, which was designed to alleviate their
foreign language learning anxiety. Immediately after the treatment, another listening comprehension test was
administered to them to find out whether the treatment session can influence the test results. Using the statistical
technique of t-test, the results showed that the high anxious informants had a significant improvement in the second
listening comprehension test results due to the reduction of their level of anxiety in the treatment session. Finally,
some suggestions were made to the teachers who seek to alleviate the amount of anxiety in their students.
Keywords: Foreign language learning anxiety, Listening comprehension, FLCAS, Correlation
1. Introduction
As language teachers, we hear myriad of complaints about foreign language anxiety from our students sides. These
complaints culminate during examination time. Many students blame anxiety as the blocking factor in concentrating
on the test items and hence triggering poor performance on their exam. Be it the cause or the effect of poor
performance on tests, anxiety has attested to be one of the important affective filters which relates to success and/or
failure in language learning (Krashen, 1987, p. 31). Anxiety, in general, being a psychological term, refers to a
personality trait which can influence the process of learning in general, and language learning/acquisition in
particular. Debilitative anxiety is reported by many studies to have influenced the process of language learning
negatively (MacIntyre and Gardner 1994; Chen and Chang, 2004; Pappamihiel, 2002; Izadi, 2003). More
specifically, here we deal with a specific type of anxiety, which is associated with foreign language learning
situations and has been glossed as foreign language learning anxiety (MacIntyre and Gardner 1994). MacIntyre
and Gardner (1994) define foreign language learning anxiety as the feeling of tension and apprehension especially
associated with second language context, including speaking, listening, reading and writing" (pp. 288-290).
Anxious students are likely to experience mental block, negative self-talk and ruminate over a poor performance
which affects their ability to process information in language learning contexts (MacIntyre and Gardner (1991 a, p.
87). In this respect, foreign language anxiety acts as an affective filter, which results in the students' being

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unreceptive to language input. A large number of high school and college-age foreign language students report
feeling anxious about some aspects of language learning and the language classes (Horwitz and Young 1991; Kondo
and Ling, 2004). One of these aspects which receive many complaints with regard to anxiety is listening
comprehension tests. In fact, the context of foreign language learning in comparison with second language learning
provides critical moments for the learners in listening comprehension tests (Kim, 2000). The main reason for this is
the inadequacy of real-time communication opportunities in English as an International language for foreign
language learners. In Iran, the case is even more serious, since many foreign language learners do not experience
even a single case of communication with a native speaker of English throughout the whole process of English
language learning. Compounded to this problem is the lack of sufficient listening comprehension material in the
curriculum which has been developed for English language teaching in Iranian schools and universities.
Listening is the ability to identify and understand what others are saying. A persons ability to listen and understand
spoken language is critical to oral communication in any language. Rivers (1991) in this regard pointed out that
speaking does not of itself constitute communication unless what is being said is comprehended by another person
(p. 151). Furthermore, some of the current theories of second language acquisition such as the information
processing model (McLaughlin, Rossman and McLeod, 1983), monitor model (Krashen, 1977), the intake model
(Chaudron, 1985), the interaction model (Hatch, 1983) all emphasize the role of input as a key factor in language
acquisition/learning. There are, however, fewer studies, on the relationship between anxiety and listening
comprehension in comparison with speaking and even reading. In the process of teaching and learning listening
comprehension, listening tests are of prominent importance. Valid and reliable listening tests can to a large extent
predict the students success or failure in real communication in English. It is therefore, a self-evident issue that
foreign language learning anxiety negatively affects the reliability of the tests and impedes the sound assessment of
the learners/test takers listening ability.
One key factor in test anxiety is the role of instructor/test taker in either alleviating or aggravating anxiety in the
learners/test takers. Horwitz et al, (1986) reported that anxiety is induced when instructors correct students errors in
a nonsupportive manner. They also found that, although students recognized the importance of being corrected, they
consistently reported anxiety over responding incorrectly, being incorrect in front of their peers, or looking or
sounding inept. The behavior of the instructor prior to and during the test administration can be a crucial predictor in
the students test results.
The present study intends to investigate the influence of foreign language anxiety on students performance over a
listening comprehension test. Also, it seeks to find out whether teachers can play a role in reducing students foreign
language listening anxiety. Particularly, the study tries to find answers to the following two questions:
1. What is the relationship between Iranian EFL students foreign language class anxiety and listening
comprehension?
2. What roles can teachers play in reducing the amount of anxiety triggered in foreign language listening
situations?
To date, a sufficient number of studies have been conducted to determine the possible effects of language learning
anxiety on language learning in general, speaking, writing and even reading, studies on listening comprehension,
however, are quite fewer. Moreover, while studies on foreign language listening have found a negative relationship
between the two variables, they have not paid adequate attention to the role of teachers in alleviating it.
The importance of listening comprehension is a self-evident issue. The ability to understand what people are saying
is essential to oral communication, because communication in any language is a two-way process. A good
proportion of the linguistic input people receive every day is through the auditory channel; i.e. listening. Vogely
(1998) states that poor listening comprehension skills cause the majority of people to retain only 25% of what they
have heard (pp. 75-77). It is no wonder then that learners of a foreign language encounter difficulty when listening
to native speakers of the language. Most language learners are expected to speak with little practice in listening. In
the language laboratory, anxiety due to comprehension problem is compounded by unrealistic teacher expectations
(Horwitz and Young 1991). There are teachers who trigger anxiety in students rather than alleviating it.
2. Literature Review
Horwitz, Horwitz, and Copes (1986), study on foreign language learning anxiety is the most influential study in the
literature. They differentiated three components of foreign language anxiety: communication apprehension, test
anxiety, and fear of negative evaluation. Communication apprehension, the anxiety experienced in interpersonal
settings, has been found to be related to both learning and recall of vocabulary items (Gardner, Lalonde, Moorcroft
and Evers, 1987). Therefore, students with high levels of communication apprehension appear to be disadvantaged
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from the outset because basic vocabulary learning and production are impaired.
Communication in a foreign language requires a great deal of risk-taking, in as much as uncertain and unknown
linguistic rules prevail. Indeed, MacIntyre and Gardner (1991 a) found that speaking is the most anxiety provoking
of second language activities. The frustration experienced by a student unable to communicate a message can lead to
apprehension about future attempts to communicate (Horwitz et al., 1986, p. 132).
With respect to test anxiety, Daly (1991) found that learners experience more language anxiety in highly evaluative
situations. Indeed, the more unfamiliar and ambiguous the test tasks and formats, the higher the prevailing level of
language anxiety. For high-anxious students, foreign languages, more than any academic subject, require continual
evaluation by the instructor.
Regarding the role of instructor, Horwitz et al, (1986) reported that anxiety is induced when instructors correct
students errors in a nonsupportive manner. They also found that, although students recognized the importance of
being corrected, they consistently reported anxiety over responding incorrectly, being incorrect in front of their peers,
or looking or sounding inept.
They also offered an instrument, the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS), to measure this anxiety.
Since that time, findings concerning anxiety and language achievement have been relatively uniform. Studies using
the FLCAS and other specific measures of second language anxiety have found a consistent moderate negative
correlation between the FLCAS and measures of second language achievement (typically final grades).
In the first study using the FLCAS, Horwitz (1986) found a significant moderate negative correlation between
foreign language anxiety and the grades students expected in their first semester language class as well as their
actual final grades, indicating that students with higher levels of foreign language anxiety both expected and
received lower grades than their less anxious counterparts.
MacIntyre and Gardner (1989) also found significant negative correlations between a specific measure of language
anxiety (French class anxiety) and performance on a vocabulary learning task. With respect to a target language
which is typically perceived as difficult by English-speakers, Aida (1994) found a significant negative correlation
between FLCAS scores and final grades among American second-year Japanese students. This finding was
replicated by Saito and Samimy (1996) with Japanese learners at three levels (beginning, intermediate, and
advanced). Similarly, in a study of Canadian university learners of French, Coulombe (2000) found a somewhat
smaller (but significant) negative correlation between FLCAS scores and final grades in eleven French classes
ranging from beginning to advanced. Thus, it appears that the observed negative relationship between anxiety and
achievement holds at various instructional levels as well as with different target languages.
In addition, in an Asian EFL context, Kim (1998) not only found significant negative relationships between FLCAS
scores and the final grades but also reported an interesting difference in the relationship when observed in a
traditional reading-focused class and a conversation class. Specifically, students were considerably less anxious in
the reading class than in the conversation class. In a study conducted by Onwuegbuzie, Bailey, and Daley (1999),
seven variables (i.e. age, academic achievement, prior history of visiting foreign countries, prior high school
experience with foreign languages, expected overall average for current language course, perceived scholastic
competence, and perceived self-worth) were discovered to contribute significantly to the prediction of foreign
language anxiety.
Teachers role is a crucial factor that comes into play with respect to foreign language learning anxiety. One study
examined the impact of classroom climate on students levels of foreign language anxiety and found that several
components of classroom climate were associated with higher and lower levels of anxiety. Most importantly, the
level of perceived teacher support had the strongest relationship with students feelings of anxiety. According to the
instrument used in the study, teacher support is defined as the help and friendship the teacher shows toward
students; how much the teacher talks openly with students, trusts them, and is interested in their ideas (Trickett and
Moos, 1995). Thus, according to this finding, it may be possible to reduce the anxiety of language learners by
offering them sincere support and interest.
Listening anxiety may function as an affective filter, one component of Krashen's Monitor Theory which "prevents
input from being used for language acquisition" (Beebe, 1983, p.39). Nagle and Sanders (1986) proposed that a
breakdown of the comprehension process might occur when there is "anxiety about failure to understand or being
accountable for a response" (p. 21). Asking students whether they became tense during classroom listening activities,
Eastman (1991) suggested that those who claimed to be apprehensive while listening scored lower on a listening test
than those who claimed to concentrate.
In spite of the importance of listening comprehension in foreign language teaching and the its probability to provoke

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anxiety in the learners, the number of studies conducted on the issue is quite insufficient, although recently there has
been some promising research.
As for the other language skills, Horwitz and Young (1991) found that anxiety has a negative influence on listening
comprehension. They commented that in the language laboratory, anxiety due to comprehension problem is
compounded by unrealistic teacher expectations.
In another study of foreign language listening anxiety, as noted in Horwitz (1991), Kim (2000) found a negative
relationship between foreign language learning anxiety and listening proficiency in university level English learners
in Korea. Sadighi, Sahragard and Jafari (2009) also found a significant negative correlation between Iranian EFL
learners foreign language class anxiety and their listening comprehension.
3. Method
3.1 Participants
A number of 60 students of Islamic Azad University: Abadan branch, majoring in English translation were culled out
of 120 students on the basis of an English language proficiency test. Only the intermediate level students were
selected for this study. The participants comprised both genders and different ages (ranging from 19 to 31). The
participants had enrolled in translation, reading comprehension, story reproduction, and conversation courses.
3.2 Materials
The following instruments were implemented in the study:
A) English Language Proficiency Test; a standardized English language
proficiency test comprising listening comprehension, grammar, vocabulary, and reading
comprehension was used to designate the students level of proficiency.
B) Foreign Language Class Anxiety Scale (hereafter abbreviated as FLCAS) (appendix); to measure the degree to
which participants feel anxious, a 33-item Likert-type foreign language class anxiety scale developed by Horwitz et
al. (1986) was implemented. For each item, for example, It embarrasses me to volunteer answers in my English
classes, there were five possible responses; always, often, sometimes, rarely, and never scoring from 5 to 1
respectively.
The selection of always indicated the best example of a high anxious person. By the same token, if a student chose
never, it means that s/he never embarrassed to volunteer answers in the class. This indicated that s/he was not
prone to anxiety. The other choices i.e. often, sometimes, and rarely fell in between. Other items were treated
likewise. It was translated into the students native language (Persian) to avoid any confusion and misunderstanding.
C) Two listening comprehension tests were implemented. The tests were at intermediate level of English language
proficiency in terms of vocabulary and speed, and of multiple-choice type. Each of the listening tests consisted of 30
multiple-choice items, which were based on short conversations. The tests were complementary to Main Street
Series published by Oxford University Press for teaching English.
3.3 Procedure
The following five steps were practiced in this stage of the study:
Step 1: To ensure the students linguistic homogeneity, a 100-item language proficiency test comprising four parts
(listening comprehension, grammar, vocabulary, and reading comprehension) was administered to them.
Step 2: A number of 60 students whose proficiency scores were between 40 to 70, were recruited to take a listening
comprehension test.
Step 3: To measure the participants' anxiety level the FLCAS was given to the participants. They were asked to
select a choice which best fitted their personality.
Step 4: A number of 30 high anxious intermediate-level students (those who scored 90 to 150 in the FLCAS)
underwent a treatment which was designed to reduce their anxiety.
Step 5: Immediately after the treatment session, the high anxious intermediate students sat for a post-treatment
listening comprehension test. The attempt was made to find out whether reducing anxiety could influence the test
results.
Based on their scores in the proficiency test, the participants were divided into three main groups; elementary
(scoring 0-40), intermediate (scoring 40-70), and advanced (scoring 70-100). Only intermediate-level students were
selected to take the listening test, that is, the study did not concern the other two groups (i.e. elementary and

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advanced level students). The reason for excluding elementary level students was that these students, to date, had
not had enough courses in listening comprehension to experience anxiety, which is the main concern of the study.
Advanced level learners were also excluded because the number of participants who fell in advanced category was
quite small (eight students scored beyond 70). The intermediate subjects' listening scores were correlated with their
FLCAS scores to find out any relationship between the two constructs.
In the treatment session, the researcher/tester received the testees cordially, removed their fear of evaluation by
ensuring them that no negative score would be considered and if they did poorly they would be granted a chance to
repeat the test. In order to alleviate the participants degree of nervousness, the tester also drew on a strategy to
create a friendly and anxiety-free atmosphere by encouraging the testees, expressing his positive feelings about them
and reinforcing their self-confidence and positive self-talk, and offering them sincere support and interest. Too,
during the test administration adequate considerations were shown to the test takers.
3.4 Data Analysis
The raw scores of 120 subjects from the proficiency test, anxiety scale and listening comprehension tests were
computed through appropriate measures and compiled for data analysis. By using correlational analysis, the amount
of correlation between the above scores on different tests was calculated. To make inferences from the correlations
obtained in this study to the total populations the statistical significance of the results was examined. To investigate
the effectiveness of the teacher/testers interference in the results of the second-stage listening comprehension, a
t-test was run.
4. Results
The study investigates the effects of language learning anxiety on the students' score in listening comprehension test,
and further explores the effectiveness of the tester's treatment on a post-treatment listening comprehension test. To
this aim, firstly, the results of 60 intermediate participants (recruited on the basis of their proficiency scores) in
listening comprehension test were correlated with their scores in FLCAS (see table 1 for the results of listening test
and FLCAS). The result was a moderate negative correlation (r=-.469) which was significant at the level of .000.
(See Table 1)
The researcher, then, urged the high-anxious subjects (those whose anxiety measure was 90 plus out of 150) to
undergo a treatment to reduce their induced anxiety for the next listening comprehension test. Immediately after the
treatment, the second listening comprehension was administered to them to find out the effectiveness of the
treatment in their results. A one-way t-test, therefore, was conducted to see whether or not a progress has been made
due to the tester's treatment. The result indicated a significant progress in the second listening comprehension test
scores, and therefore, revealed that the subjects' anxiety was a cause of their poor performance in the first listening
test. In other words, the treatment session had a positive influence on the participants' mean in the second listening
comprehension test. The test-giver was successful in making them feel less anxious, and consequently, improve their
scores. Also, the correlation between the two listening comprehension tests was positively significant (r=.665,
p<001).
5. Discussion and Conclusion
The correlation found in the study (r= -.469, p< 001) showed conformity with MacIntyre and Gardner's (1991a and
b) findings, Horwitz and Young's (1991), and much of the findings in literature (Sadighi, et al., 2009), which found a
reverse modest relationship between FLCAS and language proficiency. One may argue the modesty of the
correlation and expect a higher correlation between listening comprehension and anxiety, but concerning that
anxiety is a psychological construct on the one hand, and on the other hand the repetition of this moderate reverse
correlation in study after study is a good evidence of the negative impact of anxiety on listening comprehension
(Baily 1983, p. 86).
In this study, those students who reported lower anxiety in the FLCAS received higher scores in listening test, and
those who felt tense and anxious were predicted to, and did receive lower scores. Therefore, the conclusion can be
drawn that those students who are susceptible to anxiety, first and foremost, are involved in their self-deprecatory
thoughts, worry and tension rather than focusing on what is being told to them in a language class or the questions
on a test situation. The lack of self-confidence in these students causes to lower their expectations in final grades,
which reduces motivation, effort and consequently achievement.
As it was mentioned before, foreign language anxiety comprises three components: communication apprehension,
test anxiety, and fear of negative evaluation (Horwitz et al., 1986). With respect to communication apprehension, the
anxiety experienced in interpersonal settings, the present research indicates that foreign language anxiety has a
negative impact on listening comprehension. MacIntyre and Gardner (1991a, p. 100) found speaking the most

