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THE RELATIONSHIPS AMONG A VARIATION
OF IMMEDIATE RECALL TASKS AND MEASURES
OF LI WRITING, L2 ACHIEVEMENT, AND
COGNITIVE STRATEGY USE IN STUDENTS OF HIGH SCHOOL SPANISH
DISSERTATION
Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for
the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate
School of the Ohio State University
By
Lee Wilberschied, B.A., M.A.
The Ohio State University 1998
Dissertation Committee: ^^pproved by
Dr. Gilbert A. Jarvis, Adviser
Dr. Charles R. Hancock
Dr. V la d im ir M. Sloutsig College of Education UMI Number: 9834097
Copyright 1998 by Wilberschied, Lee F.
All rights reserved.
UMI Microform 9834097 Copyright 1998, by UMI Company. All rights reserved.
This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.
UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103 Copyright by Lee F. W ilberschied 1998 ABSTRACT
The immediate recall protocol as an instrument to assess second language (L2) listening comprehension has previously been administered without permitting subjects to take notes. Two purposes of this study were to investigate the effects of varying the im m e d ia te recall protocol task by allowing half of the subjects to take notes if they chose to do so and to study the effect of higher LI writing ability on recall protocol scores. Also, correlations were obtained between protocol scores and first language (LI) writing ability, along with several other measures of individual learner differences; academic GPA,
English GPA, essay writing score, Spanish GPA, and language learning strategy use as measured by the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL). A final purpose was to follow up on Taylor's (1993) finding that the writing of a second protocol without access to the first is an aid to memory for most subjects.
One hundred subjects of high school Spanish III classes were randomly placed into note taking and non-note taking groups. All subjects listened to a passage of discourse of 343 words (132 seconds in duration); subjects in the note taking groups took notes if they wished. Subjects then wrote an immediate recall protocol. Notes and protocols were collected before a second listening and protocol writing. All subjects completed a post-listening questionnaire.
All subjects had written a formal essay on one assigned topic and completed the SILL. Essay scores averaged with English GPA formed the measure for LI writing ability, and scores were ranked. Scores above the median and those below the median were combined with each note taking condition to form four groups.
Findings indicated a benefit for note taking for all subjects but most benefit for more capable LI writers. Main effects for LI writing ability were significant. Questionnaire responses indicated that notes aided memory, the writing process, and, sometimes, comprehension. Pearson correlation coefficients exceeded critical values for all measures, but among the highest was between protocol score and LI ability, rather than general L2 ability.
Ill Dedicated to my husband, Nicholas F. Wilberschied, who deserves an even loftier monument to his devotion
IV ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The solemnity of the occasion and the formality of the document do not
lend themselves to an impassioned expression of the gratitude. Furthermore,
only the best of poets would be able to create a work worthy of the generous
persons without whose combined help this document would not exist.
Although this is another page that nearly no one will read, conforming to
format, I hope that 1 can convey some of the depth of my thanks.
To my committee chairman and adviser. Dr. Gilbert A. Jarvis, who made
a researcher out of me by asking the right questions and by not directly
answering many of mine, whose vision helps create the future, thank you for
unfailing guidance and steadfast support.
To Dr. Charles R. Hancock, a giant in my eyes, a leader of souls, thank you for inspiration, for your belief in me, and for giving me every opportunity
possible.
To Dr. Vladimir Sloutsky, from whom it has been an honor to leam,
thank you for sharing your insights and for opening new doors to
understanding of language.
To Rebecca Oxford, who graciously gave permission to use the SILL for
this research, thank you for your interest and your generosity of spirit. To the administration at North Royalton High School, Charles Gibson,
Bernard Kroviak, and Karen Daugherty, thank you for release time, trust that
my job duties would be done, and many hugs. To Chris Carion, thank you for
making your classes available and for your ongoing interest.
To my friends, Rita Stroempl and Sherry Taylor, my mentors, who paved
the way and sometimes pushed me along it, thank you for being torch bearers
and for always calling me back to the question. To Jean-Louis Dassier,
classmate extraordinaire, thank you for being a sounding board, a catalyst, and
a matchless peer throughout every endeavor. To Doris El-Tawil, whose reassurance sustained me, you know the extent and depth of my gratitude. To
Betsy Taimehül, Barb West, and Holmes Finch, thanks for being ballasts.
