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The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of specific textual and contextual materials to bridge the gap between the student's present level o proficiency in a target language and the level of proficiency required to perform a listening comprehension task in that language. This study also tested for interaction between the use of the textual and contextual materials and the learning modality of the students. In addition, confounding effects by either learning modality and foreign language classroom anxiety were controlled.Listening comprehension was assessed by a fourteen-item multiple-choice test in Spanish developed by the researcher. Learning modality was established by the Edmonds Learning Style Identification Exercise developed by H. Reinert. Foreign language class anxiety was measured by the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale developed by Elaine Horwitz, Michael Horwitz, and Joann Cope.A group of 198 college students enrolled in nine second-semester Spanish classes at Anderson University, Anderson, Indiana participated in the study. Three classes were randomly assigned to each of the three treatments: the contextual cue, the textual cue, and neither one.A three factor 3 x 3 x 2 fixed effects factorial design was used to analyze the data gathered in the study. Four null hypotheses were tested. The .05 level of significance was established as the critical probability level for the non-acceptance of the hypotheses.Findings1. There are significant effects attributable to a textual cue on recall measures of listening comprehension.2. There are no significant effects attributable to a contextual cue on recall measures of listening comprehension.3. There are no significant interactions between the use of the textual cue and the learning modality of the students.4. There are no significant interactions between the use of the contextual cue and the learning modality of the students.5. There are no significant effects attributable to learning modality on recall measures of listening comprehension.6. There are significant effects attributable to foreign language classroom anxiety on recall measures of listening comprehension.Conclusions1. Textual cues support listening comprehension tasks but contextual cues do not.2. The effect of a semantic cue can not be affected by the learning modality of the student.3. Learning modality by itself does not affect student comprehension of a listening task.4. Foreign language class anxiety inhibits student performance during a listening comprehension task. / Department of Secondary, Higher, and Foundations of Education

Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Sound field distribution is becoming increasingly known as a method to overcome problems associated with noise, distance, and reverberation in classrooms. No robust research on this intervention has been conducted in the New Zealand context. Changing pedagogies in the education of New Zealand children and young people have been observed particularly since the 1970’s, resulting in noisier classrooms (Wilson, 2000). Acoustic standards for New Zealand classrooms that were adopted in 2003 apply only to new or renovated classrooms, and not to the majority of existing classrooms (Ministry of Education, 2003a). This study investigated: (a) the efficacy of sound field distribution in 30 New Zealand classrooms from five schools and compared outcome measures with a representative control group; (b) the variations of benefit for groups from specific populations, in particular children from five different socio-economic backgrounds and those with histories of middle ear dysfunction; and (c) the effects on teachers who use this equipment. Data were collected from standardized objective measurement tools and from the teachers and students who were participating in the study. Results revealed that sound field distribution, with the equipment configuration of boom microphones and four speakers, can enhance the listening and learning environment resulting in significant positive benefits in raising the achievement levels of children and young people. These results were observed in listening comprehension, which has a flow-on effect on the overall scholastic achievement of all students. Evidence of improved outcomes in areas with a strong link to mastery of literacy were significant, in particular in the areas of phonologic skills, reading comprehension, and reading vocabulary. Results of the study strongly support the use of sound field distribution in all mainstream school settings irrespective of whether the children and young people belong to a particular ethnic group, have had a history of middle ear dysfunction, or attend schools of a particular socio-economic status. Classroom sound field distribution seemingly benefits all children and young people. As a result of the positive results of this study and given the stated goals for education by the New Zealand Ministry of Education (Ministry of Education, 2003b), sound field distribution needs to be considered at a policy level as an intervention to assist in reducing disparity and to improve learning outcomes for all young New Zealanders in mainstream school settings.

Thesis (M.A.)--Miami University, Dept. of Spanish and Portuguese, 2007. / Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 65-70).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Ohio University, March, 2009. / Title from PDF t.p. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--Indiana University, 2007. / Title from screen (viewed on June 27, 2007) Department of English, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 77-80)

abstract: The purpose of this experimental study was to investigate the effects of textual and visual annotations on Spanish listening comprehension and vocabulary acquisition in the context of an online multimedia listening activity. 95 students who were enrolled in different sections of first year Spanish classes at a community college and a large southwestern university were randomly assigned to one of four versions of an online multimedia listening activity that contained textual and visual annotations of several key words. Students then took a comprehension and vocabulary posttest and a survey to measure cognitive load and general attitudes towards the program. Results indicated that textual annotations had a significant positive effect on listening comprehension and that visual annotations had a significant positive effect on how successful students felt. No statistically significant differences were found for other variables. Participants also reported positive attitudes towards vocabulary annotations and expressed a desire to see more annotations during multimedia listening activities of this type. These findings provide further evidence of the impact that multimedia may have on language acquisition. These findings have implications for multimedia design and for future research. Language listening activities should include a variety of vocabulary annotations that may help students to understand what they hear and to help them learn new vocabulary. Further research is needed outside of the laboratory, in the online and increasingly-mobile language learning environment in order to align the research with the environment in which many students currently study. The incorporation of motivation into multimedia learning theory and cognitive load should be explored, as well as new measures of cognitive load. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Educational Technology 2010

