Memory Strategies & Listening Comprehension: A Master's Thesis

FACULTAD DE CIENCIAS SOCIALES Y HUMANIDADES
TÍTULO DEL PROYECTO FINAL
The impact of using memory learning strategies in the listening comprehension of students of
class 202 in Colombian Primary School Bosanova.
Tesis para optar al grado de:
Máster Universitario en Lingüística Aplicada a la enseñanza del inglés como lengua extranjera
Presentado por:
Ricardo Rendy Ramírez Muñoz
COFPMTFL2451759
Director:
Sheila Queralt Estévez
Bogotá, Colombia
July, 2019
ÁREA DE IDIOMAS
TÍTULO DEL PROYECTO FINAL
The impact of using memory learning strategies in the listening comprehension of students of
class 202 in Colombian Primary School Bosanova.
Tesis para optar al grado de:
Master in Teaching English as a foreign language
Presentado por:
Ricardo Rendy Ramírez Muñoz
COFPMTFL2451759
Director:
Sheila Queralt Estévez
Bogotá, Colombia
July, 2019
INDEX
1. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................... 1
2. ACADEMIC JUSTIFICATION AND PERSONAL INTEREST ................................................ 3
3. OBJECTIVES ........................................................................................................................ 5
3.1. The main aim of the research ....................................................................................... 5
3.2. Specific aims: ................................................................................................................ 5
4. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ............................................................................................. 6
4.1. Why listening? ............................................................................................................... 6
4.2. Listening ........................................................................................................................ 6
4.3. Listening sub-skills or micro-skills .............................................................................. 8
4.4. Listening comprehension process .............................................................................10
4.5. Factors in listening comprehension ...........................................................................14
4.6. Learning strategies ......................................................................................................15
4.7. Listening comprehension strategies ..........................................................................17
4.8. Direct memory strategies ............................................................................................19
4.9. The listening lesson .....................................................................................................22
4.9.1. Pre-listening...........................................................................................................22
4.9.2. While listening .......................................................................................................23
4.9.3. Post-listening.........................................................................................................23
4.9.4. The input ................................................................................................................24
4.9.5. The instruction in listening ...................................................................................25
5. METHODOLOGY..................................................................................................................27
5.1. Action research ............................................................................................................28
5.2. Instruments to collect data ..........................................................................................29
5.2.1. The initial and final test .........................................................................................29
I
5.2.2. Questionnaire about the strategies used by students ........................................30
5.2.3. The worksheets .....................................................................................................35
5.2.4. Registration table about subskills........................................................................35
5.2.5. Assessment rubric of listening comprehension .................................................36
5.2.6. Diary .......................................................................................................................36
5.2.7. Survey ....................................................................................................................36
6. CORPUS ..............................................................................................................................37
6.1. Stage 1: Exploration .....................................................................................................38
6.2. Stage 2: Planification. ..................................................................................................42
6.3. Stage 3: Application and reconsideration ..................................................................44
6.3.1. Workshops .............................................................................................................44
6.3.2. The worksheets .....................................................................................................45
6.3.3. The registration table and the assessment rubric listening comprehension ....46
6.3.4. Categorical matrix .................................................................................................46
6.3.5. Pedagogic intervention proposal .........................................................................50
7. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION..............................................................................................53
7.1. The use of memory strategies .....................................................................................54
7.1.1. Creating mental linkages ......................................................................................54
7.1.2. Applying images and sounds ...............................................................................55
7.1.3. Reviewing well .......................................................................................................55
7.1.4. Employing action...................................................................................................56
7.1.5. Grouping ................................................................................................................57
7.1.6. Acronym .................................................................................................................58
7.1.7. Imagery ..................................................................................................................59
7.2. Listening process.........................................................................................................60
7.2.1. Sub skills ...............................................................................................................61
7.2.1.1. Pre-listening......................................................................................................61
II
7.2.1.2. While-listening ..................................................................................................62
7.2.1.3. Post-listening ....................................................................................................64
7.3. Listening comprehension process: Macro and micro-process ................................65
7.3.1. Macro-process .......................................................................................................65
7.3.1.1. Bottom-Up process ...........................................................................................66
7.3.1.2. Top-down process ............................................................................................66
7.3.2. Micro-processes ....................................................................................................67
7.3.2.1. Literal................................................................................................................67
7.3.2.2. Retention ..........................................................................................................67
7.3.2.3. Organization .....................................................................................................68
7.3.2.4. Inference ..........................................................................................................68
7.3.2.5. Interpretation ....................................................................................................69
7.4. Use of strategies according to the assessment questionnaire .................................70
7.5. The initial and final test................................................................................................71
7.6 The survey .....................................................................................................................74
8. CONCLUSIONS ...................................................................................................................76
9. BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................................................................................................80
III
1. INTRODUCTION
The present work arises from the dialogue held with a group of students and their
parents who are motivated with learning a second language, a process that the
educational institution develops in Bosa, Bogotá, Colombia, through the Bilingualism
program, of the National Education Ministry. The students expressed wanting to
improve their performance, before which it was decided to teach them the use of
learning strategies as a way to provide them with the necessary tools to be able to
advance in their process.
To establish where focusing the intervention the teacher through the reflection in
the classroom concluded that the students had difficulty in understanding the sounds
and relating them to the words used and explained in class which discouraged them to
participate and generated distrust in their knowledge, all of which produced frustration
or anxiety. Seeking to solve this problem, it was decided to teach memory strategies in
order to improve listening comprehension and thus increase their motivation to learn
new topics, for this reason, a project proposal was presented to parents and students
in an academic period meeting where the teacher explained the objectives and the way
in which these strategies would be taught.
The present work had been developed by chapters, each one of which contains
an important part of the research, in the introduction in chapter 1 the research topic
establishes the how and why of it; in chapter 2, the realization of the research is
justified according to the needs of the students and the expectations of the researcher;
the objectives of the research that will serve to analyze the impact in listening
comprehension through the use of memory learning strategies are presented in chapter
3; chapter 4 sustains and reviews what has been written on the subject a theoretical
review was made and the concepts were determined which serve as a basis for
research such as listening comprehension, learning strategies, and listening strategies;
chapter 5 explains the methodology used, the investigative model, its approach and the
data collection instruments together with the way in which students will be evaluated
during their process; chapter 6 describes the context in which the research was
developed, the way in which the data were collected, the tools used to analyze them
and the description of the planning of each of the phases of the action research; the
1
results of the research are found in chapter 7, the conclusions are presented in chapter
8 and the consulted bibliography will be found in chapter 9.
2
2. ACADEMIC JUSTIFICATION AND PERSONAL INTEREST
The relevance of this work lies in its contribution to the study of learning
strategies in primary school students, during the review it was established that the
majority of studies on strategies focus on high school students or higher levels, which
has caused the development of little material on the use of learning strategies in the
initial stages of learning a second language, therefore, this research allows knowing
from a constructivist perspective the process of listening comprehension of the
students through the use of memory strategies.
Likewise, the listening process will be studied due to it has been one of the most
neglected pedagogical practices because, in fact, it has been mostly assumed as a
passive skill, dependent on another skill, which has caused it to be considered as the
product of others processes. Hence the importance of studying it to learn more about
how listening comprehension occurs.
The present research takes into consideration the needs of the students, the
institution and the research.
In the first place, the majority of students of class 202 in Bosanova School from
Colombia love English because they notice that can find interesting information in this
language understanding that English is used to communicate us in other words. In this
way, they learn and practice vocabulary, grammar, reading and pronunciation but they
do not use specific strategies to improve their listening and feel frustration when
listening words that know in reading but no identity in listening or when they try to
understand something. Thus, this research focuses on listening comprehension
because it will help to encourage learners to communicate.
In the second place, Bosanova School is developing a bilingual program. In order
to reinforce this project in the school, according to the needs of students and the Vision
of the institution, it is necessary to use strategies to improve the acquisition of the
second language of primary students. The official curriculum of state institutions
determinate that in this stage of learning the students in listening must recognize
sounds, follow instructions and sequences, understand simple questions and routines
and identify main idea of a tale according to the corporal expressions of the teacher, in
this way the implementation of strategies to be teaching is important to improve the
comprehension of the students that is the base to the process of learning.
3
Finally, in the third place, the research pretends to study how the use of memory
learning strategies would improve the listening comprehension of students. The
present research aims to determine which are the most effective memory strategies to
improve their listening comprehension skills in second grade in a public primary school.
As a teacher, it is important because orient the pedagogical practice in the use of
strategies in an effective way to improve the methodology of teaching and the learning
process of the students.
4
3. OBJECTIVES
The research question is: How the use of memory learning strategies can benefit the
listening comprehension of students in primary second grade?
3.1. The main aim of the research
To analyze the impact of listening comprehension through the use of memory learning
strategies.
3.2. Specific aims:
-
To describe the process of comprehension of listening
-
To design the activities.
-
To implement different memory learning strategies by the children of primary
second grade.
-
To evaluate the memory learning strategies according to the aims of the
research.
-
To analyze the impact of the memory learning strategies in the learning of a
second language in students of the primary.
-
To describe the impact of using memory learning strategies in listening skills.
5
4. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
The research “The impact of the use of learning strategies in the listening skills of
students in primary second grade” would cover different themes that include the
difference between listening and hear, listening sub-skills or micro-skills to analyze in
segments the listening, listening comprehension to address the process in a global
sense, learning strategies to understand the multiple ways that the students use to
learn, listening comprehension strategies to focus in our object of study, direct memory
learning strategies to analyze their impact in listening comprehension, and finally,
listening lesson to design a coherent pedagogical intervention according to the corpus.
4.1. Why listening?
Mendelson (1994) quotes by Yildirim and Yildirim (2016, p. 2099) considers three
reasons for why listening was poorly taught. First of all, listening was not accepted as a
separate skill to be taught explicitly for a long time. Supporters of the idea argued that
language learners would improve their listening skill on their own while they are
listening to the teacher during the day. Secondly, teachers felt insecure about teaching
listening. And finally, the traditional materials for language teaching were not efficient
enough to teach listening.
4.2. Listening
To understand the process of comprehension it is necessary to recognize the
difference between hearing and listening, Kline (1996, p.7) states that being aware of
the difference between them is an important feature for learning and teaching listening
effectively. He considers that hearing is the reception of sound, listening is the
attachment of meaning to the sound. Hearing is passive, listening is active. Similarly,
Rost (2002, p. 8) states the difference as follows: “Hearing is a form of perception.
Listening is an active and intentional process. Although both hearing and listening
involve sound perception, the difference in terms reflects a degree of intention”. In
conclusion, according to these authors listening is an active and conscious process.
As a process, listening has a vital function in language acquisition and learning a
second language, according to Rost (1994) quoted by Yildirim and Yildirim (2016, p.
2097) the importance of listening in the language classroom as follows:
6
1. Listening is vital in the language classroom because it provides input for the
learner. Without understanding input at the right level, any learning simply
cannot begin. 2. Spoken language provides a means of interaction for the
learner. Because learners must interact to achieve understanding. Access to
speakers of the language is essential. Moreover, learners’ failure to understand
the language they hear is an impetus, not an obstacle, to interaction and
learning. 3. Authentic spoken language presents a challenge for the learner to
understand language as native speakers actually use it. 4. Listening exercises
provide teachers with a means for drawing learners’ attention to new forms
(vocabulary, grammar, new interaction patterns) in the language.
All of this is reinforced by Cross (1998) who states that listening is the most
significant part of communication as it is pivotal in providing a substantial and
meaningful response. In the learning of language for communicative purpose, listening
plays a vital role, as it helps the language learner to acquire pronunciation, syntax,
vocabulary and, word stress and the comprehension of messages conveyed can be
based solely on tone of voice, pitch and accent; all of these are only possible when we
listen. In the same way Vandergrift (1999, p. 168) defines listening as “a complex,
active process in which the listener must discriminate between sounds, understand
vocabulary and grammatical structures, interpret stress and intonation, retain what was
gathered in all of the above, and interpret it within the immediate as well as the larger
sociocultural context of the utterance”.
Listening is one of the essential key factors for success in daily communication.
Bress (2006) “points out that of all the four skills, listening must surely be the most
practised one but currently, the lack of listening practice may be due to the fact that the
communicative approach method, largely used in language schools nowadays,
requires conversation more than other skills” quoted by Bano (2017, p 21)
Teachers need to consider teaching listening in order to promote learners’
acquisition as well as comprehension. Kemp (2010) quoted for Kurita (2012, p. 40)
suggests that
cumulative meaningful listening activities might be important for listening to
acquisition. He reported that through using a listening log, the learners
developed independent learning skills, including the ability to monitor their
performance, and make decisions and act upon them. He argues that what has
7
been learnt may not be evident after one listening event; instead, the effect is
likely to be cumulative. L2 learners restructure linguistic knowledge and create
new schemata on an unfamiliar culture through cumulative listening
experiences. To support this, Schmitt (2008) suggests that establishing the
meaning-form link is essential for vocabulary instruction, and once this initial
meaning-form link is established, it is crucial to consolidate it with repeated
exposures and it is best learned by being exposed to the lexical item many
times in many different contexts. This means listening to targeted lexical items
many times in many different contexts helps learners’ language acquisition.
Next, learners need to be encouraged to participate more in communicative
activities which could enhance learning opportunities through increased input
and output that are required to promote acquisition.
Kurita (2012) concludes in her study that it might be necessary to view listening
for comprehension as different from listening for acquisition. However, it is more
efficient to use both forms of listening: listen to learning and learning to listen that
means that listening instruction will be mixed. For example, it seems that learners often
listen to spoken texts that include many unknown words for them. Since there is a large
impact of vocabulary knowledge on comprehension, adequate vocabulary coverage of
listening material might need to be considered. Listening comprehension is the base for
acquisition. Cumulative meaningful listening activities and communicative activities
seem effective for acquisition. The final goal of developing listening might be to enable
learners to become autonomous learners with the use of strategies that permit to be
more efficient. Appropriate instruction for listening comprehension would reduce
listening anxiety and provide a good foundation for becoming autonomous learners
who can utilize the listening process for acquisition.
4.3. Listening sub-skills or micro-skills
In the literature about the topic, the authors use indistinctly the word subskill and
micro-skills, the importance of this research is that they will be integrated with task and
serves to evaluate specific skills in listening. Field (1998) considers subskills as
competencies which native listeners possess and which non-natives need to acquire in
relation to the language they are learning. They involve mastering the auditory
phonetics, the word identification techniques, the patterns of reference, the distribution
of information which occurs in the target language.
8
According to Renukadevi (2014), the sub-skills would be divided into receiving,
understanding, remembering, evaluating, and responding. Another author as Richards
(1983) proposes a Taxonomy of listening micro-skills involved in different types of
listening that were developed from a variety of sources, including needs analysis,
discourse analysis, and related research. The analysis of listening processes and
features of spoken discourse includes 33 micro-skills and listening to academic
purposes includes other 18. This research takes in mind different micro skills that will
be evaluated in the practice and will be focused on process:
●
ability to retain chunks of the language of different lengths for short periods
●
ability to discriminate among the distinctive sounds of the target language
●
ability to recognize vocabulary used in core conversational topics
●
ability to detect keywords (i.e., those which identify topics and propositions)
●
ability to reconstruct or infer situations, goals, participants, procedures.
●
ability to predict outcomes from events described
●
ability to make use of facial, paralinguistic, and other clues to work out
meanings
Microskills relevant to academic listening include
●
ability to identify the topic and follow topic development
●
ability to infer relationships (e.g., cause, effect, conclusion)
●
ability to deduce meanings of words from context
There are a number of strategic techniques which can indeed be practised
individually, using the micro or sub listening skills, these include: using knowledge of
the topic to predict what will be heard; working out gist by identifying keywords;
learning to recognize ‘new’ information marked by sentence stress; using markers as
guides to changes of topic; and handling unknown words by ignoring them or switching
to a higher level of generality, some of these techniques are included in the different
tasks and activities and this research use them because centre its intervention in the
use of strategies to develop listening comprehension and it is pivotal know how this
process is developed.