To my family, George and Kris, best teachers in the world, for gracefully accepting deprivation of attention and time and for sending CARE packages; to
AdeUa Hull and Mary Dennis, my earth mothers, for a lifetime of love; to Larissa and Rachel for their encouragement and tolerance, 1 reiterate my thanks.
Lastly, to my incomparable husband, for trips not taken, for broken dates, for double burdens and lonely nights; for weathering battles bom of fatigue and tears of frustration; for devotion, dedication, and dozedness; 1 will need the rest of our hves to thank you, so for now I wiU just say...that was fun; let’s do it again.
VI VITA
1976-1992 ...... Teacher of French, English, and Spanish (7-12)
1991 ...... M.A., Spanish, University of Akron
1993 ...... Supervisor of Student Teachers, The Ohio State University
1993-1995 ...... Adviser, Teacher Certification, The Ohio State University
1993-1995 ...... jraduate Research and Administrative Assistant, ESL Program, The Ohio State University
1993-199 5 ...... Graduate Teaching Assistant, Field Experience for Foreign Language Teacher Candidates, The Ohio State University
1994-199 8 ...... Teacher of Spanish/Department Head, Foreign Languages, North Royalton High School, North Royalton, Ohio
PUBLICATION
Wilberschied, L. F. and Dassier, J-L. (1995). Increasing the number of minority FL educators: local action to meet a national imperative. The Modem Language Journal. 79. 1-14.
Ml FIELDS OF STUDY
Major Field: Education:
Teaching and Learning—Language, Literacy, and Culture (formerly Educational Studies: Humanities)
Studies in Educational Psychology, Research Design, and Second Language Testing. Dr. Gilbert A. Jarvis
Second Language Reading, Second Language Acquisition, and Classroom Second Language Development. Dr. Elizabeth Bernhardt
Video in Second Language Learning, Technology in Second Language Learning, Advanced Studies in Foreign Language Education, and Issues in Communicative Language Teaching. Dr. Charles Hancock
Studies in Second Language Curriculum and Community Language Learning. Dr. Keiko K. Samimy
Satellite Field: Spanish
Translation of Literature. Caribbean Poetry. Dr. Benjamin Heller
Twentieth Century Drama in Spain. Dr. Samuel Amel
Twentieth Century Literature. Dr. Jonathan Mayhew
MU TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
A bstract...... ü
D edication ...... iv
Acknowledgments ...... v
Vita...... vii
List of Tables ...... xiii
Chapters:
1. The Problem
1.1 Introduction to the problem ...... 1 1.2 Statem ent of the problem ...... 15 1.3 Significance of the study ...... 18 1.4 Purpose of the study ...... 19 1.5 Definition of Terms ...... 20 1.6 Assumptions ...... 21 1.7 Limitations ...... 22
2. Review of the literature
2.1 Introduction ...... 23 2.2 An overview of second language listening comprehension ...... 24 2.2.1 First language listening—Processes ...... 24 2.2.2 First language listening—Testing ...... 25 2.2.3 Second Language listening—Definition ...... 26 2.2.4 Second Language listening— Relationship to other skills ...... 27 2.3 Elements of the Second Language listening process ...... 29
2.3.1 The developmental nature of second language listening processes ...... 29 2.3.2 Cognitive functions of the second language listening process ...... 31
ix 2.3.3 The second language listener— Individual characteristics...... 33 2 .3 .4 The interlocutor...... 34 2.3.5 Characteristics of Listening texts 2.3.5.1 Introduction— E^ase or "listenabüity”...... 35 2.3.5.2 Rate of speech ...... 36 2.3.5.3 Orality...... 37 2.3.5.4 Perception of acoustic variables ...... 38 2.3.5.5 Morphological and syntactic variables ...... 38 2.3.6 Sociocultural variables ...... 39 2.3.6 Authentic texts...... 40 2.3.7 Second language listening tasks ...... 41 2.4 Elements of the study 2.4.1 Testing and Second Language listening ...... 41 2.4.2 The immediate recall protocol and its scoring ...... 44 2.4.3 Memoiy and language processing ...... 45 2.4.4 Inner speech 2.4.4.1 Introduction ...... 48 2.4.4.2 The development of inner speech ...... 50 2.4.4.3 Thought and speaking ...... 51 2.4.4.4 Structure and characteristics of inner speech ...... 52 2.4.4.5 Thought and inner speech ...... 53 2.4.4.6 Inner speech, listening, and other modalities ...... 54 2.4.5 Note taking 2.4.5.1 Introduction ...... 56 2.4.5.2 Definitions of note taking ...... 56 2.4.5.3 Advantages, lack of advantage, or disadvantages of note taking ...... 57 2.4.5.4 Functions of note taking ...... 59 2.4.5.5 Evaluation of notes ...... 60 2.4.6 Language learning strategies ...... 62 2.4.7 First language writing ...... 65
