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Teaching L2 Learners How to Listen Does Make a Difference: An Empirical Study

Teaching L2 Learners How to Listen Does Make a Difference: An Empirical Study Researcher: Larry Vandergrift (University of Ottawa ) Advisor: Raung-fu Chung Presenter: King-lung Hsiao. Outline 1. Introduction 2. Literature Review 3. Methodology 4. Results and Discussions

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Teaching L2 Learners How to Listen Does Make a Difference: An Empirical Study

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  1. Teaching L2 Learners How to Listen Does Make a Difference:An Empirical Study Researcher: Larry Vandergrift (University of Ottawa) Advisor: Raung-fu ChungPresenter: King-lung Hsiao

  2. Outline 1. Introduction 2. Literature Review 3. Methodology 4. Results and Discussions 5. Conclusions and Implications 6. My Comments

  3. 1. Introduction

  4. 1.1 Background (1) listening comprehension (L1---straightforward vs. L2---frustration) Listening comprehension may seem relatively straightforward to native language (L1) speakers but it is often a source of frustration for second and foreign language (L2) learners (Graham, 2006).

  5. (2) the integrated instruction for listening (individual strategy vs. integrated instruction) The focus has been the teaching of individual comprehension strategies, instead of the development of the overall strategic L2 reader (Grabe, 2009). There should be more focus on the integrated instruction of a sequential repertoire of strategies to help L2 learners develop comprehension skills for real-life listening (Berne, 2004; Mendelsohn, 1994; Vandergrift, 2004).

  6. 1.2 Questions (1) Can L2 listeners, who acquired this complex skill so seemingly effortlessly in L1, be taught how to listen in L2? (2) Would attention to the processes of listening lead to better comprehension outcomes?

  7. 1.3 Motivation (1) Questions such as these have received little attention in the research literature on listening comprehension. (2) Little attention has been focused on systematic practice in L2 listening (see DeKeyser, 2007)

  8. 1.4 The Goal (a metacognitive process-based approach) This study investigated the effects of a metacognitive, process-based approach to teaching second language (L2) listening.

  9. 2. Literature Review

  10. 2.1 Research on FacilitatingL2 Listening (positive effects on listening performance) (1) pre-listening activities ---manipulating certain variables related to listening (Goh, 2002) ---prior knowledge (Long, 1990; Schmidt-Rinehart, 1994) ---visuals (Ginther, 2002; Seo, 2002)

  11. ---video clips (Wilberschied & Berman, 2004) ---advance organizers (Chung, 2002; Herron, Cole, York, & Linden, 1998) ---question type (Flowerdew & Miller, 2005) ---question preview (Elkhafaifi, 2005)

  12. (2) contextualization ---captions (Markham, Peter, & McCarthy, 2001) ---pictorial support and written annotations (Jones & Plass, 2002) ---digital stories (Verdugo & Belmonte, 2007)

  13. (3) fostering bottom-up processing ---adjusting the speech rate (Zhao, 1997) ---repeating the oral text (Elkafaifi, 2005; Jensen & Vinther, 2003; Zhao, 1997) --- providing L2 subtitles (Stewart & Pertusa, 2004) ---attending to prosodic features (Harley, 2000) This body of research has demonstrated that L2 learners can be taught to use a number of cues to facilitate their comprehension of oral texts.

  14. 2.2 Metacognition and Listening (1) metacognition (knowledge & capacity) Metacognition involves both knowledge of cognitive processes and the capacity to monitor, regulate, and orchestrate these processes (Flavell,1976).

  15. (2) metacognitive knowledge (factors & ability) Metacognitive knowledge consists primarily of knowledge and beliefs about the factors (task, person, and strategic) that interact during any cognitive activity (Flavell, 1979); however, the ability to apply this knowledge is as important as the knowledge itself (Nelson, 1996; Sternberg, 1998).

