Degree Thesis
Master’s Level
Teaching listening comprehension in upper secondary schools
An interview study about teaching strategies
Author: Helena Eriksson Supervisor: Zita Farkas Examiner: Jeanette Toth
Subject/main field of study: English Course code: AEN25J
Credits: 30 hp
Date of examination: 2021-01-14
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Abstract:
The aim of this thesis is to examine what strategies teachers use when they teach listening comprehension in order to develop student’s listening skills, and especially if and how they use scaffolding in their teaching. To examine this, seven upper secondary school teachers in Sweden were interviewed about their listening comprehension teaching. The qualitative data were analyzed using a cross case analysis with a combination of framework and IPA analysis.
The data was labeled and divided into two themes: general strategies and scaffolding. In the themes the data was further sorted and categorized into language immersion, raising self- confidence, division into smaller groups, notetaking, pre-information and connection to theme, collaborative discourses, teacher peer and modeling and finally increasing level of difficulty.
All seven teachers discussed several different strategies they use. They often combine strategies to create the best learning environment for the students. Six out of these seven teachers gave examples of scaffolding strategies they use, such as modeling, working with themes and pre- information to support their students. However, as mentioned previously, they were often combined with other strategies such as collaborative discourse and smaller groups.
Keywords: Scaffolding, listening comprehension, English teaching, ESL, EFL, sociocultural
learning
Table of contents:
1. Introduction ... 5
1.1. Aim ... 5
2. Background ... 6
2.1. Keywords ... 6
2.1.1. Listening comprehension ... 6
2.1.2. Scaffolding ... 6
2.2. Swedish steering documents ... 6
3. Previous research ... 7
3.1. Strategies in listening comprehension teaching ... 7
3.2. Scaffolding in listening comprehension ... 9
4. Theoretical perspective ... 10
5. Material and Method ... 12
5.1. Semi-structured interviews ... 12
5.2. Selection of informants ... 12
5.3. Collection of data ... 13
5.4. Method of analysis ... 13
5.5. Reliability and validity ... 14
5.6. Ethical aspects ... 15
6. Results ... 15
6.1. General strategies ... 15
6.1.1. Language immersion ... 16
6.1.2. Raising self-confidence ... 16
6.1.3. Smaller groups ... 16
6.1.4. Notetaking ... 17
6.2. Scaffolding strategies ... 17
6.2.1. Pre-information and connection to theme ... 17
6.2.2. Collaborative discourses ... 18
6.2.3. Teacher modeling ... 19
6.2.4. Increasing the level of difficulty ... 19
7. Discussion ... 20
7.1. General strategies ... 20
7.2. Scaffolding strategies ... 22
7.3. Combined strategies ... 23
7.4. Method discussion ... 23
8. Conclusion ... 24
8.1. Further studies ... 25
9. References ... 26
Appendix 1- Letter of consent ... 28
Appendix 2- Interview questions ... 29
Appendix 3- Transcription key ... 30
(List of figures:)
Figure 4.1 The Zone of Proximal Development
(List of tables:)
Table 5.1 Overview of participants
Table 5.2 Overview of themes, categories and labels
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1. Introduction
To be able to interact in different contexts you need to have good listening skills; it is not enough to be able to speak English, you also need to understand what others say in order to be able to converse. Even though Swedish people learn English as a foreign language (EFL) many see it as a second language since many Swedes encounter English every day through school, work, social network or media for example. In fact, learning English is so important that it is obligatory in Swedish compulsory schools, and in upper secondary schools all programs contain English 5 regardless of program concentration. Furthermore, in the English subject there are three subsections: content of communication, reception, production and interaction. The latter two sections are further divided into the following four skills: writing, speaking (production and interaction), reading, and listening (reception) and all sections are dependent and connected to each other. Since all sections are connected to each other, listening comprehension should not be forgotten; thus, it is an important part of language education.
The curriculum for upper secondary schools in Sweden states in the aim of the English courses that the education “should give students the opportunities to develop […] understanding of spoken and written English, […]” (Skolverket, English, 2020). Since it is difficult for students to develop the skills on their own, it is the teachers’ responsibility to create the opportunities for development. Thus, their teaching competencies are crucial for the students. To create and provide beneficial conditions, teachers use different strategies to teach listening comprehension to the students. One way to teach listening comprehension is to use scaffolding. Scaffolding derives from the sociocultural theory and could be explained briefly as a lot of support in the beginning of new learning that decreases with the students learning until the student can manage the new learning on their own. Due to the support the student receives from scaffolding, they can complete or achieve something they would not without the support. However, the support does not need to come from the teacher, it could just as well come from another student with more knowledge. Examples of support teachers can provide for listening comprehension include the following: slowing down the audio and speeding up as they learn or pausing to let students take notes while listening or providing the students with sufficient vocabulary in advance.
The idea of this thesis derives from my work experience. When I was working at different schools, I was confronted with the issues of teaching listening comprehension. In conversations with teachers at both secondary and upper secondary school, they found listening comprehension the most challenging to teach. When I thought of this, I realized that listening comprehension is barely discussed during the teacher education program and a lot of students, like myself, feel insecure about this task despite that it is part of the main skill in English education at upper secondary school. Therefore, this thesis is an interview study based on seven teachers’ own perceptions of their strategies for teaching listening comprehension in order to discover what strategies they consider to be useful and effective.
1.1. Aim
The aim of this thesis is to examine how teachers in upper secondary schools discuss their teaching of listening comprehension. It will examine how the teachers describe giving students support to develop their listening comprehension, that is, what strategies the teachers report using and how they apply scaffolding in their support.
To be able to examine the aim, the following research questions will be used:
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• What different strategies do teachers report using when teaching listening comprehension?
• How do the teachers use scaffolding when teaching listening comprehension?
2. Background
In this section follows two sub-sections; Keywords and Swedish steering documents. In the first section there is a description of two keywords, Listening comprehension and Scaffolding, to provide a definition of their meaning for this thesis. The second sub-section, Swedish steering documents contains an explanation of how this thesis is relevant for the curriculum for upper secondary school.