Procedures
3.1 Population and sample ...... 70 3.2 Research design ...... 75 3.3 Variables and treatment conditions 3.3.1 Part 1...... 77 3.3.2 Part 2 ...... 81 3.4 Explanation of the variables ...... 81 3.4.1 The immediate recall protocol procedure ...... 81 3.4.2 Variation of the recall protocol procedure ...... 82 3.4.3 First language writing ability ...... 86 3.4.4 Second language writing ability ...... 86 3.4.5 Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) ...... 87 3.5 Scoring ...... 87 3.6 Data collection ...... 88 3.7 Pilot study ...... 91 3.8 Data analysis ...... 93 3.9 Null hypotheses ...... 94
4. Results and Discussion
4.1 Introduction ...... 95 4.2 Data analysis...... 98 4.3 Alternate first language measures ...... 100 4.4 ANCOVAs: Academic GPA, Spanish GPA, and SILL ...... 101 4.4 Correlations: Protocol scores and First language writing ability, English GPA, Spanish GPA, academic GPA, and SILL...... 102 4.5 Null hypotheses ...... 103 4.5 Descriptive analyses 4.5.1 Analysis of propositions ...... 105 4.5.2 First half/second half comparison ...... 106 4.5.3 Analysis of propositions by value ...... 108 4.5.4 Propositions recalled by percentage of subjects ...... I l l 4.5.5 Protocol gain score ...... 114 4.5.6 Analysis of the SILL results ...... 116 4.5.7 Results of the post-listening evaluation and self-evaluation ...... 121
5. Summary and Recommendations
5.1 Overview of the study ...... 135 5.2 Summary of the findings ...... 137 5.3 Limitations of the study ...... 145 5.4 Recommendations for further research ...... 151 5.4.1 Replications and variations of the immediate recall protocol studies ...... 151 5.4.2 First language writing ability, second language proficiency, and second language listening comprehension ...... 154 5.4.3 Note taking for authentic second language listening tasks ...... 156 5.5 ImpUcations ...... 157
.'a 5.5.1 Theoretical implications ...... 157 5.5.2 Pedagogical implications ...... 159
Bibliography ...... 162
A ppendices
A. Instruction sheet for essay writing ...... 174 B. Instruction sheet for protocol writing, non-note taking groups (Al) ...... 176 C. Instruction sheet for protocol writing, note taking groups (A2) ...... 178 D. Transcript of discourse sample for listening task...... 180 E. Post-listening evaluation questionnaire, non-note taking groups (Al) ...... 182 F. Post-listening evaluation questionnaire, note taking groups (A2) ...... 184 G. Scoring grid—Spanish ...... 186 H. Scoring grid—English ...... 191 I. Writing evaluation protocol used for first language essays ...... 195 J. ANCOVA for main effects and interaction ...... 198 K. ANCOVA for academ ic GPA...... 200 L. ANCOVA for LI writing ability ...... 202 M. ANCOVA for English GPA ...... 204 N. ANCOVA for S panish GPA ...... 206 O. ANCOVA for essay score ...... 218 P. ANCOVA for SILL ...... 210 Q. Correlation matrix for protocol scores and first language writing ability, essay scores, English GPA, S panish GPA, academ ic GPA, and SILL...... 212 R. Sample protocols and notes from subject groups ...... 214 S. Sample essays from each subject group ...... 218 T. Post-listening questionnaire results for question 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, and 13 ...... 221
XU LIST OF TABLES
Table Page
1.1 Variations in task, Taylor (1993) study ...... 5
1.2 Partial results of post-test questionnaire (Taylor, 1993 ...... 6
3.1 Formation of groups ...... 76
3.2 Speech sample used in recent L2 listening assessments ...... 85
4.1 Identification of cells ...... 97
4.2 Sample means and standard deviations ...... 99
4.3 Means and standard deviations of number of propositions recalled in first half and second half of text of protocol ...... 108
4.4 Means, standard deviations, and ranges of propositions in first protocol, second protocol, and across protocols for all gro u p s ...... 109
4.5 Number, standard deviation, and range of propositions of each value recalled by each group ...... 110
4.6 Propositions remembered by 20-24% of the subjects ...... I l l
4.7 Propositions remembered by 25-49% of the subjects ...... 112
4.8 Propositions remembered by 50% or more of the subjects ...... 113
4.9 Means, standard deviations, and ranges for protocol gain scores ...... 116
