In addition to distributed listening exercises in the textbook, each of the three groups had one English listening class per week, and the intervention lasted ten weeks. During the
10-week intervention, the control group (formal listening) had the workbook as their learning materials. With pre-listening activities presented in a variety, the students first listened to the CD, answered the questions, and then checked the answers. Afterwards the teacher explained the questions which they found difficult or confused and discussed the potential listening problems with them. With respect to autonomous listening, grounded mainly on the resource-based approaches plus technology-based and classroom-based approaches (Benson, 2001), the program was accordingly developed. The experimental group A
received autonomous listening (AL), in which the students chose the audiobooks or videos on their own from the websites provided by the teacher. They needed to post at least one entry on the online platform educoco, writing about why they recommended it, what useful or beautiful expression(s) they had learned from it, and how much they thought they understood it. Also, the students needed to give some response to others’ posts. The use of the
platform worked as an interface to enhance the class’s interaction. Moreover, they needed to write a listening log, which was intended to provide a tool for learners to monitor and reflect on their own progress and effort and for the instructor to evaluate their obtainment in each class. In the listening log they recorded further detailed information for each entry they listened (e.g. the title and the length), what language items they had learned or what difficulties they had encountered during the listening experience, and how they (tried to) solved them. The third part in the log was optional, which encouraged them to recorded what they listened after class. The last part was an open-ended question that involved students to note down any thoughts regarding autonomous listening. The experimental group B received guided-autonomous listening (GAL), who were required to do the same thing as the AL group, but their logs were collected after every session and returned with the teacher’s brief feedback. A summary of listening practice can be seen in Table 3.1.
Table 3.1 A Comparison of the Listening Exercises for the Three Groups Control Group Experimental Group A Experimental Group B Instruction Formal listening Autonomous listening
(AL)
The purpose of establishing educoco is to improve learning motivation. It is a free online platform (see Figure 3.1) that draws the support of learning community and the internet to increase the amount of reading, to develop the ability to collaborate, and to think
independently. The design of learning tasks first allows the participants to have shared issues or topics and then they can read and collect information from the internet, and brainstorm as well as publish their thoughts on it. These tasks tends to add the element of cooperation or competition, bringing the fun of learning together. It may also broaden the horizons of the users for the messages can be displayed across classes. In this study, the most explored characteristics are that 1) learners can search the information on the net by themselves, 2) they can share with others, and 3) a sense of cooperation was built when they gave comments to others’ posts. Students can leave a message with a picture, a URL link, an attachment or even start a poll to gather people’s opinions. There were two types of response available for the users: one can leave a verbal message below the main posts, or simply pick an emoticon to show how he or she thinks. On the other hand, the teacher can
engage in the discussion with students without being a conspicuous authority. As a manager the teacher can add or modify the tasks at ease, give clear guidelines for each and instantly check students’ in-class performances.
Figure 3.1 A Snapshot of Educoco 3.3 Materials
On the basis of previous research review, multimedia and the internet indeed serve as great mediums for facilitating learners’ listening processes. The listening materials for learners should be easy so that they can listen fluently without being frustrated (Renandya &
Farrell, 2010), and it would be a plus if the audio is accompanied with scripts to enhance the text-sound connection (Vandergrift, 2010). Moreover, learner autonomy should be established by considering the sociocultural contexts and underlining particular elements of autonomous learning correspondingly (Littlewood, 1999). In Taiwan, where autonomy is not commonly practiced within public schools, learners may not be used to as well as not able to find appropriate resources for their learning given no restraints or suggestions by the authority at all. Taking all these aspects into consideration, the teacher-researcher collected
two major types of online materials in advance. The first type is audiobooks; a total of 208 short stories was assembled. Most of the audiobooks are presented with
animation/illustration, text and sound, as shown in Figure 3.2, while the others only are presented only with text and sound, in Figure 3.3. The average duration of most stories ranges approximately from four to seven minutes. But still some pieces can be as short as less than 1 minute while others as long as more than 20 minutes.
