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The EFFECT OF ACTIVATING BACKGROUND
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ARABIC-SPEAKING EFL LEARNERS

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Sara AI Alili

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The EFFECT OF ACTIVATING BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE ON THE
LISTENING COMPREHENSION OF ARABIC-SPEAKING EFL LEARNERS

By

Sara Al Alili

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
of the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages

2009

 

 

 

 

 

'ili‘l'l

Copyright by
SARA AL ALILI
2009

Abstract

The EFFECT OF ACTIVATING BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE ON THE
LISTENING COMPREHENSION OF ARABIC-SPEAKING EFL LEARNERS
By
Sara Al Alili
Few studies have been conducted to investigate the effect of activating the

knowledge of learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) prior to listening to an
unfamiliar topic. The current study was designed to determine whether Arabic-speaking
EFL learners’ listening comprehension of an unfamiliar text would vary as a function of
being exposed to one of two possible advance organizers to activate their background
knowledge. The study consisted of two experimental groups; one whose content schema
(knowledge about the topic) was activated, and the other whose formal schema
(knowledge about text structure and discourse organization) was activated, and a control
group that received neither advance organizer. The results of a listening comprehension
test indicated that learners whose content background knowledge was activated scored
slightly higher than those whose formal background knowledge was activated. Statistical
analysis showed no significant differences. However, based on responses to a post-study
questionnaire, the students in the experimental groups perceived the pre-listening
activities to be very helpful in enhancing their understanding and prediction of the

listening text. The results of this study support the importance of helping learners make

connections between their existing knowledge and the incoming aural input.

Dedication

To My Mom

I could not have been able to continue this journey without your unconditional love and

support

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to express my appreciation to Dr. Debra M. Hardison, my thesis
chair advisor, for guiding me throughout this thesis and Dr. Diana Pulido for her
useful comments and feedback. I would also like to thank Ms. Deborah Wilson, the
head of the department of the Intensive English Program at the American University
of Shatjah in United Arab Emirates, for allowing and helping me to collect my data
during the summer of 2008.

I would like to thank my fiiend Jamie Thomas for helping me find my way
through SPSS. I would also like to acknowledge the support of my friends and family,
as well as, the family of Dr. Arthur Helweg who believed in me and embraced me
with their love during my stay in the United States. I would like to extend my
heartfelt gratitude to my fiancé Mohamed El-Gafy for his support and encouragement
which has made the completion of this thesis possible. Finally, I would like to thank

God who gave me the strength and perseverance to complete this project.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LISTS OF TABLES .......................................................................................................... vii
LISTS OF FIGURES ...................................................................................................... viii
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................ 1
Review of the Literature ..................................................................................... 2
Research Question .............................................................................................. 17
CHAPTER 2
STUDY ............................................................................................................................. 18
Method ............................................................................................................... 18
Setting ................................................................................................... 1 8
Participants ............................................................................................ 19
Materials ............................................................................................... 20
Procedures ......................................................................................................... 24
Content schema group .................................................................... 26
Formal schema group ..................................................................... 26
Control group ................................................................................. 27
CHAPTER 3
RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS ..................................................................................... 28
Pre-listening assessment tool ............................................................... 28
Listening comprehension test .............................................................. 29
Post-study questionnaire ...................................................................... 31
CHAPTER 4
GENERAL DISCUSSION ............................................................................................... 37
Research Question ........................................................................................ 37
Limitations ................................................................................................... 40
Conclusion ................................................................................................... 41
APPENDICES .................................................................................................................. 43
Appendix A ......................................................................................................... 43
Appendix B ......................................................................................................... 46
Appendix C ......................................................................................................... 47
REF RENCES .................................................................................................................... 48

vi

LIST OF TABLES
Table 1 Descriptive Statistics for the Pre-listening Assessment ....................................... 29
Table 2 Descriptive Statistics for Each Group on the Listening Comprehension Test 30
Table 3 One way ANOVA of the Listening Comprehension Scores by treatment .......... 31

Table 4 Descriptive Statistics for Each Group on the Questionnaire ............................... 32

vii

LIST OF FIGURE
Figure 1 Frequency of participants’ responses on item 1 (Understanding) ...................... 33

Figure 2 Frequency of participants’ responses on item 2 (Prediction) ............................. 34

viii

Chapter One

Introduction

In the past, the audio-lingual and behaviorist approaches to language learning
considered listening as a passive skill when compared to speaking and writing. However,
since the 19805 special attention has been given to listening as researchers consider it to
be a complex cognitive process and a key element for obtaining oral proficiency.
According to Rivers (1981) listening is being used in normal daily life more than any
other skill as it is used nearly twice as much as speaking and four to five times as much
as reading and writing. Peterson (2001) explains that listening comprehension is a
multilevel and interactive process where listeners work on various levels of cognitive
processes to understand the incoming speech. Morley (2001) defines two kinds of
cognitive modes used in listening comprehension: the bottom-up processing which refers
to “that part of the aural comprehension process in which the understanding of the
"heard" language is worked out proceeding from sounds to words to grammatical
relationships in lexical meanings", and the top-down processing which involves "the
listener's ability to bring prior information to bear on the task of understanding the
"heard" language" (p.74). This recent view of listening comprehension is in accordance
with second-language theory which views listening as an active and a complex process in
which listeners focus attention on selected aspects of aural input, construct meaning, and

relate what they hear to existing knowledge (Bymes, 1984).

It is thus clear that listening is a crucial skill in the language acquisition process

where the development of such skill would lead to more productive results in other areas

of language learning. Unfortunately, foreign language learners have difficulty in
comprehending the spoken language and their listening problems are usually attributed to
the speed of delivery of the listening text, lack of exposure to fluent natural speech, and
encountering new terminology and vocabulary (Chang & Read, 2006; Graham, 2006;
Hasan, 2000). Bacon (1989) summarized findings of studies that found that the foreign
learners’ ability to understand listening materials did not only depend on being able to
discern sounds and syllables from listening texts but also on the ability to derive meaning
from a larger context. It is important to regard the foreign/second language learners as
active listeners who bring their background knowledge to the context of listening which
can help them make up for their incomplete control of the second language, and the
difficulty they face in interpreting some of the confusing sounds in the speech stream. As
a result, the present study investigated ways in which learners’ background knowledge
could be activated in order to enhance their L2 listening comprehension by limiting the

number of possible text interpretations prior to listening.

Review of the Literature

It is due to second language reading research that the importance of students’
prior knowledge “schemata” in making sense of incoming linguistic input has been given
serious consideration in the field of L2 listening comprehension. Carrel] and Eisterhold
(1983) explain that the background knowledge in the reader’s mind can be categorized
into two forms; content and formal schemata. Content schemata describe the background
knowledge about the content area of a text in addition to the cultural knowledge and
experiences the reader has regarding the given text. On the other hand, formal schemata

reflect the background knowledge about the discourse forms, rhetorical conventions, and

2

the structural organization of texts. Both content and formal schemata can facilitate L2
reading comprehension and “a reader’s failure to activate an appropriate schemata
(formal or content) during reading results in various degrees of non comprehension”
(p.560). Listening, like reading, is an interactive process and successful listening
comprehension requires an interaction between the listening text and the listener’s
existing background knowledge which provides them with a frame of reference where

they can combine the new incoming input with the knowledge they already have.