4.10 Means, standard deviations, minimum/maximum SILL scores ...... 117
4.11 Pearson correlation coefficients, slopes, and covariances of SILL su b tests with recall protocol scores...... 118
4.12 Means and standard deviations for SILL subtests and subject groups ...... 121
xiii 4.13 Responses to "What do you like about writing in English?" ...... 123
4.14 Responses, 'What is easiest about writing in English?" ...... 123 4.15 Responses to Question 7, "What was the most difficult part of this listening activity for you?" ...... 126
4.16 Answers to Question 8, "What would have helped your comprehension/recall?" ...... 128
4.17 Affirmative responses to Question 11, "Did the writing of the first protocol help you to understand better during the second listening?" ...... 131
4.18 Affirmative responses to Question 12, "Did the writing of the first protocol help you in the writing of the second protocol?" ...... 133
X l\’ CHAPTER 1
THE PROBLEM
Introduction to the Problem
The number of studies in second language (L2) listening research has
increased in the last 10 to 15 years, but many factors remain to be investigated
or need investigation with experimental controls. Much of the data and theory
that have been used in L2 listening research come from research in native
language (LI) listening (Flowerdew, 1994; Lee 8s VanPatten, 1995; Witkin, 1992;
Wolvin & Coakley, 1988). An example of the problem with such borrowing
appeared in Wolvin and Coakley’s (1988) discussion of 53 definitions of
listening. As recently as 1995, the International Listening Association reached
agreement on a definition of LI listening (Wolvin, 1995). Despite agreement
upon the components of listening, there is widely varied operationalization of LI
listening, and several of the widely used standardized tests for LI listening possess notable flaws or weaknesses (Bostrom, 1990; Roberts, 1985; Rubin fis
Roberts, 1987; Rubin & Shepherd, 1985; Wolvin & Coakley, 1993). Efforts to create valid instruments to measure L2 listening comprehension continue.
(Bachman, 1991; Buck, 1991, 1992; Dunkel, Henning, & Chaudron, 1993;
Jones, 1989; Rubin, 1994; Shohamy & Inbar, 1988; Stansfield, 1990).
1 The focus of this study was upon variation in one of those measurement procedures, the im m e d ia te recall protocol. Dunkel (1988) pointed out that our society is h e m m in g increasingly focussed on orality rather than Literacy. Such a shift in focus makes the already important skills in listening even more important. Specifically in regard to L2 acquisition, listening comprehension has become important in conjunction with the increasing implementation of communicative practices in classroom teaching. Yet, Long (1987) estimated th a t lis t e n in g and listening comprehension activities accounted for a mere four percent of class time.
One reason for increasing interest in a clearer delineation of the
L2 listening construct is increasing awareness of its role in second language acquisition (Byrnes, 1984; Dunkel, 1986; de Guerrero, 1994;
Feyten, 1991; Rivers, 1980; and Swaffar & Bacon, 1993). Focus in recent investigations has been those factors “inside and outside the head" (Samuels,
1984) that may influence listening comprehension, including intelligence and language ability. For example, Rost (1990) summarized the inferential processes of the L2 listener, and Long (1989) described the critical role played by schemata that form background knowledge. Lund (1990) discussed text features and other external factors that may affect listening comprehension.
Dunkel and Davis (1994), Flowerdew (1994), and Hanson (1994) investigated the effects of note taking during academic listening. Rubin (1994) outlined five categories of characteristics, both external and
internal, that have been found to affect L2 listening comprehension:
a. variation in the text type or discourse type (speech rate, pauses,
hesitations, rhythm, redundancy; or narrative, persuasive,
expository, for example)
b. variation of the personal characteristics of the speaker (gender or
concern for listener, for example)
c. variation in the listening task (recognition vs. reproduction,
for example)
d. variation in the listener’s personal characteristics (proficiency
level, age, intelligence, or background knowledge, for example)
e. variation in the cognitive processing of the listener (the
strategies each person employs in order to understand)
(p. 199).