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anxiety-provoking skill. And many researchers have considered listening comprehension a passing way to speaking,
and have ignored the attention it merits. However, if one accepts that listening is an integral part of communication,
and that listening and speaking are two interrelated skills that make communication possible, the findings of present
study will come to more value.
The findings, although moderately, indicated that listening apprehension is a part of communication apprehension,
which can block the process of communication in foreign language and/or negatively influence the listening test
scores. It is, therefore, suggested that teachers/test givers attempt to reduce the internal anxiety in the test takers as
far as possible to ensure the purity of the results. They also need to predict that affective variables, and most
importantly, anxiety can potentially overshadow the final results of the students, and if they wish to process a more
accurate evaluation, they should put anxiety into serious consideration. In this regard, teachers/testers need to avoid
anxiety-loaded tests and test atmospheres and make learning situations (class, laboratory, etc.) relaxed. Anxiety is a
remarkable, if not the best, predictor of final grades and achievement.
With respect to test anxiety, some points are worth noting here: Although Dally (1991, p. 10) found that learners
experience more language anxiety in highly evaluative situations, what seems more reasonable is that frequent
evaluation could probably lessen the induced anxiety in the learners. One may suppose that he is asked to talk about
a matter in front of a crowd for the first experience. It is clear that he would panic, and even may not be able to
speak. The more experienced he becomes in giving lectures, the less anxious he will be, though a slight amount of
anxiety may exist even in experienced lecturers.
By the same token, the more frequent language learners are evaluated, the less anxious they become in the tests,
except for the early tests. Another important point is that foreign language tests (and listening tests in particular)
should be made as clear as possible. Indeed, the more unfamiliar and ambiguous the test tasks and formats, the
higher the prevailing level of anxiety.
Arranging test items from easy to difficult can be an anxiety-reducing factor. For anxious students the first item is
critical. In listening comprehension tests, if the first question is a difficult one, it triggers anxiety that influences the
following items. Most of the testees expect to understand the text word by word, and when they fail to follow the
text in this way, they become frustrated and worried. They think that their failure to comprehend the text is because
they failed to understand a word or an important verb, while if they are trained to listen for the gist and main points,
much of their apprehension may be attenuated.
Almost all of the participants in this study complained about the speed of text, while they listened to the questions in
normal speed. It is, therefore, concluded that many anxious test sitters take normal speed as "fast", and lag behind of
the strings of words which strike their ears, and hence, feel tense. Their anxiety can even be compounded if they are
not allotted a chance to listen once more. Anxious students are likely to experience their highest level of foreign
language anxiety when they are performing tasks in which time is a factor. Listening tasks are among such tasks in
which time is critical, and hence, the most remarkable room for anxiety to culminate.
Regarding fear of negative evaluation, the third component of anxiety, the present study corroborated the findings of
Horwitz et al. (1986) who reported that anxiety is induced when instructors correct students errors in a
nonsupportive manner. While understanding the importance of being corrected, most of the participants in the
present study reported feeling embarrassed and anxiety over responding incorrectly or being incorrect in front of the
peers. They also identified teacher's manner as a source of anxiety. Anxious students require teachers' support more
than other students. They are more sensitive and fragile to the teachers sarcastic words or nonsupportive manners.
Therefore, it is possible to keep the anxiety levels to minimum with a supportive and constructive classroom
environment.
The results of this study suggest that certain students are at risk of having debilitative levels of foreign
language/listening anxiety. Therefore, it is important that foreign language instructors not only recognize the
possibility that some students experience high levels of anxiety, but also identify these at-risk students. Foreign
language educators can begin to explore instructional strategies that reduce foreign language/listening anxiety, and
to fully implement the available sources to mitigate anxiety in their students.
The implications of this study mostly address English language instructors, who may find the following approaches
promising in alleviating foreign language/listening anxiety in the learners. However, they should note that these
recommendations are, by no means, exhaustive, and every instructor may offer additional suggestions for reducing
level of anxiety.
First and foremost, foreign language instructors should address the emotional concerns of anxious students. They
should acknowledge these feelings as legitimate and then attempt to lessen students' feelings of inadequacy,

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confusion, and failure by providing positive experiences to counteract the anxiety. Educators could confront the
students' erroneous beliefs by providing them with complete and accurate information regarding the course goals
and objectives. They can also build the students' confidence and self-esteem in their foreign language ability via
encouragement, reassurance, positive reinforcement, and empathy. In this respect, teachers should be especially
sensitive when they are correcting students' errors, and should remind them that it is through making errors that one
acquires language proficiency. Instructors' expectations from students should be realistic and convincing, otherwise
it creates anxiety. Also, teachers should openly discuss the nature of anxiety with students and encourage them to
seek help when needed. By so doing, teachers reassure the learners that they are not alone in their feelings.
Regarding listening apprehension the following recommendations are in order: The teachers' use of target language
in the class gives the students the opportunity to practice more in foreign language listening, yet, it is to be done
with caution, because it can sometimes create anxiety. There are times when students are bogged down and cannot
follow the teacher and this may arouse anxiety. Teachers should bear in mind that at these times they may slip to
native language to make their point clear and consequently hinder provoking anxiety, and then shift back to the
target language.
Furthermore, foreign language instructors need to train the students to listen for the main points, and do not expect
themselves to understand every word while listening. The students should be asked to suppose that they are at a
party. There are many groups of people at the party, who are talking about different topics. They want to know what
the different groups of people are saying, but they do not have enough time to listen to every group completely.
Therefore, they choose to listen to only a small part of what is being said by each group to understand the gist of
talking materials. Likewise, they should listen to listening comprehension tapes only to grasp the most important
points. Because following word by word causes them to lag behind and feel nervous. This "party situation" strategy,
however, works for elementary and intermediate-level students, because advanced-level students may need to listen
for details.
With respect to testing listening comprehension, because a low-stress testing environment allows the testees to
concentrate more fully on test items rather than being distracted by self-deprecating worry and fear of evaluation,
test givers are recommended to encourage a relaxed testing atmosphere. They are required to receive the students
warmly and supportively and give them positive suggestions before the exam session, while openly discussing the
nature of foreign language anxiety, and urging them to overcome their negative feelings.
Finally, as for other test-makers, foreign language listening test developers/instructors are also suggested to avoid
developing anxiety-loaded tests. Arranging the items from easy to difficult, for example, could possibly reduce the
amount of anxiety in the testees. Since, as it was mentioned elsewhere, the first item(s) play a substantial role in
inducing anxiety or warming up the anxious test sitters to gain control over the test and hence reducing anxiety.
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Pappamihiel, N. E. (2002). English as a second language students and English language anxiety: Issues in the
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Sadighi, F., Sahragard, R., & Jafari, S. M. (2009). Listening comprehension and foreign language classroom anxiety
among Iranian EFL learners. Iranian EFL Journal, 3, 137-152
Saito, Y., & Samimy, K. (1996). Foreign language anxiety and language performance: A study of learning anxiety in
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Scovel, T. (1978). The effect of affect on foreign language learning: A review of the anxiety literature. Language
Learning, 28, 129-142
Trickett, E., & Moos, R. (1995). Classroom environment scale manual: Development, applications, research (3rd
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Acknowledgement
The authors would like to acknowledge Islamic Azad University, Abadan branch for funding the research project out
of which this paper is derived.

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Table 1. Results of the 60 intermediate subjects in listening comprehension, and their FLCAS
N

Min.

Max.

Mean

Listening

60

17

11.9

FLCAS

60

33

128

57.55

Appendix
HORWITZ ET AL.S (1991) FOREIGN LANGUAGE CLASSROOM ANXIETY SCALE
Directions:
Below is a list of statements referring to feelings you may or may not have toward
learning and speaking a foreign language. Read each statement, and then circle the
description that reflects the amount that you agree with it. Note: SA = strongly agree A = agree N = neither agree nor
disagree D = disagree SD = strongly
disagree
1.) I never feel quite sure of myself when I am speaking in my foreign language.
SA A N D SD
2.) I dont worry about making mistakes in language class.
SA A N D SD
3.) I tremble when I know that Im going to be called on in language class.
SA A N D SD
4.) It frightens me when I dont understand what the teacher is saying in the foreign
language.
SA A N D SD
5.) It wouldnt bother me at all to take more foreign language classes.
SA A N D SD
6.) During language class, I find myself thinking about things that have nothing to do
with the course.
SA A N D SD
7) I keep thinking that the other students are better at languages than I am.
SA A N D SD
8) I am usually at ease during tests in my language class.
SA A N D SD
9) I start to panic when I have to speak without preparing in language class.
SA A N D SD
10) I worry about the consequences of failing my foreign language class.
SA A N D SD
11) I dont understand why some people get so upset over foreign language classes.
SA A N D SD
12) In language class, I can get so nervous I forget things I know.
SA A N D SD
13) It embarrasses me to volunteer answers in my language class.
SA A N D SD
14) I would not be nervous speaking the foreign language with native speakers.

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SA A N D SD
15) I get upset when I dont understand what the teacher is correcting.
SA A N D SD
16) Even if I am well prepared for language class, I feel anxious about it.
SA A N D SD
17) I often feel like not going to my language class.
SA A N D SD
18) I feel confident when I speak in foreign language class.
SA A N D SD
19) I am afraid that my language teacher is ready to correct every mistake I make.
SA A N D SD
20) I can feel my heart pounding when Im going to be called on in language class.
SA A N D SD
21) The more I study for a language test, the more confused I get.
SA A N D SD
22) I dont feel pressure to prepare very well for language class.
SA A N D SD
23) I always feel that the other students speak the foreign language better than I do.
SA A N D SD
24) I feel very self-conscious about speaking the foreign language in front of other
students.
SA A N D SD
25) Language class moves so quickly I worry about getting left behind.
SA A N D SD
26) I feel more tense and nervous in my language class than in my other classes.
SA A N D SD
27) I get nervous and confused when I am speaking in my language class.
SA A N D SD
28) When Im on my way to language class, I feel very sure and relaxed.
SA A N D SD
29) I get nervous when I dont understand every word the language teacher says.
SA A N D SD
30) I feel very overwhelmed by the number of rules you have to learn to speak a foreign language. SA A N D SD
31) I am afraid that the other students will laugh at me when I speak the foreign language. SA A N D SD
32) I would probably feel comfortable around native speakers of the foreign language.SA A N D SD
33) I get nervous when the language teacher asks questions which I havent prepare in advance.

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Discourse Markers in College English Listening Instruction: An

Empirical Study of Chinese Learners
Jianfeng Zhang
College of Humanities and Foreign Languages, Xian University of Science and Technology
Lintong District, Xian Shaanxi, 710600, China
E-mail: zhangjianfeng091024@126.com
Received: December 21, 2011

Accepted: December 30, 2011

Published: March 1, 2012

doi:10.5539/elt.v5n3p46

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/elt.v5n3p46

This study is sponsored by the Instructional Research Project (JG10044) of Xian University of Science and
Technology.
Abstract
Discourse markers can clearly indicate the organization of discourse, remind the hearer of the preceding and the
following contents, and express clearly the concrete speech acts. The aims of this study are to explore the
relationship between the discourse-marker-based model and listening comprehension as well as the different
effects of such a kind of instruction on liberal arts and science students. 120 Chinese college students of
non-English major, who are from two different departments of Xian University of Science and Technology, are
the research subjects. An experiment has been carried out by applying the theory of discourse markers to enhance
the English listening skill proficiency. Based on the results of the data analysis, the conclusion can be drawn that
discourse-marker-based listening instruction can improve students listening comprehension of non-English
major and liberal arts students benefit more from discourse-marker-based listening instruction.
Keywords: Discourse markers, Listening comprehension, College English listening instruction
1. Introduction
Most languages in the world have a range of words or lexical expressions, which do not belong to any of the
major syntactic categories, which do not indicate objects, events, and whose meanings do not contribute to the
conceptual meaning of utterance in which they occur (Wilson, 2000), but work as informative markers and instruct
utterance interpretation. These kinds of words or expressions, such as you know; I mean; well; so; okay are
called discourse markers (henceforth DMs), and play an important role in the communication. Since the 1970s,
interest in DMs has turned into a growing industry (Fraser, 1999) in linguistics with growing interest in
pragmatic and contextual aspects of utterance interpretation. A wealth of studies has been done on this topic.
Research on DMs and similar phenomena have expanded continually throughout the 1980s and 1990s, with the
result that such items now figure prominently not only in pragmatic and discourse analytic researches but also in
the studies on sociolinguistic topics ranging from gender variation to code-switching (Schourup,1999).
During the past twenty years, the study of DMs has developed very quickly in linguistics, with dozens of articles
appearing yearly (Aijmer, 2002). Numerous studies have attempted to specify the meaning or functions of an
individual DM or small sets of DMs in various languages, and several attempts have been made to characterize
DMs in a more general way (Schiffrin, 1987).
Many scholars have done a lot of theoretical and empirical studies on DMs, such as but ( Schiffrin, 1987; Norrick,
2002), and (Bestgen, 1998; Fraser, 1988), you know ( Macaulay, 2002), so and therefore (Fraser, 1996;
Blakemore, 1992) in English; alors, donc and bon (Hansen, 1997) in French; and dui bu dui (Chen, 2001) in
Chinese. However, most of them have carried out their studies in native speakers language environment and the
empirical studies mainly concentrate on its effect on writing and speaking. Since listening comprehension, as
one of language input skills, occupies an important status in second language (henceforth L2) learning, which
greatly affects the improvement of other language skills, it is very necessary and significant to study the
relationship between DMs and listening comprehension as well as the application of DMs to listening instruction.

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In this study, 120 Chinese college students of non-English major, who are from two different departments of
Xian University of Science and Technology, are the research subjects. An experiment has been carried out by
applying the theory of discourse markers to enhance the English listening skill proficiency. The aims of this study
are to explore the relationship between the discourse-marker-based model and listening comprehension as well as
the different effects of such a kind of instruction on liberal arts and science students.
2. Background to the Study
2.1 Discourse Markers
The term discourse markers has different meanings for different groups of researchers and there is no agreement
about what elements in a particular language should be referred to as DMs and studies on DMs have been done
under a variety of overlapping labels. Among them there are sentence connectives, semantic conjuncts, cue
phrases, discourse connectives, discourse-deictic items, discourse operators, discourse particles, fillers, makers
of pragmatic structure, parenthetical phrases, phatic connectives, pragmatic connectives, pragmatic expressions,
pragmatic formatives, pragmatic markers, pragmatic operators, pragmatic particles, pragmatic function words,
reaction makers, so on and so forth.
Among those researches, Schiffrin is one of the most influential scholars who has studied the discourse markers
in detail and has firmly established the term discourse markers in linguistic research. The definition that has
received greatest attention today is Schiffrins preliminary working definition of DMs as sequentially dependent
elements which bracket units of talk (Schiffrin, 1987). Later, she gives a more elaborate description of the
markers as proposing the contextual coordinates within which an utterance is produced and designed to be
interpreted (Schiffrin, 1987).On the basis of Schiffrins study of DMs, Redeker calls discourse markers
discourse operators and proposes the definition of her own: a word or phrase--for instance, a conjunction,
adverbial, comment clause, interjectionthat is uttered with the primary function of bringing to the listeners
attention, a particular kind of linkage of the upcoming utterance with the immediate discourse context. (Redeker,
1991)
In Frasers work (1987), he writes about a group of expressions which he calls pragmatic formative but later
calls pragmatic markers (1996). DMs, as a grammatical category, are seen as a subclass of pragmatic markers.
Specifically, he characterizes a DM as a linguistic expression which: (a) has a core meaning which can be
enriched by the context; and (b) signals the relationship that the speakers intend between the utterance the DM
introduces and the foregoing utterance.
Based upon the Relevance Theory, Blakemore, the most influential representative of this perspective, maintains
that DMs can be regarded as linguistically specified constraints on cognitive context. She calls them discourse
connectives: expressions that constrain the interpretation of the utterances which contain them by virtue of the
inferential connections they express. (Blakemore, 1987) Thus the DMs are regarded as items which cognitively
limit the hearers interpretation in that they indicate the speakers intention. So the employment of DMs is one
means to make contextual assumptions more accessible to the hearer.
From what was noted above, differences can be seen we see in defining DMs by different scholars. Obviously,
the different concentrations and perspectives reflect their conceptions of the overall definitions of DMs in the
communication. But from these definitions, some generalizations can be made about DMs: in general, DMs are a
range of words or expressions drawn from classes of conjunctions, adverbials, prepositional phrases and other
syntactic categories. They are used to express the speakers communicative purposes, i.e. to make the utterance
more fluent and easy to understand. Whats more, they have no contribution to the meaning of the utterance, that
is to say, if the DMs are removed from the utterance, the semantic relationship between the elements they connect
remains the same; and without the DMs, the grammaticality of the utterance must still be intact.
2.2 Characterization of DMs
Connectivity
The connectivity of DMs is most often taken to be a necessary characteristic though it is conceived in different
ways. Schiffrin and Frasers definitions specify that DMs relate two textual units, thus contributing to
inter-utterance coherence. They claim that DMs mark boundaries between verbal activities and imply relations
between two textual units. However, Blakemore points out that it is undesirable to distinguish
discourse-internal uses of a connective so. For example:
(1) A: You take the first turning on the left.
B: So we dont go past the university.