2.1. Keywords
2.1.1. Listening comprehension
Listening comprehension is the multiple processes which allows you to understand the spoken language, single words as well as sentences. Merriam-Webster.com
1defines listening as follows: “to pay attention to sound; to hear something with thoughtful attention; to be alert to catch an expected sound” and comprehension as follows: “the act or action of grasping with the intellect; knowledge gained by comprehending; the capacity for understanding fully”. Even if there are differences in one way listening and two way listening as Lundahl calls it, both require understanding intonation, emphasis, pauses and facial expression to fully comprehend the spoken words (Lundahl, 2019, pp. 237-238).
2.1.2. Scaffolding
In this thesis the teaching strategy scaffolding is in focus. It is derived from the sociocultural theory about learning in the zone of proximal development (ZPD). ZPD is explained by Vygotskij as the zone between what the learner can do unaided and what the learner cannot do even with aid (Gibbons, 2010, p. 26). In the ZPD the learner is slightly challenged and can do the task with support. This support can be scaffolding. To be able to explain scaffolding, Gibbons’ (2010) explanation is used:
Scaffolding is […] not just any help but help that assists the students toward new skills, new concepts or new levels of understanding. Scaffolding is the temporary assistance by a teacher which will support the students to be able to eventually complete the same task alone.(p. 29)
Thus, scaffolding is a temporary support given by a teacher or a more knowledgeable person.
Scaffolding should provide the student with the right conditions to be able to do the same or similar task on their own.
2.2. Swedish steering documents
As mentioned in the Introduction, listening comprehension is part of the core content in the courses English 5, 6 and 7 in the curriculum for upper secondary school. For example, in English 5 and 6 the core content includes reception of spoken language with different dialects
1 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/comprehension
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and conversations of different kinds. English 6 also includes different social and dialect features. The core content of English 7 includes reception of spoken complex and formal language and more complex conversations than in English 5 and 6 (Skolverket, English, 2020).
Additionally, the core content of English 7 includes “how stylistic and rhetorical devices are used for different purposes and how language is used as an instrument to exercise power”
(Skolverket, English, 2020). Furthermore, the curriculum states that “all who work in school should provide support and stimulation for all students so that they develop as far as possible”
as well as “cooperate in order to make the school a good environment for development and learning (Skolverket, 2013, p. 9) and to do this teachers need to use different teaching strategies.
Furthermore, it states that it is the teacher’s responsibility to promote learning, strengthen students’ self-confidence in learning and organize education to create opportunities for development (Skolverket, Curriculum for the upper secondary school, 2013). Moreover, as mentioned in the introduction, it is declared in the goals for all English courses that:
Teaching in the subject of English shall give the students the opportunities to develop the following:
1. Understanding of spoken and written English […] (Skolverket, English, 2020)
Both the importance of comprehension as well as using strategies is repeated in the documents from the Swedish National Agency for Education.
There are many different strategies to use, yet, the curricula accentuates learning in social environments (Skolverket, 2013, p. 6), such as learning in pairs or in groups which might derive from Lev Vygotskij’s theories about sociocultural learning. To improve students’ listening comprehension, teachers need to use some kind of strategy and there are several different strategies to use. Additionally, scaffolding is not only one kind of strategy; there could be different kinds of support to guide the students to be independent. Therefore, it is interesting to know what strategies teachers use in teaching listening comprehension and if the strategies are scaffolding and finally how they use them.
3. Previous research
This section will present the previous research that has been found as relevant for this study.
The main criteria for the research besides teaching strategies and listening comprehension, is that it has to focus on EFL. In the search for articles, it was found that the previous research on strategies in listening comprehension is limited, and only a few studies on scaffolding in listening comprehension were found.
3.1. Strategies in listening comprehension teaching
There are several difficulties in listening comprehension teaching that has been found during research. As mentioned in the introduction, EFL teaching consist of four main skills (writing, speaking, reading and listening) and listening is considered to be the most challenging skill to develop according to teachers and students in Thao Quoc Tran and Tham My Duong’s study (2020, pp. 77-78, 94). In their case study, they examine problems Vietnamese high school students and teachers perceive they have in English listening comprehension education (Tran
& Duong, 2020). They found that the majority of the participants (eleventh graders) had
listening comprehension problems. Some of the problems they mention are speed of speech,
inability to repeat, limited vocabulary, concentration problems, and lack of background
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information (Tran & Duong, 2020, p. 94). To be able to address these problems teachers need to use effective teaching strategies in their listening comprehension teaching.
Further, Mohammad Ahmadi Safa and Fatemeh Rozati (2017) have concluded that listening comprehension education in Iran had been neglected for a long time, leading to students having problems with understanding the oral language. In their study they therefore explored the efficiency of scaffolding in the complex nature of listening comprehension. Their study included two experimental groups and one control group, consisting of a total of 90 intermediate EFL learners between the ages of 12-20 years old (Safa & Rozati, 2017, p. 449). All students did a pre-test to identify their individual level of knowledge and were then divided into three groups (Safa & Rozati, 2017, p. 449). In the first group expert peers assisted less knowledgeable peers (expert peers’ scaffolding), in the second group the peers were at equal levels of knowledge (coequals’ scaffolding), and the third group were the control group (nonscaffolding group) (Safa & Rozati, 2017, p. 448). All three groups took the same test but with different results. The expert peers’ scaffolding group were further divided into eight groups with one expert peer and two or three coequal learners with a requirement that the expert should interact and support their team in the associated tasks. In the coequals’ scaffolding group, they were divided into 10 teams with coequal learners who were asked to collaborate in their teams with the tasks while in the nonscaffolding group the participants took notes while listening and did the associated tasks individually. Their results revealed best progress in the expert peers’ group compared to the other two (Safa & Rozati, 2017). Further difficulties in listening comprehension teaching presented by Safa and Rozati (2017, p. 447) is the idea that the complex mental processes contributed to the late attention of the listening skills. They say it is a complicated procedure to teach students how to understand the meaning of different intonations, new words, and other information that comes through sound.
The complexity of listening comprehension is also studied by Xuehua An and Zhenmei Shi (2013). Their case study examines three English language learners at a Chinese university and what effect metacognitive instructions has on listening comprehension. These instructions included predicting, planning, monitoring, evaluating and problem solving (An & Shi, 2013, p.