Figure 3.2 A Snapshot of an Online Audiobook with Animation, Text and Sound
Figure 3.3 A Snapshot of an Online Audiobook with Text and Sound Only
The second type is videos on the website VoiceTube. These videos are of a large variety of themes and genres, for example, cartoons, comedies, news, traveling, talk shows,
professional speeches, language learning, and movie trailers; and three difficulty
levels—preliminary, intermediate and advanced—are labeled to every clip. The website also features learner-friendly interface (see Figure 3.4). First of all, a great number of the clips go with Chinese subtitles besides English, which can be switched on and off easily, relieves the pressure when learners facing authentic materials and thus may allow them to go for some challenging ones. Secondly, it is convenient for students to choose what they like through the filterers like the video duration, the difficulty level, the number of hits, and the time published. Thirdly, the delivery speed can be altered; the text can be played at a slower rate, and single sentence can be targeted and replayed with a simple click, which may be a stepping stone for those particularly poor listeners. Additionally, vocabulary learning can be
extremely easy because unfamiliar words can be looked up at any time even when the video is being played, be recorded for later review (see Figure 3.5), and be made into a tailored test for a logged-in user.
Figure 3.4 A Snapshot of Website VoiceTube (Listening Mode)
Figure 3.5 The Vocabulary Review Interface on VoiceTube Despite the all features mentioned above, there is one more function that may be correspondent with the listening experiences at school for most English learners in
Taiwan—listening test. Some of the clips were given cloze dictation tests with the lowest full marks of 100 to the highest 500. Learners can play the segment of the clip repeatedly to grab, with the visual and audio input simultaneously, trying their best to recognize the word or understand the word meaning. When they get the answer wrong, the screen shows the target word along with the spelling and Chinese definitions, and they can still have a second chance to answer. If they get the correct answer, the information about the target word is still displayed for learner’s quick review, as presented in Figure 3.6.
Figure 3.6 A Snapshot of the Listening Test Mode
The available websites used in the present study are listed in Table 3.2. In spite of the specific contents for the experimental groups are different from those in the listening
workbook used in the control group, the topics and genres are shared. For example, most of the materials are presented in conversation and include general themes such as introduction to celebrities, do-it-yourself activities, popular science, traveling, movies and sports, etc. The lexis is also of similar difficulty. According to the wordlist of recognition vocabulary for junior high school students stipulated by Ministry of Education (MOE) in Taiwan, the
vocabulary coverage of the text in a preliminary-level video on Voicetube could be as high as 98%, which means the listeners are in touch with familiar words as in their listening
workbook.
Table 3.2 The List of Available Websites in the Present Study
Title Website No. of
entries VIDEO
VoiceTube https://tw.voicetube.com/ Over
20000 Crawford the Cat http://www.crawfordthecat.com/books/index_bks.html 7
Animazia http://www.animazia.com/books 6
3.4 Instruments
In this study, a pretest and a posttest for listening comprehension were administered.
The listening log for documenting the listening progress and investigating how the
participants perceived their listening difficulties was assigned after every listening session.
3.4.1 The Elementary GEPT Listening Comprehension Test
The elementary GEPT listening comprehension test is composed of thirty questions, taking some twenty minutes to finish. All of the questions are multiple choice (1 out of 4), including choosing the corresponding picture to the statement, choosing the best response to the question or statement, and choosing the correct answer to the question based on the dialogue heard. This test aimed to examine the learners’ integration of listening skills and overall listening comprehension ability. See appendix A.
3.4.2 The Listening Log
The listening log, designed by the teacher-researcher, was comprised of three sections.
The first section was the record of what the students had listened in the very class. They needed to note down the title(s) of the audiobooks or videos they finished, the length, the subtitle they used (Chinese, English or none), and the reason why they chose it. The second part was focused on the language learning and listening reflection. Students wrote about any linguistic element they had noticed from the listening experience, some problems they
encountered during the process, and how they solved it or how they wished the teacher to help them solve it. The third part was optional, which invited students to listen more after class and keep a record as well. The last section allows students to express any ideas or thoughts about autonomous listening. See appendix B.