  16. (3) application of metacognitive knowledge (a mental characteristic) Application of metacognitive knowledge is a mental characteristic shared by successful learners; in fact, metacognition accounts for a relatively high percentage of variance in learning performance (e.g., Veenman & Spaans, 2005; Veenman, Van Hout-Walters, & Afflerbach, 2006).

  17. stages of listening instruction & underlying metacognitive processes

  18. 2.3 Three Hypotheses---(1) final performance the experimental group > the control group The group receiving the experimental treatment (following Field, 2001, and Vandergrift, 2003b) will outperform the control group on the final test of listening comprehension.

  19. 2.3 Three Hypotheses---(2) improvement (a) less skilled learners in experimentalgroup > more skilled learners in experimentalgroup (b) less skilled learners in experimental group > less skilled & more skilled learners in control group The less skilled listeners in the experimental group (following Goh and Taib, 2006, and Vandergrift, 1997) will show the greatest improvement in listening comprehension achievement. More specifically, the less skilled listeners in the experimental group will demonstrate a greater improvement in listening comprehension achievement than the three other groups (i.e., greater than their more skilled counterparts and greater than both the more skilled and the less skilled learners in the control group).

  20. 2.3 Three Hypotheses---(3)MALQ growth (Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaire) the greatest growth: the less skilled learners in experimental group The less skilled listeners in the experimental group will demonstrate the greatest growth in metacognitive awareness of listening, as measured by the MALQ (Vandergrift et al., 2006).

  21. 3. Methodology

  22. 3.1 Participants (1) the participants ---106 students (FSL) 106 university-level students of French as a second language (FSL) drawn from 6 classes (2 high-beginner & 4 low-intermediate) ---two groups the control group (47 participants) the experimental group (59 participants)

  23. ---classified (performance on the listening pretest) the more skilled learners (scoring > the mean 14) the less skilled learners (scoring < the mean 14)

  24. (2) two instructors ---the same instructor (control & experimental group) the same instructor taught both of the control group and the experimental group ---different teaching methodology the teaching methodology for listening differed ---the same texts both groups listened to the same texts ---observation by an assistant both groups were observed on a continuous basis by a research assistant

  25. 3.2 Instruments-(1) measuring listening achievement (1) FSL Placement Test (Weinberg, 1995) Listening achievement was measured using Version A of the listening section of the university’s FSL Placement Test.

  26. ---subtests (a) questions followed by potential multiple choice (MC) responses (7 points, beginner level) (b) atelephone conversation followed by two MC questions (novice-low) (c) adialogue between two students followed by three MC questions (novice-low) (d) an advertisement followed by four MC questions (novice-high) (e) a radio interview followed by five MC responses (intermediate level)

  27. ---the types of listening tested (Buck, 2001) (a) choosingcontextually appropriate responses (first part) (b) processing texts of realisticspoken language to understand linguistic information unequivocally included in the text and to make inferences implicated by the content of the text (parts 2–5)

  28. 3.2 Instruments-(2) measuring change in metacognitive knowledge (2) the MALQ (Vandergrift et al., 2006) Change in metacognitive knowledge about listening was measured using the MALQ (Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaire) which consists of 21 randomly ordered items related to L2 listening comprehension.

  29. MALQ (Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaire)

  30. ---five factors related to listening performance (a) planning & evaluation: how listeners prepare themselves for listening and evaluate the results of their listening efforts (b) problem solving: inferenceon what is not understood and monitoring those inferences (c) directed attention: how listeners concentrate, stay on task, and focus their listening efforts (d) mental translation: the ability to use mental translation parsimoniously (e) person knowledge: learner perceptions concerning how they learn best, the difficulty presented by L2 listening, and their self-efficacyin L2 listening

  31. 3.3 Procedure

  32. main differences

  33. 4. Results and Discussions

  34. 4.1 Main Findings Hypotheses 1 --- final performance the experimental group > the control group The group receiving the experimental treatment (following Field, 2001, and Vandergrift, 2003b) will outperform the control group on the final test of listening comprehension.