The role of schematic knowledge has been recognized by many researchers as an
important factor that affects listening comprehension. Brown and Yule (1983a), for
example, describe schemata as “organized background knowledge which leads us to
expect or predict aspects in our interpretation of discourse” (p. 248). They explain that
listeners’ background knowledge and prior experiences predispose them to construct
expectations about seven areas: speaker, listener, place, time, genre, topic, and co-text
which refer to discourse interpretation. In addition, the authors contend that listeners use
two basic principles to relate the new information to their previous experience: the
principle of analogy “things will be as they were before” and the principle of minimal
change “things are as like as possible to how they were before” (Brown and Yule 1983b,
p.63). Long (1989) further explains that learners construct meaning during the
comprehension process through segmenting and chunking the aural input into meaningful
units and then actively matching the results with their existing linguistic and world
knowledge, a process that enables listeners to make inferences which is a cognitive
strategy used by listeners to facilitate comprehension. Last but not least, Rost (1990)

defines the base or schematic meaning of a text as “the cultural and experiential frame of

reference that makes a text interpretable by a listener” (p.70). He proposes what he refers
to as “editing principles and procedures” that assist listeners to construct meaning such as
employing cultural schemata, filling in schematic slots and using genre to generate
expectations. The above theories underscore the importance of background knowledge to
listening comprehension as it involves listeners in an interactive process where they
construct meaning through matching what they bear with what they already know, which

reflects the complex and active nature of the listening process.

The role of prior knowledge in facilitating successful L2 listening has been
addressed by many researchers. Markham and Latham (1987) presented university level
Muslim, Christian and religion-neutral ESL learners, who had virtually no knowledge of
Muslim or Christian religious rites, with passages that describe the religious practices of
these two faiths. The authors found that the participants’ religious backgrounds had a
significant effect on their listening comprehension. The mean scores for the Muslim and
Christian participants in this study were high. They recalled more information and
provided more elaborations and fewer distortions for the passage that related to their own
religion, whereas the religion-neutral participants’ scores were the lowest. The authors
conducted interviews with some of the participants upon their completion of their recall
protocol and one of the interviewees provided what the authors referred to as “detailed
verification” of the interrelationship between schema theory and second language
comprehension. She explained when asked about what she thought when writing down
her notes, “I depended upon my information about my religion. I just hear this passage
then I remember some ideas. . .I have the idea then I depend upon my information about

my religion” (p. 167).

A similar study, conducted by Long (1990), explored the effect of background
knowledge on L2 listening comprehension. Her third-quarter students of Spanish listened
to two passages; one was considered familiar in terms of content area (popular rock
music) and the other unfamiliar (gold rush in Ecuador). Comprehension was assessed by
a recall protocol in English and a recognition measure. This measure consisted of a
checklist of statements in English that referred to the content of the passage and also
included statements that were purposefully false but plausible according to the context.
Although the English summaries revealed a higher proportion of correct idea units for the
familiar topic, no significant differences were found between the familiar and unfamiliar
passages for the recognition measure. The author attributes this result to the content of
the checklist which was less difficult compared to the recall measure and thus, could have

enhanced the probability of correct answers.

Schmidt-Rinehart (1994) carried out a study that expanded Long’s study by
adding proficiency level as a variable. The main purpose of this study was to examine the
effect of topic familiarity on L2 listening comprehension and whether or not it varies as a
function of students’ proficiency level. University students of Spanish at three different
course levels listened to two passages, one about a familiar topic (Hispanic universities)
and the other about a novel topic (going for a walk in the park). The passages represented
authentic language in the sense that the recordings were from spontaneous speech of a
native speaker and contained many of the characteristics of natural speech such as
redundancy, pauses, and false starts. Listening comprehension was assessed through a
native language immediate recall procedure. The results show that participants scored

considerably higher on the familiar topic than on the new one. In addition, the means of

the groups revealed a consistent increase in comprehension scores as proficiency
increased. The study reveals that background knowledge in the form of topic familiarity

is a powerful factor in facilitating listening comprehension.

Recently, Sadighi and Zare (2006) examined the effect of background knowledge
on the listening comprehension of Iranian EFL learners. The participants were upper-
interrnediate to advanced level learners who were preparing for their TOEFL exam. The
students in the experimental group were asked to work on the topics to be examined
using different resources such as the intemet before coming to class. The students in the
control group took the listening test without any prior preparation. Comprehension test
results revealed a significant difference between the groups where the experimental group
scored higher than the control group on the comprehension test. These results lend further

support to the importance of background knowledge in listening comprehension.

However, the question remains as to how to activate students’ background
knowledge regarding unfamiliar texts in class. The above studies looked at the role of
background knowledge in general by exploring the influence of learners’ content
schemata, yet none of these studies included any pre-listening activities or advance
organizers to prepare students and activate their background knowledge regarding

unfamiliar topics.

Ausubel (1960) first used the term “advance organizers” to refer to the
introductory materials that are introduced in advance of the learning material itself to
facilitate comprehension and enhance the retention of the new material. Ausubel used

this term to refer to the process of linking unfamiliar upcoming learning materials to

what the learner already knows. He hypothesized that the learning and retention of
“unfamiliar but meaningful” learning material could be facilitated by the advance
introduction of relevant subsuming concepts. These advance organizers or pre-listening
activities are of great importance to foreign language learners who are, unlike second
language learners, studying the language in a foreign context and seldom use the
language outside of the classroom. Given their lack of practice and experience in using
the target language, foreign language learners need to be tuned in rather than being
pushed into a listening task without being prepared for it (Underwood, 1989 as cited in
Chang and Read, 2006, p.376). Mendelsohn (1995) identifies the importance of pre-
listening activities in facilitating L2 listening comprehension as they “activate the
students’ existing knowledge of the topic in order for them to link what they
comprehend and to use this as a basis of their hypothesis-information, prediction, and
inferencing” (p.140). As a result, directing listeners’ attention to specific aspects of the
listening task will prevent them from using ineffective listening strategies that might
negatively affect their listening comprehension such as listening for every word to get

the main idea.

In addition, Field (1998) illustrates that a conventional listening comprehension
lesson which consists of extensive listening followed by comprehension questions has
minimal effect on improving the effectiveness of learners’ listening skills as it focuses
on the product of listening. Such a traditional lesson does not address the difficulties
experienced by listeners nor does it provide the learners with successful techniques that
will help them during the listening process. On the other hand, a process-based

approach views listening as a “diagnostic activity” where the teacher’s role is to

recognize the unsuccessful listening strategies that are adopted by some learners and
provide them with exercises to help them approach the listening task in a successful

manner.

A study investigating the use of ineffective listening strategies by Arabic-
speaking EFL learners was conducted by Hassan (2000). He reported the findings of a
questionnaire study that investigated the listening problems encountered by Arabic
speaking EFL students at Damascus University. The study reveals learners’ perceptions
and beliefs about their listening comprehension problems, some of which include features
of the listening text, characteristics of the speaker and the degree of visual and written
support. The results of the questionnaire revealed that 59.4% of the participants reported
using some ineffective listening strategies such as listening to every detail to get the main
idea of the spoken text, which might impede their listening comprehension. The author
proposed that activating students’ schema before listening could remedy this problem as
learners wouldn’t try to process the listening passage word by word but rather try to

construct a meaningful interpretation of the text as a whole.