634). They found metacognitive thinking to be an important piece of teaching listening comprehension to help the learner self-regulate their learning. They also found issues in the feasibility due to metacognition being recently implemented in teaching (An & Shi, 2013, p.
635). It could be said that teaching listening comprehension is a sort of metacognition, simplified it can be explained as learning about learning or thinking about thinking (An & Shi, 2013, p. 632). Furthermore, they point out that listening comprehension demands the student to be active, it is not a passive activity (An & Shi, 2013, p. 632). The student needs to control their learning, which implies, a metacognitive learning. Even though the study is rather small, it contains only three English learners and the results should not be generalized, it is worth mentioning their conclusion: “The importance and effectiveness of metacognitive instruction could not be neglected” (An & Shi, 2013, p. 636). They argue that strategies alone are not enough when practicing listening comprehension but it needs to be combined with metacognition to activate the learning process and deepen the students’ learning (2013, p. 633).
Metacognitive awareness should be a part of the classroom activity and the students should be encouraged to plan, monitor and evaluate the process to enhance the awareness (An & Shi, 2013, p. 633).
As An and Shi (2013) have argued, metacognition should be combined with other strategies,
and there are several different strategies that increase students’ listening comprehension. As
mentioned, one strategy is to take notes while listening. The effects of this was examined by
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Joseph Siegel (2019) in his pedagogic intervention study where two teachers and 44 English 5 students in Sweden participated. In his study the students used a four-step procedure for their notetaking and he focused on whether it had any effect on the students’ comprehension and notetaking performance (2019, p. 127). His study showed the four-step notetaking procedure had positive effects on the students’ notetaking skills (Siegel, 2019, p. 131). However, Siegel argues that teachers often use the notetaking approach incorrectly, just telling students to take notes assuming they know how to do it (2019, p. 124) and as he explains, this approach lacks the support that scaffolding offers. Other strategies presented by Tran and Duong (2020, p. 95) are picking out keywords related to the text, higher exposure to spoken English and better teacher guidance for identifying keywords and other nonverbal cues in listening practice. These tips, especially highlighting keywords and teacher guidance, are examples of how teachers can use scaffolding in their teaching.
3.2. Scaffolding in listening comprehension
Scaffolding in listening comprehension teaching has been researched by Danli (2017), Lundahl (2019), Yazdanpanah and Khanmohammad (2014) and Siegel (2019). Bo Lundahl is a university lector and teaches English language development theories. He emphasizes that to be able to understand a text, whether we read or listen to it, that it is important with a good vocabulary (Lundahl, 2019, p. 45). He says that our understanding is dependent on the relationship between comprehension and skills, without enough comprehension, we cannot develop our skills. He argues that listeners need to have a dialogue with the text to fully comprehend it even though listening per se is not divided into monologue and dialogue (Lundahl, 2019, p. 46). In line with his theories is Danli’s research. Li Danli’s (2017) discourse analysis examines how teachers scaffold students to go from other-regulation to self-regulation and how they enhanced the learners’ autonomy in negotiation. Twenty-five university students with approximately 14 years of English study experience and one teacher participated in the study (Danli, 2017, p. 413). In the study, Danli uses transcriptions from 15 hours of classroom discourse when she explores how a teacher negotiate meaning of different word with his (the teacher’s) students (2017, p. 414). At first, the teacher negotiates on his own, then together with the students and finally invites the students to give examples, negotiate meaning, themselves.
That is, he gives considerable support in the beginning and withdraw as they become more secure in their language competencies.
In contrast, Mahbubeh Yazdanpanah and Hajar Khanmohammad (2014, p. 2389) argue that listening comprehension might be challenging because there is a lack of appropriate and effective strategies. Their experimental study takes place in Iran. The study investigates the effect of scaffolding when teachers use similar material in both exercises and when testing the students listening comprehension. They gave a control group a test without any pre-information or exercises in the same topic as the test, while the experimental group were scaffolded by their teacher with questions related to the topic. They then had discussions on the topic in the group were they explored their opinions before they did the test (Yazdanpanah & Khanmohammad, 2014, p. 2392).In the results of the test they found that the students in the experimental group did better on the test and concluded that EFL learners’ listening comprehension skills “could be remarkably improved by the teacher-scaffolding and peer-scaffolding” (Yazdanpanah &
Khanmohammad, 2014, p. 2393).Furthermore, even though Lundahl intended an inner dialogue
with the text, Yazdanpanah and Khanmohammad’s (2014) results are similar but within the
social context. They found a connection between less social cooperation techniques and lower
listening skills (Yazdanpanah & Khanmohammad, 2014, p. 2393) which leads to the
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importance of sociocultural learning and collaborative discourses to understand and create meaning.
In Siegel’s (2019) study about notetaking, he implies that teachers often tell students to take notes without further instructions, that is, without scaffolding. The study then covers a thorough exploration of how scaffolding can be used while teaching how to take lecture notes to improve students’ comprehension. He explores notetaking during listening comprehension where the teachers in the study used a four-step pedagogic sequence to scaffold the students how to take notes while listening (Siegel, 2019, p. 132). Though, his results are a bit contradictory since he found that the actual notetaking was improved, he also found that it did not automatically lead to better comprehension.
Finally, as Danli (2017, p. 426) emphasizes, the teacher’s scaffolding competencies are crucial for the student’s language development. It is through the teacher’s instructions and support that the student becomes an autonomous learner (Danli, 2017, p. 426). Nevertheless, while Danli (2017, p. 426) and An and Shi (2013, p. 635) emphasize the teachers’ scaffolding competencies as crucial for the student’s language development, Safa and Rozati’s (2017, pp. 454-455) findings show that students are also able to scaffold each other. Though it might as well be noticed that groups with mixed level students showed better results than groups with students at equal level (Safa & Rozati, 2017, pp. 454-455), higher level students scaffold lower level students better than students who are at the same level.
4. Theoretical perspective
Teachers are obliged to support their students (Skolverket, English, 2020) and the core of this thesis is to investigate what supporting strategies teachers use and how they use scaffolding.