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(2) [Seeing someone return home with parcels]

So youve spent all your money.
In both uses so marks an implicated conclusion and in example (2), the speaker derives from observation of a
state of affairs and uses the DM so to draw his/her conclusion. Therefore, DMs may link their host utterance
not only to the linguistic co-text, but also to the context in a wider sense.
Optionality
DMs are frequently claimed to be optional in two distinct senses. They are almost universally regarded as
syntactically optional in the sense that removal of a DM does not alter the grammaticality of its host sentence.
However, DMs are also widely claimed to be optional in the further sense that they do not enlarge the
possibilities for semantic relationship between the elements they associate. Therefore, if a DM is omitted, the
relationship it signals is still available to the hearer, though no longer explicitly cued. Utterances (3) and (4),
for example, may be understood in roughly the same way.
(3) The others are going to Stock. However, I am going to Paris.
(4) The others are going to Stock. I am going to Paris.
Thus, while DMs are typically said to display or reflect existing propositional connections rather than
create them, they are also commonly said to reinforce or clue the interpretation intended by the speaker.
Non-truth-conditionality
DMs are generally thought to contribute nothing to the truth-conditions of the proposition expressed by an
utterance (Hansen, 1997). Some (Fraser, 1996) take this to mean that DMs do not affect the truth-conditions of
sentences, but support has grown for the view that truth-conditions pertain not to sentences but to mental
representations. Thus Kempson (1986): truth-theoretic content is defined solely with respect to propositional
forms of the language of inference. In neither view are so-called DMs seen as contributing to the
truth-theoretic content associated with the marked utterance.
The non-truth-conditionality of DMs distinguishes them from uses of content words, including manner
adverbial uses of words like sadly. If the DM you know is taken away from Utterance (5), the truth-condition of
the utterance will not be changed whereas the truth-condition of Utterance (6) will be changed if we omit sadly
as seen in the following examples:
(5) Owens is a respected drama critic. You know, she has written
(6) Sadly, he left his home.
Connectivity, optionality, and non-truth-conditionality are all frequently taken together to be necessary
attributes of DMs. The remaining features such as weak clause association, initiality, orality and
multi-categoriality are less consistently regarded as criteria for DMs status; therefore, they will not be
presented in details in this study.
2.3 Listening Comprehension and Discourse Markers
2.3.1 The Nature of Listening Comprehension
Listening is a complex activity difficult to investigate. Research in listening is in an exploratory stage. At
present, despite much theoretical and empirical research, a consensus on a definition of listening
comprehension has not yet been reached. Being a vital skill for almost all interaction, listening is also the most
important medium for input in learning a foreign language. Krashen (1982) puts forward input hypothesis
and comprehensible input which indicate the importance of listening. Krashen holds that the comprehensible
input is an important factor in second language acquisition and a comprehension-before-production approach
can facilitate language acquisition particularly in the early stages.
Chaudron and Richards (1986), Anderson and Lynch (1988), Rost (1990) emphasize that listening
comprehension must acknowledge that many processes work together in an interactive, overlapping and
simultaneous fashion. Rost (1990) sums this up: a listeners interpretation continuously changes throughout
a speech event; it is not accurate to speak of sequential stages in listening, starting with speech perception. It is
more accurate to think of the processes of perception and interpretation as continuous, overlapping and
mutually informing from spoken utterances after the words have been recognized; their meanings computed
and the syntax of the utterance has been parsed.
Psycholinguists suggest that listening is a process in which the listener has to use syntactic and semantic

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information to identify acoustic cue; and it involves various linguistic and extra-linguistic factors. In other
words, listening comprehension is not a simple decoding process, but a process combining decoding process
with reconstructing meaning. In the process, listeners participation, social-cultural knowledge, pragmatic
knowledge and linguistic knowledge are very important.
Generally speaking, listening comprehension is a complex process. In human communication, listeners not
only listen to others, they also have to comprehend what others are talking about. Listening comprehension
includes the auditory perception and all sorts of cognitive competence in attaining the goal of understanding.
Therefore, listening comprehension is a composite process of memorizing, generalizing, predicting and
language transforming.
2.3.2 Discourse Markers and Listening Comprehension: Relevant Studies
Chaudron and Richard (1986) look at the influence of DMs on the comprehension of academic lecture, and
they conclude that DMs can facilitate comprehension. They consider two kinds of discourse signals in a lecture:
macro-markers and micro-markers. The former signals the macro-structure (e.g. what Im going to talk about
today) of a lecture through highlighting the major information in the lecture and the sequencing or
importance of that information. The latter (e.g. and, so, well) indicates links between sentences with the lecture
or function as fillers.
Hron et al. compare the listening comprehension of two version of a lengthy English text with and without
discourse markers. They conclude that listeners who have heard the text with additional DMs reproduce
significantly more macro-propositions than those who have heard the non-marked version. (Rubin, 1994)
Thompson (2003) focuses on the roles of text-structuring DMs in signaling the lager-scale organization of
academic talks. He finds that the occurrence of DMs in authentic undergraduate lectures and in talks appearing
in EAP (English for Academic Purposes) listening skills materials can help an audience form a coherent
mental map of the overall talk.
Generally speaking, there are only a few studies concerning the effect of DMs on listening. All the studies to
some extent affirm that DMs can facilitate listening comprehension. However, most of them have carried out
their studies in the native language environment. Few of them explore English DMs in EFL environment.
3. Research Methodology
3.1 Research Questions
The study attempts to answer the following research questions:
1) Does discourse-marker-based listening instruction (henceforth DMLI) improve students proficiency of
listening comprehension?
2) Does DMLI have the same influence on students with different majors (science students and liberal arts
students)?
3.2 Subjects
One hundred and twenty students from Xian University of Science and Technology are chosen as the subjects
of this experiment. This is because as freshmen the students are very active in listening class, and have a
certain interest in listening. They have learned English for at least six years, so they have enough ability and
knowledge to receive the training of listening strategies. Besides, the two groups are parallel classes, having
the same English teacher, the same teaching materials, and the same listening class time (2 classes per week).
Furthermore, the classroom environment is also the same. Therefore, to a certain extent, the differences caused
by other factors can be controlled.
These two groups are intact classes selected from Management School and Chemistry & Chemical Engineering
Department of Xian University of Science and Technology. Class 1 is chosen as the Experimental Class
(henceforth EC), which includes 30 science students and 30 liberal arts students, receiving the DMLI; whereas
Class 2 is chosen as the Control Class (henceforth CC), which includes 30 science students and 30 liberal arts
students, receiving the normal listening instruction. The EC consists of 60 students with 38 males and 22
females, while CC is made up of 32 males and 28 females.
3.3 Research Procedures
The experiment lasts for a whole semester (18 weeks). The one-semester training research begins in September,
2010 and ends in February, 2011. During this period, the researcher uses a method of
illustration-interaction-induction-internalization in the Experimental Class to reinforce the students knowledge

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of DMs.
Like the case of grammar teaching noted by McCarthy and Carter (1995), traditional and well-established
Three-P of Presentation-Practice-Production may need be revised to involve students in greater awareness of
the
use
of
DMs
in
listening.
The
researcher
proposes
4-I
methodology,
Illustration-Interaction-Induction-Internalization.
3.3.1 Illustration
Illustration refers to presentation of authentic DMs in context and use. According to Blakemore (1992), the
researcher divides DMs into four types and in the listening class, the researcher has introduced the functions
and use of these four types respectively.
1)

Discourse markers introducing contextual implications

In listening comprehension, the speaker sometimes presents a proof and then a conclusion by using a DM to
constrain the listeners inferential process involved in interpretation. DMs such as so, therefore, thus, then, as a
consequence, accordingly, in this case, as a result can be grouped to play this role. For example:
(1) Son: The Smiths have a party today.
Father: So what?
(2) Shes your teacher. Therefore, you must respect her.
(3) The bank has closed all day. Thus we couldnt make a withdrawal.
The researcher introduces those DMs and analyzes functions of them. In (1), so introduces a contextual
implication of an assumption that has been made accessible. The father is asking what conclusion he is
expected to draw from the sons remark. In (2), the first proposition is being asserted as a reason to prove that
the speaker is recommending the listener respect the teacher. Therefore is to constrain the relevance of the
proposition in the preceding utterance. In (3), thus signals that the segment following is to be taken as
expressing a conclusion which the proposition of the first segment provides justification for.
2)

Discourse markers strengthening existing assumptions

If the speaker is suggesting that this is something the listener already knows, the speaker exploits DMs only to
increase the strength of the listeners conviction of the assumption conveyed in the previous utterance. DMs
which aim to increase strength of the existing assumption may include: after all, you see, you know, because,
since, moreover, furthermore, also, indeed, and, in addition, what is more. For example:
(4) Shes not here. You see, it is Monday.
Clearly, the listener is expected to supply a connection between Mondays and going out. After hearing the
second segment, the listener believes that She goes out every Monday.
The speaker provides additional evidence by using furthermore or besides for an assumption derived from the
previous utterance. For example:
(5) Man: Will you make pancakes?
Woman: I havent really got time tonight. Furthermore/Besides, theres no milk.
The woman gives one more reason that she will not make pancakes because she has no time today and because
theres no milk.
3)

Discourse markers introducing denials

On some occasions the speaker intends to contradict come elements of the interpretation of a preceding
utterance. Then the speaker must use DMs which can function to deny the assumption conveyed in the
preceding utterance. In this case, the listener will have to abandon the existing assumption so that the
contradiction between the new information and the old information is solved. DMs such as but, however,
nevertheless, yet, still, though, conversely, on the other hand can be grouped in this type.
(6) Man: You were born in North Philadelphia?
Woman: No. I was born in South Philadelphia. But I move to North Philadelphia when I was a year old.
In this example, but has two functions: providing the requested information, correcting the mans fault;
explaining the connection between the man and woman, in other words, a face-saving effort which is
cooperative.

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Other DMs, such as however, still or nevertheless, can play the same role in utterance interpretation, although
they are not completely interchangeable in all contexts. The researcher has made students clear that DMs
introduce denial by virtue of the fact that they lead the hearer to eliminate an existing assumption conveyed in
the previous utterance.
4)

Discourse markers specifying the roles of utterance

There are other DMs to specify what roles the utterances they play in the communication, such as also, too,
either, well, by the way, anyway, first, finally, speaking of, return to my point.
(7) Simons got a laser printer too.
The speaker of (7) implies that: Simon has got something else, or someone else has got a laser printer. Different
from the DM too, by the way reminds the listener that the coming utterance is a change of topic. For example:
(8) I havent heard from my family for years. By the way, have you got the letter in your desk?
On the contrary, DMs as return to my point, back to my original point, indicate that the speaker will come back
to the previous topic.
Other DMs as first, next, finally are used to inform the listener that the speaker is coming to a certain point.
Such DMs should be considered as reminders of the speakers line of thinking.
In the listening class, the researcher has illustrated those DMs and helped students understand the functions and
use of DMs. Meanwhile, the researcher encourages students to pay attention to DMs when they listen to the
tapes and asks them to use the theories they have learned to test the functions and use of a certain DM when it
appears in the listening materials.
3.3.2 Interaction
Interaction means introduction to students discourse-sensitive activities which are designed to raise students
awareness of the interactive properties of DM use through class discussion.
At the beginning of each listening class, there is a warm-up activity which is often conducted by the teacher.
Ten minutes or so is used to tell something about the knowledge of DMs related to listening materials and to
organize some discussion about these DMs. These activities are used to raise students awareness about the use
of DMs and to promote their interest to pay attention to DM use in the listening materials.
For example, at the beginning of the class, the teacher introduces the DM well: one of the functions of well is
used to answer a question when the speaker wants to imply the information that he is not willing or convenient
to speak out. Then the students are divided into several groups to discuss: Who are the possible speakers of the
following dialogue? In what context does the dialogue occur?
(9) A: Did you kill your wife?
B: Well, yes.
Through these kinds of activities and discussion, it can help students arouse their curiosity to learn DMs and
help them develop the predicting skill in listening comprehension.
3.3.3 Induction
Induction is to encourage students to draw conclusions about the functions of a given DM and the capacity
for noticing the differences. When students have grasped some knowledge of DMs, the teacher encourages
them to summarize the functions of DMs which appear in the listening materials. In addition, according to the
listening material, the teacher designs some exercises to give students more opportunities to make use of
appropriate DMs.
For example, when students listen to the story Snow White, the teacher arranges an activity: Suppose you were
the magic mirror, try to tell the queen in English that she is not the most beautiful woman any more. Make use
of some DMs to soften your statement. This kind of training can help students induce the functions of DMs
they have learned.
3.3.4 Internalization
Internalization refers to the capacity to use them on the right occasion and at the right time. After the
teaching and training, students are hoped to understand DMs, pay attention to DMs in listening comprehension
and use DMs on a proper way. Therefore, the teacher conducts some role playing games to test whether they
have grasped DMs or not. For example:

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Tell your boyfriend or girlfriend that you are in love with someone else. Save his/her face by saying good about
him or her. Use proper DMs appropriately to help you do this job.
To sum up, the researcher has utilized the method of illustration-interaction-induction -internalization to
instruct and train DMs in listening class. On the other hand, using the multimedia technology, the researcher
also provides students with some articles about background knowledge of DMs in Chinese, such as Review of
discourse markers (Huang, 2001), Review of discourse makers in Pragmatics (Ran, 2000), etc. From the Power
Point showing and introduction, students get a lot of background knowledge of DMs, such as knowledge of
definitions, classifications, characterization and so on.
3.4 Instruments
3.4.1 Pre-test & Post-test
All subjects from the Experimental Class and the Control Class are required to take a pre-test and a post-test
during the whole experimental period. These two tests are given to investigate the changes of the students
listening proficiency, which may provide some clues to investigate the relationship between DMLI and students
proficiency of listening comprehension. The questions of these two listening tests are from the Question Bank
of English Department of Xian University of Science and Technology, which has high reliability and validity.
The tests of EC and CC are held respectively in the two same listening laboratories at the same time.
3.4.2 Questionnaire
After the post-test, the questionnaires are handed out to the EC to investigate the different effect of DMs on
students who are liberal arts students and science students. The questionnaires are distributed in a language
laboratory. Before students fill the questionnaires, the researcher explains the purpose of the questionnaire and
asks them to finish all the questions according to their real thoughts.
The questionnaire comprises three parts. The first part is designed to obtain personal information about the
participants, including age, gender, major and class. The second part consists of 10 specific questions and they
can be divided into two factors: question 1 to question 5 are about the degree of attention on DMs; question 6
to question 10 are concerning the effect of DMs on listening comprehension. They are of the 5-scale
Likert-type, consisting of a statement to which respondent would indicate one of the 5-responses: 1=never or
almost never true of me; 2=usually not true of me; 3=somewhat true of me; 4=usually true of me; 5=always or
almost true of me. Therefore, the higher score a student gets, the more affirmative attitude he or she towards
the statements. The third part is an open-ended question. In order to avoid any difficulties caused by the
language barrier that might affect the research results, the questionnaire is written in Chinese.
3.4.3 Observation and Interview
Students are asked to do the exercises in their textbook New College English Listening and Speaking (Course
1) inside class from the beginning of the semester to the end. And the researcher observes their performance in
discussion, answering questions, note taking and participation in role play. Students performance is a continual
process, which can reflect the changes in terms of their listening proficiency levels.
In addition, after the post-test, the researcher has interviewed 30 science students and arts students in the EC.
The main questions are: Why do you think discourse-marker devices (do not) influence your listening
comprehension? Why do you think discourse-marker devices (do not) facilitate your understanding of the
speakers intention? Before the interview, the researcher informs the students that the purpose of the interview
is to make an investigation and asks them to speak their minds out.
4. Data Analysis
4.1 Discourse-marker-based Listening Instruction and Listening Comprehension
4.1.1 Pre-test
The pre-test is carried out to test the similar level of listening proficiency between the EC and the CC. Since
the pre-test is divided into three parts, the total score of the test is 30. All the scores are analyzed by SPSS 15.0.
The basic information of two classes in test is shown in Table 4-1. The means of the two classes in pre-test are
15.9167 and 15.9000 respectively, which are only half of 30. The Std. Deviations of the EC and CC are about
5.2 and 5.1.
However, only according to T-test for equality of means, can determine whether they are really similar or not in
their achievements. Then, the independent samples T-test is used to analyze the scores of the pre-test between
the two classes. The results are shown in Table 4-2.