3.4.3 The Semi-structured Interviews
In order to further realize the learners’ opinions of the autonomous listening program, follow-up interviews were conducted after the ten-week intervention. Some of the questions asked in the interviews were projected to scrutinize the interviewees’ holistic pictures of the program, while the others were listed by the teacher-researcher according to each
interviewee’s personal feedback. The direction of the interviews proceeded based on the interactive conversation between the interviewer and the interviewee. Most of the questions
were open-ended so that the learners were provided with an opportunity to express their insights at will.
3.5 Procedure
Before the intervention of autonomous listening, all the participants from the three groups were asked to take the elementary GEPT listening test, which took around twenty minutes.
Both of the experimental groups also received an orientation to how autonomous listening would proceed, including what the purpose of autonomous listening is, and how to use the online platform educoco, and were acquainted with the use of listening log, which took about twenty minutes.
For the Formal Listening group, the teacher-researcher taught the students listening skills with the textbook, and provided exercises with the workbook. The teacher would provide pre-listening activities by leading students to review some taught words or to predict what was going to hear by skimming the questions quickly and so on. After listening exercises, the teacher and the students reviewed them together. Learners’ confusion was to be solved when students raised questions concerning the exercises and the teacher helped by answering directly or replaying the CD. Discussion and reflection on the listening content and skills occurred sporadically, depending on students’ reaction. The students were not given opportunities to decide the listening materials in class, and nor did they adjust the way they would like to listen.
The Autonomous Listening (AL) group had one session every week in the language lab.
During the class hour, the students listened autonomously, i.e. they searched for the stories and videos they felt interested, asked questions of their teacher or peers, shared and responded, contributing to the whole-class listening experience together. In addition, they were required to keep the listening log in class and after class. The teacher functioned as a resource
provider and a facilitator. Outside the class, they were encouraged to listen more in their free time. The Guided Autonomous Listening (GAL) group had a similar listening session;
the only difference from AL group was that listening logs for GAL group were given feedback by the teacher every week for their listening practices while the logs for AL group got checked only to see if the students recorded regularly. This meant that both groups were guided to be aware of their learning process and the teacher had a chance to identify
individuals that might need specific assistance, but she could only come to help for the GAL group.
After the ten-week intervention was done, all the participants from the three groups were asked to take the elementary GEPT listening test that had similar validity and reliability but with different content from the first one in the pretest. The total closure session took approximately twenty minutes. In addition, a few of the participants were chosen to be interviewed for their rich, informative comments from the logs, and the follow-up interviews were scheduled after the analysis of their listening performance and the contents of the logs.
Table 3.3 The Timetable of the Present Study
Week Control group Experimental Group A Experimental Group B 0 Listening pretest Listening pretest Listening pretest
-- Orientation to autonomous
listening
Orientation to guided autonomous listening 1-10 Formal listening Autonomous listening
(AL)
Guided autonomous listening (GAL)
11 Listening posttest Listening posttest Listening posttest
12 -- Follow-up interviews Follow-up interviews
3.6 Data Analysis
First of all, for the first research question, one-way repeated ANOVA was performed on the results of the elementary GEPT listening test scores to determine whether there were significant differences among the three groups on their listening comprehension performance after the intervention. Secondly, the listening logs from autonomous listening groups were analyzed both quantitatively as well as qualitatively in order to understand the influences of autonomous listening.
Concerning the listening log, in the first section ‘Today’s Achievement’, the total of the hours the participants listened in class were kept as a baseline to see whether the participant was a faster or a slower listener. Next, the contents from the second section ‘Language Learning and Reflection’ were the most important sources for the second research question.
What they ‘picked up’ in their listening experiences was categorized into five areas, and the tally of them provided insight for what they thought they had learned. The problem types along with the learners’ own solutions or desired help from the teacher were also scrutinized according to the quality and the quantity of the details they documented, which suggested how they developed autonomy along the way. The third section ‘Listen after Class’ was a counterpart of ‘Today’s Achievement’. The total of listening hours at home was
accumulated to determine whether the learners extended their learning out of campus. As for the fourth part ‘Opinions about Autonomous Listening’, the views on or attitudes towards this form of listening practice were collected to understand their general perception of this listening program.