Therefore, the theoretical framework for this thesis is Vygotskij’s theory of the sociocultural learning. Besides that scaffolding is developed from the sociocultural theory, the Swedish steering documents for English in upper secondary school are influenced by the theory. The curriculum for the upper secondary school claims that the language competencies should be developed both individual as well together with others (Skolverket, 2013, p. 6). Moreover, in case of the English courses 5, 6, and 7, it says that the English teaching should give the students opportunities to develop their reception skills in interaction with others (Skolverket, English, 2020).
In case of language development, Vygotskij’s theories about the zone of proximal development (ZPD) are very useful. ZPD is the zone between what the student already knows and what one can achieve with support and this is where the best opportunities for learning are (Danli, 2017, pp. 410-411; Lundahl, 2019, p. 132). Derived from this theory, Wood, Bruner, and Ross coined the term scaffolding (2006, p. 90). An easy explanation of scaffolding is that what you are able to do today with someone else, you are able to do tomorrow on your own. From the beginning you have help from others, but over time this support and help is reduced and you should manage more on your own (Lundahl, 2019, p. 132).
The best conditions for learning according to Vygotskij are in the ZPD. The ZPD is the zone
between what the student is able to do on their own without support and what they cannot do
independent of support (see Figure 4.1). Here are the general strategies a good support in
achieving the ZPD. For example, the student is able to learn new words through language
immersion which can raise the self- confidence in the language, further he or she might dare to
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challenge oneself to try something new and reach for the next zone. As well smaller groups can be the best condition for the student who do not dare to show one’s skills in the class. As mentioned, Wood, Bruner and Ross (2006) developed Vygotskij’s theory further by introducing the term scaffolding. Scaffolding means that the student receives support from another more knowledgeable person, often the teacher, to develop their knowledge or skills. As well as offering the best conditions for learning, it is in the ZPD where the conditions for scaffolding are the best, since the theory of the ZPD is that the learner is able to do the previous task independently and can do tasks in the ZPD with support. Similarly Wood, Bruner and Ross argue that the learner must fulfill one condition, namely that “comprehension of the solution must precede production” (2006, p. 90). To be able to receive scaffolding in the ZPD they say the student must be able to independently reach and know about solutions in the zone before the ZPD.
Figure 4.1 The zone of proximal development
2Gibbons (2010, pp. 29-30) claims that the education is pushed forward by the ZPD, and the students develop since assignments are not just to be simplified, instead teachers should reflect on what kind of scaffolding is most appropriate. If assignments are simplified the student will not be challenged to learn more but will instead stagnate in their development. By contrast, assignments with an appropriate level of difficulty will challenge the student to reach the next zone and develop new skills or improve and get more confident in what they already know.
What is important to notice is that the support is only temporary and is reduced as the student learns. Gibbons (2010, p. 27) states that ”the goal with this kind of learning is to be able to use the knowledge in other context – in other words, to learn how to think and not only what to think” (my own translation). That is, the student gets support in one context but should be able to use the same strategy in other contexts where there is no support.
2 Made by inspiration from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_of_proximal_development and Gibbons (2010) The Zone of Proximal
Development What the student can do with
support (scaffolding) What the student can
do
What the student cannot do
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5. Material and Method
5.1. Semi-structured interviews
The research questions in this study are best answered by semi-structured interviews using an interview guide. This approach is considered the best because the prepared interview guide, with prepared topis and questions, make sure the main topic is covered yet allows the researcher to adjust the order of the questions to the respondents and their responses (Cohen, Manion, &
Morrison, 2011, p. 413). This model gives the researcher a flexibility to explore the questions further by rearranging the questions or ask follow up questions meanwhile it is systematic and simplifies the data analysis (Cohen, Manion, & Morrison, 2018, p. 413; Denscombe, 2016, p.
266). However, while the guide reassures that all pre-determined topics are covered, there is a risk that some topics might be overlooked if they are not identified in advance (Cohen, Manion,
& Morrison, 2011, p. 413). Moreover, all interviews are personal, which gives the possibility to focus the interview to each respondent and adjust the questions and explore the answers further (Denscombe, 2016, p. 267).
5.2. Selection of informants
In the selection of participants for this study a non-probability sample has been considered as the most appropriate method with reference to the research questions (Cohen, Manion, &
Morrison, 2011, p. 155). The sampling was conducted through Facebook groups for English teachers at upper secondary school, by asking them for participation. Facebook groups are an easy way to contact a larger group of people, which makes this a sample of convenience and does not represent a wider population (Cohen, Manion, & Morrison, 2011, p. 156). Moreover, as Cohen, Louis and Manion (2011, p. 160) point out, a volunteer sampling is not to be seen as general or representative to the wider population since the reason for participation is unknown.
To find participants for the study, I asked for volunteers in two different Facebook groups for English teachers in upper secondary schools since the main criterion for participation is being a certified English teacher in upper secondary school. The selected groups are English for upper secondary school teachers [Engelska för gymnasielärare] with 1400 members and Upper secondary school teachers in Swedish and/or English [Gymnasielärare i svenska och/eller engelska] with 2300 members. The first inquiry gave no responses, but after a second reminder, a total of nine teachers signed up as volunteers to participate in the study. Out of these, the first seven were booked for an interview (Table 5.1) and the final two were asked to be backups.
Table 5.1, Overview of participants Teacher
pseudonyms
Teaching at Years of
teaching
English courses in teaching
Anna Upper Secondary School 26 6 and 7
Betina Upper Secondary School 28 6
Celine Upper Secondary School 16 basics, 5, 6, and 7
Diana Upper Secondary School 22 5 and 6
Erica Upper Secondary School 17 5
Fiona Upper Secondary School 6 5 and 6
Gina Upper Secondary School/
adult school
21 5 and 6
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In order not to disclose the participants’ identity, volunteers were asked to send a personal message directly to the researcher if they were interested in participation. As an extra precaution, when the proper number of volunteers were reached, the posts with the question and comments were deleted. All information about the participants will be handled with confidentiality in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
5.3. Collection of data
All interviews were conducted using Zoom, which is a digital meeting platform that also allows audio recording. A few days ahead of the interviews all participants received a letter of consent as well as the link to Zoom and information of how to join the digital meeting room. The semi- structured interviews took about 25-30 minutes and posed questions about how they think they teach about listening comprehension has been explored.