In an attempt to investigate the effectiveness of pre-listening activities that
promote prediction, Vandergrift (2003) examined the effect of two tasks designed to
teach students how to listen and make them focus on the listening process rather than the
listening product. He explained that integrating a process approach into regular listening
exercises would raise students’ consciousness of the process of successful listening and
help students gain greater control over their listening efforts. The first task consisted of a
weekly table which the students used to fill in their predictions about what kind of

information and key words they anticipated hearing in the given text. Then the students

8

listened to the text and compared their predictions. The second task was created to help
students understand an oral text through some written support provided to them before
the listening activity. The task was aimed at understanding the sequence of events of a
story. Statements were given to the students where they were asked to enter their
predicted sequence in a table. Then, students worked in pairs to compare their
predictions. Students responded positively to both tasks and pointed out the crucial nature
of prediction in enhancing their understanding of the listening text as one of the students
commented, “since I anticipate the conversation, I am more aware of what to listen to
and can therefore pick up a large majority of the conversation This study has shown
the importance of pre-listening activities and ways to utilize them in developing students’
metacognitive knowledge about L2 listening. However, the study didn’t reflect the effect
of these activities on the students’ actual listening achievements as it did not include a

listening comprehension test.

Empirical studies that investigated the effect of pre-listening activities on L2
listening comprehension performance included various tasks such as vocabulary and
question preview, giving information about the topic, and using illustrations and pictures.
Teichert (1996) compared students’ performance in listening comprehension when
multiple advance organizers, such as illustrations, brainstorming and questions plus a
video or audio tape were used as opposed to when neither the advance organizers nor the
video/audio were used. The participants were English native speakers enrolled in three
intermediate-level German conversation classes at Western Michigan University. The
study consisted of two experimental groups and one control group and took about one

semester. The instructor presented three advance organizers in the two experimental

classes before watching video/audiotape: illustrations, brainstorming for the key
vocabulary, and cultural background. The participants in the control group neither
received any of the advance organizers nor the video/audiotape. New vocabulary was
introduced orally by the instructor to the control group and students then worked in small
groups to use the new vocabulary. The results of the study showed that the mean posttest
listening score of the experimental group was significantly higher than that of the control
group. This study shows that schema activation in pre-listening activities is an important
strategy in developing students’ top-down listening skills as it allows them to draw on
different experiences and existing knowledge about the world and match them with the

new input.

One clear finding from previous research that investigated pre-listening activities
indicates that vocabulary teaching by itself is not an effective way of enhancing listening
comprehension. An early study by Berne (1995) and a later one by Elkhafaifi (2005)
compared the effects of two types of pre—listening activities: vocabulary and question
preview on the listening comprehension performance of adult learners of Spanish as a
foreign language, and Arabic as a foreign language respectively. Two experimental
groups were included; one that completed a vocabulary preview and another that
completed the question preview. The vocabulary preview activity required the students to
study a list of words along with their Ll corresponding definitions. Students in the
question preview activity were asked to study the questions and the possible answers that
made up the comprehension test. A control group completed a distracter activity. In both
studies, participants who completed the question preview scored higher than those who

carried out the vocabulary activity. The pedagogical implication of this finding would be

10

to recommend the use of pre-listening activities which encourage learners to focus on the

overall content of the passage rather than on individual elements of the passage.

A recent classroom based experiment by Chang and Read (2006) investigated the
effectiveness of providing four types of listening support to EFL learners in Taiwan. The
materials used to enhance and support listening included topic preparation, vocabulary
instruction, question preview, and repeated input where the participants heard the
listening text twice. The treatments which consisted of the listening support materials
were provided to the students in the first class hour. The preview questions and repeated
input treatments did not involve any preparation from the students, whereas the topic and
the vocabulary preview groups involved some preparation either by reading background
material regarding the listening text, or studying the meaning and pronunciation of a list
of vocabulary respectively. The participants’ listening comprehension performance was
assessed using a multiple-choice and gap filling test. The results of this study show that
the most effective type of support was providing information about the topic followed by
repetition of the input. In addition, the mean scores of the high and low level language
learners in the topic preparation group were very similar which shows that providing
background knowledge about the topic allowed the low level learners to compensate for

their limited language knowledge.

Not only are advance organizers useful in the introduction of aural input, but they
are also helpful when used prior to audiovisual listening. For instance, Herron (1994)
tested the effect of introducing an advance organizer to learners of French as a foreign
language in order to aid them in comprehension of a video used throughout the course of

one semester. The advance organizer consisted of sentences written in French, regarding

11

the major scenes in the video, and introduced to the students in chronological order prior
to watching the video. Students in the control and treatment groups watched the same
video and answered the same comprehension test. After scoring the tests of the entire
semester, Herron concluded that the results of his study were in favor of the treatment
group as the mean scores of the participants who were introduced to an advance organizer
prior to watching the video were significantly higher than the control group. Thus,
students’ comprehension of the video was enhanced by the introduction of an advance

organizer.

The introduction of multiple advance organizers before watching authentic video
texts was also investigated and was shown to be beneficial for foreign language listeners.
A study by Chung (2002) examined the effect of two advance organizers (vocabulary
pre-teaching and question previewing) on EFL learners’ listening comprehension of an
audiovisual stimulus. The study included four treatment groups each of which was
introduced to the advance organizers as follows: vocabulary pre-teaching group, question
previewing group, combined vocabulary and question previewing group, and a control
group. The results of this study showed that the group that was exposed to a combined
treatment outperformed the other groups. Such results are crucial indicators of the
positive impact of advance organizers on L2 listening comprehension as they help the
students understand the text more easily and give them the opportunity to relate to the

text prior to listening.

Another recent study by Wilberschied and Berman (2004) investigated the
effectiveness of using more than one advance organizer as opposed to using only one.

Their study included participants who were learning Chinese as a foreign language. The

12

advance organizers used in this study were written sentences in Chinese which
summarized major scenes in the video and pictures taken from the video itself. One group
was introduced to one advance organizer (written sentences) prior to watching the movie
while the other was introduced to both (written sentences and pictures). Students’
listening comprehension was measured by a written test given after the video viewing. A
t-test analysis of the mean scores of both groups showed that the mean score for the
group introduced to two advance organizers was significantly higher than that of the
control group that got one advance organizer. The results of this study support the above
studies regarding the effectiveness of advance organizers and the benefits which students

can gain from being exposed to more than one advance organizer.

Advance organizers are not limited to activating content background knowledge
only, but extend to include structure background knowledge. Researchers have pointed
out the importance of leamers’ background knowledge regarding text structure and its
positive effect on enhancing their listening comprehension. Weissenreider (1987) points
out the importance of both content and formal schemata in the listening comprehension
of Spanish language newscasts. The organization of the discourse structure of the
newscasts plays an important role “in the way information is listened to and processed”
(p.20) such that information proceeds from general to specific where the host focuses on
certain topics, and thus listeners can expect repetition of these topics, elaboration, and
subsequent exemplification. Many of the discourse patterns found in the newscasts
employed a large number of clues that could help L2 listeners anticipate, identify, and

process the meaning. The author explained that knowledge about the newscasts’ process

13

(textual schema) combined with knowledge regarding the news’ topics (content schema)

would help enhance comprehension of the new upcoming input.

Given the increasing number of intemational/foreign students who pursue their .
studies in English or enter English-medium academic institutions, F lowerdew (1994)
identified the importance of formal schemata and discourse organization of lectures on
the listening comprehension of L2 learners as they allow them “to make predictions about
what’s likely to be said as the lecture progresses” (p.9). Organization of the text is often
indicated by discourse signaling cues which are metalinguistic devices that fimction as
directional guides to signal how readers or listeners should interpret the incoming

information (Tyler, 1994).

