Listening Texts Research Articles

A Study on the Difficulty of TOPIK Listening Texts -A Comparison between TOPIK I and II from 2014 to 2022-

A Study on the Difficulty of TOPIK Listening Texts -A Comparison between TOPIK I and II from 2014 to 2022-

A Pragmatic Study on English Listening Comprehension from the Perspective of Grice’s Conversational Implicature Theory in High School

For high school students, English listening is a crucial part of English examinations. Over the years, researchers all over the world have made significant contributions to the study of English listening, and they have found that conversational implicature theory can be applied to listening instruction to make students understand the implicit meaning of conversations. But previous studies have usually failed to summarize the main features of conversations that violate the principle of cooperation and lack corresponding suggestions for listening instruction. In this paper, the high school English listening texts related to travel will be studied from the perspective of conversational implicature theory. With careful analysis, the characteristics of the listening text are summarized. The text always adds new information, reject invitation euphemistically or using complex sentences by violating cooperative principle. In addition, a quantitative analysis of the text on the theme of "travel" that violates the cooperative principle is carried out, which leads to corresponding teaching suggestions: teachers should introduce relevant pragmatics knowledge in listening teaching, and students are obliged to pay attention to the accumulation of cultural knowledge when learning English.

Challenges in English Listening Comprehension: A Study of Public Schools in Rupandehi

One of the four fundamental and inseparable language skills that most language learners strive to acquire to communicate successfully in a variety of circumstances is listening. However, listening skills are neglected in school education. This study aimed at examining problems faced by students in listening comprehension in English classes. I selected 60 students as respondents using a random sampling procedure from six public schools studying English in Rupandehi. Three sets of closed-ended questionnaires with 25 items on students’ problems with listening comprehension were administered to elicit the data from them. To carry out the study, I employed a survey research design as a research method. The study indicated that the content of the listening text (e.g., unfamiliar vocabulary and too long and complex listening text) was the major problem with listening faced by the students. The second problem related to the listener included a lack of concentration with long listening texts and the existence of noise in the place. The third listening problem was associated with the speaker and the physical setting, which was concerned with the speaker’s speed of speech and different accents. The results indicated that the majority of respondents sometimes suffered from problems related to the content of the listening text, the listener and speaker, and the physical setting. The findings of this study can enhance teachers’ and students’ knowledge of the issues with listening comprehension.

Listening Comprehension Strategies Employed by English-Honours Undergraduate Students at Myitkyina University

This cross-sectional survey investigates listening comprehension strategies that are used by English-honours undergraduate students of Myitkyina University to comprehend their listening texts. We adopted a 5-point Likert-scale questionnaire, "strongly agree" to "strongly disagree," to generate data for this study, and we used descriptive analysis to calculate percentages, means, and standard deviation. The results show that the participants of this study prefer to use socio-affective strategies the most, followed by cognitive and metacognitive strategies. This trend offers valuable insights into why learners resort to bottom-up strategies more frequently than the top-down ones in learning English as a foreign language (EFL).

The Compatibility of Listening Skills in Our Arabic Language Books for First Graders with Special Products in Jordan

Objectives: The study aimed to reveal the extent to which the listening skills included in the questions of the listening texts contained in our Arabic books for the first three grades align with the specific outcomes. Methods: The study used a descriptive analytical approach, and three lists were created for the analysis: the list of specific outcomes, the list of listening skills, and the classification of questions into essay and objective. Results: The results showed that there is a gap between the levels included in the listening text questions and the listening outcomes stated in the general framework document and the specific outcomes of the Arabic language study. The questions in the books for the three grades addressed only (8) out of (24) products, accounting for a percentage of (33%). The results also revealed a lack of inclusion of main and subsidiary listening skills. The questions in the first-grade book were limited to the first level (auditory excellence), and although the results showed some improvement in the questions of the second and third-grade books, they still lacked the classification skill and the transformation of questions into essay and objective. The results predominantly focused on essay questions, which accounted for (148) questions, representing (81%) of the total. Conclusions: There is a need to reconsider the listening questions to better align with the listening outcomes stated in the general framework document for curricula. Additionally, it is important to adopt a scientific methodology when developing listening questions to achieve balance and progression in the forms of objective questions.