The interview guide contains a total of 14 questions, five introductory questions to clarify their background, and nine interview questions about their listening comprehension teaching. As suggested by Patel and Davidson (2019, p. 106) a pilot study has been conducted to make sure semi-structured interviews was a suitable method for this research. The pilot study contained two interviews with English teachers at two high schools and the results of the pilot study showed that one question needed to be adjusted. In the pilot interviews it was asked what difficulties the teachers found in their listening comprehension teaching, in the further interviews it was slightly adjusted to ask whether they did find any difficulties, and if so what difficulties. The introductory questions and the interview questions can be found in Appendix 2.
All respondents agreed to be recorded. Besides the recording, some notes were taken during the interviews to simplify eventual further questions. If there were any doubts or unclarities the researcher asked the respondent to clarify, explain or used subsequent questions to extend the answer.
5.4. Method of analysis
All the interviews are transcribed using a purposive modification of Norrby’s (2014, pp. 110- 111) transcription key, which can be found in Appendix 3, suitable for this thesis. That is, tone of speech, laughter, and exact length of pauses are not relevant and are thus omitted in the transcription as well as in the key.
From the transcript material, a cross case analysis has been made by using the interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) approach (Smith, Jarman, & Osborn, 1999). Jonathan A.
Smith, Maria Jarman, and Mike Osborne (1999, p. 218) explain that “the aim of interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) is to explore in detail the participant’s view of the topic under investigation.” They claim that IPA recognizes the research as a dynamic process and that there is not one single way to do the qualitative analysis (Smith, Jarman, & Osborn, 1999, pp. 218, 220). The first step in IPA is to identify themes by reading the transcripts multiple times meanwhile taking notes of interesting answers in one of the margins and re-appearing themes in the other margin (Smith, Jarman, & Osborn, 1999, pp. 220-221). Second, all the themes are listed and the researcher attempts to find connections and cluster the themes (Smith, Jarman, &
Osborn, 1999, p. 222). The clustering creates new themes and they are compared to the
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transcripts to make sure it is still what the person said (Smith, Jarman, & Osborn, 1999, p. 223).
Next are all the themes listed, some minor themes may at this point be omitted if they do not fit into the structure or contribute with important evidence (Smith, Jarman, & Osborn, 1999, p.
223). The final stage is to translate the analytical proces and themes into a narrative account (Smith, Jarman, & Osborn, 1999, p. 235).
To simplify the process and reading labels, themes and categories will be used. All features connected to strategies in the transcripts were labelled, focus, keywords, theme, level, and re- listen are some examples. When all features were labelled it was possible to cluster all labels in two main themes, general strategies and scaffolding strategies, however this was not sufficent for the analysis and in these themes the labells had to be broken down in to smaller clusters, categories.
Table 5.2, Overview Themes, categories and labels
Main Themes General strategies Scaffolding strategies Categories
Languageimmersion
Raising self- confidence
Smaller groups
Notetaking Pre- information
Collaborative discourses
Teacher modeling
Level of difficulty
Labels
re-listen less stress smaller groupsdictogloss theme supportive discourses
teacher models
focus
languagebath easier tasks
Cornell system
keywords small groups key to exercise
level
extra teaching
questions teacher
shows
As suggested by Smith, Jarman and Osborne, the transcripts were read multiple times. The first time the transcripts were read, prominent teaching strategy ideas were highlighted and labeled as shown in Table 5.2. From these labels two main themes appeared: general strategies and scaffolding strategies. The difference in these two themes is in how the support is given in the strategies. In the scaffolding strategies there is one or more persons who are more knowledgeable than the others and thus supports the other students. Mostly it is the teacher, but in some strategies such as collaborative discourses it can be another student. The other strategies which did not fit into scaffolding strategies are clustered under general strategies. Further, during the second reading a number of categories emerged in the themes. In scaffolding- increasing level of difficulty, teacher peer, modeling and collaborative discourse, and in general strategies- pre-information, language immersion, raise self-confidence, smaller groups and notetaking. Finally, excerpts from the transcripts were added into a chart with the themes and categories to support the categories. When the data was categorized, it was further examined to find what links emerged between the excerpts or what differences there were.
5.5. Reliability and validity
Cohen, Manion and Morrison (2018, p. 179) claim that validity is an important aspect of the entire research since without validity the research is worthless and a too small sample cannot be generalized. Furthermore, the interviews are conducted by the researcher and due to that, the study can never be completely objective (Cohen, Manion, & Morrison, 2011, pp. 180-181).
Knowing that, validity as well as reliability have been thoroughly considered in preparing the
interview questions for this study. To ensure the reliability there are different questions which
ask for similar answer or answers that lead into each other and should therefore provide
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sufficient reliability. As for the validity, the formulation of the interview questions has been thoroughly considered and carefully selected. To avoid biased questions, yes and no questions were avoided, but if required they were combined with a question for inquiry. To state an example, one question is Do the students get any information before they do a listening comprehension assignment? Which can be answered by yes or no, though, if the question would be What information … it would suppose all teachers give students information and so force the teachers to answer they give information even if they do not.
What also needs to be taken into consideration is that there is always a risk that the participants answer what they believe the researcher wants to hear and not what they actually think or do.
Patel and Davidson (2019, p. 105) points out that both researcher and participant is responsible in a conversation and there is always a risk that the respondent is affected by the interviewer.
Therefore, to strengthen the validity, the interviews could be combined with classroom or teacher observations. Unfortunately for this study, the COVID- 19 virus situation in Sweden caused visitor restrictions in schools and an observation study in the present circumstances would connote unnecessary risk of infection.
5.6. Ethical aspects
In preparations of the study ethical considerations have been taken into account to reassure the participants dignity and to cause no harm (Cohen, Manion, & Morrison, 2011, p. 84). A self- administered survey constructed by Dalarna University’s Research Ethics Committee was filled in to reassure the research will be ethically sound. This research did not need additional approval by the Research Ethics Committee (FEN, 2013)
3since it follows their guidelines of ethically sound research.