9
4.4. Listening comprehension process
O’Malley, Chamot and Kupper (1989) cited by Yildirim and Yildirim (2016, p.
2096) define listening comprehension as an “active and conscious process in which the
listener constructs meaning by using cues from contextual information and from
existing knowledge while relying upon multiple strategic resources to fulfil the task
requirements”. This definition focus on the active and conscious process that means
the use of techniques or strategies by the listener and the construction of meaning
through the context and the previous knowledge.
Kurita (2012) makes a difference between comprehension and acquisition and
establish differences between the process of listening to learn or learning to listen, all
of this is based in the explanation of Rost (2001, p. 97) who points out that particularly
for adult learners, the processes of learning to listen (that is, learning to understand
spoken messages) and listening to learn (that is, learning the syntax and lexis of the
language through listening) do not coincide. Kurita explains that learning to listen
involves enhancing comprehension abilities in understanding the language process. On
the other hand, listening to learn involves creating new meaning and form linking and
then repeating the meaning and form linking, which helps the learners to be ready for
paying more attention to the syntax and lexis of the language through listening.
To understand the comprehension process, it is necessary to do the distinction
between bottom-up and top-down processing (Berne, 2004; Flowerdew & Miller, 2005;
Mendelshon, 1994; Rost, 2002, Vandergrift, 2004). Bottom-up processing involves
decoding in our case segmenting the sound into meaningful units. On the other hand,
top-down processing involves the application of context and prior knowledge to build a
conceptual framework for interpretation purposes. The different types of knowledge
listeners can apply to this interpretation process include experiential, cultural, textual,
linguistic and pragmatic knowledge.
Brown (2006) quoted by Yildirim and Yildirim (2016, p. 2098) defines both
processes:
top-down processing is the process of using our prior knowledge and
experiences; we know certain things about certain topics and situations and use
that information to understand. In other words, learners use their background
knowledge in order to comprehend the meaning by considering previous
10
knowledge and schemata. On the other hand, bottom-up processing refers to
the process of using the information we have about sounds, word meanings,
and discourse markers like first, then and after that to assemble our
understanding of what we read or hear one step at a time. During bottom-up
processing, learners hear the words, keep them in their short term memory to
combine them with each other and interpret the things that they have heard
before.
The process of listening is the interrelation between top down and bottom up
process, is the result of combining the new information and the knowledge that the
listener already knows. According to Flowerdew and Miller (2005) quoted by Yildirim
and Yildirim (2016, p. 2098):
Advanced listening skills are the results of combining the listening process with
cognitive development. In that sense, in order to be effective listeners, students
should use both bottom-up and top-down processing in listening. That is,
“students must hear some sounds (bottom-up processing), hold them in their
working memory long enough (a few seconds) to connect them to each other
and then interpret what they’ve just heard before something new comes along.
At the same time, listeners are using their background knowledge (top-down
processing) to determine to mean with respect to prior knowledge and
schemata” (Brown, 2006, p. 3).
The comprehension of listening is an active process that requires different
elements in which the listener must discriminate between sounds, interpret stress and
intonation, understand vocabulary and grammatical structures, retain what was
gathered in all of the above, and interpret it within the immediate as well as the larger
sociocultural context of the utterance (Vandergrift, 1999). In this way, it is important to
teach strategies that permit the students to identify these elements when they listen to
them.
Moreover, listening comprehension plays a key role in facilitating language
learning. According to Gary (1975) cited by Vandergrift (1999, p. 168) giving preeminence to listening comprehension, particularly in the stages of second language
teaching/learning, provides advantages of four different types: cognitive, efficiency,
utility, and effective. The cognitive advantage of an initial emphasis on listening
comprehension is its respect for a more natural way to learn a language. Processing
11
and decoding auditory input require recognition knowledge, whereas encoding and
generating speech output requires retrieval knowledge. In this sense, it is important
refers to the auditory input with images, physical actions or background knowledge to
help students to identify main ideas or specific information according to the context.
Closely related to the cognitive advantage is the efficiency advantage. Language
learning can be more efficient if learners are not immediately required to produce all
the language material to which they are exposed. A preliminary emphasis on listening
is also more efficient because students are exposed only to good language models (the
teacher and realistic recordings) instead of the imperfect utterances of classmates
(Gary, 1975). In this way students must be exposed more to listening to that handing
input in early intervention, that permits that student identifies in a direct way the word
that he/she listen and generate comprehension.
This leads to the third advantage: the usefulness of the receptive skill or the utility
advantage. Whereas speakers can, at their own pace, use paralinguistic and other
communication strategies to maintain communication, listeners must adjust to the
speaker’s tempo and active vocabulary. This is probably the most important reason for
teaching listening comprehension strategies and provides the rationale for the
continued inclusion of listening activities throughout a language program, even at
advanced levels (Gary, 1975). That permits to students use their communicative
competence to express an idea or try to transmit a message using the vocabulary and
their body language to get attention to continue the communication.
The final advantage of an emphasis on listening comprehension is the
psychological advantage. Without the pressure of early oral production, there is less
potential embarrassment about producing sounds that are difficult to master, especially
for adults and teenagers. Once this pressure is eliminated, they can relax and focus on
developing the listening skill, and on internalizing the rules which will facilitate the
emergence of the other skills (Gary, 1975). This serves to increase the learners’
motivation and security when they express an idea in other languages, generating
confidence.
Analysing listening comprehension process, Hulstijin (2003) cited for Kurita
(2012, p. 32) explains the combination of top-down processing with bottom-up
processing of information from the stimulus itself are used. Linguistic knowledge and
world knowledge interact in parallel fashion as listeners create a mental representation
12
of what they have heard. For instance, it is possible to understand the meaning of a
word before decoding its sound, because we have many different types of knowledge,
including knowledge of the world around us, in the same way, linguistic knowledge
contributes to listening comprehension: phonology, lexis, syntax, semantics and
discourse structure (Buck, 2001) quoted by Kurita (2012, p. 35).
According to Richards (2008) quoted for Kurita (2012, p. 33), a top-down process
approach includes exercises that require top-down processing develop the learners’
ability to use keywords to construct the schema of a discourse, infer the setting for a
text and infer the role of the participants and their goals. A bottom-up approach
includes exercises that develop bottom-up processing, which helps learners to
recognize word and clause divisions, recognize keywords and recognize key transitions
in a discourse.
Kurita (2012, p. 36) mentions the contribution of Anderson (2009) who provides
another model to understand the comprehension process, to explain this he breaks
down the language comprehension process into three stages: perception, parsing and
utilization.
The first stage involves the perceptual process that encodes the spoken
message; the second stage is the parsing stage, in which the words in the
message are transformed into a mental representation of the combined
meaning of the words. Listeners are involved in the identification of constituent
structure or a basic phrase, or unit in a sentence’s surface structure. The third
stage is the utilization stage, in which listeners use the mental representation of
the sentence’s meaning. If the sentence is a question, they may answer; if it is
an instruction, they may obey. These three stages are by necessity partly
ordered in time; however, they also partly overlap. Listeners can make
inferences from the first part of a sentence while they perceive a later part.
Besides, the teaching framework of top-down skills and bottom-up skills,
Anderson’s (2009) comprehension model in cognitive psychology provides a new
methodological framework: perception skill, parsing skill, and utilization skill. The
findings regarding the three stages imply that listening instruction can focus on
improving control ability in each stage, do not forget that one goal of listening
instruction is to help learners “notice” more of the input and utilize more information
from the input as they construct meaning (Rost, 2002).
13
In a study realized by Goh (2000) quoted for Yildirim and Yildirim (2016, p. 2103)
a group of Chinese students present the following problems in the different three
stages: Perception: Do not recognize words they know, neglect the next part when
thinking about meaning, cannot chunk streams of speech, miss the beginning of texts,
concentrate too hard or unable to concentrate. In parsing: Quickly forget what is heard
unable to form a mental representation from words heard, do not understand
subsequent parts of input because of earlier problems. In utilization: understand words
but not the intended message and confused about the key ideas in the message.
These stages are useful to recognize what kind of strategy would be used to help
students with their problems in listening or the kind of process (bottom-up or top-down)
the student need reinforce.
In conclusion, listening comprehension is a highly integrative skill. It plays an
important role in the process of language learning/acquisition, facilitating the
emergence of other language skills; generate confidence and security in the use of a
new language. This process can be divided into sub-process stages to understand
better the macro process. For these reasons, an awareness and deployment of
effective listening comprehension strategies can help students priority on the language
input they are receiving but as teachers need to know the factors that facilitate or
difficult this process.
4.5. Factors in listening comprehension
Three factors are important what we are talking about listening comprehension,
these include input, vocabulary and motivation.
To facilitate the listening comprehension is pivotal a comprehensible input, this
input must be part of a clear instruction in the classroom. According to Kurita (2012, p.
31) learners who learn to control their listening processes can enhance their
comprehension. Developing listening comprehension ability would enable the learners
to succeed in L2 acquisition in terms of increasing comprehensible input. In addition,
appropriate instruction for L2 listening could reduce learners’ anxiety facilitating the
process of learning.
14
Vocabulary has an important role in the listening comprehension, Stahr (2009)
found that vocabulary size and depth of vocabulary knowledge are both significantly
correlated with listening comprehension and asserts that vocabulary size is the basic
component of vocabulary knowledge in listening comprehension and that depth of
vocabulary knowledge does not play a separate role. However, more attention has
been paid to stress and intonation patterns. Mecartty (2000) states that grammatical
knowledge
does
not
contribute
significantly
to
either
listening
or
reading
comprehension but vocabulary knowledge plays an important role in L2 listening
comprehension ability. VanPatten (1990) revealed that learners, in particular, earlystage learners, have difficulty in attending to both form and content in listening.
Vocabulary is of great importance in comprehending a language. According to
Nation (2004) quoted by Abbassi, Hassaskhah and Tahriri (2018, p. 1), words are the
basic parts of a language since they are vital for expressing objects, actions, and
opinions. Obviously, without words, people will not be able to communicate their
intended ideas, and this is a crucial factor in listening comprehension.
Motivation is another important affective issue in research because listening is an
active process, requiring both conscious attention and involvement (Rost, 2001). There
is some evidence for a positive relationship between motivation, use of metacognitive
strategies and listening success (Vandergrift, 2005) the evidence shows that control or
evaluate constantly the learning (use of metacognitive approach) is effective to reduce
anxiety.
As analyzed by Buck (2001) cited by Kurita (2012, p. 37), there are numerous
difficulties to be encountered in listening comprehension tasks, such as unknown
vocabulary, unfamiliar topics, fast speech rates, and unfamiliar accents (Chang &
Read, 2008). Therefore, it is important to regard in mind to facilitate the listening
process the input, the vocabulary of the learner and the motivation, but the students do
not do this without help, they need to develop strategies or ways to understand a new
language and permit the learning these are the reasons to teach strategies.
4.6. Learning strategies
Learning strategies are defined as steps or actions taken by learners to improve
the development of their language skills (Oxford and Cohen 1992, p. 1). These
strategies have the power of increasing attention essential for learning a language,
15
enhancing rehearsal that allows linkages to be strongly forced; improving the encoding
and integration of language material and increasing retrieval of information when
needed for use (Oxford, 1990; Mayer, 1988). They are used in formal classroom
situations where the language is presented systematically, as well as in the less formal
environments where the language is picked up naturally without intentional instruction.
Oxford (1990, p. 37) identifies six main categories of L2 learning strategies these
are: cognitive, metacognitive, memory, compensatory, affective and social. These
strategies do not work isolate, they are interrelated, for this reason, it is important to
know that methodologically we can focus on specific strategy but in terms of learning
the student support in several of them in a conscious or unconscious way.
She considers that language learning strategies are oriented towards the
development of communicative competence. She divided them into two main groups,
direct and indirect strategies, which are subdivided into six main groups. In Oxford’s
opinion, direct strategies involve new language directly and these are classified in
memory, cognitive and compensation strategies. All direct strategies require mental
processing of the language. The description of each one is in Arrellano (2017, p.232):
Memory strategies involve the mental processes for storing new
information in the memory and for retrieving them when needed. These
strategies entail four sets: creating mental linkages, applying images and
sounds, reviewing well and employing action.
Cognitive strategies require conscious ways of handling the object
language and fall into four groups: practising, receiving and sending messages
strategies, analyzing and reasoning, creating a structure for input and output.
These strategies are the mental strategies used to make sense of learning.
Compensation strategies supply the knowledge gaps that a learner may
have either in speaking or writing, overcoming language difficulties. As Oxford
says compensation strategies are employed by learners when facing a
temporary breakdown in speaking or writing. These strategies are divided into
two groups, guessing intelligently and overcoming limitations in speaking and
writing.
According to Oxford, indirect strategies, which provide indirect support for
language learning, including metacognitive, affective and social strategies.
16
Metacognitive strategies enable learners to control their own cognition by
using different strategies such as focusing, arranging, evaluating, seeking
opportunities, and lowering anxiety. These strategies involve overviewing and
linking with material already known, paying attention, delaying speech
productions, organizing, setting goals and objectives, planning for a language
task, seeking for practice opportunities, arranging, planning and evaluating your
learning.
Affective
strategies
are
concerned with
the
learner’s
emotional
requirements assisting them to cope with their emotions, motivation, and
attitudes related to learning. These strategies entail lowering one’s anxiety,
encouraging oneself and taking one’s emotional temperature.
Social strategies lead to increased interaction with the target language.
These promote language learning through interactions with others. Every
language conveys a form of social behaviour. So learning a foreign or second
language requires a correct interaction. As Oxford states, it is extremely
important that learners employ appropriate social strategies in this process.
Social strategies comprise asking questions, cooperation with others and
emphasizing with others.
The objective of the present research includes the use of memory strategies to
determine their impact in the listening process, for instance, it is necessary to address
especially these strategies.
4.7. Listening comprehension strategies
Listening strategies can be broadly classified as Top-down and Bottom-up
strategies these both are related to the process of comprehension. According to
Renukadevi (2014, p. 61)
Top-down strategies are listener based; the listener relies on the background
knowledge of the topic, the listening context, the text type, and the language
and they help the listener to interpret the ideas he has listened. Top-down
strategies are for listening for the main idea, predicting, drawing inference and
summarizing. On the other hand, bottom-up strategies are text-based where the
17
listeners use linguistic knowledge to understand information. Here the listener
relies on the language in the message, that is, the combination of sounds,
words, and grammar to arrive at the final message. Bottom-up strategies are to
concentrate on specific details while listening and recognize word-order
patterns.
O’Malley and Chamot (1990) have validated a body of language learning
strategies, and an accompanying classification scheme grounded in cognitive theory.
They have differentiated and categorized the range of cognitive activity in language
learning into two main types: metacognitive and cognitive strategies. These authors
only recognize these three “macro” strategies and they do not distinguish between
indirect and direct strategies as Oxford (1990) does it. That means that include in
cognition strategy the memory and compensation strategies and joint affective and
social strategies in one, in essence, it is the same but in the intervention, some of these
strategies are combined and do not give us a clear idea about what is more effective.
Metacognitive strategies are important because they oversee, regulate, or direct
the language learning process. These strategies, involve thinking about the learning
process, include planning, monitoring, and evaluating (Oxford, 1990). However, without
the deployment of appropriate cognitive strategies, the potential of these metacognitive
strategies is curtailed. Cognitive strategies manipulate the material to be learnt or apply
a specific technique to the learning task in our case the teaching of memory strategies
and their effect in listening comprehension. A third category, socio-affective strategies,
was added to describe learning that happens when language learners co-operate with
classmates, question the teacher for clarification, or apply specific techniques to lower
their anxiety level.
Strategic listeners also use metacognitive strategies to plan, monitor, and
evaluate their listening. Metacognitive development can be described as conscious
development in one’s metacognitive abilities, such as the move to greater knowledge,
awareness and control of one’s learning, selecting strategies, monitoring the progress
of learning, correcting errors, analyzing the effectiveness of learning strategies, and
changing learning behaviours and strategies when it is necessary. On the other hand,
tactic listeners use cognitive strategies in our case memory strategies to get a
conceptual background to understand the message, organize words and expressions
in categories through context that permits use them in different occasions and
circumstances.