This study focused on the interaction of three of the five above-mentioned
factors: how variation in the task interacts with the listener’s personal
characteristics and cognitive processes. The present study is an outgrowth of
recent research that varied the tasks of the written recall protocol as a measure
of L2 listening comprehension.
Jam es (1985) was among the first to advocate the use of the written immediate recall protocol as an appropriate instrument to measure listening
comprehension. The procedure had originally been used extensively in reading research and, more recently, has been used in other studies of listening comprehension (Bernhardt, 1991; Long, 1990; Lund, 1991; Rader, 1990; Schmidt-Rinehart, 1992). Studies used the instrument to investigate background knowledge, the effect of word rate, and the effect of text type, and the effect of repetition. In none of the studies were subjects allowed to take notes while listening.
Bernhardt explained that note taking was not permitted during the reading comprehension procedures because subjects began to translate and write precis. Neither the translation nor the precis writing was intended as part of the task and was not pertinent to the measure of reading comprehension (personal communication,
February, 1993).
Most of the recent studies on L2 listening comprehension that used the immediate recall protocol did not permit notes during the procedure. The point of departure for this proposed study is Taylor
(1993), in which the subtasks were varied in the immediate recall protocol as a measure of listening comprehension. Taylor tested 120 subjects from begiiming-intermediate levels of Spanish courses at The
Ohio State University. AU subjects listened to a tape of an educated
Mexican male delivering an unrehearsed narrative. In the four variations of listening to the same passage, the subjects were directed not to write while they were listening. The task variation for that study is outlined on page five.
E)ven though the aural text in the study was brief (289 words total,
184 words per minute, and 2 minutes 4 seconds total running time) the Procedure Variation
1 Listen Write Recall
2 Listen Listen Write Recall
3 Listen Write Recall 1 Listen Write Recall 2 (Collect Immediately)
4 Listen Write Recall Listen Write Recall 2 (Subject Retains Recall)
(o. 107. adaotedl
Table 1.1: Variations in Task, Taylor (1993) Study
scoring rubric contained 99 pausal units. (A pausal unit is often the equivalent of a phrase but is more precisely a breath group or, "a group of of words that has a pause on each end of it during normally paced oral reading"
Bernhardt, 1991, p. 208.)
All four groups in the Taylor (1993) study completed a post-test questionnaire that asked the subjects to provide brief answers about factors that made the task easier or more difficult to complete. Many subjects reported that the number of propositions in the passage was sufficient to burden the short-term memory (STM). Results are summarized in Table 1.2.
In the following summary description of the subjects’ answers, some categories do not add up to 100%. It is possible that some subjects % (#1 in Procedure Question / Response 1 2 3 4 n=30 for each group • What would have helped you in comprehension and (10) (12) (8) (7) recall? Note taking. 33.3 40.0 26.7 23.3
• Did first writing exercise YES * * (19) (17) aid in understanding 63.3 56.6 the listening passage? NO i t (11) (13) 36.7 43.3
• Did second writing YES * * (17) (16) exercise aid in 56.6 53.3 understanding NO * * (13) (14) listening passa^? 43.3 46.7
• Referred to first YES * * § (15) writing during 50 * listening? NO § (14) 46.7
• Referred to first YES * * § (14) writing during second 46.7) writing? NO * § (14)
• Comment that (3) (1) (7) (2) memory was part of the difficulty. 10.0 3.3 23.3 6.7
‘subjects in this group wrote only one protocol §subjects in this group did not keep first protocol
(Figures tabulated from subject commentary. Appendices)
Table 1.2: Partial results of Post-test Questionnaire (Taylor, 1993) were frustrated or disengaged and chose not to answer some of the questions.
It is possible that others were overwhelmed and did not know what was wrong or what would have helped. Some subjects may have been test-weary; those who wrote two protocols were more likely to skip answering one or more questions than subjects of the first two groups, who had written only one protocol. (The answers given by subjects were not multiple choice options; they were fill-in, free response.)
In addition to the responses described in Table 1.2, several subjects suggested that slowing down the rate of speech would have helped (16, 22, 13, and 18 for groups 1, 2, 3, and 4, respectively, for a total of 57.5% of the subjects who responded completely). The perception of rapidity may be affected by the amount of pausing (Blau, 1990, 1991; Richards, 1985; Rubin, 1994).
