Chapter 4 Results and Discussion
4.2 Influence of the Assistance from NESTs on Students’ Different Listening
Comprehension Skills
Question 2: Do the effects of having NESTs as English Teaching Assistants vary by
different listening comprehension skills?
On the whole, participants with more than three years of NESTs’ assistance
perform better throughout the entire test. That is, the average scores participants with
more than three years of NESTs’ assistance received in every part of the test were fairly
higher than those with less than a year NESTs’ assistance. Table 10 illustrates the
findings of the descriptive statistic of less-than-a-year NESTs’ assisting group and
more-than-three-year NESTs’ assisting group in each test part. The statistically
significant differences of the listening comprehension performance in each part
between less than a year of NESTs assistance group and more than three of NESTs
assistance group were reported in Table 11. The differences between the groups in Part
One is slightly smaller than the other parts; however, it has almost reached statistically
48
significant differences (t=-1.95, p<.051).
Table 10. Descriptive Statistic of Less-than-a-year NESTs Assistance Group and More-than-three-year NESTs Assistant Group in Each Test Part
Part Group N Mean S.D. Min. Max.
49
50
Part Six Less-than-a-year NESTs Assistance
278 1.58 1.67 0 5
More-than-three-year NESTs Assistance
304 2.18 1.77 0 5
51
Table 11. Difference of Less-than-a-year NESTs Assistance Group and More-than-three-year NESTs Assistant Group in Each Test Part
Part Mean
Generally speaking, the listening competence that participants should perform
throughout the present communicative test matches the two major communicative
listening sub-skills that were proposed by Weir (1993) in the taxonomy of
communicative listening sub-skills, including (1) direct meaning comprehension, such
as listening for the main idea(s) or important information, being able to distinguish from
supporting detail, or being able to listen for specifics, and being able to include a recall
of important details, and (2) inferred meaning comprehension, such as deducing the
meaning of unfamiliar lexical items from context, recognizing the communicative
function of utterances, relating utterances to their social and situational contexts.
52
In Part One, according to the rubric of the listening test, participants should be able
to deduct the meaning of unfamiliar lexical items from context (Weir, 1993). Once the
students heard the keywords such as lion, monkey, dog, they could draw lines from the
names of the children to the corresponding figures on the picture. Most of the keywords
for the correct answers were already learned by the participants and the directions to
the right answers are rather straightforward. It should, however, be noted that even
though the listening comprehension test used in the present study was adapted from
standardized tests and the vocabulary had been tailored into elementary level following
the elementary vocabulary list proposed by the MOE, some of the keywords to the
correct answers remained unchanged such as “crocodile” and “lizard” in order to reflect
the authenticity of communicating in English. After all, one cannot expect to understand
every single word in an authentic conversation or listening passage (Morrow, 1979).
Participants with the more years of NESTs’ assistance achieved higher mean
scores in Part One than their counterparts. In order to get the correct answer, participants
should be able to perform inferred meaning comprehension, namely deducting the
meaning of unfamiliar lexical items from context (Weir, 1993). For example, they
should be able to know the boy who was drawing a crocodile is next to the girl who is
drawing a monkey. Even though the participants might not know the word “crocodile,”
the participants should be able to understand the context that “the boy is next to the girl.”
53
When analyzing the classroom observation reports, we also found that NESTs would
use English to give instructions such as “Turn in your paper,” and “Time’s up,” or
“Markers down,” and so on. Although students might not understand the exact meaning,
they were able to infer from the context (Buck, 2001). In the class observation report,
students also pointed out that when they did not understand what the NESTs were
talking about, they would just make a guess based on the task they were doing. When
they took the correct action, the NESTs would smile and praise. As a result, NESTs
seemed to be good at getting learners to participate and arouse their willingness to illicit
or guess meaning from the context (Benke & Medgyes, 2005). It seems that NESTs do
facilitate L2 learners to comprehend the target language in real-life situations (Rogers
& Medley, 1988) for they had built up the ability to deduce the meaning judging from
the given context or situation.
