This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of two types of enhanced pre-listening supports in the context of Taiwanese junior-high schools. Two treatment intervention and one control intervention were randomly assigned to three intact classes. Students’ previous achievement test scores were used as baseline data, and they were statistically controlled for analysis purposes. Each class was engaged in two listening tasks which were given in a counterbalanced order. After the treatment, each class received an immediate listening comprehension check. Summary of the order of assessment is presented as below:
Table 3-5: Summary of the Assessment Order
BK Class KV Class Control Class
Listening passage 1 Listening passage 2 Listening passage 1 Listening passage 2 Listening passage 1 Listening passage 2 Note: BK= Background Knowledge; KV= Key Vocabulary
For the present study, there are two independent variables: (1) types of pre-listening supports and (2) participants’ proficiency level. The first independent variable includes (a) enhanced background knowledge pre-instruction: participants learned the topic first, read six main-scene summary statements which may be true or false, and involved in a teacher-led discussion; (b) enhanced key vocabulary pre-teaching: participants learned the key words with L1-L2 word pair and pictorial depictions and involved in the key-word sentence practice. (c) Control: participants did not receive any pre-listening support; they simply engaged in textbook CD listening. The second independent variable is participants’ proficiency level.
Participants in each class were grouped into High and Low sub-groups according to their three in-school term-exam scores in their previous academic year.
The present study has one dependent variable measured by a multiple-choice immediate post-listening comprehension test. Each multiple-choice test contains six questions; the questions include direct meaning comprehension questions (e.g.
understanding main-idea) and inferred meaning comprehension questions (e.g.
making inferences) (Weir, 1993).
Finally, in order to understand better participants’ affective responses toward different types of treatments, open-ended questionnaires were distributed after listening comprehension tests. Participants were encouraged to respond freely without time limit.
3.4 Procedures
The experiments in this study were conducted in regular class periods (45 minutes per class) in two consecutive classes. Before the treatment, the instructor (the researcher) informed participants of the academic nature and purposes of the study and ensured them that the listening scores would not be included in their regular grade calculation. For the enhanced background knowledge class, the instructor announced the topic of the listening passage first and provided participants with 6 true/false main-scene summary sentences in both oral and written form. This presentation stage took up 8 minutes or so. Without offering participants any hints or answers to whether these summary sentences are accurate or not, the instructor led participants to hypothesize and discuss their speculations about the upcoming listening input. This production and practice stage lasted for about 4 minutes. Therefore, in total, this pre-listening support activity lasted for 12 minutes or so. Afterwards, the participants listened to the first listening passage twice without interruption or help from the
instructor. Following it, the immediate listening comprehension-check test was given to students to finish in 4 minutes. Then, the instructor resumed her regular class instruction and repeated the same treatment process with the second listening passage in the next class. Finally, the participants were asked to fill out an open-ended questionnaire without time limit.
For the enhanced key vocabulary pre-teaching class, the research procedure was basically the same, except for the pre-listening stage. The instructor first gave instruction on words by using flashcards. On one side of the flashcard is the word pair—L2 target word and its L1 translation; on the other side is its pictorial depiction.
The instructor showed students the pictorial information first, asked them to guess what the word is, and then checked the answer by turning to the other side. In the meanwhile, the instructor taught students word pronunciation and asked for their choral repetition first and individual repetition later on. Each vocabulary was introduced with an unhurried pace. This presentation stage, just as that for background knowledge class, took up 8 minutes. After that, in the practice and production stage (also lasting for 4 minutes as that in the background class), the participants were offered a worksheet, on which are independent sentence examples with key vocabulary deleted. Participants were asked to choose from a provided word bank the most appropriate word and fill it in the right sentence. This served as a review of the newly-learned vocabulary and it was also a chance for students to see those words in meaningful contexts. After the sentence practice, participants listened for the second listening passage twice and did the comprehension test. The same procedure was repeated again in next class period, where students listened for the first passage.
Finally, the participants were also asked to fill out an open-ended questionnaire without time limit.
For control class, same procedure as the above mentioned was repeated, except
that participants listened to the textbook CD at the pre-listening stage without any teacher instruction. Summary of the three treatments is presented in table 3-6:
Table 3-6: Summary of Treatments
Enhanced
Listen Twice Listen Twice Listen Twice
After-listening:
Note that the procedures and the time spent in every step were strictly followed in three classes so as to reduce possible bias.