18
Renukadevi (2014, p. 62) states that the metacognitive strategies train the
language learner to cope with the demands of listening. It is quite evident that
metacognitive strategies make their learning more effective, hence, they are able to
maximize the information received and thus this can be used to improve their listening
skills. Wenden (1998) quoted by Renukadevi (2014, p. 62) argues that learners who
use their metacognitive abilities seem to have the following advantages over the
others:
1. Learners become more strategic. 2. Progress in learning is faster with
improved quality and speed of their cognitive development. 3. They are
confident in their abilities to learn and assess their progress. 4. They think
clearly about mistakes or errors during an activity. 5. They adjust their learning
according to changing circumstances. 6. They perceive themselves as
continual learners and can successfully cope with new situations.
Kurita (2012, p. 33) considers that metacognitive knowledge is useful to develop
rapid word recognition ability because the learners make use of context and other
compensatory strategies to make sense of the oral form of a word (Vandergrift, 2006).
Therefore, it is generally agreed that strategies to use compensatory mechanisms contextual, visual or paralinguistic information, world knowledge, cultural information
and common sense while listening – will determine the degree of listening success
(Vandergrift, 2007).
Regard in mind the before considerations this research characterizes the memory
strategies in both processes bottom-up and top-down, that serves as a base of the
cognitive approach and this helps to develop metacognitive to a better understanding
and learning of a new language.
4.8. Direct memory strategies
This research focus in memory strategies and their impact in listening skill,
according to Oxford (1990) these include creating mental links, applying images and
sounds, reviewing thoroughly and employing action and involve the mental processes
for storing new information in the memory and for retrieving them when needed. In this
sense, the workshops are based on the cognitive approach.
19
Taking in mind in this research the importance of vocabulary in listening
comprehension and the use of indirect strategies such as memory to enhance it the
next investigation helps us to understand the implications in the classroom. In this way
Abbassi, Hassaskhah and Tahriri (2018) study the effect of memory strategy on EFL
learners’ vocabulary retention, to do this they address subcategories of memory
strategy consisted of three parts: grouping, acronym and imagery. This division is
important because gives elements in the implementation of research in the classroom
and consider the multiple intelligence of students. Another source to know how to apply
the memory strategies in classroom is Chilkiewicz (2015) who based their research in
Oxford classification to English Vocabulary acquisition.
In this study, the authors compare a pre-test and post-test in control group design
was carried out to collect the required data through vocabulary tests, memory strategy
and multiple intelligence questionnaires. To obtain vocabulary retention they use
Vocabulary Learning Strategies (VLS). According to Schemitt, (1997) VLS refers to the
techniques that learners utilize in order to obtain, store, retrieve and use the
information. Similarly, Oxford (1990, p. 1) defined VLS as actions, behaviours, steps,
or techniques students use, often unconsciously, to improve their progress in
apprehending, internalizing, and using the L2. This kind of techniques according to
Schmitt (1997) includes mechanical strategies such as repetition, note taking and
memorization, that is more popular than strategies which involve deep processing,
including imagery and guessing.
According to the study by Abbassi, Hassaskhah and Tahriri (2018) control group
involved different routine modes of vocabulary presentation such as follows: a)
Presentation of the words in isolation. b) Giving pronunciation of the words orally. c)
Writing those words on the board. d) Giving a short explanation about their parts of
speech. e) Elaboration of the meaning of each word through introducing synonyms
(and antonyms if needed). f) Using minimal contexts, that is, some meaningful
sentence.
The experimental group was directly taught in the use of the three memory
strategies including grouping, acronym and imagery in the class. The grouping was the
first subcategory of memory strategy that was introduced to learners by familiarizing
them with this term and then putting 6 related words (three of which are animals, and
the other three are about feelings) in a box asking students to put them in the columns
provided regarding their relations. The first one was done as an example to help them
20
follow the rest. Then, the significance of the acronym was explained to learners, telling
them to make use of an acronym to boost their word retention. Six words were selected
and learners were asked to write appropriate acronym using the first letters of the
words. Finally, explanation and elaboration were provided on the use of imagery;
afterwards, they were exposed to 6 pictures for which they had to find an appropriate
word among the words supplied. In addition, a VLS questionnaire based on some
memory strategies was given to students in order to find out if students knew or used
such strategies with which this study was concerned. In fact, this clarification was done
with the purpose of giving strategy awareness.
The results demonstrated the enhance of vocabulary with the use of memory
strategies because they are more focus on the previous knowledge, context, semantic
process and the role of students in the learning, all of these are useful to develop in the
research with the perspective to teach these strategies in the acquisition of vocabulary
as a based to listening comprehension.
This was corroborated with the study by Banikowski and Mehring (1999) cited for
Abbassi, Hassaskhah and Tahriri (2018, p. 2) where they use but no teach strategies to
enhance memory. After analyzing the data, they gave superiority to rehearsal strategy
as a traditional vocabulary learning strategy which is used by both learners and
teachers. They explain that rehearsal strategies are those that ask learners to repeat
the information in working memory over and over so that they can be retained.
The results revealed that the word list as a kind of rehearsal strategy could not
succeed in enhancing the retention of learners’ vocabulary knowledge. The main
reason for failing wordlist as a proper VLS was the absence of context. It was
suggested that context is an aid for learners to develop and understand unknown
words efficiently (Hayati & Shahriari, 2010). This study demonstrates that single words
are more difficult to retain if they are not contextualizing or including in a category using
keywords.
In conclusion according to Richards and Schmitt (2002) quoted for Abbassi,
Hassaskhah and Tahriri (2018, p. 2) in language teaching, retention of what has been
taught (e.g. grammar rules and vocabulary) may depend on the quality of teaching, the
use of different strategies, the interest of the learners, or the meaningfulness of the
materials.
21
4.9. The listening lesson
Peterson (2001, p. 89) suggests the following six principles for teaching listening
in the second language classroom: increase the amount of listening time in the second
language class, use listening before other activities, include both global and selective
listening, activate top-level skills (e.g. giving advance organizers or script activators),
work towards automaticity in processing, and develop conscious listening strategies.
These principles may be applied in different moments during the class or in other
words in pre, while and post-listening activities.
The pedagogical sequence of pre-listening, listening and post-listening activities
(Field, 2008; Rost, 2002) can guide students through the mental processes for
successful listening comprehension using bottom-up and top-down processing,
practice subskills and the use of memory strategies in other three categories: grouping,
acronym and imagery. That means that the effective use of strategies in each
sequence permit to students be more conscious about the process and finally, they can
select what is the more efficient strategy in learning of a new language.
4.9.1. Pre-listening
Pre-listening activities are crucial to good second language pedagogy. During this
critical phase of the listening process, teachers prepare students for what they will hear
and what they are expected to do. First, students need to bring to consciousness their
knowledge of the topic, their knowledge of how information is organized in different
texts, and any relevant cultural information. Second, a purpose for listening must be
established so that students know the specific information they need to listen for and/or
the degree of detail required, in this stage, the students need to know some words,
distinguish different register of voice, context and structures. Using all the available
information, students can make predictions to anticipate what they might hear.
Pre-listening activities help students make decisions about what to listen for and,
subsequently, to focus attention on meaning while listening. In order to encourage a
personal approach to listen, and thereby foster autonomy during this phase, the
teacher can encourage discussions with the whole class or in pairs, on how different
students prepare themselves for a particular listening task before beginning it. Rost
(2002) considers that the pre-listening step may include explicit pre-teaching of
22
vocabulary, grammatical or rhetorical structures, specific pronunciations of phrases, or
ideas to be contained in the upcoming input.
4.9.2. While listening
During the listening activity itself,
students continue to monitor
their
comprehension and make decisions about strategy use. They need to evaluate
continually what they are comprehending for (1) consistency with their predictions, and
(2) internal consistency, i.e. the ongoing interpretation of the oral text or interaction
(Vandergrift, 1999) Strategies to be practised include: logical inference and appropriate
use of elaboration or world knowledge (Mendelsohn, 1994 pp. 81-115), and word
derivation skills. Students are encouraged to share individual routes leading to
success, such as how someone guessed (inference) the meaning of a certain word, or
how someone modified a particular strategy.
According to Rost (2002, p. 20), while listening tasks can include guided note
taking, completion of a picture or schematic diagram or table, composing questions—
any tangible activity that the learner does while listening to demonstrate ongoing
monitoring of meaning. This stage of the listening task is usually the most problematic
for the teacher to prepare because it involves designing a task that involves only
minimal reading or writing.
4.9.3. Post-listening
This is probably the most important part of listening instruction because it allows
the learner to build mental representations and develop short term L2 memory, and
increase motivation for listening to a second time. Rost (2002, p. 20) considers that
Post-listening tasks can involve additional reading, writing, speaking, and interaction,
and may include comparing notes, negotiating a summary with a partner, and
formulating responses, or questions about what was just heard. The entire cycle of
tasks involving pre-listening, while listening, and post-listening may require 15 minutes
for each short extract that the learners hear. It is important that the cycle can be
repeated to allow for a second and third listening. This repetition of while-listening and
post-listening tasks, with some variation, gives learners time to try out new strategies
for understanding.
According to Vandergrift (1999), skilled listeners use metacognitive strategies
and tend to: (1) orient early in the experience and formulate the “big picture” of what
23
the speakers are trying to do, (2) interact more with “text” and their “world knowledge,”
(3) be willing to make hypotheses about unknown meanings according to the context,
but to do all of these in SLA it is necessary improve the lexical, structure and the
rhythm of language and this is possible through cognitive strategies among them
memory.
An active listening strategy is an attempt to gain some control over the listening
process. Vandergrift (1999) and Rost (2002) outline the basic constructive strategies
that successful L2 listeners tend to adopt when they encounter some uncertainty:
• predicting – using real-world expectations to generate predictions about what
the speakers will say and what might happen;
• guessing – making inferences about what the speakers might have said or
might have meant, even when “bottom-up” information about the language may
be incomplete;
• selecting – focusing on keywords, trying to select targeted information that is
adequate to complete a given task;
• clarifying – monitoring one’s level of understanding and identifying questions
that
can
be
asked
to
supplement
partial
understanding
or
correct
misunderstanding, and revising one’s representation of the meaning;
• responding – reflecting or attempting to formulate an opinion, to interact with
the speaker, to personalize the content, focus on what was understood, attempt
to talk about the input or conversation in a comfortable way.
4.9.4. The input
As Rost (2002) explains, in terms of selecting input (e.g., listening, reading, or
multimedia) for language teaching, the research on motivation supports a position that
most experienced teachers have adopted for years. That is, our first priority in planning
individual lessons and entire courses is to ensure successful learning experiences that
will encourage wanting to learn the language. Therefore, it is important that the teacher
selects what Beebe (1985) quoted by Rost (2002, p. 19) term “the right stuff”—the
kinds of input that will engage learners, arouse their curiosity, and make them want to
remember what they are learning. In this way, it is important the socio-affective
strategies because permit reduces the anxiety.
24
After choices about topics and types of input, two additional factors are part of the
input selection process. The first factor is editing the listening extract itself. The teacher
needs to decide which parts of the input are worthiest of focusing upon. Part of the
guidance for this decision is simply length. Generally, learners at any level need to
have much of input “chunked” into shorter segments of 30 to 90 seconds, followed by a
means of reviewing and consolidating the content. Due to the constraints of short-term
memory, a learner may not receive many benefits from continued listening without
intervening tasks to help with memory consolidation (Brown and Hulme, 1992) cited by
Rost (2002, p. 19).
The second factor is the pre-listening preparation. To maximize learning, it is vital
that the teacher create “pre-listening” tasks that activate the learners’ knowledge and
interest. Any techniques that help engage learners in wanting to listen actively are likely
to promote better learning. Pre-listening surveys, pair questionnaires, or prediction
activities using key vocabulary from the extract are often helpful.
Follow the explanation of Rost (2002, p. 19) The notion of the task is central to
learning in all fields. The task has three factors: First is that a task is a fundamental
“learning structure,” designed for the purposes of increasing learning (Skehan and
Foster, 1997). Second, a task involves distinct input (oral and/or visual), a clear set of
procedures, and a tangible outcome (Candlin and Koebke, 1999). Third, a task can be
monitored and evaluated by the teacher, who can provide some form of feedback and
evaluation on performance. This notion helps us to understand the structure of listening
lessons and provide to the research with concrete evidence about the process of the
students.
4.9.5. The instruction in listening
The direct instruction strategy is a technique that teachers use to help students
become independent and strategic learners. This approach becomes learning
strategies when students independently select the appropriate ones and use them
effectively to accomplish tasks or meet goals. It will be considered to determine its
impact on the comprehension, this is important because clarify what kind of instructions
will be given in the classroom to obtain better answer according to the input or how
these instructions are organized in different activities, for example, Chang (2008)
quoted by Kurita (2012, p. 34) investigated listening supports with different variables of
participants’ proficiency levels, the result shows that previewing questions (PQ) had a
25
greater effect on strategy use than other types of support; PQ was more effective for
higher level learners than lower level learners because of their different reading skills.
Repeated input (RI) worked less effectively for learners with limited language
knowledge. Providing topic preparation (TP) was useful for both higher and lower
levelled learners. Vocabulary instruction (VI) was the least effective for both, hence,
topic preparation (TP) and repeated input (RI) were more effective than giving
vocabulary input (VI) or allowing previews of the questions (PQ).
Morley (2001) cited by Yildirim and Yildirim (2016, p. 2100) lists four main
instructional models of listening and the learner goals related to those models as
follows:
Model 1: Listening and repeating o Learner goals: to pattern-match; to listen
and imitate; to memorize.
Model 2: Listening and answering comprehension questions o Learner goals: to
process discrete-point information; to listen and answer comprehension
questions.
Model 3: Task listening o Learner goals: to process spoken discourse for
functional purposes; to listen and do something with the information.
Model 4: Interactive listening o Learner goals: to develop aural/oral skills in
semiformal interactive academic communication; to develop critical listening,
critical thinking, and effective speaking abilities.
Although there are different perspectives to teaching listening, the success of
each perspective somewhat depends on addressing and minimizing the listening
comprehension problems experienced by language learners, in our case the use of
different models permits to know the effect of memory strategy in the listening
comprehension.
26
5. METHODOLOGY
The research developed will be done with a qualitative approach, this approach
allows studying people in their natural settings and uses several methods to obtain
different perspectives of the studied reality; from external observation, participant
observation, interview, focal group discussion, life stories, among others. This research
is a process that must follow defined stages which include: defining a research
problem, some objectives and a hypothesis; select and employ instruments as well as
data collection techniques, elaborate conclusions and write a final report.
Among other characteristics of qualitative research, Taylor and Bogdan (1996)
quoted by Jurgenson (2003, pp. 23-28) consider that as a method it is inductive
because concepts are developed from data collection, it is holistic because they see to
the participants and the scenario as a whole, it is humanistic because it sees those
who investigate as people and not as objects or numbers, as the researcher is required
to be sensitive to the effects of his practice, to seek to understand the people with
whom interact, leave aside their own beliefs or schemes, consider all perspectives as
valuable and that is flexible since it should not be a slave to a procedure or technique.
Therefore, the research focus of the present research is qualitative because its
attention is focused on describing the events, situations, interactions and behaviours of
the students, taking into account their experiences, opinions, reflections and attitudes,
offering the possibility of exchanging them with their peers, a process that encourages
learning from the other. According to Cohen (1990) qualitative research “implica una
reflexión relacionada con el diagnóstico en un primer paso, donde se analizan los
problemas y se plantean las hipótesis y una intervención donde se prueba un
experimento de cambio aplicado a una realidad social” quoted by Munarriz (1992, p.
109).
