Results of the Qualitative Data

4.3.1. Written Feedback of the Online Questionnaire

In agreement with the quantitative results of the online questionnaire, the Experimental Group specified the parts they found favorable or disapproving in their written feedback. As presented in Table 7, all the sensible answers were classified into three main categories, including advantages, disadvantages, and suggestions, with a few subcategories shown below.

Table 7. Categories and frequencies of written feedback on the online questionnaire.

Category N %

Advantages 29 100

Greater Familiarity with English Sounds 13 44.8

Improvement in Listening 8 27.6

Affect 4 13.8

Improvement in Overall English 2 6.9

Improvement in Self-awareness 2 6.9

Disadvantages 14 100

Too Fast 6 43.0

Too Troublesome 3 21.4

Too Many Unknown Words 2 14.3

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Too Noisy 1 7.1

Too Little Time 1 7.1

Script Remembering 1 7.1

Suggestions 16 100

Difficulty Adjustment 8 50

More Attraction 4 25

Partners 4 25

Based on the positive feedback, students claimed shadowing practice is beneficial for being familiar with English sounds and thus improving listening ability. A few students had constructive comments like, “after doing shadowing practice, I could understand those sentences that were too fast for me in the beginning.” These comments were clear evidence that students made improvement in their listening ability after shadowing practice.

On the contrary, the common difficulty students had faced was that those speakers spoke too fast to catch up with. Some of them complained that even they had practiced for many times, the speed and too many unknown words still resulted in their failure to do shadowing successfully. Also, such difficulty created stress and anxiety for those who constantly failed to do shadowing. A few of them stated that it was troublesome and tiring to do shadowing practice.

Two execution problems of the in-class shadowing practice from the written feedback were documented below. (1) During the practice time, it was too noisy in the classroom to listen to the video clips clearly. (2) The practice time was barely enough.

The followings were a few practical suggestions provided by students for future implementation: (1) Find easier materials with slower speed. (2) It will be less challenging to practice unknown words before shadowing. (3) It wasn’t appropriate to

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use the same material for mixed-level students. (4) Those materials could have been more appealing. (5) My partner would constantly disturb me, so it will be better to practice by myself. (6) I thought I could have made more progress if my partner’s English proficiency had been similar to mine.

4.3.2. Results of the Semi-structured Interviews

On the other hand, the data gathered from the focus-group interviews (N = 6) were transcribed and presented in Tables 8, 9 and 10.

As shown in Table 8, all of the interviewees had favorable impression on shadowing practice. In general, they considered doing shadowing practice a novel and intriguing experience.

Table 8. Participants’ impression on shadowing practice.

Student Comments

A1 I was a bit reluctant to do shadowing practice in the beginning; yet, it became more and more intriguing, just like dubbing movies!

A2 It was much more interesting than simply reading the textbook out loud.

A3 As long as my listening ability can be improved, it is a good method.

B1 It was a lot of fun compared to the traditional class.

B2 It was an extraordinary experience.

B3 Very special. It was interesting sometimes.

Note. A1-3 (with improvement in post-test scores), and B1-3 (without improvement).

Table 9 pointed out three interviewees’ perceptive comments on their own listening achievement. A girl named Peggy (A1), who normally got lower than 40 in her listening

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tests before, achieved the most progress among all the participants. She gleefully told the researcher that this was her first time to get a score higher than 60. She further described that the sound of English was just like an alien language in the past; however, she found she could actually comprehend some parts of the test recording this time.

Another girl named Momo (A2), who had even lower English listening ability than Peggy, also expressed her excitement at the progress she had made. She indicated that though she still had difficulty understanding the second and the third sections of the post-test, she could understand a lot more of the Picture Description section. This statement was evidenced by her gained score of the first section, which was 16. Still another boy who failed to make improvement on his post-test (B3) reported a similar situation that he could understand more of the test questions from Picture Description section.

Table 9. Students’ comments on their achievement in listening post-test.

Student Comments

A1 I found I could really understand many of the test questions. Also, it was my first time getting over 60 for the listening test.

A2 I’m so glad to see my score. Though I still couldn’t understand the questions from Section 2 and 3, I understood a lot more for Section 1.

B3 My score really sucks. But actually, I could understand more of the questions from section 1.

As Table 10 presented, 5 out of 6 interviewees expressed their willingness to use shadowing practice in the future, particularly those who gained higher scores in their post-test. Interestingly, one student claimed that they had already gotten used to the practice, so whenever she listened to English, she couldn’t help doing shadowing.

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Table 10. Participants’ willingness to use shadowing practice in the future.

Student Answer Comments

A1 Yes I will. Such practice is really interesting.

A2 Yes I can’t help doing shadowing whenever I listen to English.

A3 Yes My English listening can be improved

B1 Yes As long as I have the chance such as watching English movies or listening to English radios, I will try to shadow.

B2 I’ll try. I can kill time and improve my English at the same time.

B3 Unsure It depends.

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