Empirical studies have investigated the effect of text organization and discourse
markers on L2 listening comprehension of lectures. Chaudron and Richards (1986)
investigated the ways in which different categories of discourse markers can have an
effect on ESL students’ comprehension of university lectures. The authors classified the
discourse signaling cues into macro- and micro-markers. According to them, macro-
markers refer to words or phrases that are “explicit expressions of the planning of lecture
information” (p.123) such as “what I am going to talk about today is. . .”, whereas micro-
markers are cues that serve as filler pauses “giving listeners more time to process
individual segments of a piece of discourse” (p.116) such as “well, so, and now”.
Participants were divided into four groups. One watched a version of a lecture with no
signaling cues which served as a baseline, and the second group watched a “macro”
version which contained macro-marker signaling cues. The third group watched the

“micro” version which included micro-marker signaling cues, and the last group watched

14

a combination of a “Macro—micro” version. Three comprehension measures were used: a
recall cloze measure, a multiple-choice test, and true-false test. The results indicated that
the “macro” version group scored significantly higher than all other groups, which shows
that macro-markers facilitated ESL students’ listening comprehension of the lecture. The
authors concluded that macro-markers helped students to construct “an appropriate
schematic model of the major portions of the lecture even if they lack sophisticated
understanding of the content or the rhetorical structure of expository speech” (p.123).
However, one of the limitations of this study was that the signaling cues in the micro-
markers version were artificially and redundantly inserted which raises some doubts

regarding the authenticity of the lecture’s content.

As a follow-up study, Flowerdew and Tauroza (1995) specifically investigated the
effects of naturally occurring micro-markers on L2 listening comprehension. The most
frequent micro-markers used in their study were “all right, and, because, then, well”. Two
copies were made of an authentic lecture, one copy was not modified and the other had
the discourse markers deleted from it. To ensure that the deleted version was intelligible
and not disturbing, the authors had four native speakers and three non-native speakers
who were EAP (English for academic purposes) teachers watch the video without telling
them that the micro-markers were deleted; none of them suspected that the video had
been edited. Three comprehension measures were used: a self-assessment measure, a
written “partial recall” summary indicating the main ideas of the lecture, and true-false
questions. The t-tests for independent samples showed that the scores for the group of
learners presented with the original version were significantly higher than those for the

group presented with the edited version. The results of this study point to the importance

15

of signaling cues as they guide listeners to predict the sequence of ideas within any given

discourse. The absence of such formal schemata impedes listeners’ comprehension.

To investigate the effect of discourse signaling cues in general on L2 listening
comprehension, Jung (2003) conducted a study that examined the effect of combining
macro and micro discourse markers (experimental group) as opposed to no signaling cues
(control group). The study included an authentic audio-taped lecture about “culture
shock”. The comprehension measures were carried out using summary and recall tasks.
Results of this study indicated that the experimental group comprehended significantly
more high level information (main ideas) and low level information (details) than the
control group, which shows that signaling cues play a significant role in L2 listening
comprehension. Interestingly, the author argued that the discrepancy found in the results
of Chaudron and Richards’ study (1986), where students who had the “micro” and
“macro-micro” signaling cues scored less than the “macro” group on the listening
comprehension test, might be due to the students’ familiarity with the lecture’s topic.
Thus, she argues that a lecture’s content should be moderately unfamiliar in order for
listeners to benefit from the presence of the signaling cues in the text. It is important to
control for participants’ background knowledge about a topic to avoid confounding

factors in investigating the effects of cues on L2 listening comprehension.

Even though researchers have indicated the importance of L2 learners’
background knowledge on their listening comprehension, little attention has been given
to examining the varying effects of activating listeners’ content and formal schema prior
to listening to the text. The current study is designed to determine whether students’

listening comprehension performance would vary according to the type of advance

16

organizers; one activating their content schema (knowledge about the topic) and the other
activating their formal schema (knowledge about text structure and discourse
organization). Based on the above literature, the following research question guided the

present study:
Research Question:

Will activating foreign language learners’ content or formal schema during pre-listening
activities have an effect on their listening comprehension performance compared to a
control group? If yes, which type of pro-listening activity leads to a higher level of

comprehension?

Based on the results of previous research demonstrating the importance of
background knowledge to L2 learners, one would hypothesize that learners whose
background knowledge (content or formal) was activated would score higher on a
listening comprehension test than learners in a control group. In addition, previous
research that examined the effectiveness of different advance organizers indicated that
pre-listening activities that focus on individual aspects of the listening text have minimal
effect on enhancing learners’ listening comprehension, in contrast, pro-listening activities
that require learners to focus on the overall content of the listening passage lead to better
comprehension. As a result, one could hypothesize that learners whose content
background knowledge (topic) is activated prior to listening to a text would achieve a
higher level of comprehension than those whose formal background knowledge

(discourse signaling cues) is activated.

17

Chapter Two
The Study
Method
Setting
The choice of the setting where this study was carried out was dictated by the type
of communicative instruction that was available. Most schools and universities in United
Arab Emirates follow the grammar translation and audio-lingual approach to language
teaching, which makes it hard for EFL learners to relate to the activities provided in this
study. As a result, I chose the American University of Sharjah as they adopted the
communicative approach to language teaching and learning which allows the students to
engage in various communicative activities and tasks. Students are also exposed to
authentic English speech on a daily basis through interacting with their teachers who
were native speakers of English. In addition, the Intensive English Program (IEP) offers
listening and video classes to low and high level students with the goal of improving
students’ ability to effectively comprehend English in academic and social settings.
Video labs also provide students with practice in speaking English through discussions
and debates. Mark Algren, the director of the IEP explained that the emphasis in lower-
level listening courses was on understanding conversations, determining main ideas and
details, and comprehending short lectures, whereas higher-level courses focused more on
improving comprehension of longer and more complex academic lectures, developing
clear and accurate methods of taking notes, and organizing information in a useful

format. Ensuring that participants were familiar with the types of activities included in

18

this study was an important factor to control for before starting the experiment so as to
ensure that there were no intervening variables that could affect the results of the study.
Participants

A total of nineteen EFL learners (5 female, 14 male) ranging in age from 18 to 22
years participated in this study'. All of them were from Arab countries and had Arabic as
their L1. None of the participants had been to the United States or studied English in an
English speaking country. The participants were intermediate-level learners at the
Intensive English Program (IEP) at the American University of Sharjah in United Arab
Emirates. Level placement in the IEP was determined on the basis of students’ scores on
the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). Students who scored below 530 on
the paper-based TOEFL exam were eligible for admission into the IEP. Assignment to
one of the six proficiency levels of the program was based on placement and standardized
proficiency test scores. Participants were recruited through an announcement of the study
made to the intermediate level classes. Those who volunteered to participate in the study
were asked to do so outside of their regular classes. Before participating in the
experiment, a pre-listening test was administered to the three groups in order to ascertain
the homogeneity of their L2 listening proficiency level. A one-way ANOVA indicated
that the differences in the means of the participants were not significant, F (2, 16) = .36, p
= .70). As a result, participants’ scores were compared and they were randomly assigned
to one of three groups: content group which had eight participants, structure group which

consisted of six students and a control group which had five students. Students were not

 

' The data of one additional male student were excluded from this study because he failed to follow task
instructions.