This research is framed within the socio-critical paradigm, because the interests
and needs of the participants have an impact on the knowledge that they developed, in
this way it tends to a transformation or social change; this paradigm responds to two
needs, the first, the needs of the community in improve their listening comprehension in
classroom to understand better a second language and the second, to the need of the
research that seeks to approach in a different way the conception of the listening
comprehension that has predominated in the educational field promoting the use of the
direct memory strategy, for which, it is required the active participation of the students
27
in the workshops, which will be developed as spaces for reflection, dialogue and
knowledge construction. According to Aguilar (2011, p. 334) “El paradigma crítico se
caracteriza por ser emancipador, ya que invita al sujeto a un proceso de reflexión y
análisis sobre la sociedad en la que se encuentra implicado y la posibilidad de cambios
que el mismo es capaz de generar”.
According to the qualitative approach and the socio-critical paradigm, the method
of research developed in this research will be action research, it allows to explore and
investigate a social reality with the aim of improving it, which promotes the construction
of knowledge and generates answers to the needs presented by students.
All of the above allows us to determine that for the development of this research it
is necessary to establish three stages in the investigation, which will make it possible to
address the issues raised; for this purpose, a classroom research will be developed
with students in class 202, whose stages are divided into sessions, which have specific
objectives and activities in order to achieve the objectives proposed in this research
that are described in the research intervention proposal; all the information will be
collected through different instruments which are described below.
5.1. Action research
According to Ferrance (2000) action research specifically refers to a disciplined
inquiry done by a teacher with the intent that the research will inform and change his or
her practices in the future. This method permits analyze situations and actions related
to pragmatic problems to try resolve them, it considers the action since the point of
view of participants, in this way it is participative because the students participate in the
research directly and indirectly, it is cooperative because the students and research
work together to deep in the comprehension of the problem. The modifications of the
practice are evaluated constantly inside the situation and by the participants, which
means that exists a critical evaluation of the action.
Therefore, in Action research, there are four basic themes: empowerment of
participants, collaboration through participation, acquisition of knowledge, and social
change. In conducting action research, we structure routines for continuous
confrontation with data on the health of a school community. These routines are loosely
guided by movement through five phases of inquiry: 1. Identification of problem area 2.
28
Collection and organization of data 3. Interpretation of data 4. Action based on data 5.
Reflection (Ferrance, p. 9).
The research begins with a preoccupation shared with the group, they describe
their needs and try to discover what do, this is a process where the research is
implicated, the process consists in introducing changes and reflect on them with the
objective to improve the same practice, to do this it is necessary establishing a
pedagogical intervention based on workshops whereby will be taught the memory
strategies and the used of listening subskills with the objective to determinate with the
use of different instrument to collect and analyze data their impact in listening
comprehension.
5.2. Instruments to collect data
Given the need to determine the initial level of listening comprehension
presented by each of the students, an initial multiple-choice test will be applied, which
presents words related to various topics of the class, this initial test will be contrasted
with a final test that will determine the effectiveness of the strategies on the learned
vocabulary. To collect information these are the instruments that this research used: an
initial and final test (Annex 5), a questionnaire about the strategies used by the
students, the worksheets develop by students and them correspond registration table
based on Richard’s taxonomy listening micro-skills (1983) (Annex 7), which takes in
mind the three moments of the lesson (pre, while and post-listening) and a diary
(Annex 2). In order to do an evaluation, the instruments used are: comparison chart of
the initial and final tests per student (Annex 8), assessment criteria of the
questionnaire, a rubric of listening comprehension (Annex 10) and finally a survey on
the level of response of students regarding the strategies taught in class, which seeks
to determine which was the most effective for them.
Next, each of the data collection instruments will be described.
5.2.1. The initial and final test
The aim of the initial test is determined the number of words memorized by
students before the start of the intervention, this test uses multiple choice and consists
of listening to the word in English and selecting which image corresponds to the sound.
The number of words selected was 10 that correspond to the topics developed in
29
English class such as body parts, colours, school supplies, fruits, animals, etc.
It
began with simple words and not sentences due to the level presented by the students
in diagnostic tests developed by the educational institution, where a Bilingualism
Program is developed by the District Secretary of Education.
The final test will be divided into two parts, the first, consisting of the same 10
words that were done in the initial test in a different order, which will serve to verify the
impact of the memory strategies taught in the acquisition of vocabulary; the second
part, will consist of a series of 10 sentences where part of the vocabulary will be used
to corroborate whether the students identify the sounds within a sentence.
Both tests to be contrasted will serve to establish a relationship between the
initial and final results showing the impact of the strategies developed in the
memorization of the vocabulary used in several classes, remember that these words
are related to the topics seen within the curriculum of the educational institution and is
practised in English classes by students.
5.2.2. Questionnaire about the strategies used by students
The importance of using a questionnaire lies in the fact that it serves to know
more directly and personally the opinions, points of view and experiences of the
students while also asking about their learning style. This questionnaire will be
developed in Spanish, the mother tongue of the students because they are in the initial
stage of learning a second language; this questionnaire is adapted from R.L Oxford
(1989): Strategy Inventory For Language Learning and consists of 36 closed questions
focused on the strategies that the student uses before starting the intervention, this
questionnaire is not limited exclusively to direct memory strategies, but seeks to learn
more about the way in which students learn what will serve to establish when analyzing
the results. The questionnaire in question is the next:
CUESTIONARIO DE EVAL U ACIÓN DE L AS ESTRAT EGI AS DE
APRENDIZ AJE
¿Qué estrategias de aprendizaje utilizas tú? Estas aprendiendo inglés, pero ¿sabes
cómo lo haces?
30
En los apartados (A-F) que se incluyen a continuación, están recogidas las diversas
estrategias que pueden utilizarse en el aprendizaje de un nuevo idioma. Léelas
cuidadosamente márcalas de 1 a 5, según el siguiente puntaje:
1. No lo hago nunca o casi nunca
2. Generalmente no lo hago (= menos de la mitad de las veces)
3. Lo hago a veces (= más o menos la mitad de las veces)
4. Lo hago a menudo (= más de la mitad de las veces)
5. Lo hago siempre o casi siempre
Elije la puntuación que corresponde a lo que tú haces realmente y no a lo que piensas
que deberías hacer o a lo que hacen los demás. Ten presente que todas las
actuaciones mencionadas son aceptables, que no hay unas correctas y otras
equivocadas, que todas son estrategias que podemos o no utilizar al aprender una
lengua. Si tu resultado indica que tú te sirves de un número limitado de estrategias, la
lectura de este documento te proporcionará, sin duda, algunas ideas para mejorar tu
aprendizaje.
Cuando aprendo algo nuevo (palabras, reglas gramaticales, etc.)
APARTADO A (Memory strategies)
ESTRATEGIAS
1
Creo asociaciones entre la palabra nueva y lo que ya sé
2
Repaso frecuentemente.
3
Coloco la palabra nueva en un grupo junto con otras palabras
1 2 3 4 5
que de alguna manera son similares (vestimenta, colores)
4
Asocio el sonido de la palabra nueva con el sonido de una
palabra familiar
5
Recuerdo la palabra haciéndome una clara imagen mental de
ella o haciendo un dibujo
6
Visualizo mentalmente cómo se escribe la palabra
7
Intento recordar lo que aprendí hace mucho tiempo
8
Uso combinaciones de sonidos e imágenes para recordar la
palabra
9
Hago una lista de todas las palabras que conozco que tienen
alguna relación con la nueva y dibujo líneas para mostrar las
31
interrelaciones
10 Recuerdo en qué parte de la página está ubicada la palabra
nueva, o dónde la vi u oí por primera vez
11 Repito o escribo muchas veces la palabra
12 Coloco la palabra nueva en una oración de modo que pueda
recordarla.
APARTADO B (Cognitive strategies)
ESTRATEGIAS
1 2 3 4 5
13 Practico las nuevas palabras con frecuencia, diciéndolas o
escribiéndolas
14 Leo un diálogo o una historia varias veces, hasta llegar a
entenderlo
15 Vuelvo a mirar lo que escribo para mejorar mi expresión
escrita.
16 Busco ocasiones para hablar Inglés
17 Escribo notas, cartas, mensajes en Inglés
18 Al leer, miro por encima todo el texto para ver de qué trata y
luego vuelvo a leerlo más despacio
19 Uso el diccionario como ayuda para entender lo que leo
20 Utilizo la lengua en situaciones nuevas, aplicando las reglas
que ya conozco
21 Busco semejanzas y diferencias entre el Inglés y mi lengua
materna
APARTADO C (Compensative strategies)
ESTRATEGIAS
1 2 3 4 5
22 Trato de entender lo que leo, sin traducirlo palabra por palabra
a mi propio idioma
23 Cuando hablo, si no encuentro la palabra que necesito, hago
gestos para explicar lo que quiero decir
24 Cuando no conozco la palabra que necesito, pregunto a mi
interlocutor cómo puedo decir lo que quiero expresar
25 Al leer, no me detengo en cada palabra desconocida
26 Al hablar con una persona, intento hacer suposiciones sobre
32
lo que va a decir
27 Si no puedo encontrar la palabra que necesito, utilizo una
palabra parecida o describo la idea
APARTADO D (Metacognitive strategies)
ESTRATEGIAS
1 2 3 4 5
28 Busco ocasiones para utilizar mis conocimientos de Inglés
29 Me fijo en los errores que cometo e intento no volver a
cometerlos
30 Reflexiono sobre los progresos que hago en mi aprendizaje,
compruebo lo que sé y lo que no sé
APARTADO E (Affective strategies)
ESTRATEGIAS
1 2 3 4 5
31 Me siento mal o incomodo en la clase de inglés.
32 Siento una cierta ansiedad al utilizar el Inglés, pero intento
relajarme
33 Tengo miedo a cometer errores al hablar, pero me esfuerzo
igualmente en hacerlo
APARTADO F (Social strategies)
ESTRATEGIAS
1 2 3 4 5
31 Cuando no entiendo algo, pido a la otra persona que hable
más despacio o que repita
32 Pido que me corrijan si cometo errores al hablar
34 Repaso con mis compañeros lo que he aprendido
35 Hago preguntas en inglés durante la clase
36 Hablo Inglés con mis compañeros
Adapted questionnaire from R.L Oxford (1989): Strategy Inventory for Language Learning. Nueva York,
Newbury House (en Profesor en acción I) retrieved from:
http://www.santurtzieus.com/gela_irekia/materialak/laguntza/nolaikasi/evaluacion_estrategias.htm
This questionnaire contains a table of assessment (chart. to establish which kind
of strategies are the most and least used by each student, this will allow having a more
precise vision if memory strategies affect or influence the use of other strategies.
33
Chart 5.1. Assessment criteria of the questionnaire.
Apartado
Estrategias mencionadas
Media
personal
A
(Memory)
Recordar de manera más efectiva
(agrupar, hacer asociaciones, contextualizar las
palabras nuevas, utilizar imágenes, hacer repasos,
etc.)
B
(Cognitive)
Utilizar procesos mentales
(repetir, utilizar lo que es familiar de manera nueva,
tomar notas, hacer resúmenes, hacer deducciones y
comparaciones, etc.)
C
Compensar fallos en los conocimientos
(Compensative) (Utilizar todos los elementos que puedan ayudar a
comprender lo que lee y oye, buscar una comprensión
global y no de cada palabra en particular, utilizar
sinónimos o gestos para hacerse comprender, etc.)
D
Organizar y evaluar el aprendizaje
(Metacognitive) (fijar objetivos, identificar sus necesidades de
aprendizaje, repasar lo aprendido, practicar la lengua
dentro y fuera de clase, evaluar los progresos, etc.)
E
(Affective)
Controlar sus emociones
(Dominar su ansiedad, darse ánimos, anotar lo que
siente al estudiar, discutir su estado de ánimo con
otras personas, etc.)
F
(Social)
Aprender con los compañeros
(Pedir que le corrijan, reconocer las necesidades y las
emociones de los demás, cooperar con el grupo. etc.)
34
Clave de valoración de las estrategias utilizadas
Uso frecuente
4,5 a 5,0 (lo hago
Uso moderado
Uso muy limitado
2,5 a 3,4 (lo hago a veces)
1,5 a 2,4 (generalmente no
siempre/casi siempre)
lo hago)
3,5 a 4,4 (lo hago a
1,0 a 1,4 (no lo hago casi
menudo)
nunca / nunca)
retrieved from:
http://www.santurtzieus.com/gela_irekia/materialak/laguntza/nolaikasi/evaluacion_estrategias.htm
5.2.3. The worksheets
These instruments are divided according to the sequence of lessons (pre, while
and post-listening) and consist in a series of questions about a story presented in
images, video, audio, song, dialogue or monologue in English class.
These
possibilities obtain information about the comprehension in their micro-process: literal,
retention, organization, inference and interpretation through the cognitive skills such as
identifying, predicting, guessing, classifying, organizing, listing or selecting.
In the research will be developed 10 worksheets from 20 different workshops, this
is due to that do not all the workshops have worksheets and some of them are used to
teach memory strategies and practice them. The questions and answers in worksheets
will be in Spanish because the students are in an initial process of learning a second
language and the objective of this instrument is determinate the practice of subskills
and no the proficiency or accuracy of language.
5.2.4. Registration table about subskills
According to the three moments in the process of teaching listening strategies
(pre, while and post-listening) the use of subskills will be registered in a chart or
registration table. This is related to the elaboration of the worksheets in the classroom
during the intervention, therefore, the registration table will be elaborated per each one.
The register consists of 3 sections and is aimed at determining if the student
evidences the listening subskills. For this, each section has its degree of complexity
and will be guided by the teacher in class. This register will be developed during the
35
process and will be analyzed after the intervention to establish the relationship between
memory strategies, the use of listening subskills and the listening comprehension.
5.2.5. Assessment rubric of listening comprehension
The rubric of listening assessment seeks to determine which subskills have been
developed from the teaching of memory strategies in listening comprehension. This
rubric takes into account three aspects: the comprehension level based on the two big
listening process bottom-up and top-down, the description of each micro-process:
literal, retention, organization, inference and interpretation and the indicators of them,
due to that this is a process it is necessary develop this rubric with each worksheets.
5.2.6. Diary
A diary is a tool used to record the behaviours, activities and reactions of
students during the development of the classes with the aim of collecting information
for immediate or subsequent interpretation, these facts are listed to be interpreted in an
individual and sequential way with the intention to establishing relationships between
them through analysis. This instrument is considered within the qualitative research
technique as participant observation which refers to the introduction of the researcher
in the study scenario, working as a data collection instrument (Munarriz, p.110).
According to Castillo (n.d.) “Un buen diario de campo posibilita la formulación
estadística, el diagnóstico, el pronóstico y las evaluaciones situacionales. De igual
manera, permite la ubicación de baches en la secuencia de la información. Asimismo,
su secuencialidad permite la planificación de actividades futuras necesarias para el
desarrollo investigativo”. All of these reasons are taking in mind to select this tool to
collect information.
5.2.7. Survey
This instrument consists of a series of questions that seek to determine the
opinion of the students after the intervention process, the activities that most attracted
their attention, the strategies with which they felt more comfortable and if they practice
them outside of the class as a support of their learning process.
36
6. CORPUS
The research was developed in stages or phases, in which the tasks to be
developed were chronologically addressed, making it possible to prepare a schedule to
follow to avoid setbacks.
The stages were: exploration, planning, application/replanting and evaluation. In
the exploration stage, the population and place where the investigation was carried out
are contextualized; in the planning stage, the indications of the first stage were taken
into account, which served to structure an intervention based on the needs of the
students, establishing dates for the workshops and the application of instruments.
The application phase began in March and ended in May, this stage consisted of
20 workshops of 2 hours each. The evaluation stage was developed in the month of
May to June and began before the conclusion of the workshops, during which the first
conclusions were drawn from the evidence collected, finally, the rethinking stage was
developed simultaneously with the workshops, which made it possible to make
decisions on the march to correct the problems that were presented. The general
overview of these stages can be found in the following chart:
Chart 6.1: Stages of investigation.