All information is handled with confidentiality and all names of participants as well as cities and schools are fictious to preserve everyone’s identities. Furthermore, sensitive questions, such as gender, are avoided since it is not relevant for this study and there is no obvious risk of psychological impact. All participation is voluntary and on the basis of informed consent with rights of withdrawal whenever they ask. All participants have received and been asked to read the letter of consent (Appendix 1) in advance , and all participants gave their oral consent in the beginning of their interview. All the recordings and transcripts will be destroyed when this thesis is approved.
6. Results
This section provides a presentation of the analyzed results from the interview data, including what strategies they use, both general strategies and scaffolding strategies.
6.1. General strategies
All seven teachers used multiple strategies to teach and improve students’ listening comprehension. The more prominent strategies were: language immersion, raising self- confidence, working in smaller groups and notetaking. Some teachers combine strategies in their teaching which is further explored in the sub-headings.
3 https://www.du.se/sv/om-oss/hogskolan-dalarna/organisation-och-styrning/ovriga-namnder/forskningsetiska- namnden-fen/
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6.1.1. Language immersion
To improve all language skills and especially listening comprehension, the student needs to listen to much English also called mass listening. Six of the seven teachers responded that they try to provide the students with massive training also called immersion learning in their teaching. Most instructions are verbal, and they listen to texts. The opportunity to listen to the text multiple times when it is an exercise is practiced by Betina, Celine, Diana and Gina. Gina also encourages the students to listen to the texts at home. Slightly differently, Erica and Fiona encourage their students to listen to, for example, music and podcasts in their spare time, though, not to just listen to but also to explore the texts and enhance their knowledge of English.
6.1.2. Raising self-confidence
Three of the interviewed teachers claim that the students learn better if they dare to use the language, but to be able to dare, the students need to feel confident in their language skills.
Anna reports that she simplifies the material in the beginning for less confident students. She starts with known material that the student is able to understand successfully and thus gain confidence, and when the students feel confident in their knowledge they are ready to take the next step, the next level of difficulty. In comparison, Betina also works to raise self-confidence, but instead of focusing on material she focuses on the situation. She splits the students into smaller groups where they feel comfortable and dare to speak in English.
Erica find that several students feel panic and stress when a listening comprehension exercise comes up. She claims that this could be a result of how they are used to working with listening comprehension in middle school. The tests came as a surprise without enough preparation and practice before. To prevent the students’ feeling stressed, Erica tries to calm them down and emphasize it is just an exercise and that the real tests are not until the spring. By spring, she says, they will hopefully be at a knowledge level that will match the level of the tests and thus feel confident in accomplishing the tests.
6.1.3. Smaller groups
As mentioned in the previous section about raising self- confidence, teachers use smaller groups when teaching listening comprehension, though, not only to raise their confidence. In addition, smaller groups allow teachers to focus their teaching on less students. Both Betina, Celine and Diana use smaller group teaching when they need to focus their teaching on students with similar problems and in need of more support. In these smaller groups Diana and Celine use scaffolding (further explored in 6.2.3) when they support the students to successfully manage the exercises. The students who need the extra support in listening comprehension have, in smaller groups, better possibilities to pause often, and ask questions when they do not understand or need further guidance from the teacher.
Quite different and challenging is the way Fiona uses smaller groups in her teaching. In her
smaller groups she lets the students practice their active listening. While one student speaks the
others have to be silent and nobody is allowed to do any confirmation such as nodding when he
or she speaks. She says it is important that the students practice and reflect on different aspects
of listening. When you are not allowed to respond in any way, she claims you need to be active
and think of what you do. In other words, it forces the students to be active and think of how
they listen and at the same time think of how they usually confirm their listening with sound or
body language. She says it is surprisingly only a few who can manage this exercise without
confirming the speaker they understand what they hear. Another variation of smaller group is
the additional individual teaching hours Celine and Diana can offer their students. During this
time there are fewer students, and they have possibilities to adjust their support to each
individual’s need.
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6.1.4. Notetaking
When working with listening comprehension teachers have to somehow find out what the students understand. Notetaking can both be used as an indicator of what the student knows, but also to improve their listening comprehension if used as a teaching strategy. Anna, Betina, Diana and Fiona mentioned that they work with notetaking of some kind, though it is not obvious in all interviews how they do it. In Betina’s interview she talked about variation;
sometimes she let the students take notes while listening, sometimes not. Fiona explained that her students listened to a ten-minute-long clip and as support they had some bullet points. Then they were to write down anything they thought they understood, and thought was relevant.
Diana’s students also took notes after listening. They use dictogloss which means that the student listens twice to the audio, once individually and once in a group. When they have listened twice the group discusses and takes notes about what they understood and try to recall what they heard. Anna, on the other hand, uses a more strategic way when using notetaking.
She said they use the Cornell notetaking system which is taking notes in a certain way. There are three sections in Cornell notetaking system, two columns, cue and notes, for questions and notes from the lecture, and a section for summary at the end of the paper. Notetaking keeps the student active and allows the student to take notes while listening and immediately formulate questions where there is not enough comprehension. The Cornell notetaking system also makes it easier for the students to organize their thoughts about what they have heard.
6.2. Scaffolding strategies
Besides the already mentioned strategies, a set of strategies emerged that can be defined as scaffolding strategies. In some cases, the teachers used several general strategies that complemented each other. All seven teachers used one or more scaffolding strategies in their teaching of listening comprehension. The most prominent strategies were pre-information and connection to theme, collaborative discourses, teacher peer and modeling and finally increasing level of difficulty. What separates these strategies from the general is, as mentioned in section 5.4., that the support is given by a more knowledgeable person often the teacher but could also be another student also called student peer. This support is only temporary and should lead to the student managing the task on their own.