19

assigned equally to their respective groups as a result of their odd number and logistic
limitations.
Instruments and Materials

The materials prepared for this study included a) a pre-listening test to assess
students’ overall listening comprehension and check if there were any differences in their
level of performance, b) an authentic video-taped lecture in DVD format, c) a multiple-
choice comprehension test, and d) a post-test questionnaire.
Pre-listening assessment

The researcher did not have access to participants’ TOEFL scores. As a result, a
pre-listening assessment was administered two days before the study began in order to
evaluate the listening comprehension ability of the students. The assessment was adapted
from the listening comprehension section of a placement test developed at Michigan State
University (MSU) for the purposes of placing individuals into a multi-level community—
based conversational English course. The reliability of the test administered to the typical
population is approximately .87 (Kuder-Richardson 21). Four of the original five
passages were used in the current study. The topics included two phone conversations
recorded at MSU dealing with placing a garage sale ad in a newspaper and booking
airline tickets. In addition, there were two passages recorded and used with permission
from National Public Radio: a radio interview on childhood obesity and an interview
about the financial problems of a city in the US. A fifth passage was omitted because of
its level of difficulty (i.e., dealing with the Army Corps of Engineers). After the test was
administered to the participants in this study, reliability was estimated using Cronbach’s

alpha (a= .37). An alpha of 0.7 is generally considered the minimum to indicate a reliable

20

set of items on a given test (0.8 and above is preferred). The low alpha (u=.37) in this
study could be due to several factors: the limited number of participants, the rate of
speech in the recorded passages, and the culturally-based nature of the topics. As stated,
this listening assessment tool is one that has been used for placement purposes at MSU
and is generally administered to a larger number of participants (80-100), with substantial
variability in listening proficiency; however, only 19 students of roughly comparable
proficiency took the pre-listening assessment in the current study. The passages range in
level of difficulty and rate of speech, which is necessary for its typical role as a
placement tool, but this could have made it difficult for the current study’s participants.
Although the passages dealt with topics related to American culture (e.g., garage sale),
the researcher determined through discussion prior to testing that the participants were
familiar with the topics. Despite the low reliability, the result of the pre-listening
assessment served the purpose of facilitating a quasi-random assignment of participants
into three groups to ensure comparability of listening comprehension ability prior to the
treatment (exposure to pre-listening activities).
Listening text

The passage used for this study consisted of an authentic video-taped lecture of
about 13 minutes and 1,495 words. Rogers and Medley (1988) define authentic materials
as “all language samples which reflect a naturalness of form and an appropriateness of
cultural and situational context that would be found in the language as used by native
speakers”. Hence, the listening material used in this study was authentic in nature as it
demonstrated an actual university lecture that was videotaped at the University of

Michigan and thus reflected a naturalness of form as the recording contained false starts,

21

hesitations and informal contractions such as “gonna” and “wanna”. The listening text
presented an introduction of a lecture about the “American healthcare system” which was
taken from an academic listening book that was designed for intermediate and advanced
English language learners and titled “Academic listening strategies: a guide to
understanding lectures” (Salehzadeh, 2006). The selection of this particular lecture
stemmed from its relevance to the study as it contained several macro and micro
signaling cues such as “Now, I think the first thing when we talk about. . ., Secondly, let’s
go back to, now I will start to, okay, so. . .”. The discourse structure of the lecture is
characterized as “information-driven” where the lecturer focuses mainly on the delivery
of information or facts without any particular evaluation of them. In addition, the topic
chosen for this study was relatively unfamiliar to the students in order to avoid any
influence of prior background knowledge. The Arab EFL learners who participated in
this study were familiar with the notion of “healthcare systems”, however they were
unfamiliar with the ways in which the healthcare system works in the United States as
none of them had been to the US.

It was not feasible to have the teachers at the IEP introduce some of the
vocabulary in the listening text to the students beforehand due to the limited time they
had in class as the study was carried out in the summer. Hence, it was important to
choose a listening text that did not include low frequency or difficult academic
vocabulary so that participants would be able to get the gist of the lecture after one
listening. Bonk (2000) explains that “while it may not accurately predict level of
comprehension, percentage of familiar lexis may however determine a floor effect for

good comprehension of a text” (p.18). As a result, the lecture used in this study included

22

vocabulary that was relatively easy to ensure students’ comprehension of the passage and
thus be able to examine the effects of activating students’ background knowledge in an
accurate way.
Listening comprehension test

Participants’ listening comprehension was measured by a twelve-item multiple-
choice test (Appendix A). The multiple-choice format was adopted so as to minimize the
confounding of listening with other skills such as writing and for effectiveness within
time constraints (Dunkel, Henning, & Chaudron, 1993). Each multiple-choice question
had three options only “as having too many options increases reading and processing
time, leading to lack of validity” (Spaan, 2007, p.280). The test was designed by the
researcher and proofread by a colleague who worked in language testing and assessment.
All participants were given the same questions which were asked and answered in
English. Items were designed to assess participants’ overall understanding of the text, as
well as their ability to notice details and make inferences. Items came also in the same
order as the relevant information was presented in the text so as not to confuse the
students.
A post-study questionnaire

A post-study questionnaire was administered after the listening comprehension
test to elicit the reactions of the participants toward the pre-listening activities (i.e.
advance organizers) and the perception of each group regarding their degree of
comprehension of the video. The questionnaire consisted of three items: two items used
5-point Likert scales where 5 represents strongly agree and 1 represents strongly

disagree. An open-ended item asked whether the students liked the pre-listening activity

23

and if they would want it to be a regular classroom activity. The items were the same for
the two experimental groups; however the wording of item number 2 was different
according to the treatment the group received. For example, in the content group, the
second item required the students to indicate the degree to which they believed the pre-

listening activity aided them in predicting the content of the listening passage (Appendix

 

B). Whereas, for the structure group, item two was worded in a way to check how the
pre-listening activity helped students to predict the structure of the passage (Appendix C).
Procedure

Before the study began, the researcher explained the goals and content of the
study to the students in a way that did not disclose any specific information that might
affect the results of the experiment. Students were told that the study would use two
different types of pre-listening activities before watching a video segment and that no
prior preparation was needed. They were also informed that they would answer a
listening comprehension test after viewing the video and would also be given a
questionnaire after the test to gather their opinions about the activity. The testing was
conducted in small groups of 5-8 participants. Two instructors from the IEP helped me to
administer the test to all participants at the same time where groups were placed in three
different classrooms according to the treatment. All groups were tested simultaneously in
order to ensure that students in one group did not have a chance to share information
about the video content or test items with the other groups.

The study was conducted in a regular classroom equipped with a built-in

computer, speakers and a projector which allowed the lecture to be projected onto a

screen at the front of the classroom. A response booklet was distributed to each

24

participant and included written instructions in English pertaining to the study, twelve
multiple choice questions and a brief questionnaire. The DVD was played only once and
students were allowed to take notes while the video was being played, however note-
taking was not required. According to Dunkel (1986), students normally expect to make
some notes during class lectures or other presentations and then review their notes prior
to taking an examination on the subject matter presented. After listening/viewing the
video, students were told to turn the page to answer the questions. All the students took
the same written test immediately after viewing to evaluate comprehension of the video
which was about 13 minutes. Following the listening comprehension test, participants
were asked to complete the questionnaire, which was included in the response booklet.
They were allowed to inquire when they did not understand the meaning of the questions
in this section. In addition, I went over the items on the questionnaire with them to make
sure that they understood what to do. I also informed the students that they could use
either Arabic or English to answer the third item on the questionnaire which was an open-
ended question in order to obtain accurate responses; however, all participants chose to
respond in English (Appendices B and C).