Stages
Exploration
Date
Sections
February
Presentation of the project to students
2019
and parents. Evaluation and determinate
Sessions
1 to 4
Planification
Application
and
reconsiderati
on
Activities
the
initial
level
of
listening
comprehension
February
Determinate a chronogram of workshops
2019
and application, and evaluation stages.
MarchMay 2019
Sessions
5 to 25
Beginning
of
intervention
in
the
classroom, Teaching different memory
learning
strategies.
Workshops
of
listening. Material: Songs, monologues
and dialogues.
37
Evaluation
June
Sessions
Evaluation and elaboration of results.
2019
26 to 30
Elaboration of the portfolio with the tests
and answers of the students.
Next, it describes how each of the stages was developed, the first part of which
deals with the diagnosis of needs, according to the curricular guidelines of the Ministry
of National Education (2018) and the Basic Standards of competences in foreign
languages of the Ministry of National Education in Colombia, in terms of listening,
reading, writing and speaking skills; the second deals with the planning process and
the application of data collection and information evaluation instruments.
6.1. Stage 1: Exploration
The present contextualization is made up of a general introduction of the
Bosanova school in which the research will be carried out and a specific description of
the students of class 202 from the dimensions and axes established in primary
education in Colombia by the National Ministry of Education; for this, a process of
collecting information was started by means of observation and the field diary.
Bosanova School Seat B is located in Bogotá on 63rd Street No 80H-35 south, in
the center of the town of Bosa. This institution was founded thirty-seven years ago by
public service drivers, mechanics and transport workers, together with their families,
who, faced with the educational needs of their community, proposed to take the
necessary steps to start the operation of a school which they named “Motorista”.
Thanks to the demands of the community, the school was assumed as a public
institution financed by the State, thus becoming an official school. Six years ago this
school is integrated as the seat B of Bosanova school, which adopts its name, mission,
vision and Institutional Educational Project entitled "The school, a space for reflection,
coexistence and bilingual communication"
The educational institution has projects for early childhood, fortified media
education, primary acceleration and bilingualism, each of which covers the needs of
the local population. This last project is developed in elementary and high school,
promoting cultural knowledge and the integration of language into the classroom by
means of a communicative approach under the CLIL methodology.
38
The students are mostly children of informal employees, drivers, or small traders,
who in a high percentage have not completed their primary or baccalaureate, this
hinders the commitment of students in their academic duties, with little follow-up to the
process of learning outside of school, however, the bilingualism project has helped the
community feel more engaged, because it has generated courses for parents in
English with the support of the British Council and the National Service of Learning
(SENA), implements days such as English Day and promotes spaces for bilingual
participation such as the Spelling Bee, Saint Patrick's Day among others.
The research was developed with the students of class 202 of the I.E.D.
Bosanova Seat B, this course is integrated by 30 students, 16 girls and 14 boys, with
ages between 7 and 9 years. In order to know the relevant data of the course, the axis
of stimulation and exploration corresponding to the first cycle of education was taken
into account and a Chart of diagnosis was elaborated (Annex 1) that identifies some of
the dimensions of human development to be taken into account, according to the
curricular guidelines of the Ministry of National Education (2018): cognitive, socioaffective and communicative; the observations recorded in the field diary were also
taken into account (Annex 2).
In the cognitive aspect, attention and memory processes were taken into
account, which could be observed through diverse group and individual activities inside
and outside the classroom; in the face of attention, it was possible to identify through
observation that 12 of 30 children have short periods of attention, which is easily lost to
any external stimulus, this occurs even when working with small groups outside the
classroom; regarding the memory, it was observed that 16 children out of 30 present
problems in this aspect because they confuse letters when writing or do not distinguish
sounds, but they do not have problems in following instructions doing the activities
described at the beginning of the class. As observed in the classroom it was
established that 23 of 30 children prefer to read or speak because they have difficulty
doing it or have not learned the written code, they all said they preferred stories and
games.
Regarding the activities developed in the English class, it is evident that children
prefer to write the board or dictate simple words because it is easy for them, in the first
part of the process it was established that 6 of 30 children show a total lack of
motivation dispersing in other activities affecting the development of the class;
regarding the evaluation, it is carried out on the basis of the task carried out, the titular
39
professor does not inquire about the reasons that affected the non-completion of the
assigned work, a question that is reiterative and that evidences problems in the
understanding of the subject, lack of work at home or little interest in the topics.
In the socio-affective aspect, children perform specific routines within the class
which gives them a notion of order and sequence; in terms of cooperation, being
together in several rows within the room can collaborate with each other, but in turn,
can copy the work of the partner when they have not understood, which makes it
difficult to establish those who have problems in the developed topics; in front of the
class six children show a total lack of interest and help to propitiate the disorder rising
continuously to annoy others, these children are members of the group of 12 who have
difficulties in the performance of the class. Mutual help is evidenced in the support
provided mainly by girls in three ways: helping those who retard in class activities,
lending materials to those who do not have them and want to help the teacher in the
class actively.
In the communicative aspect, it is observed that children like to participate in
class, although sometimes they all speak at the same time; some follow the teacher's
instructions regarding the turn of the word, but it is lost after a short time, which shows
that they do not respond to the demands and particularities of the communicative
situation and are not located in the context of interaction, consequently, do not know
when, about what, in what way and with what intention to participate. Few children
have used foul language to address their peers, doing so in isolated situations, not
being the rule to treat each other disrespectfully; children do not have contact with
another non-verbal symbolic system to enhance interaction with others, limiting their
understanding and production to verbal and written forms.
To identify the needs of the students of class 202, the diary was used, the
activities developed by the students in the English class were analyzed and a
diagnostic test was applied (Annex 3) designed by Cambridge English and applied by
the British Council. The information gathered from these three sources was analyzed
on the basis of the test response sheet and an evaluation rubric (Annex 4) based on
the Basic Standards of Foreign Language Competencies: English of the Ministry of
National Education of Colombia (2006) which includes the listening, reading, writing
and speaking skills, assessed in high, medium and low, the objective was to identify
the strengths and weaknesses of the students in these areas developed on the basis of
the activities in class and consigned in the field diary.
40
The application of the diagnostic test (Annex 3) was done individually, it was
developed with the guidance or orientation of the teacher with the aim of helping to
solve the doubts of the students; the subsequent analysis of the diagnostic tests was
done on the basis of the answer sheet and the performance in the four skills was done
on the criteria of the evaluation rubric based on the activities during the classes and the
complementary information of the diary (Annex 4) all of which yielded the following
data.
The parts of the diagnostic test called Language use 1 and 2 corresponded to the
domain of Reading, the first was to identify the image with its writing and the second to
determine if the writing was correct or false from an image. In the first part of the
reading of five relationships, the students answered: 3 students guessed one, 4
guessed two, 8 guessed 3 and 15 guessed 5. In the second part of reading to define if
it was false or true, five students guessed correctly in two, 6 students in 3, 15 students
in 4 and four in five. This means that the students had a wider domain when they had
to read and choose between several options, demonstrating more security in reading
since they established relationships or inferred from first marking the known words and
inquiring to answer the unknown.
The final part of the diagnostic test consisted in filling in the gaps from the images
that were on the same page, in this case, a horse was described and the appropriate
word had to be selected to complete the text. On this occasion the students who did
not hit any were five, who scored 1 was 12, 2 students hit 6, 3 students hit 4 and finally
4 students hit, none hit the five. This shows insecurity in the use of even familiar words,
since they are limited to answering a question directly, but they have difficulty putting it
in context according to the reading.
The rubric of evaluation (Annex 4) based on the Basic Standards of competences
in foreign languages of the Ministry of National Education of Colombia and in the
annotations of the diary showed that:
In listening, 20 out of 30 students present a high following of simple instructions,
they understand simple questions and small descriptions, this is because in all the
classes basic instructions in English are followed due to the bilingualism program and
simple questions and descriptions of things in English class to contextualize the
students, which allows them to be familiarized with some structures and vocabulary.
41
However, the 30 students cannot identify the main idea or the sequence of events
except that it is based on images, which implies that without visual support it is difficult
for them to relate sound and meaning.
In reading, students have been instructed to identify through skimming words
classes, based on the title etc., for this reason, 17 of 30 can identify or recognize more
than five words in a written text, infer the meaning of a word based on the images that
accompany it and 26 students can easily follow a sequence if it has images.
In writing, all students copy directly from the board, all have spelling problems
even in Spanish and only recognize inferential structures based on images or previous
models where words are replaced or a specific order is followed.
In Speaking, children know how to present themselves, although they refuse to
speak, they handle Greetings, they describe by means of colours, but they still have
difficulty mentioning body parts, most ask in Spanish when they do not understand and
everyone participates in games or group activities following a limited use of sounds of
words or phrases being more receptive to expressing based on a model or constantly
repeating a phrase.
6.2. Stage 2: Planification.
The observation made in class, the diagnosis and the rubric allowed to perform
an analysis of the competencies of students of the cycle I proposed by the guidelines in
education. Starting from the difficulties of the students even in their mother tongue it
was established that the intervention would focus on listening so that the students had
more linguistic input without the need for it to be written or asked to be spoken. It was
observed that they like the videos, they are attentive to the sounds so they do not
initially understand all of them and they are receptive with the use of images, songs, or
dialogues where they can identify a word, which leads to enhance this ability. It was
also observed that they are more related to identifying an object by listening to how it is
pronounced as it is written as long as they have had previous experience.
All this led initially to make the decision to present a proposal based on teaching
memory learning strategies that seek to increase the vocabulary to determine its
impact on listening comprehension. Subsequently, it was defined to determine the
strategies that the students used, tools were defined to collect information, including an
42
initial and final test, a questionnaire, several worksheets according to the workshops,
among others, that would be applied at different times of the investigation, for it, finally,
it was planned to follow a chronogram (Chart 6.1).
The questionnaire was adapted according to the strategies that had a closer
relationship with the listening skill or its processes there than 60 questions that
originally formed the questionnaire were selected 36. As its objective was to determine
the strategies that the children have taken performed intuitively, without the intervention
of the teacher, was performed before introducing the sequence of classes.
All the students completed the questionnaire of use of learning strategies
individually guided in their reading by the teacher, who clarified them with examples or
answered the concerns of the students in this regard, this instrument served to
determine the relationship between strategies and if it developed the use of others from
the intervention, for this reason, it had to be done again after the workshops were
finished; The rubric for the use of strategies (Annex 9) served as a basis to mediate
whether their use was increased after the intervention at the discretion of the students.
The initial results in each section of the questionnaire were obtained by adding
the score given per student to each question (between 1 to 5 depending on the
frequency of the action described) and divided by the number of questions, this gave a
median per student, for establishing a group score, the individual results were added
for each section or strategy used and divided by 30. The memory strategies resulted in
2.9 or moderate use according to the questionnaire's assessment chart; cognitive
strategies 3.4 which means that they are used moderate forms; compensation
strategies obtained a score of 2.0 which places them within a limited use;
metacognitive strategies had a score of 1.0 or very limited use; the affective strategies
1.3 or very limited use and finally, social strategies 1.9 or very limited use.
Both the diagnostic test (Annex 3), the assessment rubric based on the Ministry
of National Education competencies (Annex 4), the initial listening test (Annex 5), and
the questionnaire (Annex 6) were developed before the workshops and served to
establish a diagnosis of needs, as well as knowing the difficulties and strengths of
students in their process of acquiring a second language.
43
6.3. Stage 3: Application and reconsideration
This stage took into account the intervention itself, which consisted of the
activities, the collection of information tools, the activities together with their respective
registers, and then the elements that were taken into account are detailed:
6.3.1. Workshops
For the development of the research, the English classes were held as
workshops and were divided into two, in which the memory strategies proposed by
Oxford (1990) and Abbassi, Hassaskhah and Tahriri (2018) were taught and practised:
creating mental linkages, applying images and sounds, reviewing well, employing
action, grouping, acronym and imagery; these strategies were put into practice through
the contents stipulated by the curriculum for the students, for this reason, they focused
on the vocabulary of house parts, objects inside the house, numbers from 1 to 20,
clothing, domestic and wild animals, adjectives about physical appearance, and verbs.
The other sessions followed the pedagogical sequence described in the
theoretical framework: pre-listening, while listening and post-listening (Field, 2008;
Rost, 2002) taking into account the two macro processes in listening comprehension:
bottom-up and top-down and listening to subskills, these activities were based on
stories and dialogues that the children saw projected or listened to in class.
The sequence of each workshop was done as follows: Pre-listening students
were introduced in the vocabulary of the short stories or dialogues, for this basically
followed the presentation form based on the routine modes of vocabulary (Abbassi,
Hassaskhah and Tahriri, 2018) where: a written list of the keywords to be used as
presented, their pronunciation was given, short explanation about their parts of speech
was made when it was necessary and minimal contexts were used. With this
information, the teacher put audio and the students were encouraged to do predictions
a pre-listening task that helps with memory consolidations).
In while-listening, the teacher should put the central video the students could
identify the emotions of characters based on the changes of voice or the expressions of
their faces (world knowledge), rethink about their predictions and organized a
sequence of events or complete a chart, at this moment, student were questioned
about the meaning of words according to the context.
44
In the post-listening teacher provided extra information to students through
pictures or reading, moreover, students must use their own words to do a summary or
complement information, in this last part, the students could express an opinion about
the listening.
For all this, the teacher took into account that the students should initially see the
whole video or listen to whole audio to motivate their attention and that they could
identify the words or phrases of the introduction. After the teacher proceeded to show
the video or audio and stop it so that the students had time to write their answers and
complete the worksheet that was evaluated taking into account the registration table
and the listening comprehension rubric (annexes 7 and 10).
The instruction given in class followed models 2 and 3 exposed by Morley (2001)
where comprehension questions were asked or asked to do a task according to the
information heard; in addition, in all classes focused on listening comprehension,
processes such as: analysis, inference, abstraction, synthesis, induction, deduction,
comparison and association were taken into account.
6.3.2. The worksheets
There were variations in the practice due to the fact that initially, he considered
using videos to record the observations because it is easy to observe everything that
happens in class, however, little would be known about the individual process of the
students, so it became necessary to make a test written by workshop so that the
researcher could see how the students reflect the process of listening comprehension
and not based simply on direct observation, hence making worksheets that followed
the sequence of the class, but that was subject to exercise of listening.
The worksheets were designed following the sequence of the sessions before
and after the listening, therefore, they contain questions about the story seen or heard
in agreement with the subskills there that are analyzed from two instruments the
registration table and the rubric assessment of listening comprehension.
Each worksheet corresponds to a workshop, so it keeps the same structure, but
different content regarding the type of input and the types of tasks to develop.
45
6.3.3. The registration table and the assessment rubric listening comprehension
The worksheets were evaluated using two instruments: a registration table that
gives an account of the listening subskills and the assessment rubric of listening
comprehension to have a more precise vision of the listening comprehension process.
For this assessment, a rubric was designed to take into account the two large macroprocesses in listening comprehension, these, in turn, are divided into specific microprocesses that determine the degree of mastery of these areas and allow locating
where the advantages and difficulties lie.
The literal micro-process is subdivided into three: Literality, retention and
organization; and the level of inference is subdivided into two: inference and
interpretation. In the first micro-process, literality refers to explicit data about what
characters and situations are heard; the retention refers to what the reader can
remember and identify as the subject of what is heard; in the organization, sequences
and comparisons are established. On the other hand, the inferential micro-process is
subdivided into inference and interpretation, the first of them implicit elements are
deduced and in the interpretation, one can express, reorder or conceive the contents in
another way.
The registration file had to be rethought because we could not always take note
of the contributions of the students in the field and most of the time they always
participated, for this reason, the initial orientation was changed to do it on the basis of
participation and was developed on the basis of the worksheets so that the student
could place their answers based on what they understood, this facilitated the collection
of data and its subsequent analysis on the impact of the use of strategies in listening
comprehension through of the registration table.
