The document explores the effectiveness of various forms of listening support for low-level English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners, focusing on visual support, textual support, and repeated input. Results indicate that repeated input significantly enhances comprehension, while other supports have limited effectiveness due to students' linguistic competencies. The study highlights the importance of background knowledge and suggests the need for remedial instruction in cognitive and affective domains.

1. Reporter: Cindy Shen Anna Ching-Shyang Chang & John Read RELC Journal, 38 (3), 375-394 Support for Foreign Language Listeners: Its Effectiveness and Limitations

2. Introduction Method Results and Discussion Conclusion Outline

3. I. Introduction 3 principal sources of information used in the process of listening system or linguistic knowledge schematic or non-linguistic information context

4. Listening is considered more difficult for EFL learners (Graham, 2002, 2006) . formal instruction exposure to authentic input is limited comprehend it can be painful and frustrating, particularly for low-level students in a test situation (Chang 2004) it is not so vital that the listener understands all that is said right away

5. Therefore, it is desirable to include various forms of listening support in a listening test because they can provide learners with a context for interpretation and also activate background knowledge (Buck, 1995).

6. Pre-listening activities activates students’ background knowledge (Mendelsohn, 1995; Underwood, 1989). Having relevant background knowledge of the topic has a significant effect on listening comprehension (Chiang & Dunkel, 1992; Jensen & Hansen 1995; Long 1990; Markham & Latham 1987; Schmidt-Rinehart 1994; Teng, 1996) Introducing learners to key vocabulary in a listening text may have an effect only when combined with other pre-listening activities (Chen & Graves, 1995; Hsieh, 1999).

7. Repeating the input improves L2 listeners’ comprehension (Berne, 1995; Cervantes & Gainer, 1992; Chang, 2004; Chang et al., 1993; Elkhafaifi, 2005; Lin, 2005; Teng, 1998). Low-proficiency listeners have insufficient linguistic competence to be able to take advantage of the repetition (Chiang & Dunkel, 1992; Chang & Read, 2006).

8. Test-takers’ affective schemata can influence their responses to the task either facilitate or limit the flexibility with which they respond in a given context (Bachman & Palmer, 1996 ).

9. Research questions: Q1. Can the comprehension of low-level listeners be enhanced through listening support? If so, which form of listening support is more facilitative? Q2. What effects (if any) will different types of listening support have on students’ perceptions of the task?

10. Method Participants : 140 Taiwanese college students who obtained a scaled score of 165 out of 495 in the listening section of TOEIC.

11. Design three experimental treatments and a control condition Visual Support (VS) with pictures or illustrations to the talk Textual Support (TS) means reading materials represented in the short text in Chinese to be read in advance Repeated Input (RI) indicated the participants heard each talk twice No Support (NS) involved simply taking the listening test without any support

12. Instruments and Materials Listening Test. (1) multiple-choice (2) gap-filling Support Material. (1) For the VS treatment , the listening passages are accompanied by a series of line drawings to illustrate their content. (2) Textual Support treatment , a short text of around 100 words was written in Chinese for each of the three listening passages. (3) Post-test Questionnaire. rank all three forms of support in terms of their perceived effectiveness.

13. Voluntarily to take part in an in-depth, retrospective interview Participants in four classes were counterbalancedly presented in the four listening conditions.

14. Data Analysis A one-way ANOVA was conducted to evaluate the effects of the various forms of support on the learners’ listening comprehension. For the responses to the post-test questionnaire , a non-parametric technique, the Friedman Test , was used to compare the differences between groups.

15. Results and Discussion Test Results repeating the input was the most effective treatment, followed by having visual and textual support . However, the limits of the learners’ English competence meant that all of the types of support could improve their comprehension only to a certain degree (Chang, 2006).

16. Conclusion Students’ comprehension scores were found to be consistent with their perceptions , particularly in the case of RI . With VS, there were difficulties in interpreting the pictures TS text was considered less helpful by these low-ability students due to the threshold of linguistic knowledge needed to comprehend more detailed questions.

17. Advantages: quantitative and qualitative (in-depth, retrospective interview) research Suggestion: - APA format - Instruments (listening test) with examples

18. Pedagogical implications: conduct remedial teaching in cognitive and affective domains This study also implied that repeated input has a psychological effect in reducing the anxiety that foreign language listeners experience (Buck, 2001). RI is the most effective type of listening support both in comprehension and from questionnaire, i.e., listening to the input material at least twice (Teng, 1998) as Language Proficiency Test in Taipei City and TASA Friedman Test a realistic and authentic context