A Comparison of Linguistic Aspects in 2015-2019 NAEA English Listening Texts Between School Levels and Between Language Forms

The current study aims to investigate English listening texts of the National Assessment of Educational Achievement (NAEA) at word, sentence, and text levels. It classifies NAEA listening texts into two school levels (middle school and high school) and two forms of spoken language (dialogues and monologues). It is necessary to examine changes of linguistic aspects in the NAEA for both middle and high school students to figure out whether text difficulty systematically rises as school level increases. The corpus for this study includes 169 listening texts from five academic years from 2015 to 2019. In this period, tests were implemented as paper-based tests. Two research questions are about linguistic differences of NAEA listening texts between middle school and high school and between dialogues and monologues at word, sentence and text levels. Coh-Metrix analyzed descriptive measures related to words, lexical diversity, and word information for word-level analysis, descriptive measures related to sentences and syntactic complexity for sentence-level analysis, and readability and referential cohesion for text-level analysis. Results and educational implications could increase the quality of NAEA listening texts.

학문 목적 한국어 듣기 교재의 텍스트 분석

The purpose of this study is to analyze Korean listening texts for academic purposes and to analyze listening texts based on authenticity of the material and intertextuality. In this study, 4 types of Korean listening textbooks developed for academic purpose learners were selected and the listening texts for each unit were analyzed. In the authenticity of the material area, whether real materials is used and the genre for academic purposes are set, and in the intertextuality area, the number and difficulty of texts, and the relationship and arrangement between texts are set. As a result of the analysis, the materials used in each textbook generally used a unified format, and there were no textbooks using three types of materials at the same time. Also, as a result of examining the discourse genre, three textbooks were all focused on the lecture listening type, and the remaining one presented various genres. On the other hand, as a result of analyzing the intertextuality between texts, the two textbooks used multiple texts. In relation between texts, one long lecture discourse was presented by dividing it into two listening texts and the contents of the two texts were sequentially connected. First, the ratio of actual material use should be different according to the proficiency of learners for academic purposes, and texts should be provided that appropriately mix the three types of materials. In addition, it is necessary to provide various one-way and two-way listening texts by reflecting an appropriate ratio for each type, focusing on the listening genre that learners directly experience in the academic context. Finally, based on an understanding of intertextuality, it is necessary to try to construct a listening texts.

Öğrencilerin Hiper Ortamlarında İkili Kodlamaya Yönelik Algıları: Dinleme Metinleri, Anahtar Kelimeler, Görseller ve Altyazılar

This study investigated 57 participants’ (N= 57) perceptions towards dual-coding in design of audio-only listening texts (i.e. re-provision of the same audio-only listening texts in the form of audio-only listening texts + keywords or supplementary contextual visuals + keywords at non-initial phases of the while-listening stage, and audio-only listening texts + (full) captions at final listening stage) in adaptable hypermedia environments (HEs) for foreign language learning (FLL). The study also aimed to find out whether there were any differences between their perceptions in terms of participants’ characteristics as well as between their perceptions towards dual-coding. The study was both quantitative and qualitative in nature. The results of the quantitative data were analysed with SPSS (i.e. Mean, Std. Deviation, ANOVA, Pearson Correlation Test). The results revealed that the participants were overwhelmingly in favour of the use of dual-coding in design of audio-only listening texts in HEs for FLL. The majority believed that not only did the dual-coding in design of audio-only listening texts benefit them in different ways, but it also contributed to the enhancement of their learning. Moreover, the results of the quantitative data revealed that there were some significant differences between the participants’ perceptions.

A Genre-Based Approach to Listening: Factors and Outcomes

In a study of approaches to teaching listening, an experimental group (EG) of seventeen English as a Foreign Language (EFL) undergraduates received genre-based instruction, beginning with a guided analysis of the context of oral production, the language used, the variations and organization of second language (L2) oral texts about films, leading slowly up to an independent reconstruction of another similar text. Data were collected from a pre- and post-listening task, stimulated recalls (SR), and semi-structured interviews (SSI). The results suggest that, in the EG’s post-tasks, the identification of linguistic elements positively influences the participants’ ability to comprehend the structural rhetoric of an oral text. Findings reveal that the analysis of the linguistic elements permits identification of the narrator’s accent, the type of text, and its organization. Overall, the findings indicate that the comprehension of listening texts is affected by the interaction between the various cognitive processes to build meaning, the specific metacognitive strategies used to reconstruct the listening text at hand, and socio-affective strategies. These results are not generalizable due to the small sample size, but they help to understand teaching listening through Genre-Based Approach.

Text Authenticity in Listening Assessment: Can Item Writers Be Trained to Produce Authentic-sounding Texts?