In Part Three, participants should also be able to perform inferring meaning
comprehension. To be more specific, Part Three required test-takers to relate utterances
to their social and situational contexts (Weir, 1993). Once the participants heard the
question words such as what, how many, which, they should choose the correct answer
judging from the given situational context in the listening test. The data showed the
participants with more-than-three-year of NESTs’ assistance had done better on this
part than the participants with less-than-a-year of NESTs’ assistance. This might
54
address that participants from more-than-three-year of NESTs’ assistance group had
gradually developed the tendency of listening carefully as soon as the NESTs started
asking questions, for it was important to hear the very first word of a question due to
the longer length of interacting with the NESTs than their counterparts. Some
researchers also found that NESTs focused more on listening and speaking (Lin, 2008;
Medgyes, 1999). Such finding is in consistent with the results of the present study and
classroom observation. As the classroom observation reports stated, NESTs usually
started the class with greetings and daily routine questions. The NEST asked the
students about the day and a student replied but not in the way the NEST wanted. The
teacher corrected the student by restating the correct answer. Upon hearing the NEST’s
answer, the students laughed. Although the laughter was a small gesture, it showed that
the students were becoming aware of the NEST’s expected answers. The NEST did not
correct the student by pointing out the misunderstanding of the question, neither did the
NEST ask the student to refer to the textbook for what they have already learned. The
NEST we observed was being friendly and encouraging to get learners to speak, which
is in line with the finding of the previous study (Benke & Medgyes, 2005). The students
were experiencing the language which is used for real communication by native
speakers (Rogers & Medley, 1988). Therefore, students with more years of NESTs were
better at performing inferred meaning in the listening test as they had more chances to
55
practice with the NESTs class.
In Part Two, Four, Five and Six, although most of the keywords were learned
(foods, color, etc.), participants could not get the correct answer before listening to the
entire conversation which takes time and patience. Participants were expected to: (1)
listen for specifics, including a recall of important details in Part Two (2) listen for the
main idea(s) or important information; and identification of supporting detail or
examples in Part Four and Six (3) determine a speaker’s attitude or intention towards a
listener or a topic in Part Five base on the rubric of the listening test (Weir, 1993). The
results showed the participants with more-than-three-year of NESTs’ assistance had
done better on all the above-mentioned parts than the participants with less-than-a-year
of NESTs’ assistance. It might suggest that with the presence of the NESTs, students
have more opportunities to encounter authentic English in real life such as listening to
class instructions and listening to longer spoken content (Benke & Medgyes, 2005).
During the classroom observation analysis, we found that participants with fewer
years of NESTs’ assistance tended to be quieter and less active; they were not interested
nor participative in the activities or games that the NESTs prepared. Most of the
participants sat quietly and listened with hardly any facial expression. Furthermore,
they only spoke when they were asked to. When they did speak, they usually spoke
very quietly and uttered very simple answers. They relied more on the translation of the
56
NNESTs as they were more aware of the learning difficulties and needs of the students
(Florence Ma, 2012). On the other hand, participants with more years of NESTs’
assistance seemed much more involved in the classroom. There were more responses
from the participants to NESTs while engaging in classroom tasks. For example, some
participants would respond to the NEST and also help with classroom management.
And the participants would all keep quiet and pay attention to the instructions. In
addition, NESTs often took time to have small chats with the students and showed their
care. From the learners’ response, it was observed that the students were very happy to
share and tell the NEST about themselves. For example, one NEST asked about the
learners’ dance performance and congratulated them on their good work before she
began her class. There were many other small chats during the class time where the
NESTs would ask learners about their tests, performances and school life in general. It
seemed that NEST would make an effort to become more interactive with the students
by asking about their lives and provide supports such as words in English when needed
(Florence Ma, 2012; Poon & Higginbottom, 2000). The learners, on the other hand,
were not shy to respond and report about their current situation in English.
Previous studies have found that learners that had been previously taught by
NNESTs showed more positive attitudes towards NNESTs (Moussu, 2010). According
to Moussu (2010), variables such as teacher-contact time, students’ first language, class
57
subject, and teachers’ countries of origin significantly affected learners’ attitude
towards their teachers; thus, learners’ preference influences their relationship with the
NESTs. Contrary to the studies that have found in the past on how NESTs were more
distant from the learners than the local teachers, this study found that the NESTs made
efforts in becoming closer to learners by chatting more with them. From the learners’
responses, it seemed that the strategy was quite effective as the learners were found to
appreciate the time interacting with NESTs even though they could not understand fully
what the NESTs were talking about but they would try hard to get the main idea from
the context by making a guess or discussing with other learners. It is believed that
NESTs do facilitate L2 learners to comprehend the target language in real life situations
(Rogers & Medley, 1988) and improve learners’ listening comprehension by providing
both top-down, such as training learners to get the key message of a given task in the
classroom, and bottom-up process opportunities, such as providing vocabulary supports
when interacting with them. In short, it seems that participants with more years of
NESTs’ assistance were more likely to develop a tolerance for long unknown
information, which is similar to the types of conversations participants encountered in
the present communicative listening test. This might be the reason why participants
with more-than-three-year of NESTs’ assistance performed significantly better than
their counterparts did in different Parts of the listening test in this study. Through
58
continuous exposure to listening training, NESTs might have helped training students’
ability to concentrate and tolerate unfamiliar words and sentences in English learning
especially listening comprehension (Buck, 1995; Field, 2010; Goh, 2002; Rubin, 2004;
Vandergrift, 2007).
