Two major pedagogical implications can be drawn from the present study. First, it is of absolute importance to introduce to students that listening is a multidirectional process, comprising interaction with many factors. Questionnaire responses in this study have shown that many learners falsely believe that the amount of vocabulary knowledge is the only factor conducive to good listening comprehension. What’s worse, most of them mistakenly believe that only when one understands every single
word from the listening text can he claim that he “understand” the passage and can answer correctly all the listening questions. In addition, most of the students have no idea that pre-listening teaching is in fact one crucial part of a listening process, which can help them prepare for the listening tasks and achieve better comprehension.
Because of these inaccurate assumptions and beliefs, it is very common to see students give up so quickly once they hear one unfamiliar word from the passage and even develop negative/pessimistic attitudes toward listening. Therefore, if teachers could incorporate the pre-listening support into instruction, they can demonstrate the idea that listening is interactive and process-oriented. They could guide their students to better deal with listening tasks instead of leaving them alone with nothing to resort to. In such a facilitative fashion, there is a better chance that learners are nurtured with correct conceptions and more positive attitudes and motivations toward listening.
Second, the pre-listening supports can be made a part of an integrated course.
More and more research have been advocating the benefits of integrated curriculum, in which several skills are called into use that they reinforce one another and result in better learning effects. Take for example the target pre-listening supports in this study.
Background knowledge class is provided with some L1-L2 main-scene sentences. In fact, teachers could give students only L2 sentences in intermediate-level classes and use them as the substitution of short reading. For more advanced learners, teachers could replace the main-scene sentences with a reading article relevant to the listening topic. In this way, reading and listening are integrated to boost the learning effects and students will be more tuned to deal with listening tasks.
6.3 Limitations
The findings of the present study indicate two major limitations. The first one is concerned with the listening materials used as prompts in the present study. With a
purpose to increase test reliability, two listening passages were chosen. Efforts were made to select the texts that were equivalent in terms of topic, difficulty level, length of passage in words, length of passage in minutes, speech rate, and the number of unfamiliar words. The chosen passages were similar in most of the criteria, except for the topic—“Easter Eggs” versus “A Christmas Party” (For a detailed review, refer to Chapter Three). Although both topics deal with western holidays, it seems that the latter is comparatively more familiar to Taiwanese students. Therefore, other topics involving western holidays, such as “Thanksgiving” or “Halloween”, may be better choices for future studies.
The second major limitation of this study is the scale of the experiment. A total of ninety-nine students, from three intact classes, are recruited. But they are all from the same junior high school in the same county. Therefore, more diverse student composition and learning contexts are called upon to testify the findings in this study.
In addition, only two listening passages of the same genre are used as the measurement of student’s comprehension. Different types of genres and more listening tasks are needed to further examine the results.
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Appendix I
Listening Task One: Easter Eggs Topic: Easter Eggs
Broadcast Date: 11th, Apr. 2007.
Difficulty Level: Medium Total Words：162
New/Unfamiliar Words: 8 (as indicated by underlined words)
Conversation A
Nate: What are you going to do with these eggs? Scramble or fry them?
Tess: No. We’re going to have an Easter egg hunt around the neighborhood.
Cindy: It’s for kids. But you can watch.
Nate: I’ll be working. So keep the kids out of my store, please.
Conversation B
Nate: Why do people have eggs at Easter, anyway?
Josie: Eggs are a symbol of new life.
Nate: New life? Because baby chickens grow in the eggs?
Zack: (laughs) I guess so.
Cindy: Eww.
Zack: Nate, do you know the Easter story?
Nate: Is it about the Easter bunny?
Tess: No. It’s about Jesus.
Conversation C
Nate: What about Jesus?
Josie: Well, he lived a long time ago. He did many good things and taught people about God.
Tess: Some people hated Jesus, so they killed him.
Nate: And that’s why we celebrate Easter?
Cindy: No. Three days later Jesus came back to life! Isn’t that cool?
Nate: Wow, yeah. Do you really believe that?
Zack: I do. Do you want to know more about it?