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In the independent samples T-test, Levenes Test for Equality of Variances F=0.009, P=0.924, so equal
variances are assumed. In the T-test for equality of means, t=0.016, df=118, and P=0.986>0.05, there is no
statistical significance. That means there is no significant difference in the achievements between the
Experimental Class and the Control Class. To put it simply, the two classes are homogenous in terms of their
listening comprehension proficiency before the treatment; therefore, the two classes can be comparable. After
the experiment, whether and to what extent their achievements improve can be easily found.
4.1.2 Post-test
After 18-week instrument, students in the two classes have improved their listening proficiency. Just like the
pre-test, the post-test is divided into three parts and the total score is 30. The scores of the post-test are
regarded as their proficiency and compared with each other. The basic information of two classes in post-test is
shown in Table 4-3. The means of the two classes are 18.5333 and 16.4167 respectively. The mean of the EC
has passed 18.00 (60% of the total score), which is over 2.1 points higher than that of the CC. So, it can
tentatively be assumed that students in the EC receiving the instruction of discourse markers have higher
listening proficiency level than students in the CC with normal instruction. The Std. Deviations of EC and CC
are about 4.5 and 5.0. The ranges of the two classes between the minimum and maximum are 21 and 22
respectively.
By comparing the two classes scores of post-test in Table 4-4, the situation is quite different from that in the
pre-test. In Levenes Test for equality of variances, we can see F=1.819 and P=0.180, so equal variances are
assumed. In the T-test for Equality of Means, t=2.429 and P=0.017<0.05, there is statistical significance, which
means the difference between the Experimental Class and the Control Class is quite obvious.
The results of the independent samples T-test show that the performance of the EC is really better than the CC
in listening comprehension after 18-week instruction, which proves that the application of DMLI in college
English listening instruction can effectively enhance students listening proficiency.
4.1.3 Discussion
In order to further investigate the influence of discourse markers on listening comprehension, another
investigation about the improvement of each class is made. The researcher has compared the differences within
each class by the paired samples T-test to investigate whether there are significant intra-class pre-post
differences. The result of the ECs is shown in Table 4-5.
The paired sample T-test shows there is significant mean difference within the EC because of t= -4.623 and P=
0.000 < 0.05, which means statistically significant difference between ECs pre-test and post-test. In other
words, it means that this kind of teaching method is very useful and beneficial for students in the EC.
Then, the researcher has compared the Control Class in the same way. The comparison of the CC is shown in
the Table 4-6.
The mean of CC2 (16.4167) is higher than CC1 (15.9000), so the CC has also made some progress in the
post-test, showing the students listening proficiency has been improved. But in the paired samples T-test, the
data indicates that the means of pre- and post-tests have not reached the significant level: t= -1.650 and P=
0.104>0.05. It means that such an improvement can only be taken as a natural development in the course study.
In other words, the improvement of CCs listening proficiency is not so obvious as that of ECs. The listening
instruction that the CC takes is not so beneficial as that the EC takes. The results indirectly show that DMLI is
more efficient.
According to the analysis of the experiment, the basic knowledge of DMs is necessary for Chinese learners and
DMLI can enhance students listening comprehension. In addition, in the experiment, the teaching method is
used to train the students and the result proves that their performances in listening comprehension after the
experiment are much better than before the experiment. That is to say, after a proper training, the students can
have a good command of the knowledge of DMs.
Since the traditional textbooks and ways of teaching do not take DMs into account, students may not become
aware of these DMs when they listen to the listening materials. Therefore, language teachers must be aware of
importance of DMs and should provide students with sufficient input, as a way of improving students listening
proficiency. Based on this, whether DMLI has the same influence on students with different majors will be
further explored.
4.2 Discourse-marker-based Listening Instruction and Students with Different Majors
4.2.1 Performance of Students with Different Majors
Science and liberal arts students are identical: Group1 are 30 arts students from Management School; Group2

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are 30 science students from Chemistry & Chemical Engineering Department. The two groups performances in
the pre-test and pos-test, in the questionnaire and the interview will be analyzed to find the effect and causes.
4.2.1.1 Pre-test
The two groups scores in pre-test are shown in Table 4-7. The maximum and minimum of arts students are
higher than science students, but the mean of Group1-1 (15.4333) is lower than Group2-1 (16.4000) and the
standard deviation of Group1-1 (5.15741) is lower than Group2-1 (5.28237) as well. In order to see it more
clearly, one-sample T-test is utilized to analyze the relationship between Group1-1 & Group2-1 and EC1. The
result is shown in Table 4-8.
Group1-1 (arts students), t= -0.513 and P= 0.612 > 0.05, there is no statistical significance. That means there is
no significant difference in the achievements between the arts students and the total mean of EC. In the same
way, in Group2-1 (science students), t= 0.501 and P= 0.620 > 0.05, there is no statistical significance, either. To
put it simply, both the means of arts students and science students cannot affect the total mean of the EC in
pre-test significantly; therefore, the independent samples T-test should be utilized to test whether they are
really similar or not in their achievements. The details are shown in Table 4-9.
In the independent samples T-test, Levenes Test for equality of variances F=0.024, P=0.878, so equal
variances are assumed. In the T-test for equality of means, t= -0.717, df=58, and P=0.476 > 0.05, there is no
statistical significance.
According to the Table 4-8 and 4-9, it is safe to say that there is no significant difference in the achievements
between arts students and science students in pre-test. That is to say, these two groups can be comparable.
4.2.1.2 Post-test
EC has made significant improved in post-test. Then the research will continue to explore the two groups
improvement respectively. The basic information of two groups scores in post-test is shown in Table 4-10.
Objectively speaking, arts students and science students, on the whole, have made certain progress. It is
demonstrated in Table 4-10 that the maximum and minimum of arts students are still higher than science
students, but at this time, the mean of Group1-2 (18.7667) is higher than Group2-2 (18.3000), so the
one-sample T-test and the independent samples T-test are used to test the data. The results are shown in Table
4-11 and Table 4-12.
Group1-2 (arts students), t= 0.255 and P= 0.801 > 0.05, there is no statistical significance. Group2-2 (science
students), t= -0.324 and P= 0.749 > 0.05, there is no statistical significance either. That means that the marginal
contribution of the two groups means to the total mean of EC in post-test is not significant. The influence of
the two groups to the total mean is not significant. But in order to analyze the relationship between the two
groups, we have to use the independent samples T-test. In the Table 4-12, t= 0.400 and P= 0.691 > 0.05, there is
no statistical significance. It means the two groups dont have the significant differences in the pos-test.
In short, in the present study, the figures have indicated that the arts students and the science students have
improved their listening comprehension respectively, but the means of two groups cannot affect the total mean
significantly both in pre-test and post-test. In order to find the different effect on different majors, we still need
the further investigation to compare the Group1-1 & Group1-2 and Group2-1 & Group2-2.
4.2.1.3 Further Investigation
The researcher has compared the differences within each group by the paired samples T-test to investigate
whether there are significant intra-group pre-post differences.
Table 4-13 shows the means of liberal arts students in pre-test and post-test. Arts students have improved their
listening proficiency because 18.7667 is higher than 15.4333, but whether this difference is significant, the
paired samples T-test must be used to examine it. In table 4-14, comparing the Group1-1 and Group1-2, t=
-4.167 and P= 0.000 < 0.05, the difference is statistical significant. That is to say, DMLI is useful to liberal arts
students and it can help them to improve their listening comprehension proficiency. In the same way, the
researcher has tested the Group2. The comparison of the Group2 is shown in the Table 4-15 and Table 4-16.
Obviously, science students have also made progress after 18-week instruction, because 18.3 is higher than
16.4. Then the statistical significant should be tested. In the Table 4-16, t= -2.318 and P= 0.028 < 0.05, it
means the improvement of science students is also significant, so DMLI is useful to them as well.
According to the data, both the liberal arts students and the science students in the EC have made some
progress in developing their listening comprehension proficiency through the one-semester DMLI, and this

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kind of improvement is significant. However, liberal arts students show more dramatic improvement. The
performance of art students has increased by 3.3 points; science students increase by 1.9 points according to the
Table 4-14 and 4-16. The figures indicate that arts students benefit more from DMLI. Apparently, DMLI in
listening comprehension is useful and there are some differences between the different majors although to some
extent, they all have improved.
4.2.1.4 Questionnaire
Questionnaires are distributed among the EC to explore the different influences of discourse markers on
students with different majors. The questionnaire consists of ten statements that can be divided into two parts:
the degree of attention on DMs (1 to 5) and the effect of DMs (6 to 10). Table 4-17 shows the results of the
questionnaire.
The data in Table 4-17 offers a general picture of the results obtained from the questionnaire, which
demonstrates different means of each question between the arts students and science students. Generally
speaking, Group1 has higher means than Group2. Besides, both Group1 and Group2 hold the positive attitude
towards DMs.
The first five questions are intended to check whether students pay attention to the DMs during the listening
comprehension. In the first question, only 33% of arts students understand or nearly understand the listening
materials during the first listening but are not manifested in their scores gained in the post-test. As a result, it
can be assumed that there is something facilitating arts students.
Question 2, 3, 4 and 5 investigate whether the students notice the DMs devices or not during the listening.
There are huge differences in means between two groups and the percentages can also show different attitudes
towards these statements. In the second question, only 40% of Group2 agree on noticing the DMs in the first
listening while 67% admit that they have noticed DMs in the second listening. In the fourth question, 81% of
Group1 are easy to find DMs in listening but only 40% of Group2 can find them easily. Moreover, 80% of
Group2 only concentrate on the missing phases during the dialogue in question 5. That is to say, liberal arts
students pay more attention to DMs and more sensitive to DMs during the listening comprehension than
science students.
The last five questions are concerned about the effects of DMs on listening comprehension. Most students in
both groups agree in these five statements that DMs devices can facilitate their interpretation, which can also
affirm the first research question. However, Group2s data is still lower than Group1s.
In question 6, there are only 41% of Group2 who agree that DMs can help understand speakers intention.
Meanwhile, 92% of Group1 agree on this statement, so they get higher means (4.5) of this question than that of
Group2 (3.6). The same situation has happened in question 7 and question 8. Most students in Group1 affirm
that DMs devices give them hints during the listening, which also indicates DMs help them to further
understand the listening comprehension. Objectively speaking, DMs can affect arts students more significantly.
As for the last question, most students in Gruop1 (90%) and Group2 (80%) believe that DMs should be taught
in the college English listening class.
From the above data, most students agree that DMLI affects their listening comprehension and liberal arts
students are easily affected, because students value DMs differently and have different attitudes. According to
arts students, they attach importance and pay special attention to DMs devices so that DMs can give them more
hints and facilitate their listening comprehension. Therefore, they benefit from DMLI more.
On the basis of the questionnaires results, the students performance in the interview will be examined to find
the causes.
4.2.1.5 Observation and Interview
During the whole teaching semester, the researcher has observed the performance of the EC carefully. Through
the observation, the researcher also finds that subjects attitudes to DMLI are various and that has been
reflected in the questionnaire.
In the class instruction, liberal arts students seem to be more interested in the theories and functions of
discourse markers; most of them take notes, participate the class discussion actively and can find some
questions to ask. On the other hand, most science students show no interest in it, although they have finished
all the exercises and assignments as well.
Therefore, the interview has interviewed several science students and arts students to explore their true feelings.
Science students hold the view that DMs play a minor role in their listening comprehension. According to their

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responses, they think they can easily understand the logic and the intention of the speakers, so they are not
inclined to notice the expressions although the teacher often emphasizes similar expressions in the listening
class. They think that the expressions are made up simple words, and their meanings are very obvious. In fact,
only the difficult phrases and sentences can attract their attention. They admit that sometimes some of the
expressions of DMs can help them to understand the intention of the speakers, especially I think and in my
opinion. However, this kind of help is limited that it does not influence the understanding of the listening
materials.
On the other hand, this is not the case with arts students. Their verbal statements also further explain the
important role of DMs in their listening comprehension. They believe that in the usual listening class, the
teacher always reminds them of some special expressions and ask them to guess the meaning of the new words,
to predict the meaning of the following sentence and to notice the coherence of the whole passages by using
these expressions. Gradually, they have formed a habit of paying more attention to these short words and
phrases occurring at the initial position of sentences or at the end. What more, DMs give them a hint of the
listening comprehension and help them build the logical relationship in the listening materials.
4.2.2 Discussion
Both the arts students and science students have improved in post-test. According to the analysis, after
gaining DMLI, Group1 makes a very significant improvement (Table 4-14: P= 0.000<0.05) from the pre-test to
the post-test, and Group2 also makes significant improvement (Table 4-16: P= 0.028 < 0.05). That means
DMLI are useful to both arts students and science students.
However, in the pre-test, the mean of Group1 is lower than Group2; but in post-test, the mean of Group1 is
higher than Group2; moreover, Group1 has increased by 3.3 points; Group2 only increases by 1.9 points,
although this kind of improvement is statistical significant. In addition, according to the questionnaires, the
observation and interview in the class, students behaviors and statements further prove that DMs have
different effect on them, because liberal arts students and science students have different thinking modes. For
science students, they are good at abstract thinking and logical thinking; and in their mind, it is easy to build up
a logical map when they are listening to the listening materials, so they usually do not pay much attention to
DMs and the functions of DMs seem to be not fairly obvious. However, on the other hand, for liberal arts
students, they are not like science students and sometimes their thinking are not so clear and logical when they
are listening to some academic passages, so DMs can help them to build up the logical map in listening
comprehension. That is to say, DMLI is more helpful to them and guided by these expressions, they can easily
concentrate on listening and understand the speakers implied meaning; therefore, they have paid more
attention to DMs in listening. Because of the different thinking modes of arts students and science students,
arts students are more interested in and pay more attention to DMs in listening. Objectively speaking,
comparing with science students, DMLI is more useful to arts students.
4.3 Findings of the Study
The results are obtained through both quantitative and qualitative analyses. The major findings of the research
are as follows:
1. Discourse-marker-based listening instruction can improve non-English major students listening
proficiency.
2. Discourse-marker-based listening instruction is useful to liberal arts students and science students and both
of them have the significant improvement.
3.

Liberal arts students benefit more significantly from DMLI

These findings show that discourse markers facilitate students listening comprehension and can enhance their
listening proficiency to a great extent.
5. Conclusion
The study illustrates how theoretical model can be applied to classroom practices, and the results of the study
have their implications in listening comprehension.
Firstly, the study engages in bridging the gap between the theories of DMs and listening comprehension. DMs
can possibly make contribution to listening comprehension, but in college English listening class, DMs and its
contribution are often neglected. So it is necessary to properly apply DMs to English listening comprehension
instruction.
Secondly, the statistical analysis of scores in two tests shows that listening comprehension of the students in
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the Experimental Class is significantly improved by gaining DMLI. That means DMs play an important role in
listening comprehension. Therefore, the pedagogical implication that can be drawn from this study is that DMs
should be treated as a part of listening comprehension instruction and integrated into listening class. In
listening class, merely listening to tapes and checking answer are not enough for students to develop their
listening proficiency, so college English teachers should teach students how to interpret by themselves, just as
that saying goes Giving a man a fish, he will eat for a day; teach him how to fish, he can eat all his life.
Thirdly, the results of tests, questionnaires, class observation and the interview reveal that DMLI has different
effect on different majors. DMLI is more useful to liberal arts students. They pay more attention to DMs.
Guided by DMs, they can better concentrate on listening and easier get speakers intention. So to
learnerssubjects of arts, mastering DMs are very helpful in developing their proficiency of listening. In the
long run, properly noticing helps students become more efficient learners, take more responsibility for
self-directing their learning and gain more confidence in learning English.
Finally, the study proves the positive effects to DMs by the practical experiment in listening comprehension
instruction. However, according to some science students questionnaires, DMs to some extent have a certain
negative influence, resulting in missing some key information. So, a task-based approach to instruction should
be adopted. This approach should maximize the chances of focus on form through attentive manipulation so
that a balance is kept between form and meaning and alternative attention is paid to both. In task-based
instruction, the design and planning of tasks should be guided by the principle that various tasks must be
covered. And attention should be channeled to both form and meaning of DMs in listening comprehension. It is
the combination of guidance of proper theories, appropriate listening skills and strategies, and immense
listening practice that makes a successful listener possible.
References
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Table 1. The scores of two classes in pre-test

58

Group

Minimum

Maximum

Range

Mean

Std. Deviation

EC

60

6.00

26.00

20.00

15.9167

5.19873

CC

60

6.00

26.00

20.00

15.9000

5.12455

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Table 2. The independent samples T-test of pre-test

Levenes Test for
Group

t-test

Equality of Variances

Mean

EC

15.9167

CC

15.9000

Sig.

Df

Sig. (2-tailed)

.009

.924

.016

118

.986

Equal
variances
assumed

Table 3. The scores of two classes in post-test

Group

Minimum

Maximum

Range

Mean

Std. Deviation

EC

60

5.00

26.00

21.00

18.5333

4.48526

CC

60

4.00

26.00

22.00

16.4167

5.04318

Table 4. The independent samples T-test of post-test

Levenes Test for
Group

EC

18.5333

CC

16.4167

t-test

Equality of Variances

Mean

Sig.

df

Sig. (2-tailed)

1.819

.180

2.429

118

.017

Equal
variances
assumed

Table 5. Paired samples test of EC

Paired Differences

Mean

EC1-EC2

-2.61667

Note: EC1=ECs pre-test

Std.

Std.

the Difference

Error

Deviation

Mean

4.38446

.56603

Sig.(

95% Confidence Interval of

t

df

2-tail
ed)

Lower

Upper

-3.74929

-1.48404

-4.623

59

.000

EC2=ECs post-test

Table 6. Paired samples test of CC

Paired Differences
95% Confidence
Mean

CC1-CC2

-.51667

Note: CC1=CCs pre-test

Std.

Std. Error

Interval of the

Deviation

Mean

Difference

2.42509

.31308

Lower

Upper

-1.14313

.10980

df

-1.650

59

Sig.(2tailed)

.104

CC2=CCs post-test

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Table 7. The scores of two groups in pre-test

N

Minimum

Maximum

Range

Mean

Std. Deviation

Group1-1

30

7.00

26.00

19.00

15.4333

5.15741

Group2-1

30

6.00

25.00

19.00

16.4000

5.28237

Note: Group1-1= arts students, Group2-1= science students

Table 8. One-sample T-test in pre-test
Test Value = 15.9167
t

df

Sig. (2-tailed)

Group1-1

-.513

29

.612

Group2-1

.501

29

.620

Table 9. The independent samples T-test of two groups

Levenes Test for Equality of

t-test

Variances
F
Equal variances

.024

assumed

Sig.

Df

Sig. (2-tailed)

.878

-.717

58

.476

Table 10. The scores of two groups in post-test

N
Group1-2

Minimum

30

7.00

Maximum
26.00

Group2-2
30
5.00
24.00
Note: Group1-2= arts students, Group2-2= science students

Range

Std.

Mean

Deviation

19.00

18.7667

5.02191

19.00

18.3000

3.94925

Table 11. One-sample T-test in post-test

Test Value = 18.5333
t

df

Sig. (2-tailed)

Group1-2

.255

29

.801

Group2-2

-.324

29

.749

Table 12. The independent samples T-test of two groups

Levenes Test for

t-test

Equality of Variances
F
Equal variances assumed

60

3.524

Sig.
.066

t
.400

Df
58

Sig. (2-tailed)
.691

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Table 13. Paired sample statistics of Group1

Mean

Std. Deviation

Group1-1

15.4333

30

5.15741

Group1-2

18.7667

30

5.02191

Table 14. Paired samples T-test of Group1

Paired Differences
Std.

Mean

Group1-1

Deviation

-3.33333

Group1-2

Std.