Non-native speakers may have the perception that speed of delivery is accelerated because they require more time to process cognitively the complex linguistic, phonological, and textual data from the stream of speech; or, if they are unable to process, they need to switch to compensatory strategies, such as assigning syntax, predicting what words might occur in the content, and then attempting to decode. When non-native speakers cannot use inferential processing, they rely on decoding (Flowerdew, 1994). These strategies all require more time, and the less proficient listener perceives that the stream of speech is escaping his or her comprehensive grasp.
Slowing the rate of speech for non-native speakers to less than average, however, does not significantly aid comprehension (Blau, 1990, 1991; Brumfit
8s Mitchell, 1991; Derwing, 1989; Griffiths, 1990; Rader, 1990). Blau (1990) investigated the comprehensibility of the same speech sample that had been slowed or that contained pauses. She found that pauses containing natural hesitation markers, such as those used in social conversation, aided comprehension significantly and more than blank pauses, without sound.
Merely slowing the speech rate did not aid comprehension.
The second common response from subjects of the Taylor (1993) study expressed a need to know more vocabulary. Once again, these and all other responses were free response, not multiple choice. A few subjects said that being with the speaker in person or being able to see him on video would have helped. Others mentioned that the speaker’s accent was a problem because they were unaccustomed to it. Others had difiiculty with pronunciation because of linking (the tendency of speakers of Spanish to join the last vowel of a word to the first vowel of the next to form a dipthong). These comments are noteworthy, but the comments regard in g note taking, combined with comments regarding memory, appeared in the comments of 41.67% of the subjects.
Taylor (1993) remarked: "Numerous subjects urged the inclusion of note taking, stating that this would have positively affected their comprehension " (p.
156). A total of 60 subjects completed Procedure 1 and Procedure 2, and 36.7%
(22 subjects) indicated that being allowed to take notes would have aided in their comprehension and recall of the passage. Another 4 subjects (an additional 6.7%) indicated that memory was a problem but did not specify what would have aided them.
The subjects who completed Procedure 3 took no notes but completed an immediate recall protocol that was collected before a second listening and subsequent writing. Positive responses from this group were nearly double the
negative as to whether the writing of the first protocol was an aid to their
understanding of the passages. Of the 30 subjects, 19 said that writing the
first protocol was an aid, and 11 said that it was not. Of this group, 26.7% (8
subjects) answered that being permitted to take notes would have been an aid
to comprehension, and another 23.3% (7 subjects) indicated that memory was a problem but did not suggest what would have helped. The subjects who completed Procedure 4 were permitted to retain the first protocol while they completed the second listening and second protocol writing. This group also had mixed responses regarding whether the protocol writing aided comprehension. A percentage of 56.6 (17 subjects) indicated that the first protocol writing was an aid to comprehension, but 43.3% (13 subjects) responded "no." When asked whether they referred to the first protocol during the second listening, 50% of the subjects (15 persons) responded positively, and
46.7% (14 subjects) responded negatively. Equal numbers of persons referred to the first protocol when writing the second; 46.7% (14 persons) did, and
46.7% did not. In this final group, however, 23.3% of the respondents (7 persons) still indicated that being permitted to take notes would have aided their comprehension, and 2 persons (6.7% of the group) listed memory as a problem but did not comment about what would have helped.
It is not possible to match protocol scores with comments in order to determine whether subjects' assessment of their difficulty was accurate. Some subjects, however, clearly were aware when comprehension was the problem and when it was not. One subject in the Procedure 3 group commented,
"Understanding [was difficult). Listening was easy...Recall wasn't the issue.
Understanding was. " Others were aware that the burden on memory was large.
A subject in Group 4, who was permitted to keep the first protocol, said that the most difficult part of the activity was "remembering everything he [the Mexican
speaker] said without notes."
Recall was highest for the subjects in Procedure 3, the group that wrote a first protocol, which was immediately collected. In other words, subjects completing this procedure wrote more propositions in their protocols than did individuals of other groups, even though they could not refer to the first protocol. One possible reason for their higher scores could be that subjects paid more attention than they would have if they had retained their first protocols. Yet, responses of members of this group were similar in proportion to the Procedure 4 group that note taking was an issue. In addition. Procedure
3 Group had the greatest percentage of comments suggesting that memory was one of the difficulties of the task. These comments merited further study and were sufficient to consider in relation to the literature on memory and comprehension.