The advance organizers were presented in the form of brainstorming activities for
both groups and were introduced before the participants watched the video. One pre-
listening activity aimed at activating students’ background knowledge regarding the topic
of healthcare systems. The other pre-listening activity activated learners’ knowledge of
the discourse structure of the lecture. The procedure of the study for each group was as

follows:

25

Content schema group. The researcher outlined the teaching procedure that took
place during the pre-listening activity for the content group to one of the instructors in the
IEP. The teacher began by asking the students to brainstorm some ideas regarding what
they know about “healthcare systems” and then she started writing down key words
elicited from the students on the board such as “supported by the government, cost,
hospitals, medication, and free for national citizens”. . .etc. The teacher then held a brief
discussion with the students about what they thought about that topic, what they liked
about it, and what they did not. Through this pre-listening activity, participants’
background knowledge regarding this topic was activated. This preparation process took
about 15-20 minutes. Afterward, the students listened to the lecture which was about 13
minutes and were told that note taking was allowed but not required. Then students took
the test which was about 15 minutes and finally completed the questionnaire.

Formal schema group. The researcher started out by asking students about the
differences between a lecture and a natural conversation. Students responses were written
on the board, such as “natural conversation involves interaction between two people
while in a lecture one could only listen and not talk, lectures are more organized and
sequenced, lecturers usually use words such as accordingly, as a result, therefore”. . .etc.
Then, the researcher explained some of the signaling cues found in the lecture and how
the lecturer uses them to organize her discourse, such as “what I am going to talk about
today is. . .let’s go back to the beginning , let me wrap up. . .the next thing is. . .on the other
hand. . .in fact. . .obviously. . .” Through the discussion, participants’ formal schemata
regarding the text structure of a lecture and discourse signaling cues was activated. The

preparation process took about 15-20 minutes and then the students watched the video

26

segment and were told that note-taking was allowed but not required. Afterward, they
were told that they could start answering the test questions and complete the
questionnaire.

Control group. One of the secretaries in the IEP volunteered to administer the test
to the control group at the same time when the two experimental groups were having the
test. The participants in this group did not engage in any activity before watching the
video. The secretary read the instructions to them and told them that they would be
watching a video segment, and they were allowed to write notes while watching. The
participants then answered the multiple-choice test only as the questionnaire was not
relevant for them. The data in this study were collected after regular class time and the
whole procedure took about fifty minutes to one hour including instructions at the
beginning, viewing the video, the listening comprehension test, and completion of the

questionnaire.

27

Chapter Three
Results and Discussion

The current study consists of quantitative and qualitative data that were gathered
from Arabic-speaking EFL learners in order to investigate the effectiveness of pre-
listening activities on their listening comprehension performance. The independent
variables in this study consisted of two kinds of pre-listening activities that activate
content and formal background knowledge. The dependent variable was the learners’
comprehension as indicated by their responses on the listening assessment task and the
post-study questionnaire. In this chapter, results from the post-listening assessment task
(quantitative) as well as the post-study questionnaire (quantitative/qualitative) will be
discussed. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) 16.1 was employed for the
statistical analysis. In addition, learners’ responses to the post-study questionnaire were
transcribed and analyzed in terms of their attitude and thoughts toward pre-listening

activities.

Before the study began, a pre-listening assessment was administered in order to
evaluate learners’ L2 listening proficiency. The results of the pre-listening assessment are
reported in Table 1. The total mean score (M =12.26) in Table 1 shows that learners were
able to answer around half of the test items correctly. The mean scores for each group
were quite close which shows that the test was equally difficult for all learners and thus
served its purpose of indicating that the participants were starting off at similar listening

proficiency levels.

Students’ listening comprehension performance following the lecture was

measured by a twelve-item multiple-choice test. The test was scored in the following

28

manner: one point was awarded to each right answer and no points or “O” for wrong
answers for a total of twelve points with the highest possible score being 12 and the

lowest possible score being 0.

Table 1

Descriptive Statistics for the Pre-listening Assessment

 

 

Groups N Mean SD

Control 5 12.20 4.43 8
Content 8 12.88 2.532
Structure 6 1 1.50 2.074
Total 19 12.26 2.903

 

Total number of questions on the pre-listening assessment was 26

Descriptive statistics for the three groups on the listening comprehension test are
presented in Table 2. The mean and standard deviation were calculated for the three
groups in order to examine the central tendencies and variability of the scores. Table 2
shows that the mean scores for participants declined from (M =6.62) for the content
group to (M =6.50) for the structure group, and finally (M =6.40) for the control group. In
addition, the standard deviation was the highest in the control group (SD =1.95), followed
by the structure (SD =1 .3 8) and the content groups (SD =1.06). The standard deviation
show that there was more variation among the scores of the control group as they were
spread out more than the content and structure groups, which indicates that there was
more consistency within the treatment groups, especially the content group. The greater
homogeneity of the scores of the content and structure groups might have been the result

of their exposure to the pre-listening activities. In addition, the mean score of the content

29

group was higher than that of the structure group revealing that the content group

benefited the most from the pre-listening activities

Table 2

Descriptive Statistics for Each Group on the Listening Comprehension Test

 

 

Groups N Mean SD

Content 8 6.62 1 .061
Structure 6 6.50 1.378
Control 5 6.40 1 .949

 

Total number of questions on the listening comprehension test was 12

In addition to the calculation of descriptive statistics, a one-way analysis of
variance (ANOVA) was conducted to evaluate the effects of pre-listening activities on
leamers’ listening comprehension and to explore if there were any significant differences
between the experimental and control groups. ANOVA was an appropriate statistical test
for analyzing the comprehension assessment test because it allowed testing for
differences in the means of more than two groups. The assumptions of normality and
equal variance were met. The Shapiro-Wilk test showed that the data were normally
distributed. In addition, the assumption of homogeneity of variances was also met as
revealed by a non-significant result (p = .33) in the Levene’s Test of Equality of Error
Variances. Table 3 shows that the effect of group factor was not significant on the

listening comprehension test was not significant, F (2, 16) =.04, p > .05.

30

Table 3

One-way ANO VA of the Listening Comprehension Scores by group

 

 

Source Sum of Squares Df Mean Square F Sig.
Between

.162 2 .081 .040 .961
Groups
Within Group 32.575 16 2.036
Total 32.737 18

 

To elicit the reaction of the participants regarding the pre-listening activities, a
short three-item questionnaire was administered after the listening comprehension
assessment task. Participants were presented with two statements about the effectiveness
of the pre-listening activities in helping them understand and predict the content/structure
of the video. Then, the participants were asked to indicate the'degree to which they
agreed with the statement using a 5-point Likert scale where 5 represents strongly agree
and 1 represents strongly disagree. The third item on the questionnaire was an open
ended question which asked the participants if they recommended having the pre-
listening activities as regular classroom activities and to state the reasons behind their
answers. Table 4 shows the descriptive statistics, including the mean and standard
deviation for the two experimental groups on the questionnaire. Examination of the
means and standard deviations of the experimental groups for the Likert-scale items
shows that the structure group had a higher mean (M =4. 1 7) than the content group
(M=3.75) for the first two items which indicated their understanding and prediction of the

lecture as a result of being exposed to the pre-listening activity.