  35. means & standard deviations for listening achievement as a function of treatment & listening level (two-factor ANCOVA) the estimated marginal means on the final listening test scores, the experimental group (19.11) & the control group (18.4), the experimental group outperformed the control group

  36. Hypotheses 1 --- final performance the experimental group > the control group (confirmed)

  37. Hypotheses 2 --- improvement (a) less skilled learners in experimental group > more skilled learners in experimental group (b) less skilled learners in experimental group > less skilled & more skilled learners in control group The less skilled listeners in the experimental group (following Goh and Taib, 2006, and Vandergrift, 1997) will show the greatest improvement in listening comprehension achievement. More specifically, the less skilled listeners in the experimental group will demonstrate a greater improvement in listening comprehension achievement than the three other groups.

  38. L2 listening success as a function of group & listening level with pre-listening as a covariate (two-factor ANCOVA) 1. these differences were statisticallysignificant (F =3.39, η2 =.30, p < .05), suggesting that metacognitive instruction resulted in the variance in L2 listening achievement between the two groups indicating a very strong effect

  39. 2. the less skilled learners in the experimental group (M =18.9) outperformed the less skilled listeners in the control group (M =17.8 ), statisticallysignificant (p =.00???)

  40. 3. the less skilled listeners in the experimental group (M =18.9) showed greater improvement than the more skilled listeners in the experimental group (M =19.4), statisticallysignificant(p =.00???)

  41. 4. the more skilled listeners in the experimental group (M =19.4) was slightly higher than that of the more skilled listeners in the control group (M =18.9), results of the pairwise comparisons did not show any differences (p =.07???)

  42. Hypotheses 2 --- improvement (a) less skilled learners in experimental group > more skilled learners in experimental group (b) less skilled learners in experimental group > less skilled & more skilled learners in control group (confirmed)

  43. Hypotheses 3 --- MALQ growth the greatest growth: the less skilled learners in experimental group in five factors (problem solving, planning and evaluation, directed attention, mental translation, and person knowledge) The less skilled listeners in the experimental group will demonstrate the greatest growth in metacognitive awareness of listening, as measured by the MALQ (Vandergrift et al., 2006).

  44. univariate tests on components of metacognition (repeated-measure ANOVA) it revealed significant effects for Time, in the case of Planning and Evaluation (F =6.022, p =.016) and Person Knowledge(F =7.29, p =.008)

  45. univariate tests on components of metacognition (repeated-measure ANOVA) Timewas qualified by a significant interaction with Group for only two of the dependent variables: Problem Solving (F =2.937, p =.042) and Mental Translation (F =3.212, p =.026)

  46. estimated marginal means comparing Problem Solving and Mental Translation for the four groups +.68 +.26 -.16 -.05 the less skilled listeners in the experimental group significantly outperformed their more skilled counterparts in the experimental group (p =.00???), as well as the less and more skilled listeners in the control group (p =.042; p =.00???) in Problem Solving

  47. estimated marginal means comparing Problem Solving and Mental Translation for the four groups +.26 +.23 -.35 -.30 it suggested an increase for all listeners in the experimental group, but a decrease for all listeners in the controlgroup

  48. estimated marginal means comparing Problem Solving and Mental Translation for the four groups +.23 -.35 tukeypost hoc tests revealed that the difference in performance was only significant when performance on Mental Translation for the less skilled listenersin the control group was compared to that of the moreskilled listeners in the experimental group (p =.03???)

  49. 1. metacognitive process-based approach vs. listening (benefit) the results provide further empirical evidence for the benefits of raising learners’ metacognitive awareness by guiding students through the process of listening 2. less skilled learners (benefit particularly) the results reveal that this type of listening instruction can be particularly useful for less skilled listeners 3. growth (experimental group > control group in PS & MT) in metacognitive knowledge of listening, listeners in the experimental group demonstrated growth in Problem Solving and Mental Translation compared to their counterparts in the control group

  50. Hypotheses 3 --- MALQ growth the greatest growth: the less skilled learners in experimental group (partly confirmed)

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