59
Chapter 5
Conclusion
5.1 Summary and Implication of the Findings
The present study mainly examined the effectiveness of NESTs’ input on younger
learners in Taiwan by applying a communicative listening test. The participants were
recruited from different parts of Taiwan including the North, the East, the Middle, the
South, and the offshore islands in order to reflect the overall picture in Taiwan. The
scores of the listening test were collected and analyzed statistically.
In general, NESTs had a positive effect on students’ English listening ability,
which was shown in the improvement of participants’ listening comprehension test
scores throughout the six areas investigated in the present study. Such result is in line
with the previously reviewed studies that having NESTs and NNESTs to co-teach can
make a better learning environment thus improves students’ English learning. It seems
that the benefits gained from the assistance of NESTs, especially in terms of improving
learner’s listening comprehension skills, may address that such assistance in whichever
co-teaching model is beneficial to students in Taiwan. Furthermore, the participants
with three years or more years of NESTs assistance not only showed improvement in
the mean scores of the entire listening test, but also outperformed their counterparts in
every part of the listening test. Such finding might suggest that NESTs facilitate L2
60
learners to comprehend the target language in real-life situations and help trained
students’ ability to concentrate and tolerate unfamiliar words and sentences in English
learning. Bearing the findings of the annual reports presented by the co-teaching
programs, and studies conducted by researchers (e.g. Herbert & Wu, 2009; Lin, 2017;
Tsai, 2005; Wu, 2015) and the present study in mind, it seems that NESTs not only
motivated students (Gardner, 1985; Dörnyei, 2005), lessened their learning anxiety, but
also improved their listening abilities (Wu, 2015). Thus, the impact NESTs make on the
learning of English for Taiwanese students cannot be neglected.
5.2 Limitations and Suggestions for Future Study
Although the present study has shown findings with a positive effect on students’
listening comprehension with the assistance of NESTs, especially for those with more
than three years of instruction of NESTs, there are limitations that should be considered.
First of all, we cannot ignore other potential factors that might also affect students’
listening comprehension achievement, such as test-taker variables (Farhady, 1982)
including their experience with test types, their weak and strong areas in language skills,
different resources and exposure of English in urban and rural areas (Chang, 2007).
However, since the goal of the present study is to gain a general understanding of the
students’ listening ability under the guidance of NESTs in a co-teaching module, the
large sample size of this study and the statistical analysis of the data might be sufficient
61
to provide a general pattern of students’ listening performance regardless of other
possible influential factors. Second, the main focus of the present study is analyzed
quantitatively. Although statistical data could provide a general picture of how NESTs
help improve students’ listening ability in English, qualitative data, such as interviews,
classroom observations, questionnaires, might give us a more holistic view of the
impact of the NESTs.
Considering the limitations of the present study, suggestions for future research
are addressed as follows. First of all, the listening test could be shortened in order to
rule out the potential attention span issue. For example, the instruction of the tests could
be either in just Chinese or English. Even though the actual testing parts took up around
20 minutes, the participants were still under the pressure of “taking a test” when
listening to the instruction. In order to exclude the potential attention span issue, it is
suggested that we should take as many test-taker variables as possible into
consideration when administering a test. Secondly, qualitative data should be collected
in each of the areas through interviews and classroom observations to explore how
specifically NESTs influence students in terms of improving their English listening
ability. Last but not least, observations on NESTs themselves could be explored
including their gender, characteristics, and their beliefs of education so that more can
62
be understood in terms of the type of NESTs that contribute most to English learning
in Taiwan. In other words, ETAs could be the subject of future study.
63
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