6.3.4. Categorical matrix
In order to achieve with the research objectives, it was necessary to establish a
categorical matrix (Chart 6.2) which specifies the categories, subcategories, evaluation
indicators and instruments for collecting the information gathered during the research
process. This categorical matrix will serve as a guide to this process, establishing what
are the limits to take into account, the criteria to evaluate and the way in which the work
carried out in the classroom will be evidenced.
46
All the information contained in the categorical matrix is the product of the
background checks and the theoretical references that were addressed in the present
work, in such a way that it reflects each and every one of the aspects that will be taken
into account during the entire investigation, it also establishes the hierarchies or
subdivisions along with the indicators of the evaluation instruments to collect, to
corroborate and to analyze the information.
47
Chart 6.2: Categorical matrix
Analysis
Unit
Process
Categories
Bottom up
sub
Category
Stage
Indicators
Pre listening
ability to deduce meanings of words from context
ability to predict outcomes from events described
S
U
B
ability to identify topic and follow topic development
ability to make use of facial, paralinguistic, and other clues to
work out meanings
ability to infer relationships (e.g., cause, effect, conclusion)
M
L
I
S
T
E
N
I
N
G
A
C
R
O
Top Down
While
listening
S
K
I
L
L
S
Instruments
Questionnaire
registration table
ability to reconstruct or infer situations, goals, participants,
procedures
ability to discriminate among the distinctive sounds of the target
language
ability to recognize vocabulary used in core conversational
worksheets
diary
topics
ability to detect keywords (i.e., those which identify topics and
propos)
ability to retain chunks of the language of different lengths for
short times
MEMORY STRATEGIES
(Oxford, 1990 and Abbassi, Hassaskhah and Tahriri, 2018)
Creating mental linkages, applying images and sounds, reviewing well, employing action,
grouping, acronym and imagery
Post listening
P
R
O
M
Literality
Elements to analyze: Identify explicit elements in
conversations or listening.
Worksheets
assessment
rubric of
48
C
Bottom up
E
I
C
R
O
Recognize words / Identify the topic / Recognize events
Retention
S
S
P
R
O
C
E
S
S
Top Down
Organization
Inference
Interpretion
Relations to analyze: Remember details or information.
Retain chunks of the language of different lengths for short
periods.
Remember details
listening
comprehension
Diary
Organization analyze: Establishes relations and sequences.
Identify Characters
Establish relation between actions.
Recognize events and their order.
Comparison: Deduce implicit elements in the listening
Complement details with other information
Think about the possible situations Do Hypothesis about
characters and situations
Generalization/Abstraction
Express in their own words the content of the text (paraphrasing)
Contextualize the meaning of words and the text
Compare the meaning of new words to the own vocabulary
Deduce conclusions / Formulate an opinion / Summarize the text
49
6.3.5. Pedagogic intervention proposal
The following intervention proposal is the result of the observation and the
diagnostic test applied to the students of class 202 of the Bosanova school, seat B shift of
afternoon, whose conclusion determined as the main need of the students the
improvement of the listening comprehension process, everything which was the product of
the activities developed during the first stage of research.
The pedagogical objectives proposed in the present intervention are: the first, to
improve the listening comprehension of the students of class 202 of the Bosanova school
through the memory strategies and the second, to develop the cognitive skills that allow
the students to understand what they are listening, both literally and inferentially.
The methodology used will be through workshops that seek to strengthen the
listening comprehension process; in these workshops students will be provided with
memory strategies that will allow them to expand their capacity for analysis, inference,
abstraction, synthesis, induction, deduction, comparison and association, skills that will be
put into practice throughout the intervention.
All the sessions will take into account the axis of development of stimulation and
exploration proposed in education by Bosanova school cycles, which aims to conquer
students of cycle I develop communication from different and diverse materials (Rincón,
1998), as well that encourage the pleasure and joy of being in school and generate a
pedagogical perspective that takes into account their needs in relation to cognitive and
socio-affective aspects.
For the implementation of the project it is necessary to establish a series of stages
according to the proposed methodology, at first it is necessary to evaluate the students, in
such a way, that they can know the strengths and weaknesses in the listening
comprehension; subsequently and according to the results obtained, in each workshop
the teacher will present the audio or video a small introduction (pre-listening), link aspects
of the text with the experiences and knowledge of the children through questions (whilelistening) and finally, the text and its specific aspects will be discussed according to what
students are expected to learn.
The pedagogical proposal of intervention (application) consists of twenty (20)
sessions, each of them with a specific function whether it is to learn a strategy or practice
50
it on the basis of a listening; to conclude the action research will be carried out as a final
product, an individual booklet or portfolio which is constituted by all the collection and
evaluation material during the intervention, this booklet will be delivered to the parents
concluding the second period, which will give an account of the process and impact on
listening comprehension.
In the table presented below, the project divided into sessions and its execution
times (Chart 6.3) is presented:
Chart 6.3 Methodology in the pedagogical intervention
Stages
Methodology/Activities
Session 1: Discuss with students about their preferences.
Session 2: The content of the project will be socialized with the
students and parents to make the necessary adjustments to the
Exploration
proposal, the methodology of the workshops will be explained.
Session 3 and 4: Application of initial test difficulties and strengths in
this field, completion of the questionnaire these will be developed
individually.
Session 5: Memory strategy: Creating Mental Linkages.
Session 6: Video of BBC Learning English. Goldilocks visited the
three bears' house? Worksheet. The practice of creating mental
linkages.
Session 7: Memory strategy: applying images and sounds.
Session 8: the video of the fable the Hare and tortoise.
Session 9: Tale: Little Red Riding Hood.
Session 10: Memory strategy: Grouping.
Application Session 11: Use of dictionary to classify objects, animals and places
of the city.
Session 12: Memory strategy: reviewing well: Revision of worksheets
and exercises in class.
Session 13: Review Grouping and applying images and sound
strategies.
Session 14: Memory strategy: Employing action.
Session 15: Songs: the animal song and Yes, I can animals.
Session 16: Game: Mimic.
51
Session 17: Memory strategy: Acronym.
Session 18: Video Rooms and clothes.
Session 19: Memory strategy: Imagery.
Session 20: Aladdin and the magic lamp.
Session 21: Memory strategy: reviewing well: Revision of worksheets
and exercises in class.
Session 22: Review of employing actions and acronym strategies.
Session 23: Final test application.
Session 24: Practice imaginery strategy.
Session 25: Memory strategy: reviewing well: Revision of worksheets
and exercises in class.
Session 26: Feedback on the project.
Session 27: Evaluation of works and elaboration of results.
Evaluation
Session 28: Elaboration of results.
Session 29: Conclusions.
Session 30: Elaboration and decoration of the comprehension.
booklet with the works of the children.
52
7. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The present investigation had a double purpose, the first one of pedagogical type
that consisted in developing listening skills through direct memory strategies, in search of
improving the learning process of the students in class; and the second of investigative
type, which sought to determine the effect that the application of these strategies had on
the listening comprehension of the students in class 202 of the Bosanova school.
To achieve the above objectives, research was divided into four different stages:
Exploration, planning, application/rethinking and evaluation; in each one of them, we
responded to the pedagogical interests and the research questions.
In the first stage, the project was explained and exposed to the students and parents
so that they knew the objectives and the way to achieve them, based on their pleasures
and preferences, the predilection topics and the type of format that they called the
attention to bring materials according to this information, in order to motivate their
participation; in turn, the first instruments were applied to establish the initial degree of
listening comprehension.
In the second stage memory strategies were taught, for this several videos were
used on tales, short stories, poems, songs, because, on the one hand, they accomplished
with the preferences of the students in terms of theme and brevity, and by the another,
they adapted to the curricular subjects; these texts had comparisons, abstractions,
allusions and associations through mainly images, which allowed to work the different
cognitive skills such as analysis, inference, abstraction, synthesis, induction, deduction,
comparison and association accordingly to the subskills; during the intervention, the
worksheets and the evaluation tests of the use of listening strategies were applied in order
to collect information that would account for the changes expressed by the students in
written form.
In the third stage, the results of the initial tests were evaluated in a comparative way
with the last to see where the biggest problems were presented and the product of the
pedagogical intervention that consisted of the preparation of a booklet, which compiled the
work carried out in class, along with the tests developed by the students to be delivered to
the parents with the recommendations to improve the listening comprehension of their
children; in the investigative aspect, the information obtained from the worksheets,
53
registration table and assessment rubric listening comprehension were collected, which
served to account for the objectives proposed in the present investigation.
Once the pedagogical-investigative process is described, the results of this will be
presented in light of each of the proposed objectives. To describe the process of
application of memory strategies that students carry, it is necessary to locate the latter as
one of the moments of the auditory process. The listening comprehension of the students
will be related to the type of strategies used by them.
7.1. The use of memory strategies
The memory strategies were taught and practised during the intervention, they were
addressed in different work sessions, and were used as tasks in the listening
comprehension exercises, this means that they focused on listening, but the other skills
were worked on (Reading and writing especially) to reinforce the memory, by means of
the association of the pronunciation and the written form, gradually identifying the
graphemes with their corresponding phonemes.
The results of the use of strategies will be addressed one by one because each
strategy has its particularities and sought to encourage the development of specific
cognitive skills.
7.1.1. Creating mental linkages
This strategy consisted of grouping some new words according to their meaning.
For example, organize vocabulary in word maps, or label the picture; this was the first
strategy taught and it was used to establish groupings of words that kept relationships
with each other from just one. The development of a mental map based on a word allowed
the students to review the vocabulary practised during the classes; for example, from the
word HOUSE it was observed that 21 students used at least one word that can be
classified in one of the following four categories: house parts, people living in the house,
food and household, later, this allowed us to review vocabulary and learn new words from
relating it to the story of Goldilocks visited the three bears' house.
Another way to practice this memory strategy was creating association, in this case,
the teacher encouraged students to make their own class story with five new words about
verbs (to eat, to sleep, to run, to sit and to play) some of them were in the story and they
54
were putting in context. The results demonstrate that the use of a new word in context is
more useful that only use it in isolation, 25 students created short stories about their
experiences.
7.1.2. Applying images and sounds
This strategy consisted of associating some pictures with a sound. In this case, the
teacher presented a few flashcards, which show different animals and ask students to
imitate the animal’s voices. Then he produces some sound and asks pupils to guess the
number of the picture with the right animal or the name of the animal in English, to
develop this exercise was to use the animal sound songs.
In another occasion, the teacher showed some pictures of means of transport and
their corresponding sounds. This kind of exercise permits to create a mental panorama of
the place where the events occur in a dialogue, to evoke situations or make inferences
from the background sounds in a conversation.
To practice in a different way this strategy was used the video of the fable the Hare
and tortoise, children saw the video and after in the worksheet they listen to fragments
and related with images of the video to determinate the relation between sound and
image, on this occasion, it is evident the difficulty of the students when 27 confused the
images and the sounds, because they are not used to listening to a complete sentence
and have difficulty discriminating when they start and end the words, if the student has
seen a word previously related to the phrase, but does not understand it in its entirety,
only three students managed to relate five images of seven.
Another way to practice this strategy was to place in chronological order a series of
images according to the order in which they heard some sentences, this time it was made
on the basis of the video Little Red Riding Hood, this exercise put into practice the
sequence of images served to determine the use of auditory memory.
7.1.3. Reviewing well
This strategy consisted in giving opportunities for students to revise what they have
learned in regularly and systematical way, moreover, students can monitor their progress
and achievements.
This strategy was related with metacognitive strategy but the
55
difference is that do not centre attention in planning or evaluating, but focus on monitoring
learning through checking the exercise or task in class; in our case, review to reinforce the
words
or
structures
through
the
revision
of
the
worksheets
and
the
guided correction, where students were allowed to review their exercises and based on
the correct answers to determine what their errors were.
7.1.4. Employing action
This strategy was an ideal opportunity for students to use English in a creative and
personal way that will give them a real sense of achievement. This kind of strategy
permits relate, in a direct way, the movement or expression with vocabulary, in this
occasion it was practised through songs, but it could also be practised through the game
of mime where a participant represented the word that they took (they were animals and
they had to represent it without making onomatopoeic sounds) and the other members of
the group must find out what it is and even mention it in English.
This strategy was practised with the songs: the animal song and Yes, I can where in
addition to mentioning the animals, they had to make the sound of it and perform the
movement that was sung (shake the arms as if they were flying, stomping hard as if they
were walking heavy etc.). What allowed to be guided through paralinguistic elements such
as body movement or facial expressions. On this occasion, the thirty students
participated, followed the steps and were more motivated.
In graph 7.1, the number of students that used the memory strategies of creating
mental linkages, applying images and sounds, reviewing well and employing actions are
represented during the sessions; the results show that the students are more familiarize
with strategies that imply movements of body and create relations among words that have
a similar topic because remember familiar words and they can classify them, but they
have difficulty in relate image and sound without a visual reference, this evidences a few
develop of listening discrimination and a dependency of other input to complete the tasks.
Finally, the students use with more frequency the review in some sessions, for this reason
all of them use this strategy as the graphic show it.
56
Use of Memory strategies
Number of Students
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Mental linkages
Images and sounds
Reviewing
Employing action
Graph 7.1
7.1.5. Grouping
This strategy was similar to creating mental linkages, the difference was that it
groups words from common characteristics and did not draw different categories from a
common one, making them sets of words that had a mutual relationship, an example of
this type of activity is to make a list of words that encompass a characteristic and that the
student can identify it; this helped to develop the comparison, analysis, association and
induction.
The activity developed was to present 10 different types of foods (drawings) and
they were mentioned so that the students could become familiar with their pronunciation,
after a while, the drawings were removed and the students had to locate in three columns
of the worksheet (drinks, fruits and meats) the foods as they were mentioned by the
teacher. This made it possible for them not to have only auditory-visual input; the students
had to use their memory to locate the mentioned foods according to those three groups.
Despite the mention of several foods, for the students it was a bit difficult to
associate sound without a visual reference, 20 of 30 students managed to associate 1 to 3
words correctly, 6 students associated between 4 and 7 words correctly and 4 managed
to classify between 8 and 10 words, this is shown in Graph 7.2.
57
Grouping
Number of students
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
1 to 3 words associated
4 to 7 words associated
8 to 10 words associated
Graph 7.2
7.1.6. Acronym
This memory strategy consisted of constructing a word with the initial letters of other
words, initially the significance of the acronym was explained to learners, telling them to
make use of an acronym to boost their word retention, taking in mind the number of words
to relate number with the acronym to facilitate a relation to retaining information, this
strategy was focused on the cognitive ability of association.
Four words were selected initially and learners were asked to write appropriate
acronym, these words were using such a practice. Another variation was doing in class,
teacher selected a word, for example, LOVE and he gave them the instruction to write a
word according to each letter of this, in the first moment students had problems to select
words because they had not more vocabulary but if teach it using a picture to guide the
word needed, students participate with more confidence.
In the workshops, the students had to make an acronym according to a series of
images that they saw on the board, the teacher mentioned them, after that, the students
had to write at least six words correctly and organize an acronym with them, this exercise
was given to the teacher, later in the worksheet they had to write the same acronym with
the words that constituted it to determine if they had really remembered the words and its
order.
58
It was evident that 7 students did it correctly, 9 incompletely and 14 did not complete
their acronym like is shown in Graph 7.3. The good reception of this activity was that the
students were free to form the acronym they wanted and that more attention was drawn to
them, hence the majority has completed the exercise satisfactorily.
Another activity carried out to practice this strategy was to place the video House
Vocabulary - Learning the Parts of the Home for Kids and Clothes in English nursery
rhymes and that the students would take note of 5 words that they would listen to in each
one of them, they chose and formed them two acronyms (one for each video). Later in a
part of the worksheet they had to write the acronym with the words chosen by them, it
should be taken into account that in this occasion the words learned were related to the
parts of the house and were used to address this subject according to the school
curriculum.