Anderson and Lynch (1988) said that listeners frequently are able to understand much more than they can recall. There is an important difference in being able to use the information that one has heard and being able to reproduce that message nearly verbatim. Some tasks, like translation, do require rigorously accurate recall, but in many cases, the memory of listeners is
10 selective because of the "constructive and personal nature of listening" (p. 11).
The comments of some of the subjects of the Taylor (1993) study do not make it completely clear whether the immediate recall protocol as it was administered confounded memory to any degree or not. It is possible, however, that STM was overburdened.
M ed in and Ross (1 9 9 2 )explained that STM retains pertinent information and permits it to be compared and integrated with existing information. There are im p ort a n t constraints on STM. In order to keep recent information available, the capacity of STM is Limited to a few items at a time, and newly entering items can crowd out some of the earlier items. "If subjects cannot rehearse the items, they do not remember them for more than a few seconds"
(p. 175). Wolvin and Coakley (1988) explained that rehearsal is attending to the stimulus, either by focusing on it or by repeating it.
A stimulus that does not receive attention from an LI listener will be lost within a range of 20 to 60 seconds. In addition to the time constraint, there is a number constraint. The capacity of STM is constrained to a range of five to nine units or "chunks" of information at any one time (Medin & Ross, 1992).
Comments by some of the Taylor (1993) subjects indicate that the 99 propositions, each carrying multiple chunks of linguistic, phonological, lexical, cultural, and other information, within 124 seconds were a serious overload on
STM. The task that the subjects performed demanded processing of one new proposition on the average of every 1.25 seconds without pause, for more than
60 seconds. A portion of the material, therefore probably went unrehearsed.
11 and some of the material, although it was not unfamiliar, had not attained automaticity ("the development of processes that can be run off without the use of attentional resources" Medin & Ross, 1992, p. 513).
Service (1987) described the processes of STM and noted that L2 comprehension makes large demands on it. She suggested that areas for further study include investigation of different compensatory strategies that would help to optimize STM use and how those compensatory strategies affect understanding of a message. Part 1 of this study yielded some information about how note taking as a compensatory strategy affects understanding of the message. Individual listeners use different strategies in order to comprehend and retain information. Research on learning strategies is also in its early stages, especially regarding L2 (Byrnes, 1984; Ehrman & Oxford, 1995;
O'Malley & Chamot, 1993; Oxford, 1990; Oxford 8s Burry-Stock, 1995; Skehan,
1991). Ellis (1994) offered some tentative conclusions. The learner's choice of strategies reflects the general stage of L2 development, and the successful learner uses learning strategies more frequently than the less successful learner. The more successful learner is also more able to describe or discuss the strategies employed. Some of these strategies include metacognitive or self- monitoring strategies, but many learners do not use this type of strategy as much as they could. Various learning strategies can contribute to different aspects of L2 proGciency, and selection of appropriate strategies for the task is necessary (p. 555).
Note taking is a strategy employed by LI and by L2 listeners, for the various tasks and for various reasons. Some listeners take notes while
12 listening, not only during lectures, but also while holding telephone conversations, attending meetings, consulting a health professional, or while receiving instructions of some type. In these instances, the purpose of the note taking is not always for the purpose of remembering. Note taking while listening is sometimes a manifestation of individuals who prefer a kinetic activity while processing information (Ehrman, 1996). That is, they prefer the movement of writing while processing the auditory input, but they are not necessarily writing to aid memory. In other instances, the note taking is similar to what Vygotsky (1986) called inner speech.
Vygotsky used this term to describe the silent speech that occurs within the individual and facilitates symbolic thought. Inner speech is not simply the act of thinking to oneself but exists in a symbiotic relationship with thought.
Each element works with the other during the generation and use of word meaning. Symbolic thought creates word meanings by making associations among concepts. Inner speech works in conjunction with this process as an organizer.
Johnson (1993) explained that this form of silent language acts as mental shorthand:
Inner speech operates in many ways like taking notes. While
using inner speech, we silently generate a few key words to remind
ourselves of series of much larger ideas or concepts. For example,
when we prepare a grocery list we write eggs, bread, butter, milk.
This abbreviated list is a quick and efficient way to jog our memory
when we go shopping or when we recall messages. The grocery list.