95% Confidence Interval of

Error

the Difference

Mean

4.38126

.79990

Sig.(
t

df

2-tail
ed)

Lower

Upper

-4.96932

-1.69735

-4.167

29

.000

Table 15. Paired sample statistics of Group2

Mean

Std. Deviation

Group2-1

16.4000

30

5.28237

Group2-2

18.3000

30

3.94925

Table 16. Paired samples T-test of Group2

Paired Differences
Std.

Mean

Group2-1G

-1.90000

roup2-2

Mean

4.49022

.81980

the Difference

Error

Deviation

Sig.(

95% Confidence Interval of

Std.

df

2-tail
ed)

Lower

Upper

-3.57668

-.22332

-2.318

29

.028

Table 17. Results of the questionnaire

Group

Mean of each question

Total

10

Group1

2.9

3.8

4.3

4.2

3.4

4.5

4.8

4.1

4.5

4.4

40.9

Group2

3.8

3.6

3.7

3.4

4.0

3.6

4.0

3.2

4.0

4.2

37.5

Percentage of agreement on each question

Group1

33%

55%

83%

81%

30%

92%

95%

80%

90%

90%

Group2

65%

40%

67%

40%

80%

41%

82%

60%

80%

80%

Note: Group1= arts students, Group2= science students

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To Give Control to Learners or Not? A Comparative Study of Two

Ways of Teaching Listening
Yushan Wang
Huaiyin Normal University Jiangsu China
School of Foreign Languages, Huaiyin Normal University
117, Changjiangxi Road, Huaian City, 223300, China
Tel: 86-517-8352-5504

E-mail: mik_wang@163.com

Abstract
This paper reports a quasi-experimental study that was carried out in listening classes to address the following
questions: What control do students expect in the listening classroom? What are the effects of the zero class
hour way of teaching listening when more control is given to the students? The study was conducted at Huaiyin
Normal University, where two non-English major classes taught by one teacher were selected. A questionnaire
survey was conducted to get students opinion about the traditional way of teaching listening and what control
they wanted to have. The results of the pretest and posttest were analyzed with SPSS. Both the experiment group
and the control group made similar progress in the test of their listening comprehension, which indicates that the
new way of teaching listening is as effective as the traditional one. From the amount of time that the
experimental-group students spent on improving their listening comprehension, we can see that they made more
efforts and became more active and more autonomous than before. The findings may give some support for the
web-based distance education.
Keywords: Learner autonomy, Learner control, Zero class hour, Listening comprehension
1. Introduction
General trends in education have been moving away from the teacher-directed regime towards a self-directed
regime. In traditional listening classes, on one hand, there were many complaints from teachers in China about
the heavy workload and about how students are not. On the other hand, many students complained about the
boredom of the listening classes. Then how to solve the dilemma deserves our thinking.
According to the results of one questionnaire survey conducted by the researcher in two classes at Huaiyin
Normal University, about 71% of students thought that they should be given more control of their own study.
The percentage of students who want to control their learning times, their learning pace, the length of pause and
the physical condition reaches 74%, 65%, 67% and 77% respectively. About 78.8% of the students expressed
their expectation to have more control of their learning according to the open-ended question.
Can this be a way out? If students are given more control of the study, will they be more responsible for their
own learning and their study become more efficient and more effective while at the same time teachers heavy
workload can be reduced?
In the traditional listening class, the teaching is usually carried out in the language lab or in a classroom. The
teacher will have strict control of the class, for example, the teacher controls the time and the times that students
listen to the listening material, the pace of learning process, etc. The teacher plays the tape and checks the
answers with students. Then the teacher will give some explanation and play the tape again. Under this kind of
teaching:
1)

Students usually have little control of the learning process;

2)

Students just passively do what teachers tell them;

3)

Students dont have sufficient listening input;

4)

Students anxiety is very high in answering questions;

5)

Students efficiency of using learning time is low.

In order to solve those problems, many universities are carrying out reforms in the teaching model in the
teaching of English listening. For example, Shanghai Foreign Language University and Sichuan University are
teaching listening in the form of zero-class hour model. The former doesnt limit the learning hours and
students only take the exams at the end of the semester. The latter has a strict control of students total listening
time that students must finish 400 hours listening and pass four tests to get the credit. Some other universities

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are also carrying out similar reforms and the common thing of these reforms is that they give more control to
students so as to make independent learners out of students. However, up to now there are few empirical studies
on this kind of teaching model.
This paper reports an experimental study which investigated the effects of listening teaching when more control
was given to EFL learners. The study will shed light on the matter of learner control and give some implications
to the current language teaching.
2. Literature Review
2.1 The concept of autonomy
There is probably much confusion and disagreement about what is meant by the term learner autonomy.
Although it has taken many names and forms, the idea of learner autonomy really began to take hold in the
theory and practice of pedagogy in the 1970s (Dickinson, 1987). Whether we are talking about self-directed
learning (Knowles, 1975), student autonomy (Boud, 1988), learner-managed learning, independent learning or
learner autonomy, we are for the most part talking about the same thing. As there have been a number of quite
useful definitions put forward for the concept of autonomy in pedagogy (see Benson, 1997), it is beyond the
scope and purview of this paper to re-cover this well-trodden ground. Instead, what is worth noting is the timing
of the advent of contemporary learner autonomy theory. With both of them coming to prominence in the 1970s,
it is not my aim to prove that post-modernity caused learner autonomy, or vice versa. Rather, it is the contention
of this paper that theories of post-modernity and learner autonomy are inextricably linked, each informing and
informed by the other, resulting in practice and applications in both fields that mirror each other in an endless
cycle of reflection.
Based on the foundation document for the Council of Europe, the classic definition of learner autonomy is
provided by Holec (1981:3), as the capacity or ability to take charge of ones learning which involves:
Defining ones own learning objectives, determining the necessary means for attaining those objectives and the
ways of using those means, while determining the means for assessing what has been learnt and acquired (Holec
1997:25).
Sheerin (1997:54) emphasize that autonomy and self-direction are approaches related to helping learners
develop/take control over learning, whereas, self-access learning and self-instruction (alongside distance,
flexible and open learning) are terms which refer to systems or organize learning.
In order to take responsibility for our own learning we must believe that we have control over learning success
and failure, and consequently attribution theory has important implications for the promotion of autonomy.
According to Benson and Voller (1997:5) different roots create tensions between responsibility and freedom
from constraint, and between the individual and the social, and have led to different interpretation of autonomy.
Benson (1997:25) identifies three versions:
1) the act of learning on ones own and technical ability to do so, deriving from Positivist theories which view
teaching as the means to equip learners for autonomy to manage learning outside the classroom or exercise
independence within it;
2) the internal psychological capacity to self-direct ones own learning, deriving from Constructivist theories
which support self-directed and self-access learning as a means of promoting learner autonomy;
3) the control over the content and process of ones own learning, deriving from Critical theory which
emphasizes issues of power and control and the growth of autonomy as learners become more aware of the
social context of their learning and the constraints it implies.
Although these versions are rarely clear-cut in practice, they affect methodological approaches for developing
approaches for developing autonomy. Despite more recent exploration of the issues involved (Little 1991),
Benson argues that so far, we have no theory of autonomous language learning (1996:28) and warns against
rapid implementation of autonomy without reference to theoretical bases (1997:2).
Nunan (2000) explained his understanding of autonomy:
In its general application, autonomy implies a capacity to exercise control over ones own learning. Principally,
autonomous learners are able to,

Self-determine the overall direction of their learning,

Become actively involved in the management of the learning process,

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Exercise freedom of choice in relation to learning resources and activities.

Research on autonomy in language learning draws on two major sources. On the one hand, researchers within
the sociology and psychology of education have argued persuasively that autonomy is beneficial to learning,
irrespective of the subject matter to be learned (Candy, Brockett & Hiemastra, Boiud. cited in Nunan 2000). On
the other hand, there is now a considerable body of research within the field of language education itself which
supports the contention that autonomy and self-direction are beneficial to second language acquisition in
particular. Although the importance of autonomy to effective second language acquisition is often argued on the
basis of learning theory alone, research in the field of second language acquisition is of particular interest
because it offers the possibility of grounding the theory of autonomy in language learning on evidence that is
particular to the process of learning a second or foreign language.
In this study, learner autonomy refers to an attitude and capacity on the part of the learner towards taking control
of the language learning process and assuming responsibility for the process.
2.2 Studies on autonomy and learner control
Some researchers advocated giving some controls to learners. In one paper, Brown (2003) compared
teacher-centered and learner-centered classrooms and concluded that an instructional paradigm shift is needed to
implement a learner-centered approach. Her research indicates that more control should be given to students.
Benson (2002) explored the relationship of self-access and autonomy and thought that teachers should develop
students autonomy through self-access learning and one major characteristics of self-access learning is that
learners have more control than ever.
However, some others scholars disagreed to give all the controls to learners. Chanock (2003) argues that
although one major principle of autonomous learning is that students should take responsibility for their own
learning, but in Confucian-heritage cultures where students are particularly resistant to that idea and are overly
dependent on their teachers, it is not responsible to be dependent and depending on others can be a responsible
way to learn. Methods of autonomous learning are not in fact incompatible with depending upon teachers.
Following his point, we can see that teachers should not give all the controls of learning to students in
Confucian-heritage cultures. Garcia (1996) explored the effects of autonomy on motivation and performance in
the college classroom and concluded that cultivating a sense of autonomy among college students need not mean
a submission to anarchy or to complete student control. That is to say, teachers should give some control to
students, for example, by allowing students to participate in course policy-making, college students reported
greater levels of motivation at the end of the semester.
In Autonomy in language learning, Nunan (2000) explored four ways to encouraging autonomy in which
teachers can begin to sensitize learners to the learning process, and thereby begin to encourage a greater degree
of autonomy. There are:
1)

integrating language content and learning process through learner strategy training.

2)

incorporating reflective lessons into your teaching

3)

drawing up learning contracts

4)

learner diaries

From the first way we can see that to let students control their learning content and learning process can
encourage learners autonomy.
Yang (1998) explored a new role for teachers to promoting learner autonomy by combining learning strategy
instruction with the content course of second language acquisition. The new role of teachers is to develop
students learning strategy so as to promote their students learning autonomy and one way is to let students have
more control of their own study.
Dickinson (1995) reviewed some studies on the relationship between autonomy and motivation and found that
the common theme in justifications for autonomy, especially in general education but also in language learning,
is that autonomous learners become more highly motivated and that the autonomy leads to better, more effective
work. And one example is Knowles claim:
There is convincing evidence that people who take the initiative in learning (proactive learners) learn more
things and learn better than do people who sit at the feet of teachers, passively waiting to be taught (reactive
learners) They enter into learning more purposefully and with greater motivation (1975: 14)

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From the concept of autonomy we can see that control is one of the key components of learner autonomy. In the
broadest sense, learner control is the degree to which a learner can direct his/her own learning experience (Shyu
& Brown, 1992). More specifically, learner control can be defined as the degree to which individuals control the
path, pace, and/or contingencies of instruction (Hannafin, 1984). The meaning of learner control, however, has
evolved over time to include the characteristics of new learning paradigms as well as new technologies such as a
web-model.
To sum up, learner autonomy involves two characteristics: one is that learner should be responsible for their own
studies and the second follows the first one that learners have the partial or full right to decide the learning
matters that are traditionally controlled by teachers (Shu, 2004). That is the theoretical background for this
experiment.
2.3 Studies on the listening teaching
Listening teaching is gaining more and more importance in the teaching of the skills of the English language.
That can be seen from the national English tests in China, in which the listening part occupies a good proportion
of the whole test papers.
Rost (1990:76) mentioned that comprehension have been regarded as the most essential aspect of listening.
Comprehension has been defined as the process of relating language to concepts in ones memory and to the
references in the real world (Rost, 2002:59). That is, a listener realizes what he hears, and has the ability to
connect the already-heard knowledge to the outside real world. Listening ability is of the great importance to
communicate with others.
Rost (1990:87) mentioned that the teaching of could be divided into three aspects: selective listening, global
listening, and intensive listening. Selective listening refers to providing to the students a task, which has
adequate information, and students try to derive some specific knowledge from the information pool.
Essentialities of selective listening are a large information context with inference cues, a well-designed task to
help students receive the crucial information, and pre-teaching activities to help students prepare for the
following task. Global listening aims to help students to construct a whole sense of the given content and a gist
of the texts. That is, through listening activities, students ability to identify the topics, or connections and
transitions between the topics, could be developed. The third type is intensive listening, which specially focuses
on grammatical correctness. The traditional teaching classes mainly deals with the second and the third one. The
new way of teaching listening copes with the three aspects all.
Research on the teaching of listening mainly focuses on the specific skills to improve listening comprehension.
For instance, Field (2004) explored listeners problems of using too much bottom-up and too much top-down.
Some other researchers concerned about the instruments that can help improve listening proficiency, such as
using multimedia computer, using DVDs, etc. Or researchers would like to do studies on how teachers teaching
methodologies affect the improvement of learners listening proficiency, such as teaching language as
communication (Widdowson, 1996) or task-based teaching and others etc. Other research was doing on listening
difficulties. Knowing what difficulties students might encounter during the process of learning listening would
give great help for teachers course design and help them to create a low affective-filter learning environment.
Few studies were conducted on the learners part.
This study associates learner autonomy with the listening classes. Some questions would be addressed: what will
happen if more control is given to students? Can they become more autonomous? Do learners make more
progress in their listening proficiency?
2.4 The zero class hour listening teaching
The new way of teaching listening may be called the zero class hour teaching model, but it does not
necessarily mean that we dont need teachers in classes. In the new way of teaching, the teacher mainly gives
learning aims and assignments and provides learning methods. The students learn independently inside and
outside the classroom and attend the final examination. There are mainly three ways of carrying out zero class
hour listening teaching 1) Through web courses; 2) Through radio broadcasting; 3) Through language labs.
The three ways of carrying out the zero class hour have their own advantages respectively. In the first and
second ways of teaching listening, students still have little control of their learning. For example, the second way
of teaching listening students still cant control the pace, the way, the speed, the material of listening. But with
the third way, students have the greater control of learning. As a result I chose the third one in this study.
With the new way of teaching listening, there will also be a teacher who will be responsible for the listening
class. In each class, the teacher will give a short lecture on listening skills and then give assignments to the

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students. Then the most learning time will be under the control of the students to finish the tasks given by the
teachers. The students can decide to listen to the materials for enough time. They can decide by themselves to
listen to other listening materials that interest them after they finished the given listening task. The teacher will
check the students learning results through questions, quizzes and tests.
Compared with the traditional way of teaching listening comprehension, students under the new way of teaching
listening have much more control than before. The control is summed as following:
1) The control of the length of listening: students can decide on how long they will practice listening by
themselves;
2)

The control of pace of listening: students can decide the learning pace by themselves;