Acronym
Number of students
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Complete
Incomplete
Don't do it
Graph 7.3
7.1.7. Imagery
This strategy consisted of relating the appropriate sentence with the corresponding
image, among other sentences, this strategy develops the skills of inference and
association. It was practiced through simple sentences that contained words seen in
class where the students related the image and the audios in an appropriate way, for
example, the name of the character was mentioned and they chose the correct option,
later, they had to listen to an audio and based on this select the corresponding image.
59
In the workshop the video of Aladdin and the lamp was used, in the worksheet, the
students had to relate the image of the story with one of the three phrases in English that
they listened to. It was observed that the students were easier to have previous
experience of listening with images or video than simply to relate sentences with images
without having a context or global vision, which allowed the video.
On this occasion, 17 students correctly selected the five proposed images, 8
selected three images and 5 did not relate any correctly, this is showed in graph 7.4. It
could be seen that the students who developed the exercise better did so on the basis of
relating one or two familiar words, which generated confidence and security at the time of
choosing, as did the others with the difference that the latter did not remember several
words that made them select only some options correctly.
Imagery
Number of students
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Select 5 Images
Select 3 images
Select 0 images
Graph 7.4
7.2. Listening process
The process of listening is active and conscious, for this reason, the memory
strategies mentioned above were framed in the two forms of listening: listening to learn
and learning to listen, both were put into practice within the activities, in the case of the
first, through the CLIL methodology framed in the bilingualism program developed by the
school and in the case of the second, in which the learning strategies are designed so that
60
the student identifies and selects elements, pay attention to the details and discriminate
sounds.
7.2.1. Sub skills
In order to put the practice to learn to listen, the workshops were divided into three
times each with a specific task according to the purpose of each session, the solution to
the exercises was recorded with two instruments, the first of which has to do directly with
the listening subskills was the registration table which will be analyzed in this section and
the listening process through rubric assessment, the results of this last will be presented
later.
The results of each student refer to whether the use of the subskill persists after the
investigation, this was corroborated with the answers that the student selected in the
worksheets which will be registered in the Registration table after the workshops, as has a
total of 15 worksheets per student, the answer above 7 will be considered as a majority
use of the subskill and will be reflected in each of these.
7.2.1.1. Pre-listening
This introductory part of the workshops was characterized by previous activities to
contextualize the students, which was described previously (6.3.1 Workshops), after this
part, the workshop was focused on addressing two types of subskills:

ability to deduce meanings of words from context

ability to predict outcomes from events described, through questions about the
story, tale or song.
The information recollected shows that in the first subskill 17 students showed that
in the course of the workshops deduce meanings from context, this happened because
some material (videos) were more explicit than others or the style of narration was more
quickly than others, therefore, this difficult a little the comprehension of the different
words; In the second, ability to predict, referring to the elaborated hypotheses after
knowing the exposed keywords according to the mode routine and asking questions about
the story seen or heard, there was a significant increase in making inferences because
questions were continuously asked during listening, establishing relationships, similarities
and comparisons. The information about the pre-listening subskills is shown in Graph 7.5.
61
Pre-listening
35
Number of students
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Ability to deduce meanings of words from
context.
Ability to predict outcomes from events
described, through questions about the story,
tale or song.
Graph 7.5
7.2.1.2. While-listening
After the first part of the workshop, the intervention was focused on identify
elements to recognize what happened in the listening that they are exposed.
The
subskills practised and the result was:
●
ability to identify the topic and follow topic development
In this subskill, all the students selected correctly the topic of the input related to a
situation.
●
ability to make use of facial, paralinguistic, and other clues to work out meanings,
and
●
ability to discriminate among the distinctive sounds of the target language.
The students identified the voice sounds, the expressions, the music, the sound of
the environment and the movements of the body with a feeling or with a character. All
students identified expressions of feeling according to the information that they saw, this
was important because they learn that without words they can express ideas.
●
ability to infer relationships (e.g., cause, effect, conclusion)
62
The input was stopped to ask students: What do you think that will happen? And
answer questions about why, where or when in the story. In this case, some students (8)
did not answer correctly some literal information, this happened because they did not pay
attention to some details in the story.
●
ability to reconstruct or infer situations, goals, participants, procedures.
In this part, the teacher required that the students compared their previous
hypothesis and the situations to correct or affirm it. Whit new elements the students could
compare their previous thinking about the story and confirmed if they are in the correct.
This was a subskill more related to the metacognitive strategy of monitoring.
●
ability to recognize vocabulary used in core conversational topics
The majority of the students 24 recognized the vocabulary because they were a
focus on the initial time of the class where they saw vocabulary, the other students
confused the words because they did not pay attention.
These results are directly related to the previous phase of class because this gave
an introductory vocabulary and some elements to help students in their interpretation or
identification based on the sounds of the words.
The information about the practice of subskills while listening is showed in Graph
7.6.
63
While-listening
35
Number of students
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Ability to identify Ability to make use Ability to infer
Ability to
Ability to
the topic and
of facial,
relationships (e.g., reconstruct or
recognize
follow topic
paralinguistic, and
cause, effect,
infer situations, vocabulary used in
development.
other clues to
conclusion).
goals, participants,
core
work out
procedures.
conversational
meanings, and
topics.
Ability to
discriminate
among the
distinctive sounds
of the target
language.
Graph 7.6
7.2.1.3. Post-listening
In this part teacher gave some extra information to the students to booster their
vocabulary, for example, use synonyms or antonyms with the keywords or they with a
word must relate what situation was the correct.
●
ability to detect keywords (i.e., those which identify topics and propositions)
In this part, students could complete alphabet soup or crossword with the keywords
of input, this was little difficult because the students did not familiarize with this and they
did not remember the complete word only had a notion about it. It was difficult for them to
remember the correct spelling of the word in a second language. On the other hand, 22
students in worksheets select the keywords of a story.
●
ability to retain chunks of the language of different lengths for short periods
64
The teacher encouraged students to select what happens in some parts of the
listening, to try to identify if they remembered information, in this exercise, 18 students
retained chunks correctly and all of them gave their opinion about the listening input. Both
subskills worked inpost-listening are shown in Graph 7.7
Post-listening
Number of sdtudents
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Ability to detect keywords (i.e., those which
identify topics and propositions).
Ability to retain chunks of the language of
different lengths for short periods.
Graph 7.7
The impact on the listening comprehension of the strategies used in each workshop
as well as the practice of listening subskills during the three moments in which the class
was divided will be analyzed below, according to two types of processes, macro and micro
processes.
7.3. Listening comprehension process: Macro and micro-process
Taking in mind the theoretical framework about listening comprehension, this part was
divided according to the two big processes (macro process) and the subdivided process
inside them (micro process) that shows the impact of memory strategies in whole listening
comprehension.
7.3.1. Macro-process
Listening comprehension was divided according to the theoretical framework
referenced in two major processes: bottom-up and top-down processing (Rost, 2002,
Vandergrift, 2004). Each one had its particularity and helped to better understand how the
65
listening process occurs in order to enhance it. Next, the impact that the use of memory
strategies explained and practised in the workshops in these two major processes will be
described.
7.3.1.1. Bottom-Up process
As previously discussed in the theoretical framework, we started from the concept
that the Bottom-up involves decoding in our case segmenting the sound into meaningful
units. This macro process is related in the research with the subskills of ability to
discriminate sounds, recognize vocabulary, detect keywords and retain chunks of
language and, the micro-processes of literal where is identified explicit elements, retention
where are important the details and organization where is important establishing relations
and sequences.
After the first workshops, 23 students showed a better dexterity in the identification
of sounds or related them with words used in class, due to the use of memory strategies
that focused on the acquisition and use of vocabulary, which allowed to improve in this
process of listening comprehension. This was mainly due to the routine modes of
vocabulary (Abbassi, Hassaskhah and Tahriri, 2018) performed in the pre-listening,
whereby through short stories served as a starting point and analysis by the students.
Thanks to this methodology, students were able to identify keywords in a story such
as characters, situations, feelings, objects and some verbs, all students showed that by
increasing exposure to listening they could more easily identify some sounds and related
them following the instructions consigned in the worksheets.
All of the above-improved student confidence, which in turn increased their
motivation in the English classes, which resulted in greater participation in class, and
these important factors were taken into account when selecting the inputs or materials to
be listened to or seen.
7.3.1.2. Top-down process
The top-down processing involves the application of context and prior knowledge to
build a conceptual framework for interpretation purposes, this process includes
experiential, cultural, textual, linguistic and pragmatic knowledge. This macro-process was
related in the research with the subskills of ability to deduce meaning, predict outcomes
from events, identify the topic, makes use of paralinguistic and infer relations or situations
66
and, the micro-processes of inference where is deducing implicit elements and
interpretation where is expressing the content in own words.
In the developing of the workshops was observed that all students use their previous
knowledge to interpret what they listened, these inferences and interpretations were
registered in the worksheets. This process in integrative and require cognitive skills more
elaborated and experience.
7.3.2. Micro-processes
To understand more deeply the listening process, this was subdivided into more
specific processes that account for the type of activities that the students were doing and
the cognitive skills put into practice for it, hence the establishment of six different
subprocesses that gave account of the understanding of explicit elements or the
interpretation of the information received that requires a more developed level of
understanding.
7.3.2.1. Literal
The literal comprehension could be shown that the 30 students at the end of the
investigation responded to the evaluation indicators, which referred to identifying the
explicit information of the texts such as title, characters, theme and space. This means
that all the students could remember information and account for it, identifying the explicit
content of the linguistic inputs if they had visual reference; if we compare this data with the
initial test we can see a noticeable improvement.
7.3.2.2. Retention
Regarding the retention that consisted of remembering and recognizing specific
details or data of the input, it was possible to observe through assessment rubric of
listening comprehension that in the first worksheets the students retained more
information but from the complexity of the workshops and the absence of visual referent
there was a decrease in the retention of information, which means that in the tests
developed students remember better the information if it is repeated. Students at this
point resorted to clues or supplementary information to remember or resorted to repetitive
information. Finally, 8 students had greater complications in this sub-process because
they are easily distracted and prefer to rely on what their peers respond.
67
7.3.2.3. Organization
This
sub-process
consisted
of
establishing
sequences,
comparisons
and
relationships, it was observed that in the grouping memory strategy the majority of
students (20) grouped few words in contrast to the four students who did it best. The
same thing happened with the acronym strategy where 7 students completed the acronym
and 14 did not. This was due to the fact that the comparison and relationship exercises,
developed in other workshops, had a visual reference that facilitated a concrete response,
so the results varied, indicating the lack of development in the cognitive ability of
abstraction.
Students who were able to organize sequences and drew conclusions prepared
anticipated answers about the end of the text. Students who did not have problems with
establishing a consecutive order did not establish relationships between the characters
and had problems with identifying cause-effect relationships in the story.
7.3.2.4. Inference
The elaboration of inferences was made in the initial part of the workshops known
as pre-listening, in which the first impressions and assumptions were evaluated; it was
found that there was a more widespread use of this, at the end of the intervention, all the
students used it, that means they could elaborate initial hypothesis based on the initial
information of the listening, which is attributed to the fact that in the pre-listening and
following the routines modes, the introduction by the teacher was aimed at the student to
begin his first explorations with the explicit elements of the text and made conjectures
about them, which made it possible to increase the number of students who made this
process along with their respective cognitive abilities of induction and deduction, which will
help them to make particularizations and generalizations.
The use of memory strategies proved to increase the number of students who made
inferences from 23 students in the beginning to all 30 students at the end, this was easier
because they used their imagination or knowledge of the world to answer the questions, in
this part we sought to encourage the use of the cognitive ability of analysis, so that
students could solve questions and relate image-text.
Regarding the confirmation that was made in the while listening, which took into
account the verification of hypotheses or assumptions and the reworking of the text, it was
found that 16 students reworked their initial hypothesis. The memory strategies served as
68
a base to develop in these students the skills of comparison and association; in the end,
these students were able to relate ideas with images and identify the topic.
7.3.2.5. Interpretation
This sub-process was referred to giving opinions, predictions and elaborations about
what has been heard or seen, it was observed that the highest number of students who
met this evaluative indicator was 13, which corresponds to the type of question explicit in
some worksheets, that facilitated the biggest correct answers, in front of questions of
implicit and interpretative character wherein the final part 4 students managed to answer
satisfactorily. The students who achieved this level show a degree of independence and
initiative, they solve the tests quickly and correctly, they also provide assessments of what
they heard or seen and continually question the teacher when they had doubts; As you
can see, these skills are typical of students who had autonomy or support at home.
The students that demonstrated in the sessions their cognitive abilities in the microprocess of listening comprehension are shown in Graph 7.8
Micro process
Students that answer correctly
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Literal: identifying
Retention:
Organization:
the explicit
remembering and
establishing
information
recognizing
sequences,
specific details. comparisons and
relationships.
Inference: first
impressions and
assumptions.
Interpretation:
giving opinions,
predictions and
reelaborations
Graph 7.8
69
7.4. Use of strategies according to the assessment questionnaire
The strategies used by the students at the beginning and at the end of the
intervention were recorded in the Assessment Questionnaire, the objective was to
determine the practice or the abandonment of the learning strategies. All the students
completed the questionnaire and their answers were compared between the first
questionnaire and the second one; to establish if there was a change, the average was
taken from the group score obtained from the sum of all the students and their division by
the number of questions contained in each section.
When comparing both assessments it was observed that:
In section A corresponding to the memory strategies, an average of 2.9 was initially
obtained, which was defined as a moderate use by the students, later, the score obtained
in the second questionnaire was 4.5, which places it a frequent use, this is due to the
emphasis developed during the intervention and to the development of the workshops
based on these strategists, where the students became more familiar with them and
practised them continuously.
In section B corresponding to cognitive strategies, the initial score was 3.4
compared to 4.0 obtained in the second questionnaire, although it increased continuously
being considered within moderate use. Its small increase is due to the use of cognitive
skills that were implemented during the workshops.
Regarding the compensation strategies designated in section C, a score of 2.0 was
initially obtained and in the final questionnaire a score of 3.6 was recorded, the increase is
due to the performance of activities that required this type of action during the pedagogical
intervention what indirectly was reflected in the use of these strategies, going from being
of limited use to being considered of moderate use by the students.
The metacognitive strategies initially had a score of 1.0, later their score increased
to 3.4, this was due to the use of the reviewing strategy where the students increased
their experience in the use of these strategies. The increase positioned this strategy from
limited use to moderate use.
In the affective strategies the score was 1.3 corresponding to a limited use, it started
to score 3.7, consolidating itself as moderate use, this increase corresponded to the
70
learning of memory strategies and the structure of the English classes that generated
confidence and motivation among the students, reducing the level of anxiety and stress in
class.
Finally, in the social strategies, the initial score was 1.9, considered of very limited
use was reduced to 1.2 remaining in this category, this reduction is attributed to the
development of the intervention since it was focused on individual works and personal
tests which reduced the collaboration and interaction among students.
The comparison between the use of strategies of learning before and after the
intervention according to the answers of students are showed in Graph 7.9.
Score in the use of strategies by students
Assessment questionnarie
5
4,5
4
3,5
3
2,5
2
1,5
1
Memory
Strategies
Cognitive
strategies
Compensation Metacognitives
strategies
strategies
Affective
strategies
Social
strategies
Título del eje
Before
After
Graph 7.9
7.5. The initial and final test
Like the questionnaire this instrument was completed before and after the
intervention, its objective was to establish the relationship between the initial and final
results showing the impact of the strategies developed in the memorization of the
vocabulary used in several classes that redound in better listening comprehension.
The initial test consisted of 10 questions of which 8 students correctly answered 6, 4
students answered correctly 5, 12 students answered correctly 4 and 6 students correctly
71
answered 3 questions. Adding the number of students (12) who answered correctly 5 or
more questions, do not exceed half the group, while those who stated less than five
adequately (18) is the majority. It must be taken into account that the initial test was
applied shortly after starting classes and the students had a full period of three months
before returning to English classes which directly affects their answers when they did not
review the topics or practice the exercises taught in class.