Orientador: Matilde Virginia Ricardi Scaramucci / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-18T21:26:33Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Sato_ElianeTiyokoNishimori_M.pdf: 696588 bytes, checksum: 4ac6383410cb114855b0c7e02f9a4ae7 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011 / Resumo: Devido à globalização, mudanças nas práticas sociais têm ocorrido e por isso a produção e a compreensão oral vêm ganhando destaque nas comunicações para fins comerciais, turísticos, educacionais e de lazer. Nesse sentido, sem prejuízo para as habilidades escritas, faz-se necessário desenvolver habilidades orais, o que implica mudanças no processo de ensino-aprendizagem. Neste estudo, volta-se o foco para a compreensão oral, em que se procura analisar qual é a concepção de compreensão oral e de ensino e aprendizagem dessa habilidade que fundamenta as atividades dos Cadernos de Língua Estrangeira Moderna (LEM) - Inglês do Estado de São Paulo, direcionados ao Ensino Fundamental, ciclo II. De natureza qualitativa e de cunho interpretativista, este trabalho se baseia em uma análise documental, por meio da qual se estudam documentos oficiais como os Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais para Língua Estrangeira (PCN-LE, 1998), a nova Proposta Curricular para LEM do Estado de São Paulo (2008) e os Cadernos do Professor de LEM - Inglês do Estado de São Paulo (2008), Ensino Fundamental, ciclo II, no intuito de analisar em que medida os princípios norteadores desses documentos se concretizam nas atividades de compreensão oral propostas por esses cadernos. A análise revelou que há desencontros entre esses princípios e as atividades, visto que a Proposta Curricular orienta que o desenvolvimento do inglês seja fundamentado por uma prática de ensino voltada para o letramento, mas na realidade, uma concepção estruturalista de compreensão oral e de ensino dessa habilidade subjaz essas atividades. Além disso, os dados mostraram que a visão sociointeracional de aprendizagem depreendida dos princípios norteadores dos documentos oficiais não se materializa nas tarefas propostas pelo referido material didático. Isso pode ter consequências mais sérias, uma vez que muitos professores têm uma formação deficitária e seguem rigorosamente o material didático. Dessa forma, os resultados da análise evidenciaram que a compreensão oral é avaliada, mas não ensinada nos Cadernos de LEM, pois as atividades privilegiam a identificação de itens isolados e descontextualizados, em detrimento de desenvolver a compreensão oral como processo ativo de construção de sentido, como ela tem sido considerada em visões contemporâneas (BUCK, 2001; FLOWERDEW; MILLER, 2005) / Abstract: Due to globalization, changes in social practices have taken place and that is the reason why speaking and listening skills have been getting attention in communication with commercial, touristic, educational and entertaining purposes. In this respect, without disregarding written skills, oral skills need to be developed, which means implementing changes in the teaching-learning process. This study in which listening is the focus aims at analyzing the nature of listening and how it is taught and learned through the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Notebooks of São Paulo State in Elementary School. This qualitative and interpretive study makes use of document analysis as a research method. Official documents, such as National Curriculum Parameters (PCN-LE, 1998), the EFL Curriculum Proposal of São Paulo State (2008) and the EFL Teacher's Notebooks of São Paulo State for Elementary School (2008) are analyzed in order to understand to which extent the theoretical principles of those official documents are reflected in the listening comprehension tasks in the aforementioned textbooks. The analysis showed that there are mismatches between those theoretical principles and the tasks, because even though the EFL Curriculum Proposal of São Paulo State claims that English should be learned through an approach based on literacy, what happens in fact is that a structural view of listening and teaching of this skill underlies the activities. Furthermore, the data showed that the interactional view of learning which is implicit in the theoretical principles of the official documents is not reflected in the EFL Teacher's Notebooks tasks. This might have serious consequences due to the fact that a lot of teachers do not reflect on their professional practice and might just follow the textbook without making any changes. Therefore, the results of this analysis made evident that listening is tested, but not taught in the EFL Teacher's Notebooks, since the tasks privilege the decoding of isolated elements, rather than developing listening as an active process of meaning construction, as this skill has been considered in contemporary views. (BUCK, 2001; FLOWERDEW; MILLER, 2005) / Mestrado / Lingua Estrangeira / Mestre em Linguística Aplicada

Movies are an occurring feature in EFL classrooms in Sweden, as well as exercises seeking to practice listening comprehension, although, there are few studies which combine the two together. The aim for this literature review was to analyse the use of film for listening comprehension development in EFL classrooms. The results show that movies can help students reach higher levels of listening because students felt more motivated and they became more active. The results also show further that teachers can help students reach higher levels of listening comprehension by using various features such as pauses, activities before, during and after the movie etc. The results also show that listening comprehension is a somewhat “take n for granted skill” which needs to be researched more about, specifically the importance of listening comprehension in the context of the other skills.

Listening is the most common skill we use in communication with others, even though it might be the most difficult skill to learn. Recent research shows that pupils receive most information in school by listening, and other research shows that it is relatively common that pupils, instead of using strategies while listening, just listen for specific words. This essay aims to examine pupils´ listening-strategies in English as a second language. By interviews with both pupils and teachers in two different schools, and observations I have investigated listening-strategies. The results of this study show that children at the age of eleven and twelve do apply listening strategies. Some pupils are aware of their comprehension skills in listening, while others do not exactly know what they are doing, but they actually have a strategy for listening. Even though there is little research about this topic, there is developmental work in Sweden which we need to be aware of. Teachers play a role in teaching and developing listening strategies, and this study investigates particularly the importance of metacognitive strategies. In a future perspective listening strategies are very important for language learners.