31

Table 4

Descriptive Statistics for Each Group on the Questionnaire

 

 

 

 

 

Questions Treatment Mean SD
Content 3.75 0.89
Q 1 -Understanding
Structure 4. 1 7 0.75
Content 3 .75 1.16
Q2-Prediction
Structure 4. 17 0.98

 

The Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney test was used to compare the participants’
responses on Item 1 and 2 (understanding and prediction of the lecture) because the data
were not normally distributed. The Shapiro-Wilk test indicated a significant non-
norrnality in the data for Item 1 (p =.02) and Item 2 (p = .04) for the content and structure
groups respectively. Participants’ responses on the questionnaire were converted to ranks,
which were used by Mann-Whitney U test to determine whether the mean ranks for the
two groups differed significantly from each other. The results of the Mann-Whitney U
indicated that there were no significant differences between participants’ responses
regarding Item 1 (U = 17, p = .34) that assessed their understanding of the video or Item
2 which examined the degree of their prediction of the video content (U = 19, p = .49).
Accordingly, the content and structure groups perceived the pre-listening activities to be
effective in enhancing both their understanding and prediction of the listening text.

The frequency of participants’ responses for the Likert-scale items was also
calculated. The data of both groups showed that for Item 1, as shown in Figure 1, four

participants (28.6%) strongly agreed that the pre-listening activities helped them

32

understand the content of the video. Whereas for Item 2, as shown in Figure 2, 6
participants (42.9%) strongly agreed that the pre-listening activities helped them predict
the content/structure of the video which shows that the pre-Iistening activities played an
important role in activating participants’ background knowledge and thus enhancing their
understanding of the video.

Figure 1. Frequency of participants’ responses on item 1 (Understanding).

I think the pro—listening activity helped me to understand the listening passage

 

5.

 

.5
l

 

00
1

No. of Students
'9

—A
l

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

T l I
Neutral Agree Strongly Agree

33

Figure 2. Frequency of participants’ responses on item 2 (Prediction).

I think that the pre-listening activity helped me to predict the content/structure of
the listening passage

 

 

 

No. of Students
9’

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I I I I
Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly Agree

Responses to the open-ended item on the questionnaire, which asked the students
if they liked the pre-listening activities and would recommend it as a regular classroom
activity, reveal that participants had a positive reaction to the pre-listening activities.
Participants were asked if they would recommend the pre-listening activities to be regular
activities in their classroom and were asked to mention the reasons behind their answers.
Analyses of participants’ responses provided useful insights into the effectiveness of the
pre-listening activities and their impressions reflected the following three themes:

prediction, interaction, and motivation.

34

(a) Prediction

Some of the participants explained that the pre-listening activities gave them an
idea about the content of the video and encouraged them to make guesses which in turn
enhanced their understanding. For example, one of the students explained that he would
like to have the pre-listening activities as a regular feature in his classroom because “it is
very useful and it is let me get a general idea about the subject. It make me can guess
what the main idea”. Another student believed that “it help me to understand and predict
what will happen then to have a good idea about the subject that I will take it later. I think
it is good experience”. Having an idea about the topic also helped the students to listen
actively to the text, as shown by a comment from one of the students, “it helps me to
understand because I take some idea about the topic and I will be actively to listen”.
Other comments showed that the students recognized that the pre-listening activity
helped them predict what the lecture would be about and thus facilitated their
comprehension, “I really think that the pre-listening activity is a very significant step
before start listening because it helps us to know and be ready for the coming lecture,
helps us to understand it better and predict what the conversation about”, “yes certainly

agree to explain before we listen to the passage because I can see what the topic will talk

about and also I can predict what will the lecture talk about”.

b) Interaction

One of the interesting points that the participants raised in their comments was the
usefulness of teacher-student interaction which was brought about as a result of the pre-

listening activities. One of the students explained that his success in completing the

35

listening task was due to the interaction that took place during the pre-listening activity
“yes, it’s helpful. I mean it help the students to answer all questions faster than the
regular listening activity because they already discuss the topic with their teacher and
understand it”. Other students referred to the collaboration and discussions that took
place during the pre-listening activity and the way it helped them in understanding the
listening text “yes, because it helps us as students to share ideas with each other and with

the teacher, and also helps us to understand the lesson in very active way”.

(b) Motivation

One of the students recommended the use of pre-listening activities because “it
doesn’t make me bored and I understand a lot” which reflects the motivational dimension
caused by students’ engagement in the pre-listening activity. Another student explained
that engaging in activities prior to listening made the task interesting and thus easy to
understand “I love the pre-listening activity and I agree with that, because it makes the
lessons very interesting and understandable”. Overall, the written comments provided by
the students showed that the pre-listening activities helped them become active

participants in their own learning process.

36

 

Chapter Four

General Discussion and Conclusion

The current study investigated whether Arabic speaking EFL learners’ listening
comprehension performance would vary as a function of being exposed to two different
types of advance organizers, which were given to them before listening to an unfamiliar
text, to activate their background knowledge and facilitate their comprehension. The
study consisted of two experimental groups; one whose content schema (knowledge
about the topic) was activated and the other whose formal schema (knowledge about text
structure and discourse organization) was also activated and a control group. Listening
comprehension performance was measured by a twelve-item multiple choice test. In
addition, students filled out a post-study questionnaire which elicited their attitudes
toward the pre-listening activities provided in the study. A pre-listening assessment task
was administered before the study to ensure the comparability of the groups in terms of
their L2 listening proficiency. There were no significant differences between learners’
scores on the pre-listening assessment task, and thus, it was determined that all learners
were starting off at similar proficiency levels. A comparison of the listening
comprehension scores of the experimental and control groups showed that there were no
statistically significant differences among their scores. However, the students perceived
the pre-listening activities to be very helpful in enhancing their understanding and
prediction of the listening text as shown to their responses on the post-study

questionnaire.

Research Question: Will activating foreign language learners’ content and formal

schemata during pre-listening activities have an effect on their listening comprehension

37

performance compared to a control group? If yes, which type of pre-listening activity

leads to a higher level of comprehension?

It was hypothesized that learners whose background knowledge (content or
formal) was activated would score higher on the listening comprehension test than
learners in the control group. The mean scores of the listening assessment task for the
three groups showed that participants who were exposed to the advance organizers scored
slightly higher, which shows that the pre-listening activities had an effect on learners’
understanding of the aural input. These findings support similar results in earlier research
where activating EFL/ESL background knowledge was a factor in listening
comprehension achievement (Markham &Latham, 1987; Chiang & Dunkel, 1992;
Schmidt-Rinehart, 1994).

The fact that the performance of the experimental groups did not differ
significantly from that of the control group could have been due to several possible
reasons two of which could be the limited number of participants and the visual support
provided in the video. A number of studies have found that the use of visual support
whether in the form of video, pictures or illustrations facilitated information processing
of the listening text regardless of the presence of advance organizers. Wagner (2006)
found a statistically significant increase in performance for the test takers in the video
group compared to those in the audio-only group. Another study conducted by Sueyoshi
and Hardison (2005) investigated the role of visual cues in L2 listening comprehension.
The results of the study showed that the groups who received input with visual support
performed better than those who received auditory-only input regardless of proficiency

level. As a result, the visual support provided in the form of the video could have offset

38

the advantages of the pre-listening activities for the control group, thus aiding the
students in understanding the text.