3) The control of speed of listening: through some digital devices students can change the delivering speed of
the listening material;
4) The control of way of listening: students can decide to practice listening through tape-recorders, walkman
or computers;
5) The control of place of listening: students can decide to practice listening in the dormitory, classroom, or
language lab;
6) The control of material of listening: students can decide what to listen to that interest them after they finish
teachers tasks.
There are two major advantages with this kind of teaching: relieving the working load of teachers and
strengthening students learning autonomy. But what
are the real effects of carrying out the new way of
teaching? Should we give more control to students or not when we are teaching listening? What control should
we give to students? What are the effects of giving more control to students?
In this paper the researcher compared two ways of teaching listening: the traditional one which teachers have
strict control of the class and the new one which students have more control of the learning process to see
whether the new way of teaching listening is as effective as the traditional one and other effects it brings about.
Inset Table 1 Here
3. Methodology
This study employed a mixed design: a survey study and a quasi-experimental study. The survey study was
conducted to find out what control students expected to have, whether giving more control to students can foster
their learner autonomy, whether learners make more effort when they receiving the zero class hour listening
teaching. Here effort refers to the amount of time spent outside class improving listening comprehension within a
week as reported by the subjects.
The quasi-experimental study was conducted to find out whether the new way of teaching listening zero class
hour model characterized by giving more control to students in their learning process was effective in
promoting learners listening proficiency. Listening proficiency refers to the scores that learners get on the
Listening part of CET-4.
3.1 Research questions
1) What control do students expect in the listening classroom?
2) What are the effects of the zero class hour model of teaching listening when more control is given to
student?
a. Do students receiving the new way of listening teaching make similar achievement to those receiving the
traditional way?
b. Do students receiving the new way of listening teaching make more efforts than those receiving the traditional
way?
3.2 Subjects
Two intact classes of second-year non-English majors, one in Mathematics and the other in Chinese Linguistics
and Literature at Huaiyin Normal University were chosen. In both classes there were 51 students respectively.
Altogether there were 49 male students and 53 female students. The two classes are instructed by the same
teacher, so from this we can say that the proficiency level of teachers didnt affect the learners progress in their
listening comprehension. The results of Independent-samples T-test of Pretest 1 and Pretest 2 also indicated that
the two groups were at the same proficiency level.
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The mean of the two tests is 11.14 and 11.59, which is very close to each other. We may say that the two groups
are same at their listening proficiency. The null hypothesis here is that the two classes are different at the
listening proficiency level. But the significance level is 0.456, which is much higher than 0.05. Thus we may say
that the classes are at the same listening proficiency level and the null hypothesis is rejected.
Insert Table 2 Here
From the results we can concluded that the subjects of the two classes were at the same proficiency level. The
two classes were treated as the control group and the experimental group respectively.
3.3 Instruments
Two listening tests, one questionnaire and an interview were used. The two listening tests, chosen from the
listening part of two College English Test Papers (Band four) were used as the Pretest and the Posttest
respectively.
The questionnaire mainly asks about students opinion with the traditional way of teaching listening and what
control they want to have about their own listening courses. For instance, the first statement The current way of
teaching listening can effectively promote my listening proficiency asked about students view of the traditional
way of listening. Statement 17, 18 and 19 told us what specific control students want in their listening classes.
The interview was mainly carried out to get students opinions about the zero class hour model of listening.
The questionnaire is given in the appendix one.
The interview was conducted mainly to find out students reaction to the zero class hour teaching model. One
main question was: How have you being improving your listening comprehension recently?
3.4 Treatment
Before the experiment, a questionnaire survey was given to the students in the experimental group to get their
opinion about the current way of teaching listening and what control they want in the listening classroom. Then a
pretest was given to both the experimental group and the control group to test their current listening proficiency.
Next the control group was taught in the traditional way for two month while at the same time the experimental
group was taught with the new way.
In the two months, mainly four listening skills were taught: Listening for details (Numbers, Places, Names, etc),
Listening for the main idea, Prediction, Inference (Relationships of speakers, Occupation or professions of
speakers).
In both classes, the teacher gave a short lecture about the listening skills each week. The control group learned
with the teacher with the traditional method. The experimental group was given tasks to finish immediately
after the lecture. The task was composed of two parts: one compulsory and the other optional. The compulsory
part was directly related to the listening skills. The optional part was mainly composed of passages for students
to listen to and write down the contents. The tasks given to both groups were the same. The experimental group
students listened to the listening material by themselves and finished the tasks given by the teacher. In the next
class, the teacher would give a lecture on a new listening skill and check the given assignments.
After two months, another listening test (Posttest) was given to both groups to compare their progress in
listening proficiency.
The students in the experimental groups were asked to turn in a report about their listening practicing: they
should report what they have listened to, how much time they spend on listening practice each week. The time
students spent on listening practice before the experiment was marked as Time 1 and during the experiment as
Time 2. They should also write down what difficulty they have met and what help they want to have from the
teacher.
The following table summarized the differences between the treatments of the two groups:
Insert Table 3 Here
3.5 Data collection and analysis
There were two kinds of data: qualitative data and quantitative data. The qualitative data consists of the students
responses to the open statement in the questionnaire and their responses in the interviews. The interview was
recorded and transcribed. Students responses to the open statement 23 revealed what control they expected to
have. Interviews reflected their opinion about the new way of listening teaching.
Learners responses to the statements in the questionnaire, learners scores on the pretest and posttest, and the
time that experimental group students spent on improving their listening comprehension outside classrooms
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before the experiment (Time 1) and during the experiment (Time 2) constitute the quantitative data. The
quantitative data were analyzed with SPSS version 11.5. Mainly the Pair-samples T-test and
Independent-samples T-test was conducted. The Independent-sample T-test was conducted to test whether the
two groups made similar achievement in listening comprehension. The Pair-samples T-test was conducted to test
whether the experimental group made progress in their listening comprehension, whether the experimental group
made more effort on improving their listening comprehension.
4. Results and Discussion
Since the data for any T-test should be normally distributed, the marks of the four tests and the time which the
experimental students spent on improving their listening comprehension were firstly checked. The results are
that they are all normally distributed. But that is not focus of the study, so the results of normal distribution test
were omitted here.
4.1 The control learners expected
From the students responses to the open statement The control I want to have in the listening classroom
includes ______ we get much valuable information. We can see that students do want to more control by
themselves. For example, one student wrote: I hope I can control the length of pause between any passage and
the next one I am asked to listen to.
Most subjects hope that they could control the times for which they listen to the listening material, control the
difficulty level, and control the content of the listening. Many expressed the hope of watching the scripts of
listening material while practicing their listening. Even one student wished he could adjust his sitting posture.
All these responses reveal much about the current way of teaching listening. Teachers should dwell on the
present teaching situation and work out new ways to meet the needs of language learners.
From the learners responses to other questionnaire items we can see similar results. The five items which scores
most were the following items: item 5, item 23, item19, item 17 and item 18.
The result reflects the main content of learner autonomy. Item 5 reflected that students do want to have more
control of their own study. Other items reflected the specific control they want to have. From Item 23, 19, 17 and
18 we can see that students do want to control the emotional and physical state, the length of pause, the times of
listening to the audio material and the speed of listening material. Those were traditionally controlled by
teachers.
Some control that students want to have reflected that students want to have high level autonomy. For example,
Item 23 indicated that learners wanted to choose and shape their own learning context. Learner wanted to
make decisions in domains which have traditionally belonged to the teacher, as was shown in the fact that
students wanted to control the listening material, wanted to see the scripts of the listening material etc.
From the following five items that scored least we can also get some information about the students perception
about the current way of listening teaching. From Item 1 we can infer that students are not very satisfied with the
traditional way of listening teaching. They didnt think that the traditional way of teaching listening can
effectively improve their listening comprehension.
From Item 7 and Item 13 we know that learners still want to have teachers help in their studies. Few students
thought that they had had good learning autonomy and they thought that they needed teachers help to plan their
study.
Item 11 tells us that few students thought that the class time for listening practice was sufficient. On the contrary
students attach much importance to listening practice outside the classrooms.
Item 15 indicates that the teacher didnt play the tapes again and again. She explained many things during the
lesson so most students thought that they can learn something from their teachers. From that statement we can
see the teachers role cant be ignored. Students needed teachers and teachers shouldnt give all the control to
students.
From above we can see that students responses reflected the general trend from teacher-centered regime towards
learner-centered regime. Teachers should follow the trend and give more control to students to foster their
learner autonomy.
Insert Table 5 Here
4.2 Students achievement
This part reports the results of the experimental group students scores on the pretest and posttest, which are
chosen from the listening parts of two TOEFL papers. The full mark of the listening comprehension is 20 points.
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From table 4.2.1, we can see that the mean of the posttest scores raised about two points. The significance level
reached 0.000. This indicates that the learner made great progress in their listening proficiency. The new way of
teaching listening did help students in improving their listening comprehension.
Insert Table 6 Here
The following table compares the two groups of students scores they got on the posttest.
Insert Table 7 Here
From Table 4.2.2 we can see that the mean of posttest of the experimental group students is 13.43, which is only
a bit higher than that of the control group students. Both groups improved their listening proficiency, as we can
see that the mean score of both groups are about two points higher than that of Pretest. The P value as shown in
Table 4.2.2 reached 0.686, which is much high than 0.05. Thus we reach the conclusion that students made the
same improvement in developing their listening comprehension.
4.3 Learners efforts
This part compares the amount of time that experimental group learners spent in improving their listening
comprehension before the experiment and during the experiment, which gives the indication of learners efforts.
The Time 1 was got from the questionnaire and the Time 2 was got from the learner diaries. The writer used
paired-samples T-test to compare the effort learners made on improving their listening comprehension.
The following table shows the results:
Insert Table 8, Table 9 Here
From Table 4.3.1 we can see that before the experiment, the average time of the subjects of the experimental
group spent on the listening practice is 1.83 hours per week and during the experiment 2.79 hours per week. That
is to say, learner almost spent one hour more than before every week. From Table 4.3.2 we can see that there is
no zero between -1.4430 and -0.4688 of the 95% Confidence Interval of the Difference, which showed that there
is significant difference between the two variables. That is also indicated by the Significance (2-tailed), which
reaches 0.000.
We can draw the conclusion that the subjects in the experimental group made more efforts than they did when
they were taught under the traditional way.
5. Major findings
According to the students response to the questionnaire, they were not very much satisfied with the traditional
way in which they have less control of their own studies. This also reflected the trend of changes in the education
field. Most students expressed their hope of having more control in their studies. They hoped that they could
control the learning pace, the learning material, the learning environment, etc. That was a good sign that teachers
can make use of the learners expectations to foster their learning autonomy. Also that indicates that nowadays
college students are becoming more autonomous than before as we may that they are very courageous to speak
their mind to ask for more control from teachers.
As to the second research question, it can be said that the new way of teaching listening is effective in improving
students listening comprehension, since the experimental groups made much progress in their listening
proficiency. Compared with the control group, they made similar progress in improving their listening
comprehension and their average scores were a bit higher than those of the control groups.
The experimental group students spent more time on listening practice outside the classroom every week, which
shows that they had made more efforts than before. That may indicate that students are more motivated. And
they spent the class time more effectively as is shown in the interviews. From that we may say that students have
become more autonomous than they were under the traditional way of listening teaching.
From the interview we can see that the teacher approved the new way of teaching listening and the learners
welcomed it, too. Students in the experimental group became more active and more autonomous than before.
The learner autonomy is a very complicated thing. It involves learners attitude, learners capacity and the
learning environment. As we can see from the literature part there are several levels of learner autonomy.
Learner control is only one important part of it, so the findings of this study can only show a bit of the great
iceberg.
The findings of the study may lay some theoretical foundation for the web-based distance education. In the
web-based distance education, learner takes great responsibility of their own study and they may become more
autonomous too. Also the findings can give some support to the course reforms that are being carried out in
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colleges and universities since the main aim of the course reforms is to cultivate autonomous learners and solve
the problems that professional teachers are becoming comparatively fewer when the enrollment are becoming
higher and higher.
6. Limitations
There are some limitations of the study. Firstly, the experiment lasts only two months, so the external validity or
the generalizability of the experiment cannot be too much. Secondly, some other English courses, for example,
the Intensive Reading, may have contributed to the improvement in learners listening comprehension, too.
Thirdly, the reliability and validity of the two listening TOEFL tests cannot be obtained. Fourthly, the sample
size is too small since they are only from two classes of one university. Fourthly, due to the reality of the
university, the subjects of the study are not randomly selected.
7. Recommendations for future research
Following are some recommendations for future research: Firstly, since the current experiment is a
quasi-experimental design, the true experimental design would be better for this kind of research. Longitudinal
study would be better. Secondly, this experiment is carried out only in the listening classroom, thus the external
validity cannot be too much. Similar experiments can also be conducted in other classes, such as intensive
reading class, extensive reading class, etc. Thirdly, as the other side of the coin, teacher autonomy deserves our
studies. For example, should teachers choose textbooks by themselves? Should teachers compile or adapt
textbooks? Many more studies could be carried out in this area.
References
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Boud, D. (1988) Moving towards autonomy. In D. Boud (ed.) Developing Student Autonomy in Learning.
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Brundage, D. H. & D. MacKeracher (1980) Adult Learning Principles and their Application to Program
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Little, D. (1991). Learner Autonomy Definition Issues and Problems. Authentik Language Learning Resource.
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Appendix
Questionnaire
Please complete the following questionnaire for us to improve the effects of listening teaching. Your answer will
be kept secret. Circle the number that best describe your learning situation for each statement and the number
means:
1= This statement is never or almost never true of me.
2= This statement is usually not true of me.
3= This statement is somewhat true of me.
4= This statement is usually true of me
5= This statement is completely or almost completely true of me.
Age________ Gender_______ School________ Grade________ Class __________
1. The current way of teaching listening can effectively improve my listening comprehension. 1 2 3 4 5
2. The teachers explanation is very useful for me. 1

2 3 4 5

3. Teachers strictness and management are very significant for improving learners listening proficiency.
3 4 5

1 2

4. Students passively accept the activities given by the teacher. 1 2 3 4 5

5. As to the current situation in the listening class, I think students should have more autonomy in the teaching
activities. 1 2 3 4 5

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6. I think many students have no ability to arrange their own study. 1 2 3 4 5

7. I can have good learning autonomy without teachers. 1 2 3 4 5
8. Two hours are too long for listening classes each time and the effects are very low in the second hour. 1 2
3 4 5
9. I can plan the time of my listening practice.

1 2 3 4 5

10. The break times are too few for a two-hour listening class. 1 2 3 4 5
11. I think the in-classroom practice time for listening is sufficient. 1 2 3 4 5
12. I need teachers advice on listening practice out of classroom. 1 2 3 4 5
13. I have the ability to plan my listening study well outside the classroom. 1 2 3 4 5
14. The listening material in the text is too easy for me. 1 2 3 4 5
15. I have understood the listening material but the teacher still played the tapes again and again.
5

16. Sometimes in the listening class I couldnt understand the material but the teacher wont play the material
again. 1 2 3 4 5
17. I hope I can control the times of listening to audio material so as to fully understand it. 1 2 3 4 5
18. I hope I can control the speed of listening material. 1

2 3 4 5

19I hope I can control the length of pause between any passage and the next one I am asked to listen to. 1 2
3 4 5
20. I think that listening tests can improve my listening proficiency. 1 2 3 4 5
21. I couldnt understand the listening material because the speed of it is too quick.

2 3 4 5

22. Some personal factors like fatigue can decrease the learning outcome. 1 2 3 4 5
23. I hope I can practice my listening when I am physically and emotionally fit. 1 2 3 4 5
24. In my opinion I think I need to have the control of ___________.
25. Approximately I spend ________ hours on listening practice.
Table 1. A brief comparison of the traditional way of teaching listening and the zero class hour model
The traditional way
the control of the length of listening
the control of pace of listening
the control of speed of listening
the control of way of listening

The zero class hour model

Usually the teacher controls the length of

listening

The students controls the length of listening

Usually controlled by the teacher

Controlled by the students

Students cant change the speed of the

Students can change the speed of the listening

listening material

material

Usually students practice listening through

Students can decide to practice listening through

tape-recorder

tape-recorders, walkman or computers etc

the control of place of listening

usually in the classroom or in the language lab

the control of material of listening

usually the text

Students can decide to practice listening in the

dormitory, classroom, or language lab etc.
Students can decide what to listen that interest
them after they finished teachers tasks

Table 2. Results of Independent-Samples T-Test of Pretest 1 and Pretest 2

PRETEST

172

GROUPS

Mean

Std. Deviation

control group

51

11.14

3.280

experimental group

51

11.59

2.780

T-value

0.749

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Table 3. A comparison of the treatment of the two groups

The control group

The experimental group

teaching material

Focus Listening

Focus Listening

skills to be taught

same

same

tasks

The compulsory part of the tasks was

Both the compulsory part and the

finished in the class. The compulsory part

optional part were finished outside the

was finished outside the class.

class.

two hours

two hours

class time

Table 4. Students responses to questionnaire items (selected)

Item
5
23
19

Content

Average Points

As to the current situation in the listening class, I think students should have more autonomy in
the teaching activities.
I hope I can practice my listening when I am physically and emotionally fit.

4.39
4.37

I hope I can control the length of pause between any passage and the next one I am asked to listen
to.

4.13

17

I hope I can control the times of listening to audio material so as to fully understand it

3.98

18

I hope I can control the speed of listening material.

3.94

Notes:

1= This statement is never or almost never true of me.

2= This statement is usually not true of me.
3= This statement is somewhat true of me.
4= This statement is usually true of me
5= This statement is completely or almost completely true of me.

Table 5. Students responses to questionnaire items (selected)

Item

Content

Average Points

The current way of teaching listening can effectively improve my listening comprehension.

2.80

I can have good learning autonomy without teachers.

2.66

13

I have the ability to plan my listening study well outside the classroom.

2.58

11

I think the in-classroom practice time for listening is sufficient.

2.23

I have understood the listening material but the teacher still played the tapes again and again.

2.23

15

Notes:

1= This statement is never or almost never true of me.

2= This statement is usually not true of me.
3= This statement is somewhat true of me.
4= This statement is usually true of me
5= This statement is completely or almost completely true of me.

Table 6. The progress of the experimental group

Pair 1

Std.

Error

Mean

Std. Deviation

pretest 2

11.5882

51

2.77976

.38924

posttest 2

13.4314

51

2.22040

.31092

Mean

Sig (2-tailed)
.000

Table 7. The progress of the experimental group and the control group

posttest

Std.

GROUPS

Mean

control group

51

13.22

3.074

experimental group

51

13.43

2.220

Deviation

T-value

0.406

0.686

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Table 8. Results of Paired-samples Statistics of Time 1 and Time 2

Pair 1

Mean

Std. Deviation

Std. Error Mean

Time 1

1.8382

51

2.57867

.36109

Time 2

2.7941

51

2.28949

.32059

Time 1= average time per week on listening practice before the experiment
Time 2= average time per week on listening practice during the experiment
Table 9. Results of Paired Samples Test of Time 1 and Time 2
Paired Differences
Pair 1
Time 1 Time

Mean

Std.

Std.

