Implementing Some Simple Strategies to Enhance Learners’ Listening Skills

Abstract

This action research was carried out with an intermediate EFL class of 37 students (19 women and 18 men) at a prestigious public university of a major city in Ecuador. After I gave them the first quiz, I noticed that most of the class performed very poorly on the listening part. I decided to find out what the problem was and what I could do to help my students to improve their listening skills. When I asked the class why they thought they did badly on the listening they came up with different reasons: "The conversations were too difficult; they were confusing; people spoke too quickly; some of the vocabulary words in the conversations were new to us". None of my students were aware of their lack of effective listening strategies. I told my learners I would give them some listening strategies that might help them improve their listening skills. I saw this problem like an opportunity to carry out an action research project to help my students to enhance their listening skills through the implementation of some simple listening strategies such as listening for gist (the main idea); listening for specific information (details); and avoiding being distracted by certain information that was mentioned in the conversations, but that did not pertain to the people or situation stated in the question. The students took 5 more quizzes after the first one and according to the results, their scores on the listening section improved significantly.

Enhancing Learners’ Communicative Skills through Audio-Visual Means

“…We tried to avoid difficulties while listening, taking into consideration data from the research of N. Vyspinska, so we paid special attention to such factors that affect students achievements in listening as: rate of delivery, new vocabulary, length of listening, visual support and background noise (2019, p.302). We also implemented strategies to improve listening skills (Caro, 2013). After listening, we parsed the text in graphical form to identify its features: unfamiliar vocabulary and grammatical structures.…”

The Efl 8th Graders’ Attitudes Towards the Use of Competency-Based Instruction in Listening Comprehension at a Secondary School in Kien Giang, Vietnam

“…Numerous scholarly inquiries have been conducted to examine the influence of listening techniques on students' listening subskills, as evidenced by the works of Caro (2013), andZare-Behtashet et al (2017). However, it is important to acknowledge that the data collection methods employed in these investigations encompassed tests and questionnaires.…”

Listening Comprehension Strategy Instruction: A Review of Previous Studies

“…An action research was carried out with an intermediate EFL class of 37 students at a public university in Ecuador by CARO (2013). Realizing that the students performed very poorly on the listening tests, the author decided to implement some simple strategies namely listening for gist, listening for details, and reading the questions carefully before the listening task, alongside a number of metacognitive strategies.…”

“…Second, results showed that the students in studies were more aware of the usefulness of listening strategies. They perceived listening improvement in academic listening and real world listening situations; raising strategy awareness, increasing confidence in English listening abilities (Khaled, 2012;Yi Guan, 2014;CARO, 2013;Abdullah, 2010;Le Thi Hang, 2006). After strategy instruction course, the students are found to use more listening strategies than before the course (Nantikarn, 2016;Vandergrift, 2003).…”