Lastly, the responses from the interviews were firstly transcribed and then inspected to compare: what the two experimental groups had in common as and what they thought differently. Both the shared and diverged opinions were discussed to discover the acts of teacher guidance and to explore the meaning of teachers’ existence.
CHAPTER FOUR RESULTS and DISCUSSIONS
Chapter Four is divided into three sections. Section 4.1 indicates the outcomes of the listening comprehension tests after the ten-week intervention with a view to answer the first research question: whether there are any significant differences in listening ability when learners received different listening instruction. The second research question—what are the perceptions of the listening program—involves complicated cognizance, so it is explored in two sections. Section 4.2 exhibits the qualitative data that documented in listening logs and Section 4.3 demonstrated the opinions of the functions of the teacher in the follow-up
interviews; both are followed by related discussions.
4.1 Effectiveness of Autonomous Listening
4.1.1 Performance of the Listening Comprehension Tests
The outcomes of the pretest and the posttest of GEPT listening comprehension tests are presented below in Table 4.1. The GAL group scored 12.64 in the pretest with the SD of 4.29, and 15.06 in the posttest with the SD of 4.39; the gain is 2.42 points. The AL group scored 13.43 in the pretest (SD=4.52) and 15.14 in the posttest (SD=5.40); the gain is 1.71 points. The control group scored 13.66 in the pretest (SD=4.91) and 15.35 in posttest (SD=5.82); the gain is 2.11 points.
Table 4.1
Descriptive Statistics of Listening Tests for the GAL, AL and Control Groups
Group Pretest Posttest Gains
M (SD)
CI 95% M
(SD)
CI 95%
LL UL LL UL
GAL
(n=33) 12.64 (4.29) 11.05 14.22 15.06 (4.39) 13.25 16.87 2.42
AL
(n=35) 13.43 (4.52) 11.89 14.97 15.14 (5.40) 13.39 16.90 1.71
Control
(n=32) 13.66 (4.91) 12.05 15.26 15.35 (5.82) 14.04 17.71 2.11
Table 4.2
One-way repeated ANOVA for Effects of Listening Instruction on Listening Comprehension
Sources SS df MS F p
Between subjects 27.34 2 13.67 .317 .729
Within subjects 4177.76 97 43.07
Total 4205.10 99
In order to determine the effect of listening instruction on learner’s listening ability, repeated one-way ANOVA was applied to analyze whether there was a significant difference among the three groups in their performance in the listening tests after ten weeks. The alpha level was set at .05. As can be seen in Table 4.2, the F value is .317, and p value is greater than 0.05. From the results of Tables 1 and 2 together, we learned that although the average gain of the GAL group (2.42) was slightly larger than the average gains of the AL group (1.71) and the control group (2.11) respectively, the analysis of ANOVA reveals that the difference among the three groups was not significant (F(2.97)=0.317, p>.05).
4.1.2 Discussion on the Effectiveness of Autonomous Listening
Based on the results from the pretests and the posttests presented above, it is discovered
that although the three groups showed significant improvement in their listening performance individually, there was no significant difference in their gains for receiving different listening instruction. Verdugo and Belmonte (2007) have similar findings: the experimental group that listened to audiobooks did pick up vocabulary and could answer the questions correctly despite fairly significant differences from the control group. This phenomenon seems to illustrate Renandya and Farrell’s (2010) assertions that easy and relaxing listening
experiences could work as well as formal listening strategy training. Still, three possible reasons for no significant differences could be scrutinized.
To begin with, the three groups were not exactly homogeneous in their composition.
On the basis of their pretest results, their average scores were not considerably varied, but the differences within subjects were quite observable. We found that the numbers of weaker
On the basis of their pretest results, their average scores were not considerably varied, but the differences within subjects were quite observable. We found that the numbers of weaker