It was also hypothesized that learners whose content background knowledge
(topic) was activated prior to listening to the text would achieve a higher level of
comprehension than those whose formal background knowledge (discourse signaling
cues) was activated. The results of the study suggest that the participants’ listening
comprehension performance varied as a function of being exposed to different pre-
listening activities. Although both of the experimental groups viewed the same video and
answered the same multiple-choice questions, the mean score of the content group was
slightly higher than that of the structure group revealing that the content group had
benefited the most from the pre-listening activities. Accordingly, those who had the pre-
listening activity in the form of background activation of the topic had a better chance of
fulfilling the assessment task successfully.

One of the rich sources of data in the present study is the post-study questionnaire
which revealed the importance of the pre-listening activities as perceived by the students.
An interesting finding in the analysis of the questionnaire was that the perception of the
structure group regarding the effectiveness of the pre-listening activity was not consistent
with their actual performance. Even though the structure group had a lower mean score
on the listening assessment task than the content group, these participants had a higher
median rank on their responses regarding the effectiveness of the advance organizers than
the content group. This shows that regardless of how the students performed on the
listening assessment task, they still believed that the pre-listening activities helped them

and facilitated their understanding of the listening text.

39

When the frequency of participants’ responses to the items on the questionnaire
was calculated, it was found that 28.6% of the participants in both groups strongly agreed
that the pre-listening activities helped them understand the content of the video. Whereas,
42.9% of the participants in both groups strongly agreed that the pre-listening activities
helped them mile; the content of the video. This finding was consistent with previous
research in L2 listening comprehension which explains the benefits of pre-listening
activities in promoting meta-cognitive strategies, such as prediction and guessing, where
students use the knowledge provided to them in the advance organizer to predict what the
text will be about (Hasan, 2000; Vandergrift, 2003).

The results of the current study should be interpreted in light of two major
limitations. First, the sample size was small. The findings of this study may be, to some
extent, different with a much larger sample size; therefore future research should include
more participants in order to be able to accurately evaluate the effectiveness of the pre-
listening activities on L2 learners’ listening comprehension. Second, the content of the
pre-listening assessment was rather difficult for the participants as it was culturally-based
although participants indicated they were familiar with the topics of the listening
passages.

No empirical study known to the researcher has compared the effects of
activating content and formal schemata, which highlights the need for further research in
this area. For example, future research could investigate the effect of activating listeners’
content and formal schemata as opposed to content only or formal only. It would also be
interesting to investigate the role of the background knowledge of listeners of different

proficiency levels to see if a higher overall proficiency level would override the effects of

40

 

background knowledge. The current study investigated the effectiveness of pre-listening
activities in a communicative learning environment. Participants in this study were used
to carrying out activities and engage in discussions with their teachers and peers. Future
research could expand this study to evaluate the effectiveness of advance organizers in
learning environments that are not communicative in nature.

The results of this study also have implications for classroom teachers as they
indicate that teachers need to pay more attention to helping students make connections
between their existing knowledge and new material through introducing appropriate pre-
listening activities. Teachers should also recognize that even though it might take them
more time to prepare for pre-listening activities, the benefits gained from these activities
may well merit the effort as the activities would improve learners’ listening
comprehension performance and thus contribute to enhancing their overall L2 language
ability.

In conclusion, the present study adds to the previous research regarding the
importance of pre-listening activities. Pre-listening activities that activate EFL learners’
content and formal background knowledge and require them to predict and interact with
the listening passage enhance their listening comprehension performance. Other types of
listening tasks could also be used in the future to determine the effects of different types
of speech such as newscasts, TV shows, songs, and radio talk shows. Finally, this study
sheds some light on the importance of teaching EFL learners how to listen, and focus on
the listening process rather than the listening product. Such an approach to listening may
reduce students’ anxiety when carrying out a listening activity as they are not pressured

to give correct answers, but rather, they engage in different activities which enhance their

41

metacognitive listening strategies and eventually lead them to a better understanding of

the text.

42

APPENDIX A:

Listening Comprehension Test
Participant #
Listening Test Booklet

INSTRUCTIONS

You will hear the following recording only once. Do not worry if you do not understand

everything.
a. Listen to the passage carefully. Take notes on the blank sheet of paper.
b. The tape will be stopped after you listen and you will be told to turn the page in
this booklet.
c. Answer the questions and make sure to circle the correct answer for each
question.
<1.

You will be asked to answer a set of multiple-choice questions and a brief
questionnaire. '

DO NOT TURN THIS PAGE UNTIL AFTER THE TAPE IS STOPPED!

43

1)

2)

3)

4)

5)

6)

7)

8)

What is the main idea of this lecture?
a) Individualism in American society
b) American health care system
c) American medical research

According to the lecturer, how does the US. health care system reflect American
history?

a) It is very diverse.

b) It is economically based.

c) It was established by immigrants.

What example of individualism in the US. health care system does the lecturer
give?

a) Americans don’t like going to hospitals.

b) America is a capitalist country.

c) Americans like to choose their doctors.

How does the US health care system reflect the US economic philosophy?
a) It is market oriented.
b) It emphasizes individualism.
c) There is a variety of hospitals in the US.

What are the two main types of hospitals that the lecturer mentioned?
a) expensive and affordable hospitals
b) for-profit and non-profit hospitals
c) local and international hospitals

What does she say about most hospitals in Michigan?
a) They are federal hospitals.
b) They are non-profit hospitals.
c) They are for-profit hospitals.

What does she say about tax laws in Michigan?
a) They encourage for-profit hospitals.
b) They involve very high taxes for hospitals.
c) They discourage for-profit hospitals.

The lecturer describes American medical research as

44

a) leading the world
b) similar to other countries
c) the least important in the world

9) What is the biggest source of money for US. medical research?
a) pharmaceutical companies
b) universities
0) federal government

10) According to the lecturer, what has increased recently?
a) number of hospitals
b) pharmaceutical companies
c) funding for medical research

11) According to the lecturer, pharmaceutical companies are interesting and exciting
because
a) they carry out cutting edge research.
b) they are very small.
c) they are business enterprises.

12) Universities that carry out research are usually funded by
a) private foundations
b) federal funds
c) all of the above.

45

APPENDIX B:
Questionnaire for Content Schema Group

For each of the statements shown below, please circle the number on the scale to indicate
your agreement or disagreement with the statement.

1. I think the pre-listening activity helped me to understand the listening passage.

5 4 3 2 1

Strongly Agree Strongly Disagree

2. I think the pre—listening activity helped me to predict the content of the listening
passage.

5 4 3 2 1

Strongly Agree Strongly Disagree

3. Would you like the pre-listening activity that you participated in to be a regular
classroom activity? Why or why not? You may respond in either English or Arabic.

 

 

46

APPENDIX C:
Questionnaire for Formal Schema Group

For each of the statements shown below, please circle the number on the scale to indicate
your agreement or disagreement with the statement.

1. I think the pre-listening activity helped me to understand the listening passage.

5 4 3 2 1

Strongly Agree Strongly Disagree

2. I think the pre-listening activity helped me to predict the structure of the listening
passage.

5 4 3 2 l

Strongly Agree Strongly Disagree

3. Would you like the pre-listening activity that you participated in to be a regular
classroom activity? Why or why not? You may respond in either English or Arabic.

 

 

47

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