The Pedagogical Innovations Reading Group met on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 to discuss listening strategies in a second language course through Michael Yeldham and Paul Gruba’s article “The development of individual learners in an L2 listening strategies course” (Language Teaching Research, 2014).
Yeldham and Gruba followed four low-proficiency English learners at a Taiwanese university who voluntarily enrolled in a lunch-hour course to improve their listening comprehension. During the first week, the listening strategies course introduced students to a “menu” of listening strategies. Subsequent meetings were used to practice the strategies, which were embedded in the class listening texts (“embedded” approach). During the listening practices, students could choose the strategy they felt was most beneficial for them. This embedded approach fostered a more student-centered environment that encouraged students to self-monitor their learning process.
The study measured the students’ listening proficiency before, during, and after the course, using quantitative (e.g., vocabulary level tests, listening tests, etc.) and qualitative (e.g., journal entries, verbal reports, questionnaires, etc.) measures to gather data. Results showed that by the end of the course, students had improved overall in their use of listening strategies and in their motivation towards language learning. The researchers noted that students were using a variety of listening strategies in a more balanced fashion, were using more metacognitive strategies, and were more persistent regarding challenging listening tasks and extracurricular activities (e.g., watching difficult English movies, etc.). Also notable was one student’s improvement in her comprehension monitoring to identify and correct her faulty hypothesis about a text’s content.
The question remains whether or not other factors such as concurrent English courses and previous knowledge base of listening strategies could have influenced the students’ test scores. The reading group also noted that, unfortunately, the article did not cover the teaching methods utilized by the instructor during the listening strategies course.
However, through our discussion, different instructors were able to share from their own curriculum regarding how they have used the direct and/or embedded approach to teach listening skills at lower levels. An instructor shared about her experience with peer-to-peer discussions based on a listening text, which was followed by a discussion about having students create transcriptions of their own self-recorded speeches to raise self-awareness of areas of improvement and strength.
To learn more about what we do at our PIRG meetings, please contact Caroline Vang at cevang@umn.edu.
Yeldham and Gruba followed four low-proficiency English learners at a Taiwanese university who voluntarily enrolled in a lunch-hour course to improve their listening comprehension. During the first week, the listening strategies course introduced students to a “menu” of listening strategies. Subsequent meetings were used to practice the strategies, which were embedded in the class listening texts (“embedded” approach). During the listening practices, students could choose the strategy they felt was most beneficial for them. This embedded approach fostered a more student-centered environment that encouraged students to self-monitor their learning process.
The study measured the students’ listening proficiency before, during, and after the course, using quantitative (e.g., vocabulary level tests, listening tests, etc.) and qualitative (e.g., journal entries, verbal reports, questionnaires, etc.) measures to gather data. Results showed that by the end of the course, students had improved overall in their use of listening strategies and in their motivation towards language learning. The researchers noted that students were using a variety of listening strategies in a more balanced fashion, were using more metacognitive strategies, and were more persistent regarding challenging listening tasks and extracurricular activities (e.g., watching difficult English movies, etc.). Also notable was one student’s improvement in her comprehension monitoring to identify and correct her faulty hypothesis about a text’s content.
The question remains whether or not other factors such as concurrent English courses and previous knowledge base of listening strategies could have influenced the students’ test scores. The reading group also noted that, unfortunately, the article did not cover the teaching methods utilized by the instructor during the listening strategies course.
However, through our discussion, different instructors were able to share from their own curriculum regarding how they have used the direct and/or embedded approach to teach listening skills at lower levels. An instructor shared about her experience with peer-to-peer discussions based on a listening text, which was followed by a discussion about having students create transcriptions of their own self-recorded speeches to raise self-awareness of areas of improvement and strength.
To learn more about what we do at our PIRG meetings, please contact Caroline Vang at cevang@umn.edu.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.