Deviation

Mean

2
-.9559

1.73184

.24251

Error

95%
Interval

df

Sig. (2-tailed)

of

-3.942

50

.000

the

Difference
Lower

Upper

-1.4430

-.4688

Time 1= average time per week on listening practice before the experiment
Time 2= average time per week on listening practice during the experiment

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English Language Teaching

Vol. 3, No. 4; December 2010

The Application of Humorous Song in EFL Classrooms and Its Effects

on Listening Comprehension
Marzieh Rafiee (Corresponding author)
Isfahan, Iran
Tel: 91-34-112-187

E-mail: rafiee_marzieh@yahoo.com
Zohre Kassaian

Assistant Professor, English Department, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran

Tel: 91-31-100-267

E-mail: Z_kassaian@yahoo.com

Hossein Vahid Dastjerdi

Associate Professor, English Department, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran
Tel: 91-33-181-520

E-mail: h_vahid@yahoo.com

Abstract
Language learners need to feel secure and to be free of stress so they can focus on language tasks (Ellis, 1994). A
language teacher should use different tools to encourage students and make them involved in learning process.
Humor and song are effective tools, as they develop creativity and make the class environment
an appropriate
setting for language learning. This paper examines the effects that humorous songs may have on listening
comprehension and on immediate and delayed recall by a group of EFL learners. To achieve this aim, an
experimental research study was conducted in Iranian English Institutes. A pre-post design was applied to explore
whether humorous songs could enhance listening comprehension in EFL learners. The findings show that the
experimental group outperformed the control group in a listening comprehension test, but humorous songs' effect
does not make much difference between immediate and delayed recall test scores.
Keywords: Humor, Song, Listening comprehension, EFL learners
1. Introduction
With the decline of the dominance of structural syllabi in EFL classrooms, humor was implicitly reintroduced
alongside a new emphasis on its authentic, relaxed and creative effects in language learning (Byrant, Comisky &
Zillman, 1979; Zillman and Byrant,1983). Humor actually came to be employed to produce a resourceful
encouraging lesson, not only for elementary levels, but also at upper-intermediate and advanced levels.
The concept of humor is associated with the concept of interest, laughter, smiling jokes, ect. The effects of humor in
language classrooms could be the injection of motivation, removing anxiety and stress and creating a comfortable
environment for foreign language learners (Deneire, 1995). Humor can be regarded as a reinforcing tool to make
students remember what they should know about the central part of every culture and also know something about
the traditions and beliefs of that culture (Guegan & Fisher, 1975). Higbee (1996) believes that attention is one of the
key factors in learning, as students need to pay attention to a concept in order to remember it. Also Girdfanny (2004)
advises teachers to use humor in language classrooms because when they use it, the students pay more attention in
order to not miss any of the jokes or witticisms. Beside that, humor can open students to new ideas and increase
their motivation, because they are more willing to take risks and view mistakes as opportunities for learning (ibid: p,
18).
Humor can have positive effects on students in communication classrooms where the accent is on verbal authentic
communication, participation and interaction (Provine, 2000). As Provine puts in" humor can allow the shy or timid
students in the class to participate with the group." He believes that if it is used properly, humor allows the students
to feel a part of class and possibly contribute without losing face, feeling exposed or vulnerable (ibid: p. 58).
Beside the effects of humor, one can regard the effects of song in language learning. Song can have a two-fold effect
in the process of language learning. The first effect is the one like humor, as a tool to release the tension and anxiety
caused by the process of language learning (Langfit, 1994). The other aspect of song is its relationship with the
underlying principles and the mental processing of language at the metalevel (Fiske, 1993; Heller & Campbell, 1981;

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Sloboda, 1985; Swain, 1986).

Researchers agree that infants learn their native language by principles that make sense of aural information so that
it can be reasonable to approach language acquisition in a similar way (Jackendolf, 2003) and because song is also
acquired through the aural sense, musical activities can be suggested as an aid in second language acquisition.
Until recently, research on the use of humor and song as a pedagogical tool in the foreign language classroom has
been rare. Although numerous studies have shown positive effects of humor (e.g. Morkes, J., Kernal, H., and Nass,
C. , 2000; Tosta, Antonio Luciano, 2001; Burgess, R, 2000; Bell, N.D. ,2005) and song in language classrooms
(e.g. Kumai, N., & S. Timson, 2006; Wallace, W. T. , 1994; Gromko, J. , 2005), the intention to use humor and song
in the classroom has still been met with ridicule and joking. There are teachers and researchers who believe that
although students are enjoying in these kinds of classes, they are not learning anything.
Regarding the points mentioned above, the present study aims to find the answer to the following questions:
1. Does applying humorous song in EFL classrooms improve learners' listening comprehension?
2. Does applying humorous song in EFL classrooms have a greater effect on the learners' immediate recall compared
to their delayed recall?
1.1 Related Literature Review
Researches within the field of education and other closely related disciplines of the social sciences have approached
the study of humor from two distinct perspectives. The first is concerned with the direct effect of humor on learning
and information retention. That is to say many researchers have investigated whether humor has a direct effect on
improvement in both information gain and retention (e.g. Snow, 1992; Barfield, Dycus, Mateer, & Melchior, 1998)
The second perspective examines the possible effects of humor on the general classroom environment and its
indirect effects on learning. In this study, the focus is on the second perspective because the second one has proven
to be more fruitful in terms of measurable effects (see Krashen, 1981, 1982; Horwitz, 1986; MacIntyre, 1995).
Attempts of creating a compassionate environment in the classrooms have the root in Humanistic teaching and
Suggestopedia Approach which will be briefly explained below:
1.1.1 Humanistic Teaching
Humanistic approach to teaching tries to secure a positive atmosphere before a learner begins an effort to remove the
possible negative effects of language learning. This approach emphasizes the role of activities in making students
feel relaxed and remember the happy times of their lives (Moscowitz, 1987) Therefore one of the milestones of
this approach is to deal with the eradication of anxiety.
1.1.2 Suggestopedia
According to Bancroft (1997), one of the unique features of this method is to have a relaxation session for
unconscious assimilation of the lesson materials. He also adds, "the students are trained to breathe deeply and
rhythmically in harmony with the teacher's voice" (p. 193), in order to eradicate those psychological barriers to
learning. In this method, music has the function of increasing self-esteem through increased self-satisfaction in
musical performance and also to energize and bring order (Richards, 2001).
In addition to these approaches and schools of thought, many researchers have investigated such indirect effects of
humor in more specific environments. In a departure from the previous humor related research, a qualitative study of
college students about the effects of appropriate humor uses on classroom environment was carried out. The students
were given two open-ended questions about their teacher's applications of humor in classroom. The researchers
identified eight major categories of appropriate and inappropriate humor, with 47% of the appropriate examples
being related to course content-college. Findings also show that students found this type of humor can make the
classroom more interesting, more improved_ classroom climate and also it helps students recall information more
easily and conveniently. In this study, one subcategory of appropriate "related humor" was using media or external
objects (e.g. cartoons) to enhance learning. (Wanzer, Frymier, Wojtaszczyk & Smith, 2006).
In a similar study relating the use of humorous objects in classrooms, Rule and Schneider (2009) found that the
appropriate use of humor is beneficial in classrooms in K-12 settings. The use of humor cartoons to teach concepts
and vocabularies enhance students' motivation and understanding of content, deepen their recall and serve to
integrate the valuable realm with the verbal to better meet students' needs and styles." (ibid: p, 7).
The importance of song and music in language learning roots in the works of Gardner's "Multiple Intelligence
Model" (1993). This model proposes as view of natural human talents. Gardner (1993) claims that his view of
intelligences is culture free and avoids the conceptual narrowness usually associated with traditional models of

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intelligence. The fourth talent proposed by Gardner is the musical talent which is having a good ear for music, as is
strong in singers and composers. The idea of Multiple Intelligences helps teachers and parents to recognize their
learners'/children's particular gift and provide learning activities based on those inherent gifts (Richards & Rogers,
2001).
More recent researchers also point out the significance of employment of song in language classrooms. In a study,
Schon et al (2007) compared language learning based on speech to language learning based on sung sequences.
They hypothesized that, compared to speech sequences, a consistent mapping of linguistic and musical information
would enhance learning. Results confirmed the hypothesis showing a strong learning facilitation of song compared
to speech. Most importantly, the study shows that learning a new language, especially in the first learning phase
wherein one needs to segment new words, may largely benefit of the motivational and structuring properties of
music in song.
2. Methodology
In this section, the methodology used to elicit and analyzed of data is to be explained.
2.1. Participants
Thirty female students who studying at the Iranian institutes of English language were asked to fill up a background
questionnaire (see Appendix 1) and also take a listening test at the beginning of the study. This test aimed to match
the participants and make them more homogenized. The study was begun with 30 female EFL learners at the
intermediate level in 15-25 age groups. Because the study had an experimental research design, the following ways
to simply randomize the participants were used; each female participant was given a number from 1 to 30. Those
who had odd numbers were categorized as control group and those with even numbers as experimental one.
2.2. Materials
A standard proficiency listening test (TOEFL Test, version 2009, see Appendix 2) was given to participants to
determine their listening proficiency level. After instruction, the participants were tested by the same test to see if
there is any difference between their test scores. The study was based on the use of humorous songs in EFL
classrooms. For this purpose, the poems written and sung by Shel Silverstein were chosen. Shel Silverstein
(1930-1999) was an American poet, singer-songwriter, musician, composer, cartoonist, screenwriter and author of
children's books. Silverstein confirmed that he never studied the poetry of others and therefore developed his own
quirky style: laid-back and conversational, occasionally employing fancy and jokes.
2.3. Procedure
Most English institutes in Iran use Interchange book series as their course material, therefore these kinds of institutes
were chosen to further homogenize the participants. Each lesson in the book has at least 7 minutes listening part.
Before the treatment, the participants were given a standard proficiency listening test to determine their listening
proficiency level. Different listening activities of the course materials were selected to be given to participants as the
pre-test. The participants have not done these activities before, therefore the listening parts were unheard by them.
During learning phase, participants were told they would listen for several minutes to a song (see Appendix 3)
immediately after they worked on the course material. The participants listened to songs for seventeen sessions
(each session lasted 90 minutes). The instructors were required not to ask any questions after the songs ended to be
sure that the students were relaxed while listening to the songs. Immediately after the treatment ended, the same
listening activities were given to the participants, as the post-test, to measure their immediate recall. After 3-weeks
of interval, without any listening activities, participant took the same selected listening test to measure their listening
enhancement in terms of their delayed recall. The results will be discussed in the following section.
3. Results and Discussion
This study attempts to find answers to two questions; the effect of applying humorous song on listening
comprehension of EFL students and also its effect on EFL students' immediate and delayed recall. The result section
presented in two parts; the first part deals with the analysis of control and experimental groups and the second one,
which is an intra-group analysis, is the statistical analysis of experimental group.
3.1 Statistical Analysis: Part 1
Table 1 shows the descriptive summary of information needed for each of the control and experimental groups. Test
1(both A and B) is the test given to the control group and Test 2 (both A and B) is given to the experimental group.
As it is shown in table 1, the mean in each group in the pretest is almost the same; it indicates the homogeneity of
participants. But after the treatment, the mean in the posttest of experimental group has increased, compared to the

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posttest in control group.

In table 2, the statistical analysis of a paired-samples t-test taken by SPSS 15.0 is displayed:
A paired-samples t-test was conducted to evaluate the impact of the intervention on students' scores on the listening
comprehension test. There was a statistically significant increase in listening comprehension test from the second
test part A (M=41.33, SD=10.60) to part B (M=54.00, SD=10.55), t(29)= -4.219, p 0.05. The eta scored statistics
(0.07) indicated a moderate effect size (according to Cohen, 1988). As regards the first group, i.e. the control group,
p. value is more than 0.05, therefore, the difference between two pairs is not significant.
Figure 1 shows clearly how the means in two groups differ in pre and posttest.
3.2 Statistical Analysis: Part 2
In this part, the descriptive and statistical analysis needed for answering the second research question, i.e. the effect
of song on students' immediate and delayed recall, will be discussed. The table below shows the descriptive analysis
of these two groups:
In table 4, the mean in intra-group analysis has changed and increased to some extent. Because this experiment had
small samples, and the data did not meet the stringent assumptions of the parametric techniques, a Wilcoxon Signed
Rank Test was conducted to measure the effect of song on participants' immediate and delayed recall. Table 2 shows
the result.
As it is indicated in the table, the sig. level is not equal to or less than 0.05 therefore it can be concluded that the two
sets of scores are not significantly different.
4. Conclusion
This study attempted to shed more light on the use of humor and song on Iranian EFL students. It aimed to find the
answer to two research questions; the effect of humorous songs on participants' listening comprehension and the
effect of song on participants immediate and delayed recall. The outcome of this study substantiates the initial belief
regarding the fact that experimental group learners were able to enhance their listening comprehension skill and
humorous songs have a moderately large effect on their listening comprehension scores. As regards the second
question, the difference between participants' scores in immediate recall test and delayed recall test was not
significant and therefore song does not have impact on participants in this regard.
The research presented here is part of a vast amount of literature that provides evidence for the benefits of humor
and song in language classrooms. The majority of empirical studies conclude that humor and song have positive
effects on the language learners, regarding the way these tools create a constructive learning atmosphere and
eradicate possible negative affective factors such as lack of self-confidence, of motivation, the existence of anxiety
and stressful environment.
Besides, humor and song are not just to help learners to get rid of their psychological barriers but also may provide
numerous benefits to language learners. As Medina (1990) concludes about the importance of song, and certainly
humor, "the use of music to promote second language acquisition should occupy a more important role in the second
language curriculum. This can easily be accomplished by increasing the frequency with which songs are used in the
curriculum, therefore they are instructional tools every teachers can use.
Regarding the implication of this study, it can be mentioned that the most important contribution of this study will
be its classroom applications. If learners are in settings in which the environment is creative and enjoyable, their
motivation for learning English would increase and anxiety and stress would decrease.
The results of this study can be useful for material designers as well. If they consider the significance of humorous
songs in classrooms, they can provide books with these kinds of materials to create more relaxing process of
language learning for learners.
Another implication of the research will be for EFL teachers. They should teach language in such a way that they
can increase learners' motivation and interest by applying any existing tools, including humorous song.
However this study has certain limitation. The sample gathered for the experiments was small in number; therefore,
the results tend to be tentative. Furthermore, in order to obtain better results it is of great importance to develop
materials adapted to non-native learners. If the materials used in this study are to be used in a foreign language
classroom, they should be in higher quality sound and slower text reading pace.
A great deal stands to be gained through further study of humorous song in EFL context. Thus, it would be
interesting to compare the effect of humorous song between different proficiency levels. Also it would be useful to
carry out a further research on humorous song between male and female EFL students and compare the results.

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References
Bancroft, J. (1997). Suggestopedia, Biofeedback & a Search for the Alpha state. Journal of Accelerated learning &
Teaching , 22 (1/2), 31_56.
Bell, N. (2005). Exploring L2 language play as an aid to SLL: A case study of humor in NSNNS interaction.
Applied Linguistics , 26 (2), 192-218.
Brown, H. (2001). Teaching by Principles: an interactive approach to language pedagogy (2nd, Ed). White Plains,
NY: Pearson Education.
Burgess, R. (2000). Laughing Lessons: 149 2/3 Ways to Make Teaching and learning Fun. Minneapolis, MN: Free
Spirit Publishing Co.
Byrant, e. a. (1979). Teacher's Humor in the College Classroom. Common Education , 28, 110- 118.
Cheng, W. (2003). Humor in Intercultural Conversations. Semiotica , 146 (1/4), 287_306.
Deneire, M. (1995). Humor and Foreign Language Teaching. Humor , 8, 285-298.
Ellis, R. (1994). The study of 2nd language acquisition. Oxford: oxford University Press.
Girlefanny, S. (2004). Using Humor in the Classroom. . Techniques: Connecting Education & Carriers , 79 (3),
22-25.
Gromko, J. (2005). The effect of music instruction on phonemic awareness in beginning readers. Journal of College
Reading and Learning , 53 (3), 199-209.
Higbee, K. L. (1996). Your Memory: How It Works and How to Improve It. New York: Marlow & Company.
Krashen, S. (1982). Principles and Practice in 2nd Language Acquisition. New York: Academic Press.
Krashen, S. (1985). The input hypothesis: Issues & implication. London: Longman.
Kumai, N., & S. Timson. (2006). Hot Beat Listening: Understanding Rock & Pop. (3rd ed.). Tokyo: MacMillan
language House Ltd.
Long, D.L. & Graesser, A.C. (1988). Wit & Humor in Discourse Processing. Discourse Processing , 11, 35_60.
Medgyes, P. (2002). Laughing matters in language classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Medina, S. L. (1990, March). The effects of music upon second language vocabulary acquisition. Paper presented at
the Annual Meeting of the Teachers of English to speakers of other languages. San Francisco, CA.
Morkes, J., Kernal, H., and Nass, C. . (2000). Effects of humor in task oriented human-computer interaction and
computer mediated communication: A direct test of SRCT Theory. Human-Computer Interaction , 14 (4), 395-435.
Moscowitz, G. (1978). Caring and Sharing in the Foreign Language Classroom. New York: Newberry House.
Provine, P. (2000). The Science of Laughter. Psychology Today , 33 (6), 58-62.
Richard, C. Jack & Rodgers, T.S. . (2001). Approaches & Methods in language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge
University press.
Richards, J. & Schmidt, R. (2002). Dictionary of Language Teaching & Applied Linguistics. (3ed, Ed.). London:
Longman.
Rule, A. & Schneider, J.S. (2009, February 13th). Creating, Evaluating & Improving Humorous Cartoons Related to
Design Principles for Gifted Education Programs. University of Northern Iowa Interdisciplinary Research,
Symposium, Cedar Falls, Iowa.
Schon et al. (2007). Songs as an aid for language acquisition. Cognition , 106, 975-983.
Snow, C. (1992). Perspective on second language development: Implications for bilingual education. Educational
Researcher , 21 (2), 16-19.
Torak, S. M.-C. (2004). Is Humor an Appreciated Teaching Tool? Perceptions of professors' teaching styles and use
of humor. College Teaching , 52 (1), 14-20.
Tosta, A. L. (2001). Laugh and Learn: Thinking over the funny teacher myth. English Teaching Forum , 39 (1),
26-29.
Ur, P. (2002). Laughing matters, Humor in the language classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University press.
Vogely, A. (1999). Addressing listening comprehension anxiety. In D. J. Young, Affect in Foreign Language and
Second Language Learning (pp. 105123). New York: McGraw Hill.
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Wallace, W. T. (1994). Memory for music: Effect of melody on recall of text. Journal of Experimental Psychology:
Learning, Memory, and Cognition , 20 (6), 1471-1485.
Wanzer, M. F. (2006). Appropriate and Inappropriate uses of humor by Teachers. Communication Education , 55 (2),
178_196.
Zillman, D. &. (1983). Uses and effects of humor in educational ventures. In P. E. McGhee & J. H. Goldstein (Eds),
Handbook of Humor Research: Applied Strategies (pp. 173-194). New York: Springer- Verlag.
Appendix 1.
BACKGROUND QUESTIONNAIRE
Please fill in the following form with information about yourself. This information will be seen only by the
researcher(s) and will have no bearing on your grade. Your name will only be used for matching purposes, your
response is completely confidential.
Name: ---------------------Sex: ---------------------Age: -------------------What is your native language? -----------------------------Have you studied English before?

