The present thesis is concerned with the current trends in teaching listening as they have been presented through a number of articles in various journals and mainly in the book by John Field: Listening in the Language Classroom who urges for a process approach, and ascertaining if these new methodological recommendations are finding their way into the classroom practice nowadays through an analysis of a number of frequently used language textbooks. The approach to teaching listening has been developing as a part of many methods used for teaching foreign languages over the years and it has gone from a completely omitted skill through a position of a rather neglected one up to its today status of causing major problems to students who complain that the speakers on the recordings speak too fast or that they cannot understand every single word. It is often the case that students manage to master listening in the confines of the language classroom, learn to cope with typical textbook listening exercises and understand their teachers and classmates, but when confronted with real-life listening outside the classroom, they frequently run into a kind of glasswall and are simply not able to deal with it. The analytical part is based on the analysis of the listening exercises in the very first and newest...

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)

Metacognitive listening instruction is the method recommended to Swedish teachers by the Swedish National Board of Education (Skolverket) in a document authored by Lena Börjesson (2012) found in the commentary material to the steering documents. This method is based on a metacognitive pedagogical sequence of L2 listening instruction suggested by Vandergrift and Goh (2012). In this study, I test this method using action research. The participants of the study were first year upper secondary school students from a vocational program, the control group consisted of students from a preparatory program. In general, the treatment group exhibited low motivation to study, while the second group had higher motivation. Both groups attended an upper secondary school in the South of Sweden. During seven classes, the treatment group (n=16) received training in the method, and the control group (n=21) was given more traditional tests during six classes. In this study, I used the following methods to obtain my data: the PET listening test, the listening segment of the Swedish National Test of English and the Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaire (MALQ). The results demonstrated that both groups improved their results on the listening aptitude test significantly; however, the treatment group did not with a statistical significance improve more than the control group. Secondly, the students did not perceive that they were using more strategies after the explicit strategy training they had received; both groups reported to using strategies less, as the listening texts became increasingly difficult. Thirdly, the students from the two groups did not report perceiving any difference in learning how to listen, despite one of the groups receiving explicit instruction in listening strategies. Finally, the students both in the treatment group and in the control group have reported to increasing listening anxiety after the instructional period, but the levels of anxiety increased less in the treatment group. The results of this study thus do not unequivocally suggest the effectiveness of the method for teaching listening recommended by Skolverket. In particular, it is questionable whether the method is at all suitable for students with low motivation as those who have participated in the study.

(in English): This thesis deals with the issues of teaching listening in Czech as a foreign language. It is based on studying theoretic sources, structured observing and the comparison of didactic materials, on questionnaires and informal interviews. In its theoretical part, it brings a brief overview of present knowledge in this field, using predominantly foreign sources that deal with teaching English as a foreign language. The second part enables the comparison of various didactic materials from the points of view acquired in the previous chapter, and it also provides an overview of the typology of listening tasks, including their evaluation. The last chapter designs some new sample materials based on what has been found out about their imperfections in this field so far, and it also mentions some suitable resources for designing the new listening tasks. The merit of this thesis on the theoretical level consists of making the main results of contemporary Anglo-American science accessible for the Czech auditory, on the practical level it lies in presenting an overall list of listening tasks and showing (in the Czech materials) some so far unknown possibilities of teaching the listening comprehension, these alternatives being accompanied with practical examples.

The main aim of this research was to explore lecturers’ and students’ perceptions of the effectiveness of teaching listening skills to English foreign language (EFL) students at three Ethiopian universities with the purpose of proposing guidelines and recommendations for effective teaching and learning of EFL listening skills. The research was prompted by a number of research projects which indicated that listening skills and the teaching of listening in the Ethiopian context were not effective resulting in students who are ill equipped for listening effectively. A mixed method approach was followed as a design for the empirical research study. A pragmatic research paradigm, using both quantitative and qualitative methods and then blending the two methods was employed. Quantitative data were collected from 72 lecturers and 158 students at three Ethiopian universities by means of close-ended questionnaires using a five-point Likert scale instrument. For the qualitative phase of the study data were collected by means of semi-structured interviews with lecturers and students. Observations of listening lessons presented in the classroom and in the language laboratory were done by means of completing an observation checklist and note-taking. These were used to triangulate data. The analysis of the data obtained by means of the questionnaires and the observation checklist were done using descriptive and inferential statistics. Qualitative data obtained by means of unstructured interviews (which were transcribed verbatim) were coded and divided into themes. The research findings indicated that the lecturers’ perceptions of the activities used during the pre-, while- and post-listening phases and the use of listening material were more positive than those of students and that females perceived the effectiveness less positive than males. The data obtained by means of interview questions confirmed what was found in the quantitative part of the study. Observations carried out in the three universities showed that the teaching of listening skills was mostly poorly done and that the listening material used was not suitable and did not interest students. The use of bottom-up and top-down strategies were found to be used inadequately in the teaching of EFL listening skills. The teaching methods and strategies used, as well as activities provided during each listening phase were found to be generally poor. A model for teaching EFL listening in the classroom was proposed in this study. Lecturers and students expressed their challenges in teaching and learning EFL listening skills and also made recommendations for best practices on how to improve the teaching and learning of EFL listening. These challenges and recommendations for best practices mostly centred around lecturer-related, student-related and institutional-related factors. This study has suggested recommendations pertaining to the lecturers, students, institutions of higher education, the Ethiopian Ministry of Education and schools. / Curriculum and Instructional Studies / D. Ed. (Didactics)