6.2.1. Pre-information and connection to theme
All seven teachers said they give the students some kind of information before a listening
comprehension exercise either about content or the actual implementation or both. As Erica
emphasizes, listening comprehension should not be a surprise for the students, but well
prepared. In line with Erica’s opinion, Anna, Celine and Gina connect their listening
comprehensions, both exercises and test, to the theme they are working with at the moment. By
working with themes Anna claims that her students get information when they know that the
listening exercises will correspond to the theme. She also gives the students information about
the implementation of the exercise, if it is details or wholeness they should focus on and listen
for. Betina and Celine also give an example of how they prepare their students by providing
them with a list of keywords. Betina exhorts her students to translate the words they do not
understand to enhance their preparations.
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Diana says she varies what information she gives. Sometimes they reflect on the subject and sometimes they do not. When they reflect, she can start with showing a picture of a forest for example. Then they reflect on what could happen in the wood, what might show up, which she claims activates their comprehension. Likewise, Fiona lets her students reflect on the subject before they watch or listen to a related clip. However, even the questions can provide information. Anna, Celine, Diana, and sometimes Fiona asks the students to read the questions in advance. Diana takes extra precautions by reading the questions out loud to her English 5 class ensuring that the students know and understand the questions. They believe that understanding the questions is important because they provide information of what the listening exercise will contain. Furthermore, as Celine and Gina claim, the students can use the information in the questions to focus their listening since they know what the questions ask for.
In Gina’s interview she specifically points out the importance of the questions, what they ask for, if it asks where, when, what, who, then it will give the student a clue what to listen for.
6.2.2. Collaborative discourses
Collaborative discourse is when the teachers use the collective knowledge of the students who are present at the lesson and the discourse can either be in whole class or in groups. It can be between teacher and student as well as between student and student. What is prominent in the collaborative discourse is that the answer is a product of several participants. This was found to be one of the most used scaffolding strategies, used by five out of seven teachers, in this research.
Anna explained that she used collaborative discourses when going through answers from a test, discussing why students answered as they did and highlighting complex questions with ambiguous answers. Betina uses it slightly differently. They listen to a text and in groups of two to three students they discuss what they listened to and then report to the class what they think. Celine works similarly to Betina, she lets the students sit in groups and together they take individual notes of a test, but only in the margins. Next, they compare their answers in the group explaining why they chose a particular answer. On the other hand, while these three teachers report they use collaborative discourses after a test or exercise, Celine reports she uses collaborative discourses as a class before an exercise. Together they discuss what the exercise will contain and what words need to be defined. Gina, however, uses collaborative discourse, both pre-test and post-test. When doing an exercise test, they begin with highlighting keywords, discussing what information the students get from the questions in other words, what the questions actually ask for. She gives the following example: the students should connect the audio to a specific word which could be found in a list. If the word is teacher, what could we listen for? Then she lets the students give examples of words that can be associated to teacher, such as student, school, homework. After a thorough review of all the questions with discussions, they do the test-exercise. Post-test they go through the answers, discussing what came up, what did not. Fiona elaborates further and talks about both keywords and clue words, but mostly, they discuss after a test. As a class they discuss what keywords and clue words they found, but also what words tried to make them choose wrong answer. Clue words are similar to keywords, but only give a clue of the content without using the actual keyword. She goes on to say they take the spoken text into parts, examine and discuss in detail these different parts and words to improve the comprehension.
Related to and an extension of collaborative discourse, is specific student peer which emerged
in the data. Though, student peer takes place mostly in pairs or groups and is distinct in the
support from one better student. This emerges in Celine and Diana’s interviews. It appears most
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explicitly in Diana’s interview where she says students work together and the more knowledgeable student supports the other/others and together they construct an understanding of both grammatical structures and a better vocabulary. Celine says her students compare their results of the exercises and in groups or in pairs, the students discuss with each other how they reached their answer. Furthermore, in these groups the better students can share what strategy they use and help the less knowledgeable students.
6.2.3. Teacher modeling
When first talking about scaffolding, it is support by teacher most people think of, just as Gibbons’ definition in the keywords (see 2.1.3.). The support could be given in the whole class but also through individual teaching or if the teacher gives distinct tips how the student might proceed to achieve learning and develop their learning. This is exercised by Anna, Betina, Celine and Gina in their teaching. They basically tell the students how to do certain exercises, which word to look for, if they heard specific words or extracts, point out the answer or when one word is used in the question, but a synonym is used in the spoken. Betina points out she does this over and over again and reduces the support with time to see if the students are able to find the answer by themselves. In addition, Celine mentions that she plays the audio file, pauses and asks the students if they heard the answer.
In contrast, when using the scaffolding strategy modeling the teacher is engaged in the assignment and shows the students with an example how to complete the task. As Celine explains, she shows the students how to do it by projecting the questions on the whiteboard.
Then she highlights where there are uncertainties and elaborate on the meaning on her own.
Next, while playing the audio file she takes notes and write answers to the questions on the whiteboard while the students watch how she does it. Meanwhile, Gina does her modeling slightly differently. Together with the students they look at the questions and what kind of answer they need. If the question asks for a profession and has different options, she goes through the options and elaborate what words might be connected to them. Then they listen and she models by ticking the box she thinks is right in front of the class.
6.2.4. Increasing the level of difficulty
The last strategy in the scaffolding theme is increasing the level of difficulty. The teacher begins at a lower level of difficulty with exercises that the students can manage. When the students answer right, they build confidence and the teacher increases the level of difficulty. This strategy can also be combined with other scaffolding strategies such as modeling, teacher peer and student peer to support the students in taking the next step in their development. There are several different ways to increase the level of difficulty in teaching listening comprehension.
Anna, Betina and Fiona gave three different examples in their interviews. Anna described how
she lets the students listen to the audio file multiple times and choses easier comprehension
tests in the beginning, and when they answer successfully, she increases the level of difficulty
a bit. Betina illustrates her teaching as starting out with short and simple exercises and supports
with the answers in the beginning if it is necessary and when they find the answers themselves,
she increases the difficulty level. Fiona highlights how she uses the combination of spoken
language, visual support and text to increase the difficulty level. She says they work a lot with
video, which is a visual support, but she can also add subtitles in the beginning and as the
students improve switch to only spoken language such as podcasts. She also claims she
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challenges the students when watching movies, first they can use subtitle in their native language, then switch to English subtitles and finally watch without subtitles.