YES / NO

Have you lived in a English-speaking country for 30 days or more?

YES / NO

If yes, check the length of stay:

1-3 months ---------------

4-6 months------------------

1 year------------------

7-11 months------------------

More than one year-----------------------

How often do you listen to English songs?

5
Very Often

3
Often

Occasionally

Rarely

Very Rarely

Appendix 2.
Model Test 1: TOEFL Test, version 2009
Listening 1 "Learning Center"
1. What does the woman need?
a) A meeting with Professor Simpson
b) An English composition class
c) An appointment for tutoring
d) Information about the Learning Center
2. Why does the woman say this?
a) She is worried that she cannot afford the service.
b) She is trying to negotiate the cost of the sessions.
c) She is showing particular interest in the man.
d) She is expressing surprise about the arrangement.
3. Why is the man concerned about the woman's attendance?
a) If she is absent, her grade will be lowered.
b) He will not get the paycheck, if she is absent.
c) She has been sick a lot during the semester.
d) He grades need to be improved.
4. What does the man agree to do?
a) He will show the woman how to use the library.
b) He will write some composition for the woman.
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c) He will talk with the woman's English professor.

d) He will show the woman how to improve her writing.
5. What does the man imply about the woman's teacher?
a) The professor is very difficult to understand.
b) He does not know where she came from.
c) Her student seems to like her teaching style.
d) He is familiar with her requirement.
Model Test 2: TOEFL Test, version 2009
Listening 2 " College Campus"
6. What is the purpose of this conversation?
a) The woman is encouraging the man to be more serious about his studies.
b) The woman is looking for alternatives to living in dormitory housing.
c) The man is convincing the man to join the International Student Association.
d) The man is trying to find out why the woman didn't go to the talent show.
7. What does the man imply about the house where he is living?
a) He prefers the house to the dorm.
b) He is living at the house to save money.
c) He does not like doing chores at the house.
d) He thinks that the house is very crowded.
8. How does the man feel about the International Student Association?
a) He is sorry that only women can join the club.
b) He enjoys meeting people with different backgrounds.
c) He wishes that they would have more activities.
d) He will probably join the organization.
9. What does the woman mean when she says this:
a) She is trying to persuade the man.
b) She is not sure that she understood.
c) She is expressing doubt about the time.
d) She is changing her mind about going.
10. What does the woman agree to do?
a) Join the club
b) Eat at a restaurant
c) Go to a meeting
d) Study with the man
Appendix 3.
SICK
"I cannot go to school today"
Said little Peggy Ann McKay
"I have the measles and the mumps,
A gash, a rash and purple bumps.
My mouth is wet, my throat is dry,
I'm going blind in my right eye.

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My tonsils are as big as rocks,

I've counted sixteen chicken pox
And there's one more_ that's seventeen,
And don't you think my face looks green?
My leg is cut, my eyes are blue_
It might be instamatic flue.
I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke,
I'm sure that my left leg is broke_
My hip hurts when I move my chin,
My belly button's caving in,
My back is wrenched, my ankle's sprained,
My 'pendix pains each time it rains.
My nose is cold, my toes are numb,
I have a silver in my thumb.
My neck is stiff, my voice is weak,
I hardly whisper when I speak.
My tongue is filling up my mouth,
I think my hair is falling out.
My elbow's bent, my spine ain't straight,
My temperature is one-o-eight.
My brain is shrunk, I can't hear,
There is a hole inside my ear.
I have a hangnail, and my heart is __ what?
What's that? What's that you say?
You said today is . Saturday?
G'bye, I'm going out to play!"
Table 1. Descriptive analysis of control and the experimental groups
Test 1(A)

Test 1(B)

Test 2(A)

Test 2(B)

15

15

15

15

Valid

Missing

40.6667

46.6667

41.3333

54.0000

Mean

20.00

20.00

30.00

40.00

Minimum

60.00

70.00

60.00

80.00

Maximum

14.37591

11.75139

10.60099

10.55597

Std. Deviation

Test 1(A) = pretest in control group

Test 1(B) =posttest in control group
Test 2(A) =pretest in experimental group
Test 2(B) =posttest in experimental group

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Table 2. Statistical analysis of control and the experimental groups

Paired differences

Mean

Pair 1
Pair 2

test 1(A)_test 1 (B)

test 2 (A)_test 2 (B) t

Std.

Std
Deviation.

Error
Mean

95% Confidence
Interval of the
Difference

Lower

Upper

-6.00000

19.19821

4.95696

-16.6316

4.63162

-.1.210

14

-12.66667

11.62919

3.00264

-19.10670

-6.22664

-4.219

14

Sig.(2.tailed)

.246
.001

Table 3. Descriptive analysis of immediate and delayed recall.

N

Immediate recall

Delayed recall

Valid

15

15

Missing

Mean

54.0000

57.3333

Minimum

40.00

40.00

Maximum

80.00

90.00

Std. Deviation

10.55597

17. 09915

Table 4. Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test; Immediate and Delayed Recall

Delayed-Immediate Recall
-.742

Asymp.

Sig.

(2-tailed)

.458

p .05

Figure 1. The mean differences between pre- and posttest in control and experimental groups

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June, 2008

An Action Research Plan for Developing and Implementing

The Students Listening Comprehension Skills
Chunpin Luo
The School of Foreign Languages, Yunnan Nationalities University
No.134, Yieryi Dajie, Kunming 650031, China
Tel: 86-871-643-5063

E-mail: p_luo21@yahoo.com

Abstract
This is a proposal for an action research plan designed to find out how to improve students listening comprehension
skills, enhance their performance and help to promote better learning. This plan is focused on the minority students who
major in English in our University. Listening comprehension is one of the most difficult courses for them. As their
teacher, the author would like to conduct an action research in her classroom teaching in order to make some changes in
her teaching, to assist the students to become active listeners, and to improve their overall listening comprehension
skills.
Keywords: Action research, Listening comprehension, Minority students
1. Introduction
Listening is the basic language skill in language learning. However, students always think it is difficult to listen well. To
foster the students listening comprehension skills and prepare them as active listeners in language learning is a big
challenge. Scholars and researchers have done a lot of research to help students to acquire the skills. However, we
cannot rely on some methodologies completely. We might see that apart from the methodologies, we also need to know
that we face individual student differences: their learning styles, their backgrounds, and their cultures in teaching. In
different classrooms, teachers have to adopt different teaching methods to be with their own students. Action research
offers an opportunity for classroom teachers to do the research by themselves, improve their teaching, and make
adjustments when necessary. This paper intends to propose an action research plan and attempts to inquire into the
educational situation, understand the students skills and their situation better and act to improve both. (Kanu, Stansky
& Carson, 1993).
2. Problem statement
I am an EFL teacher in a Nationalities University in China. My students are in the first and second year of University.
They major in English. I teach the course called Listening Comprehension. The aim of the course is to train the aural
skills of the students so that they understand English. According to the curriculum, I use a set of text-books Step by
Step with tapes attached, published by Shanghai Huadong Normal University in China. I also use other authentic
teaching aids, such as movies on tape and BBC and VOA (Special English for Learners) on radio, etc. in my listening
comprehension course.
During more than twenty years of teaching, I have found that it is very difficult for my students to understand English
through listening. In language learning, when we talk about five basic skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing and
translating, we always put listening at the beginning of them. That is because listening is the most important skill of
the five and also the basic way of receiving language input. As we know we can speak sensibly only if we understand
what is said. In fact, people cannot talk if they cannot hear other peoples talk. That simply means there is not enough
language input and there is no output. No deaf person can speak clearly because he cannot hear clearly. So listening
skills are one of the basics of learning languages and acquiring them is very important in language learning. Moreover,
with the development of high technology, we more and more rely on our ears to get information. There is no doubt that
the speed of getting information is faster through listening than reading. Thus, it is crucial to improve the level of
listening comprehension of my students.
Usually, in the lab, the students feel at a loss when listening to some new text. Over 50% of the students could not
understand the meaning of the material after I play the tape for the first time. Expecting them to understand the material,
I often give them some instructions and to play the tape again, at least three times. Still, at least 20% of students might
not understand it. And then, I sometimes have to stop the tape to explain the difficult or unfamiliar words and
occasionally explain material sentence by sentence through the whole text. So, this is a serious problem because some
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students cannot understand the whole text after listening to it three times in class. Furthermore, the students might
gradually lose their self-confidence. They are afraid to go to the lab to listen to English again. When they are face to
face with English speaking people, they have little confidence in their listening comprehension abilities. Therefore, they
may not understand them because they have to battle the psychological suggestion that they could not understand
spoken English.
Some courses might be the reason hindering the students from understanding spoken English. First, our students begin
to learn English by the way of reading, instead of listening. Most students are from different minority areas. In some
schools, there are no language labs to train their listening skills. Listening activities are not common for the students.
When they come to university, they cannot adjust their study habits very quickly. They still rely on their eyes instead of
their ears to learn English. In fact, reading is different from listening, like writing is different from speech. The biggest
difference is that speech consists of sounds. Listeners must know the sound system; otherwise, they cannot understand
speech. Moreover, writing uses different language. Written English consists of neat, correct sentences, while speech
does not.
Second, the materials on the tape are usually read by English speaking people. There are different accents, difficult
idioms and unfamiliar language chunks in their speaking. This is another difficulty. For our students, their English
teachers are usually local people. So the students may not be used to the accents of the foreign people. It is hard for
them to understand native speakers.
Third, when English-speaking people speak English, they usually speak at a normal speed. It is too fast for our students
to follow. When listening, the students cannot choose a comfortable listening speed, they have to keep pace with the
speakers thinking process. So sometimes they have not even got the meaning of the first sentence, before the second
sentence has already passed. Their results show that they have missed the whole passage.
Finally, the contents of the tape are not always familiar with our students. Some of them are not relevant to our students.
Our students may lack the background knowledge about foreign countries and cultures. So sometimes they cannot
understand the material or they may misunderstand the meaning of it.
Therefore, I am researching the problems of our students listening comprehension and intend to find out what can be
done to help them improve their listening skills. With the results of this research, the department will be able to
implement a plan to develop the students listening skills. So I would like to do some interventions to see whether I can
improve their abilities in listening comprehension.
3. Research questions
What is the initial listening ability?
How do the new tapes affect the acquisition of listening skills?
What do the students do in developing their own listening skills?
How do they become active listeners?
4. Review of literature
Geoffrey E Mills states Action research has the potential to be a powerful agent of educational change. Action research
helps to develop teachers and administrators with professional attitudes that embrace action, progress, and reform rather
than stability and mediocrity (p. v). In the article of An overview of the methodological Approach of Action
Research, Rory OBrien defines action research as learning by doing a group of people identifies a problem, does
something to resolve it, sees how successful their efforts were, and, if not satisfied, tries again (p. 28). According to
Carson, Kanu, and Stanski, Action research is, therefore, an attempt to inquire into our educational situations,
understand them better and act to improve them (p. 1). These theories gave me ideas about why and how to do my
action research to improve the students' listening comprehension skills in my class.
An additional literature review assisted me in planning my interventions. One study talks about the theory of listening
comprehension and practice. According to the author, the purpose of listening is to get a reasonable understanding of
what the speaker said, not the correct understanding (Brouwer, 2002). Another study found that listeners constructed
meaning from the oral input by drawing upon their prior knowledge of the world and of the target language (Byrnes,
1984; Nagle & Sanders, 1986). Ming Yee Carissa Young did a piece of action research and found that the use of the
cognitive strategies Inference and Elaboration were the most salient to many of the listeners, especially when they did
not know the topic of the spoken message before listening (pp. 35-53). Brouwer stresses that listening is many things,
most often taking place in an interactive process where listening and speaking take place simultaneously (2002). In his
study, Wang (2006) summarizes that applying action research in teaching English listening helps teachers to find
problems in their teaching systematically and resolve them accordingly, and consequently improve the teaching of
English listening effectively.
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5. Research Plan
5.1 Intervention
First, I would like to require my students to listen to English attentively in and out of class and give them assignments to
listen to the radio or tapes after class and make morning reports on what they heard on the previous day. Second, I
would require them read foreign newspapers, esp. the latest news and other various articles wherever they can find them
in order to enlarge their knowledge and get familiar with different cultures. Third, I would arrange the recorded
materials at the speed of 100 words per minute to be used at the beginning of the course to attempt to provide them with
an easy transition to be a successful listener. Finally, I would discuss and adopt some skills and strategies in listening to
adequately prepare their confidence in listening to English.
5.2 Data collection
The first research question is: What is the initial listening ability? I would collect data by:
requiring students to do a pre-test,
checking their College Entrance Examination scores,
interviewing students to ask open-ended questions.
The second research question is: How do the new tapes affect the acquisition of listening skills? I would like to collect
the data by:
requiring students to do a pre-test on previous materials,
observing the students own reflection on process,
requiring students to do a post-test on new materials.
The third research question is: What do the students do in developing their own listening skills? I would like to collect
the data by:
requiring students to listen to English after class, such as news, short stories, songs and etc., and keep journals,
requiring students to do extracurricular reading, including foreign newspapers and periodicals,
requiring them to make a report on the radio news in class.
The final research question is: How do they become active listeners? I would like to collect the data by:
observing students activities in class and keeping journals,
requiring other teachers to observe the students in my class and their own classes and to keep journals,
checking students scores in my class and other classes,
requiring students to do a post-test.
Those pre-tests are chosen from CanTEST (Canadian Test of English for Scholars and Trainees). The post-tests are
taken from TEM (Test in English Major Grade Four).
5.3 Statement of Resource
Equipment for recording and a technician to make a perfect recording are needed. Foreign teachers are needed to record
the listening materials we require. We need time both for the researchers and cooperating teachers. The CanTEST and
The TEM (Grade Four) are needed.
5.4 Membership
Two teachers who teach Listening Comprehension, Miss Li and I, will share the tasks in this study. I will focus on Class
One and Miss Li will focus on Class Two. Another two teachers, Ms. Zhang and Mr. Wang, who teach Intensive English
and Extensive English in the same grade, will be invited to be our critics in the action research. They will observe the
students in listening classes and their own classes and keep journals.
5.5 Negotiations
Because action research is carried out in real-world circumstances, and involves close and open communication among
the people involved, the researchers must pay close attention to ethical considerations in the conduct of their work
(Rory O'Brien 1998). So my action research plan will be presented to the Dean with the intent of getting approval,
seeking support and financial aid. It will also be made known among all the teachers in the department in teachers
meetings to seek understanding and collaboration. Finally, consent forms will be signed and collected from participants
in the study.
5.6 Analysis and interpretations of data
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After compiling the results of pre-tests, post-tests, interviews, and journals, we, researchers and critics, will sit down
together to compare, analyze and evaluate initial data collected to the data from the end of the study. We will review
what we have learned and draw conclusions about we think the data mean. We will then decide whether to do more
research or to determine which steps to take next. Finally, we will prepare a report of the study, including follow-up
action. This report will be presented to the Dean with the hope that our department will be able to implement a plan to
develop the students listening comprehension skills.
5.7 Timeline
Phrase I (July August) Identify area of focus, review related literature, develop research questions, prepare the paper
work of the action research and invite two foreign teachers to record new materials for the listening comprehension
course.
Phrase II (September October) Collect initial data from pre-test and interview students. Use new tapes in classes,
observe the whole class and evaluate present practices.
Phrase III (October November) Modify the teachers input in class, continue practice and collect data.
Phrase IV (December January) Collect data from post-test, compare and evaluate initial data collected to the
subsequent data. Prepare a report of the study, including follow-up action.
6. Conclusion
This study has developed an action research plan, only the initial step of this enquiry. Stephen Kemmis has developed
a simple model of the cyclical nature of the typical action research process. Each cycle has four steps: plan, act, observe,
reflect (Rory OBrien, 1998). In the plan, the author aims at exploring possibilities for applying action research in her
teaching practice in order to improve teaching practice in listening in the classroom, and furthermore to develop and
implement the students listening comprehension skills.
References
Brouwer, Catherine, E. (2002). Conversation promotes understanding. Sprogforum.
Byrnes, H. (1984). The role of listening comprehension: A theoretical base. Foreign Annals, 17, pp. 317-329.
Kanu, Stansky. & Carson. (1993). A Students Handbook of Action Research. Albert: University of Alberta.
Kearsley, Greg. (1999). Theoretical Basis of Teaching L2 Listening Comprehension: Theory to Practice. [Online]
Available: www. english listening.com/theory.phtml.
Mills, Geoffrey, E. (2003). Action Research: A guide for the teacher researcher (2nd edition). Upper Saddle River, New
Jersey and Columbus, Ohio: Merille Prentice Hall.
Ming, Yee, Carissa, Young. (1997). A Serial Ordering of Listening Comprehension Strategies Used by Advanced ESL
learners in Hong Kong. Asian Journal of English Language Teaching, 7, pp.35-53.
Nagle, S. J. & Sanders, S. L. (1986). Comprehension theory and second langrage pedagogy. TESOL Quarterly, 20, 9-26.
OBrien, Rory. (1998). An Overview of the Methodological Approach of Action Research. Toronto: University of
Toronto.
Wang, Renfu. (2006). Action Research and Teaching of Listening Comprehension. Journal of Huangshang College,
2004 (4).

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