ABSTRACT A long-standing debate in the testing of listening concerns the authenticity of the listening input. On the one hand, listening texts produced by item writers often lack spoken language characteristics. On the other hand, real-life recordings are often too context-specific to stand alone, or not suitable for item generation. In this study, we explored the effectiveness of an existing item-writing training course to produce authentic-sounding listening texts within the constraints of test specifications. Twenty-five trainees took an online item-writing course including training on creating authentic-sounding listening texts. Prior to and after the course, they developed a listening task. The resulting listening texts were judged on authenticity by three professional item reviewers and analysed linguistically by the researchers. Additionally, we interviewed the trainees following each item writing event and analysed their online discussions from during the course. Statistical comparison of the pre-and post-course authenticity scores revealed a positive effect of the training on item-writers’ ability to produce authentic-sounding listening texts, while the linguistic analysis demonstrated that the texts produced after the training contained more instances of spoken language. The interviews and discussions revealed that item writers’ awareness of spoken language features and their text production techniques influenced their ability to develop authentic-sounding texts.

Explicit teaching and authenticity in L2 listening instruction: University language teachers' beliefs

The purpose of this study is to understand university language teachers' beliefs about explicit teaching and authentic materials in second language (L2) listening instruction. Data were collected from language teachers in Spanish and English departments at eight universities in Pennsylvania, United States, through an online questionnaire (N = 60) and semi-structured interviews (N = 6). The results indicated that teachers believe explicit listening instruction is essential for learners to develop competence in L2 listening, but conflate direct strategy instruction, listening practice, and listening assessment. Furthermore, very few reported the implementation of metacognitive strategy instruction. Secondly, most instructors believe that authenticity is a valuable construct for L2 teaching; however, generally instructors considered either linguistic features of the listening text or features of the L2 learning context when selecting materials, not both, illustrating differing conceptualizations of authenticity and varied approaches to authentic material selection. These results imply a need for more attention to listening pedagogy in L2 teaching environments and teacher training, especially with regard to explicit strategy and metacognitive instruction and the selection and use of authentic listening texts.

The Contribution of Lexical, Grammatical, and Propositional Knowledge Preparation to L2 Listening Comprehension

Listening comprehension is a multifaceted L2 skill and its actual mastery has proved challenging for many EFL learners (Matthews, 2018). Pre-listening supports may help us change the dire situation in developing effective listening competence. Therefore, the current study tried to examine the effect of vocabulary preparation, grammar instruction and background knowledge activation as pre-listening tasks on the listening comprehension among 95 Iranian intermediate EFL learners in three experimental groups who were randomly selected from among 142 Iranian EFL learners after administration of a paper-based TOEFL. In group A, the teacher elaborated on the difficult grammatical structures of the listening comprehension (LC) test and the students did some exercises. Group B practiced related difficult words using synonyms, antonyms, and sentence examples. In group C, some topical knowledge about the content of the LC test was given and discussed. After the treatment, a valid researcher-made LC test was given to all groups. This procedure was followed for four more listening texts and after each treatment, a valid researcher-made LC test based on the text was administered. Data analysis using one-way ANOVA and Scheffe test revealed that background knowledge activation and vocabulary preparation significantly improved learners’ listening performances; however, grammar preparation did not exert a significant influence on EFL listening comprehension. These results were confirmed by the experts’ attitudes in the subsequent qualitative phase of the study. These findings suggest that EFL teachers should use background knowledge activation and lexical preparation prior to the main listening tasks.

Using Dictation to Promote the Use of Grammar Knowledge in Reconstructing Listening Texts

This paper reports the findings of the implementation of full dictation and partial dictation in improving the awareness of using grammar knowledge in reconstructing listening texts among the EFL students at STBA (School of Foreign Languages) LIA Yogyakarta. Three groups participated in the study, i.e. two experimental groups (Group A and B) and a control group (Group C). A pre-test on listening to lectures was administered to the three groups. Over 9 sessions, Group C did the listening exercises in their textbook using dicto-comp technique, while in addition to the listening exercises which applied dicto-comp, the students in Group A was given full dictation exercises and Group B received partial dictation exercises. A post-test was given to the three groups after the ninth session. In addition to the post-test, a 5-point Likert-scale questionnaire assessing the students responses to the dictation exercises was given to the experimental groups. Results of paired-samples tests indicated that there was a significant difference between each groups pre- and post-test. The mean gain score of Group B was higher than Group A showing that Group B had better improvement in the post-test. Furthermore, Group B had better grammar points in their post-test compared to Group A. Group C also increased their scores but they still got their teachers assistance to point out their grammatical mistakes in their notes. This suggests that the dictations given to the experimental groups improved the students awareness in applying their grammar knowledge to reproduce a listening text they heard.