7. Discussion
Following section contains a discussion of the results in comparison to the Swedish steering documents and previous research divided into three sub-sections; General strategies, Scaffolding strategies, and Combined strategies. The final and fourth sub-section provides a method discussion.
7.1. General strategies
The curricula for upper secondary school states that it is the teachers’ responsibility to adjust their teaching to an optimal learning environment for the students (Skolverket, 2013, p. 9). To create this optimal environment, the interviewed teachers in this study gave examples of multiple strategies to use while teaching listening comprehension, both non-scaffolding and scaffolding strategies, which is in contrast to Yazdanpanah and Kahnmohammad’s (2014, p.
2389) thought, that there is a lack of effective strategies. Whereas Yazdanpanah and Kahnmohammad’s studied Iranian teachers and students, this study investigates Swedish teachers and what the Swedish steering documents require, the teachers have to “provide students with conditions to develop knowledge” and a good learning environment (Skolverket, English, 2020). Having said that, when interviewing the teachers they explained how they worked to overcome several issues similar as those Tran and Duong (2020), Yazdanpanah and Khanmohammad (2014) and Safa and Rozati (2017) report in teaching listening comprehension. In their interviews they highlighted how they worked with speed of speech, limited vocabulary, concentration problems as mentioned by Tran and Duong (2020, pp. 85,94).
Six of the seven interviewed teachers work with language immersion, they advise their students to mass listen to spoken English. This strategy allows student to avoid the problem of the speed of speech as Tran and Duong (2020) reports. The teachers give a variety of examples that they use to improve the students’ capacity. Betina, Celine, Diana and Gina propose that their students listen to the texts multiple times and Gina suggests they complement by listening to them at home as well. Erica and Fiona suggest to their students they could listen to and explore podcasts and music, which supply new levels of speed of the language. Language immersion is also good for another issue that Tran and Duong (2020) found challenging in listening comprehension, which is limited vocabulary. Beside language immersion, the teachers in this study also work more specific to prevent this problem. Betina and Celine give their student a list of keywords which the students work with as a preparation to the exercise or test. Both Gina and Fiona have discussions with their students about words in the exercises. Though, Gina prepares her students with discussions about words and synonyms before an exercise, while Fiona mentions she mostly has the discussions after an exercise, what words were difficult or tried to deceive the students. Working like these teachers do, they enhance the students’ vocabulary in preparations for the listening comprehension test which Lundahl (2019, pp. 45-46) claims is a necessity to develop listening skills.
The next problem as Tran and Duong (2020) mentioned, the absence of concentration, may
have several different reasons. If the student is passive while doing listening comprehension,
they might ponder away in their mind and get lost in the listening activity. An and Shi (2013,
p. 632) point out that listening comprehension demands the student to be active. The lack of
focus and concentration could also be a result of low self-confidence. As mentioned, some of
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the examples Tran and Duong (2020, p. 94) point out are, concentration problems, limited vocabulary, lack of background information, but what if the concentration problem is a result of the limited vocabulary and lack of background information. If the student does not understand the language and do not have the self-confidence to show it, it will probably lead to concentration problems. By raising the students’ self-confidence, Anna and Betina try to avoid the concentration issue. They want the students to dare to try, but to do that they lower the level of difficulty at first to a level where the student will succeed. When they see that the students accomplish the task successfully they increase the difficulty level. Consequently, as Vygotskij’s theory of ZPD points out, the level of difficulty is crucial. If exercises are too easy or too difficult, the activity or the teachers will lose the students’ attention. Anna, Betina and Fiona say they work actively with the difficulty level. What is same for all is that they start with easy tasks and increase the level of difficulty when they consider that the students are ready, or if it is possible, let the students chose the difficulty level as in Fiona’s example, where the students can use subtitles in mother tongue, English or no subtitles. Another way to keep concentration is to help the students to focus their listening. To guide the students, Anna, Celine, Diana and Fiona use the information kept in the questions. If the students read the questions, they get information about what they should listen for. Gina emphasizes there should be extra focus on the question words where, when, what and who since they alone allow the student to focus their listening.
The next strategy, which four of the seven interviewed teachers use is smaller groups. This strategy is used by Celine and Diana in their additional time for teaching. In this additional teaching there are only a few students and Celine and Diana can focus their teaching to these student’s individual needs. However, smaller groups are also beneficial in Vygotskij’s sociocultural theories about learning in the ZPD. In the smaller groups, the students can support each other and together explore the content of the listening comprehension which they may not have knowledge enough to do on their own. Wood, Bruner and Ros (2006, p. 90) claim one condition must be fulfilled to achieve learning: “comprehension of the solution must precede production” and in smaller groups the students can support each other to understand the solution of the task. This condition could be compared to how Betina and Celine use smaller groups.
They apply smaller groups in their ordinary teaching but combined with collaborative discourses. In the small groups the students can be more active when discussing the content of the listening comprehension exercises in comparison to discussions in whole class. Though, none of the interviewed teachers mentioned any consideration of the composition of the groups, despite Safa and Rozati’s (2017, pp. 454-455) claim that smaller groups are more successful if there is an expert peer in the group. Besides already mentioned teachers, Fiona works with smaller groups as well, though, her use is very different compared to the others. When she uses smaller groups, she works with active listening. While one student speaks all the others have to be silent and still, and think of what the other student says, but at the same time think of how one confirms the speaker with sound and body language. Moreover, smaller groups are often combined with one or more strategies and is therefore further explored in section 7.3.
Well performed notetaking might also help students focus while listening and not get lost in the
audio due to extensive writing besides it does give an indication to the teacher how much the
student understands. When doing listening comprehension Anna, Betina, Diana and Fiona use
a variation of notetaking strategies. Though, Betina and Fiona mentioned notetaking mostly as
a post-listening activity which might be in line with what Siegel (2019) argues, that teachers
assume students know how to take notes. Yet, Anna and Fiona say they work with different
systems which involve notetaking, particularly Anna who says she works with Cornell
notetaking system. Although efficient notetaking might keep the students focused and not get
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