Nate: Maybe later. I have to get back to the store. (leaves)
Listening Task Two: A Christmas Party Topic: A Christmas Party
Broadcast Date: 26th, Dec. 2007.
Difficulty Level: Medium Total Words：170
New/Unfamiliar Words: 10 (as indicated by underlined words)
Conversation A
(A lot of people are at the community center. They are having a Christmas party.) Nate: This is a great party, Grant and Tess. Thanks for inviting me.
Tess: Well, you’re welcome, Nate.
Grant: Thanks for coming.
Josie: Christmas parties are so much fun. Everyone is having a good time.
Zack: Yeah, even Nate seems happy.
Josie: That’s good. He’s not usually in a good mood.
Zack: Well, maybe he has the Christmas spirit.
Conversation B
Eve: The community center looks so nice tonight.
Grant: Just tonight?
Eve: Oh, no, it always looks nice. I mean you did a good job decorating it.
Grant: Thank you. Tess did most of it.
Josie: You did a great job, Tess. The decorations look beautiful.
Tess: Thanks.
Grant: Tess always does a great job. I’m going to give her some of my jobs next year!
Conversation C
(A little later, Nate comes over to Eve.)
Nate: Uh, Eve? I, uh, have something for you.
Eve: Really?
Nate: Well, yeah. It’s Christmas. So, uh, here’s a gift for you.
Eve: Oh, Nate, how nice. Thanks. (opens it) A diary!
Nate: Yeah, it even has a lock and a key. So no one can read it. I, uh, I’m sorry about reading your old one.
Eve: It’s OK. I forgive you.
Nate: Thanks. Merry Christmas!
Appendix II
Background knowledge pre-teaching 背景知識的加強
Following sentences provide main-scene background knowledge in the listening task, but they may be true or false. Please decide by yourself.
(以下句子提供你聽力測驗中重要場景的背景知識，但他們可能是對的，也可能 是錯的，請自行判斷)
Topic: Easter Eggs
1. Today is Easter Day. Nate, Tess, Cindy, Josie, and Zack are talking together.
(True/False)
2. They are going to scramble the Easter eggs. (True/False)
3. They are discussing why people have eggs at Easter. (True/False) 4. They believe that Easter Day is about Easter bunny. (True/False) 5. They are talking about the Easter story. (True/False)
6. Easter Day is about how people killed Jesus. (True/False)
Teacher-led discussion
1. What is Easter Day? When is it? (什麼是 Easter？日期？)
2. What do people do to celebrate Easter Day? (人們如何慶祝復活節？)
3. Why do people have Easter eggs at Easter Day? (人們為何要有復活節彩蛋？) 4. What is the origin of Easter Day? (復活節的起源是什麼？)
5. Why do people celebrate Easter Day? (人們為什麼要慶祝復活節？) 6. What happened in the history? (歷史上發生了什麼事？)
Background knowledge pre-teaching 背景知識的加強
Following sentences provide main-scene background knowledge in the listening task, but they may be true or false. Please decide by yourself.
(以下句子提供你聽力測驗中重要場景的背景知識，但他們可能是對的，也可能 是錯的，請自行判斷)
Topic: A Christmas Party
1. Today is Christmas. Nate, Tess, Grant, Josie, Zack, and Eve are having a Christmas party at the community center. (True/False)
2. Not everyone is having a good time. (True/False) 3. The community center looks good. (True/False) 4. Only one person did the decoration job. (True/False)
5. Nate is asking Eve to give him a Christmas gift. (True/False) 6. Eve does not like the gift. (True/False)
Teacher-led discussion
1. What is Christmas? When is it? (什麼是 Christmas？日期？)
2. What do people usually do on Christmas? (人們通常在耶誕節做些什麼事？) 3. Where do people usually have Christmas party? (人們通常在哪裡舉辦派對？) 4. What are the things that people can see at a Christmas party?
(耶誕派對上通常有什麼特別的東西？) 5. What do people do at a Christmas party?
(人們在耶誕派對上會做些什麼活動？)
6. What are the reasons that people have to give a person a gift?
(送禮物給別人，通常有哪些原因？
Appendix III