A Corpus Analysis of Lexical Bundles in High School English Listening Texts: Textbooks, CSATs, and EBS Books

A Corpus Analysis of Lexical Bundles in High School English Listening Texts: Textbooks, CSATs, and EBS Books

English

This study was carried out with 2 students with mild mental deficiency, one in 5th grade and the other in 6th grade of Turgut Özal Secondary School in Bulanık County of MuÅŸ Province. It was done during the spring semester of the 2014-2015 school year in order to observe the effect of multimedia-assisted instruction on listening skills of mainstreamed students with mild mental deficiency. The courses were taught in the information and communication technologies classroom outside the course hours with permissions from the parents and school administration. The study was designed as a case study, a qualitative research model. The lessons were videotaped to obtain data. The parents were interviewed in order to determine the state of the students after class. The data collected using semi-structured interviews was evaluated through content analysis. The study was conducted using the multimedia-assisted instruction method to discuss a total of four listening texts, with one text per week. The texts were prepared according to the multimedia-assisted instruction method. The students listened to the texts, accompanied by relevant visuals projected on a screen with background music. Tools such as animations, videos, music, etc. that reflect the central theme of the texts were prepared to be shown before and after the texts. As a result of classroom observations and interviews held with the parents, it was concluded that multimedia-assisted instruction was effective on the listening skills of mainstreamed students with mild mental deficiency. The animations, videos and cartoons that the students watched made them enjoy the lesson and become active participants in the listening process. Key words: Multimedia, listening comprehension education, mainstreaming.

The development of individual learners in an L2 listening strategies course

This study examined the idiosyncratic development of second language (L2) learners in a listening strategies course. The progress of four Taiwanese EFL learners was examined longitudinally through a variety of quantitative and qualitative techniques as the learners participated in a course combining direct instruction of strategies with their practice embedded in the class listening texts. The results showed how all learners developed a greater balance in their use of top-down and bottom-up strategies, chiefly by selectively integrating suitable strategies from the course into their listening repertoires. They also developed in a number of person-related and task-related areas, including their confidence, motivation and feeling of control over the listening process.

Effect of Nature Visuals on Listening Skills

The aim of this study is to determine what type of effect use of nature visuals has on listening skill in terms of comprehension and memorability of listening texts. Sampling group of this test model study included students from a secondary education school in province of Kutahya. Study comprised pre-test and post-test implementations and tried to predict existence of difference between results. According to the results of the study, use of visual materials about the listening text increases comprehension and memorability of listening text. Success of comprehending listening texts is not affected by gender related elements. Listening texts on nature reinforced by visuals are more memorable and more understandable.

TEXT CHARACTERISTICS OF TASK INPUT AND DIFFICULTY IN SECOND LANGUAGE LISTENING COMPREHENSION

This study investigated the effects of a group of task factors on advanced English as a second language learners’ actual and perceived listening performance. We examined whether the speed, linguistic complexity, and explicitness of the listening text along with characteristics of the text necessary for task completion influenced comprehension. We also explored learners’ perceptions of what textual factors cause difficulty. The 68 participants performed 18 versions of a listening task, and each task was followed by a perception questionnaire. Nine additional students engaged in stimulated recall. The listening texts were analyzed in terms of a variety of measures, utilizing automatized analytical tools. We used Rasch and regression analyses to estimate task difficulty and its relationship to the text characteristics. Six measures emerged as significant predictors of task difficulty, including indicators of (a) lexical range, density, and diversity and (b) causal content. The stimulated recall comments were more reflective of these findings than the questionnaire responses.

Listening in Foreign Language Teaching Process

The paper has two parts, hi the first one the author mentions on the background of her many years of experience some principles which she holds in the use of listening when teaching professional German in her seminary lessons on the University Hradec Kralove and in her choice of suitable listening texts for her tutorial. The second part of the paper describes the students’ and teacher's activities during the listening process and shortly after it, when students use their work sheets. They can check their activities subsequently in their home work, hi this case they have at their disposal all the listening text in printing. The author has published them in a form of a booklet edited by the Faculty. © 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Investigation of Eighth Grade Elementary Schools Listening Texts in Terms of Certain Variables

Investigation of Eighth Grade Elementary Schools Listening Texts in Terms of Certain Variables