The final test consisted of two parts, the first part was equal to the initial test but the
questions were organized differently, so that it was not directly related to what they
answered in the initial test, the second part consisted of a series of 10 sentences where
part of the vocabulary used to corroborate whether the students discriminate sounds
within a sentence.
In the final test, 2 students correctly answered the 10 questions, 9 students correctly
answered 9 questions, 7 students answered correctly 8, 5 students answered correctly 7,
1 student correctly answered 6 questions and 6 answered correctly 3 questions. Adding
the number of students (24) who responded correctly 5 or more questions, they were in
majority, in contrast, those who answered less than five adequately (6) was a minority.
The above results show that teaching-learning strategies, in this case, memory,
booster the vocabulary of students, allows to differentiate sounds due to the continuous
practice in the classroom and improves attention in listening.
In the second part of this test, at the request of the students the audio was placed
several times so that they could discriminate the key sounds to choose the appropriate
answer, as they were short sentences with elements seen in previous classes, the
students could put into practice your listening skills and infer the correct answer from the
identification of a word.
In this case, the results were similar to the first part of the final test, because the
words previously used in the short sentences were present, hence: 1 student correctly
answered the 10 questions, 10 students correctly answered 9 questions, 1 student
answered 8 questions, 6 students answered correctly 7, 7 students answered correctly 5,
1 student correctly answered 4 questions and 4 students answered correctly 3 questions.
These results are shown through graphics 7.10, 7.11 and 7.12 whereby it is compared the
number of students with their correct answers in both moments.
72
Initial-final Test
Range 1-3 correct words
7
6
5
4
N° Students
N° Students test inicial
3
N° Students test final
2
1
0
1
2
Right answers
3
Graph 7.10
Initial-final Test
Range 4-6 correct words
14
12
10
8
N° Students
N° Students test inicial
6
N° Students test final
4
2
0
4
5
Right answers
6
Graph 7.11
73
Initial-final Test
Range 7-10 correct words
10
9
8
7
6
N° Students
5
N° Students test inicial
4
N° Students test final
3
2
1
0
7
8
9
Right answers
10
Graph 7.12
The group demonstrated during the classes a greater motivation and participation in
the activities which allowed them to ask questions, investigate, rehearse and corroborate
their answers, the intervention proved to have positive results in the retention and
expansion of the vocabulary, in the discrimination of sounds through of listening exercises
and in the elaboration of tests where they could raise their answers and contrast them
later.
The previous results showed that the level of response to the model used is positive
or assertive for the students since it gave them the opportunity to corroborate their
appreciations, solved questions and contributed to the generation of good listening habits.
7.6 The survey
This instrument consisted of 5 questions to be developed by a sample of the group,
giving a conclusion to the research process, its intention was to know the level of
response of students in relation to the methodology and strategies used.
The students considered having improved their performance thanks to the strategies
they learned in the English class, also, they said they applied them in their learning, on the
other hand, they considered that the introduction of each session served to clarify doubts
74
about the topics. In front of the questions about the material presented in class, they
stated that it was motivating and was useful to apply what they learned.
75
8. CONCLUSIONS
The research work was carried out within the established schedule, there were no
problems during the sessions, and there were no delays with the evaluation dates
because, in each of them, its review was advanced and later recorded for analysis.
The only important change during the intervention was the implementation of the
worksheets as an adequate material for data collection due to the difficulty in registering
students' contributions in a timely manner, so that the researcher after reflecting on his
initial failures in this aspect decided to implement them trying to obtain more objective
data, leaving the record of the most significant behaviours and contributions in the diary.
Finally, the collection and comparison of results based on the assessment
instruments served to seek more relevant conclusions about the use of memory strategies
by students, establishing relationships and analyzing their impact on listening
comprehension.
Regarding the objectives to be achieved, it could be established that:
The process of comprehension of listening is completely described, being divided
into macro and micro processes which provided a greater description as a whole, this
allowed us to relate the work sessions with cognitive abilities that were practised during
the sessions.
Activities were designed according to the needs of the research, which made
possible to work mainly the skill of listening, these activities were divided by sessions or
workshops (Chart 6.3) where each of the memory strategies was taught and practised,
they were designed the questions based on the work material available on Youtube and
according to each input of listening (video, songs, dialogues or stories) were designed the
questions of the worksheets that would later be analyzed through the registration table
and the rubric assessment of comprehension listening, which included literal and
inferential questions from those listened to and seen in the material, which were framed in
the macro and micro processes of listening.
These activities were designed taking into account the pedagogical sequence of
before, during and after listening, wherein each one a pre-task, task and post-task was
developed as a methodological strategy for teaching memory strategies.
76
On the implementation of different memory learning strategies by the children of
primary second grade, it was achieved through the sessions elaborated for this purpose,
these
strategies
were
continuously
evaluated
by
the
students
through
their
implementation, and accepted or rejected depending on the functionality for each of them,
as observed through the questionnaire.
Evaluating the memory learning strategies according to the aims of the research
was done individually through the different worksheets and their corresponding evaluative
instruments mentioned above and globally through the questionnaire and the survey. The
results on the whole process were positive since they allowed to increase the vocabulary
which in turn contributed to greater performance when understanding the topic or the
situations in the presented inputs.
To analyze the impact of the memory learning strategies in the learning of a second
language in students of the primary, it was necessary to establish relationships between
the strategies learned and the learning process, the latter contemplates cognitive
processes that were developed through them. Memory is included in the learning process
as one of its presuppositions, since without it words and even experience lose meaning,
for this reason, focusing on memory acquires a relevant importance in the acquisition of a
second language and although this it is practised unconsciously when practised
constantly, not for that reason its function can be ignored.
To describe the impact of using memory learning strategies in listening skills, these
were distributed according to the pedagogical sequence so that they could be explicitly
put into practice by the students, trying to improve their performance in them, for this
reason, they are distributed in three different moments during the sessions, being
referenced in the registration table for a better follow-up and classified according to the
macro listening comprehension process.
When each subskill was treated in coordination with the three moments it was
possible that they could be developed in a global way since all the sessions addressed
them regardless of the applied strategy.
Finally, the teaching of memory strategies, their implementation in a pedagogical
sequence, the development of cognitive skills fostered through them and the constant
evaluation, managed to increase and consolidate the vocabulary of the base students for
77
the listening comprehension, considering in a positive way their impact, however, we
should not forget that the strategies are classified individually, but this does not mean that
they act in the same way, they interact and they are strengthened by the experience of the
students, for this reason, several were present during the activities, but which the students
intuitively perform to better understand and consciously applied during the pedagogical
intervention.
The intervention showed positive results in the retention and expansion of the
vocabulary, in the discrimination of sounds through listening exercises and in the
elaboration of tests where they could present their answers and contrast them later. The
negative results are more related to the workgroup because all the intervention develop
individual work and with the use of memory strategies such as applying images and
sound, acronym or grouping due to the new experience with the exercises address in
sessions.
As we have seen, the application of learning strategies opens up many possibilities
for research; on the one hand, in the application of each of them to determine their impact
on learning; to the other hand, in the application of each strategy and its particular impact
on the skills required in the learning of a second language as was our case.
It is important to note that there are few types of research in this field with
elementary students, we believe that research has focused on a population range that
includes secondary and higher education, due to the degree of autonomy acquired by
students in these courses and the possibility of reflection on the process, which gives the
possibility of contrasting the results in a more personal way, however, this is also
achieved with young children who have formed a criterion about what is facilitated and
difficult to try in the process that can easily discard their bad habits when they are taught
new tools to improve and reflect on their own process.
For the students it was satisfying to learn new things, mainly because it allowed
them to know how to identify their strengths and weaknesses and in the case of the latter,
it allowed them to search and choose a strategy to overcome them, in that sense they set
goals for short, medium and long term with the perspective of improving their process of
learning of a second language.
In the short term, it was proposed to improve in the performance of information
organization exercises and sequence monitoring, the results showed that it is difficult for
78
them because they depend on a visual reference to do it. Therefore, students should be
more familiar with this type of activity and gradually withdraw the visual referent so that
they can establish relationships without the need for it, based on keywords.
In the medium term, it is necessary to practice and evaluate the listening
comprehension in sentences, because they presented problems with this type of activity,
the students confuse the words inserted in a sentence which led to their failure to use the
image strategy and sound, although we worked on increasing the vocabulary as a basis
for listening comprehension, this should not mean that words continue to be worked in
isolation and it was in this exercise where the distinction became evident.
In the long term, it is essential to work in the micro-processes of organization,
inference and interpretation, these present a few developments in the general group of
students that are related to the few exposures to exercises that practice these microprocesses important in a high level of comprehension.
79
9. BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Arrellano, M. (2017) Memory learning strategies in English as a foreign language
in vocational studies. Tendencias pedagógicas. 29, 229-248.
Bano, F. (2017). Towards understanding listening comprehension in EFL classroom:
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Castillo, I. (n.d.) Diario de campo: características, para qué sirve, ejemplo. Retrieved
from https://www.lifeder.com/diario-de-campo/
Chilkiewics, K. (2015) Direct Language Learning Strategies in the theory by Rebecca
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Cohen, A. (1998). Strategies in Learning and Using a Second Language. London:
Longman.
Ferrance, E. (2000) Action Research. LAB Northeast and Islands Regional
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Goh, C. (2000). A Cognitive Perspective on Language Learners’ Listening
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Ministerio de Educación Nacional (2006) Estándares Básicos de competencias en
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Videos
Aladdin and the Magic Lamp in English (2017, 05, 28) English Fairy Tales.
Retrieved from:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbxrzaoTCZY
BBC Learning English (2019, 03, 6) Activity 2 Story time What happened when
Goldilocks
visited
the
three
bears'
house?
[Video
archive]
Retrieved
from
http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/course/lower-intermediate/unit-19/session1/activity-2
House Vocabulary - Learning the Parts of the Home for kids (2018, 08, 22) Smile
and Learn - English. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGw2aFLry0s
Ropa en inglés Canciones Infantiles (2017, 11, 10) Doremi. Retrieved from:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y89Tp6VMTiQ
The Animal Song (2013, 04, 03) Maple Leaf Learning [Video] Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCfWmlnJl-A
The Hare and The Tortoise Story (2015, 06, 05) T-Series Kids Hut | English Stories
For Kids [Video] Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMXmMHVNx4U
Little Red Riding Hood in English (2016, 11, 12) | Story | English Fairy Tales [Video]
Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6U2WkA0nODE
Yes, I Can! 2015, 02, 15) Super Simple Songs - Animal Song For Children [Video]
Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ir0Mc6Qilo
82
10. Annexes
Annexe 1 Chart of diagnosis.
CLASS 202 I.E.D. BOSANOVA SEDE B
UNIT
COURSE
202
AXIS
E
E
S
X
T
P
I
L
M
O
U & R
L
A
A
T
T
I
I
O
O
N
N
CATEGORY
SUBCATEGORY
INDICATORS
COGNITIVE
Interests
Difficulties
Fortitudes
Atention
What difficulties do children have when they work?
What strengths do children have when working in class?
What activities in the English class keep children's attention?
Do the children finish the work?
What activities motivate children to work?
How are children evaluated?
How would you like to be evaluated?
Motivation
Assessment
Dynamic or routines
Autonomy
Group work
SOCIOAFECTIVE
Behaviour
Cooperation
Participation
COMMUNIC
ATIVE
Communication
What do the children do during class?
Do children perform their work in class individually?
How do children work in groups? How are they organized to work in a
group?
What is the behaviour of children in a class?
Are there leaders in the group?
What are the roles within the group?
Do children help each other and how do they do it?
How do children participate in the English class?
How often do you participate in English class?
How is class participation promoted?
Do children respect shifts, follow an order of interventions?
How do children express their ideas or feelings?
How do children communicate?
INSTRUMENTS
Diary and survey
Diary and survey
Diary and survey
Annexe 2: Diary
DIARY
INSTITUTIÓN:
COURSE:
NUMBER OF STUDENTS:
DESCRIPTION
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
DIARY No:
DATE:
TIME OF OBSERVATION:
INTERPRETATION
Annexe 3 Diagnostic Test
LISTENING SECTION PART 1
(10 minutes)
Listen and look. Match the objects with their corresponding places in the
pictures.
LISTENING SECTION PART 2
(10 minutes)
Listen and tick the box
LANGUAGE USE PART 1
(15 minutes)
Look and read. Match the pictures with the corresponding names.
1.
A. This is a pineapple.
2.
B. This is a spider
3.
C. This is a guitar
4.
D. This is a bike
5.
E. This is a telephone
LANGUAGE USE PART 2
(15 minutes)
Look at the picture. Choose True or False.
READING AND WRITING PART 1
(10 minutes)
Read and complete with a word from the box.
Annexe 4: Rubric of assessment
Rubric of assessment
MACROSKILL
LISTENING
READING
WRITING
SPEAKING
CRITERIA
I follow commands
I understand simple questions
I understand short descriptions about
things and places
I identify the sequence of a tale or story
support by images
I understand the main idea of a tale or
story
I understand sequence related to routines.
I Identify words related to the class
I recognize short phrases or words on
books
I related illustrations with short sentences
I follow a sequence in stories.
I copy and transcribe words
I write the name of places or things that
recognize.
I demonstrate knowledge of structures in
English.
I describe myself
I describe animals, objects or weather.
I answer greetings
I use expressions
I ask for explanations
I participate in games or group activities.
LOW
M
HIGH
Annexe 5: Test of listening
TEST OF LISTENING
Identify the sound with a picture:
----------------------------------------------------------1.
A.
B.
C.
---------------------------------------------------------2.
A.
B.
C.
----------------------------------------------------------3.
A.
B.
C.
----------------------------------------------------------4.
A.
B.
C.
-----------------------------------------------------------
5.
A.
B.
C.
-----------------------------------------------------------
6. A.
B.
C.
--------------------------------------------------------7.
A.
B.
C.
----------------------------------------------------------8.
A.
B.
C.
----------------------------------------------------------9.
A.
B.
C.
----------------------------------------------------------10.
A.
B.
C.
Annexe 7: Registration Table
REGISTRATION TABLE ABOUT LISTENING SUBSKILLS
Name: ___________________________________________________Date:______________
PROCESS
SEQUENCE
Pre-listening
TOP
DOWN
While listening
LISTENING SUB SKILLS
ability to deduce meanings of words from
context
ability to predict outcomes from events
described
ability to identify topic and follow topic
development
ability to make use of facial, paralinguistic, and
other clues to work out meanings
ability to infer relationships (e.g., cause, effect,
conclusion)
ability to reconstruct or infer situations, goals,
participants, procedures.
ability to discriminate among the distinctive
sounds of the target language
ability to recognize vocabulary used in
core conversational topics
BOTTOM
UP
Post-listening
ability to detect keywords (i.e., those which
identify topics and propositions)
ability to retain chunks of the language of
different lengths for short periods.
Annexe 8: Table to score of initial and final test
NAME:___________________________________
LISTENING
A
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
B
C
YES
NO
Annexe 10: Assessment Rubric
ASSESSMENT RUBRIC OF LISTENING COMPREHENSION
Name: ________________________________________Date:____________________
COMPREHENSION
LEVEL
B
O
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T
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P
LITERAL
RETENTION
ORGANIZATION
INFERENCE
T
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P
D
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W
N
INTERPRETATION
DESCRIPTION
Elements to analyze:
Identify explicit
elements in
conversations or
listening.
Relations to analyze:
Remember details or
information
Organization
analyze
Establishes relations
and sequences.
Comparison:
Deduce implicit
elements in the
listening
SIGNS OR INDICATORS
Recognize words.
Identify the topic
Recognize events.
Retain chunks of the language of
different lengths for short periods.
Remember the details.
Identify characters
Establish a relation between actions.
Recognize events and their order.
Complement details with other
information
Think about the possible situations
Do hypothesis about characters and
situations
Contextualize the meaning of words
Generalization/
and the text
Abstraction
Express in their own Compare the meaning of new words to
words the content of their own vocabulary
the text (paraphrasing) Deduce conclusions
Formulate an opinion
Summarize the text
YES
NO