This study aims at exploring the influence of autonomous listening in regards to competence in listening comprehension and perceptions of the very program as well as listening per se. Based on these two matters, the findings from Chapter Four are examined through two research questions. The first research question is whether students’ listening performance varies when they receive different listening methodology; the second research question is how their perception of listening and learning listening diverge if they are instructed through different listening approaches.
To begin with, how students achieved on their listening comprehension tests was
inspected. In the pretests, the average scores of the three groups did not differ greatly, while in the posttests, the average scores did not differ significantly either. However, the GAL group demonstrated the greatest progress and had the largest number of the lower achievers who made progress. The standard deviation, at the same time, did not widen due to the escalation of curriculum difficulty level accordingly. The control group made a moderate progress; the AL group the least.
Subsequently, the effects of different listening curriculum on students acquiring listening ability were investigated in a more detailed manner from three parts: the perceptions of the curriculum itself, the attainment in their listening, and the self-identification of listening
obstacles.
Firstly for EFL learners, the exposure of spoken target language is quite limited, and therefore both experimental groups considered their most tremendous advancement lied in the ability to keep up with the delivery rate after the ten-week intervention that offered abundant input. They were more accustomed to the prosody of the target language as well, including the pronunciation of single words and the intonation of sentences or conversations.
Furthermore, via the assistance of multimedia, the lexicons or expressions they picked up were more likely to be engraved in their memories. On the contrary, since the input for the control group was mainly the contents in their textbooks and presented in the form of
listening comprehension, they did not recognize any particular aspects that they made great progress in. Yet compared to the two experimental groups, they stated they obtained more techniques for taking a listening test.
As for what troubles learners in their listening, a distinctive pattern was observed because of the different curriculum implementation. For the control group, the listening exercises were mostly from their textbooks, and the course was generally conducted by the instructor, thus the proportions of each type of difficulty were quite equally distributed. But something critical can be deduced from other types of problems the control group proposed:
how to maintain their attention in the flow of listening and how to understand the questions and give correct answers bothered them seriously. Many of them also admitted that they found themselves just could not follow the spoken language in real time anyway. On the contrary, the obviously higher chance of encountering unknown words was the chief
predicament for the experimental groups, which was extremely hard to overcome. With the guidance from their teacher, however, the situation for the GAL group was less stringent than that for the AL group.
In terms of the perceptions of curriculum, under the restriction of fixed class progress
and the uniformity of studying contents, there was little room for flexibility and
individualization for the control group. The advanced reflected dullness in the later period, while the left-behind could not absorb knowledge effectively for these set rules. In contrast, the experimental groups gave high evaluation to autonomous listening because they were able to decide on their learning pace and enjoy a variety of listening materials. The main benefits they put forward contained: a) richer, substantial learning contents were offered, b) the right to choose made them more attentive and motivated, c) they got to learn in a more suitable, personalized way, and d) they became less pressured in class and more confident in speaking, etc.
Nevertheless, the varied degree of teacher engagement deeply influenced how they perceived their learning productivity. For the AL group, they felt inconvenience and inefficiency, and they lacked strong motivation and specific direction for learning due to the absence of constant teacher assistance. That is, during the lessons, sometimes learning were impeded for the unfamiliar operation of the websites, sometimes few appropriate, decent materials could be accessed, and the awareness of learning differed enormously from person to person. Somehow a waste of learning time was thus produced. After school, very few of the AL members devoted their effort to listening on their own. In contrast, having the regular assistance and encouragement from the teacher, the GAL group was more skilled at making good use of the online resources, better to adapt the techniques to their needs, and studied more effectively and efficiently. Since the listening hours from the GAL group exceeded that from their AL counterparts, we may claim that their motivation seemed to persist for a longer period of time.
Even though distinct improvement in listening was not found after the ten-week
experiment from the comparison among the groups, it is not to say that autonomous listening was not applicable. Based on the finding of this study, it presents a substantial positive
effect in terms of the affective domain. It is appreciated that autonomous listening contributed enormously to motivation increase and anxiety decrease. That is, fueling the enthusiasm for language learning is where the value of autonomous listening resides.