13 like inner speech does not need to elaborate the quantity of eggs
(1 dozen), or the types of b rea d(whole wheat or rye), or that b utter
really means margarine, (p. 171)
Inner speech is idiosyncratic, intrapersonal, silent, and compressed, meaning that the syntax is condensed. Another quality, semantic embeddedness, eliminates the need to elaborate and is characterized by an absence of conjunctions. If a segment of inner speech were expanded to conform to rules for formal spoken or written discourse, the content would need to be expanded
10 to 20 times (Johnson, 1993; Takala, 1983). Vygotslty (1986) said that a speaker might require several minutes to state one thought, but the entire thought is present in his mind aU at one time (p. 251). For some note takers, a single word can stand for a construct or for an entire thought, similar to the way that inner speech carries thought. These characteristics are similar to the shorthand type of note taking that some individuals use as a trigger or stimulus for remembering clusters of information or entire thoughts (Johnson, 1993).
A listener who takes notes during the listening process may be using the information for such a purpose. Some individuals may analyze information into chunks in such a manner. Rather than attending to that information immediately, the listener is able to retain it for later attention and continue with processing newer incoming information.
Most research done on note taking, either in LI or L2, has been with lectures and not with shorter speech passages that would resemble natural speech outside of the academic setting. Studies in LI date back to 1925
(Dunkel, 1988), and results are mixed, about half and half, as to whether note
14 taking aids in recall or retention (Chaudron, Loschky & Cook, 1994). Hale and
Courtney (1994), in a study with English as a Second Language (ESL) speakers on portions of the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), said that three fourths of the subjects answered in a questionnaire that they believed that note taking aided memory. The researchers concluded that, although note taking does no harm when it is not required, it was not of significant benefit to the subjects of their study. No studies investigating similar conditions with foreign language learners rather than second language learners were found.
Statement of the Problem
There is a scarcity of instruments to use for measuring L2 listening comprehension. Measures such as multiple choice questions or partial dictation may supply listeners with comprehension clues in the written questions after they have listened and thus have the potential to confound results. Additional potential for confounding may exist in the demands made by reading tasks in order to answer questions about the listening text or in providing opportunities to guess without comprehending. Comprehension question responses, either oral or written, may require even more grading time than the immediate recall protocol and are susceptible to just as much threat to validity because of the number of possible interpretations of inferential material (Buck, 1992). Paraphrasing presents similar problems and also places demands on memoy. The immediate recall protocol may hold some promise as a measure of listening comprehension, but more investigation is needed to determine what variations are most appropriate and to what degree the task actually measures L2 listening comprehension.
15 The protocol has been used in some recent studies. Taylor (1993) studied the effect of varying the im m e d ia te recall protocol procedure as an experiment to measure listening comprehension. The immediate recall protocol had been used since the 1970s as an indicator of reading comprehension.
Bernhardt, (1986) and Bernhardt and James (1987) recommended use of the immediate recall protocol for measuring listening comprehension, because listeners gain no hints (either correct or incorrect) from any type of comprehension question. Subsequently, researchers investigating L2 listening comprehension began to operationalize listening comprehension by using the immediate recall procedure as an instrument.
Before Taylor's (1993) study, there was no experimental evidence for varied formats of the recall protocol used to evaluate L2 listening comprehension. She studied the effect on scores of variations in the immediate recall protocol procedure. Comments by the subjects on a post-test questionnaire indicated that many of them felt that not being permitted to take notes not only made the task more difficult but also may have influenced their listening comprehension. Many of them said that being allowed to take notes would have helped them remember more effectively or would have helped them understand more.
Other studies using the immediate recall protocol for listening comprehension have not permitted note taking. Only one study (Hale 8s
Courtney, 1994) investigated the effects of note taking on L2 listening comprehension. In that study, however, comprehension was measured by using multiple-choice questions, not the immediate recall protocol.
16 Other studies of L2 listening comprehension and note taking focus on
the classroom lecture. Some of these use the immediate recall protocol as a
measure, but the listening passage upon which the task is based is 15-30
minutes long. An investigation of the variation of the immediate recall protocol
to measure L2 listening comprehension with a short excerpt of nearly authentic
social discourse merited continuation. The variation was the permission to take notes. Taylor (1993) said that note taking during the procedure would merit
some observation.
The practice of note taking might, as subjects suggested, assist their comprehension or aid their memory. One potential disadvantage was that attention given to note ta k in g might cause subjects to fail to attend to the aural passage. This study gave the subjects the option of taking notes and gathered information r eg a rd in g the effects upon the scores of those who chose to do so.
The second portion of the study provided information about the relationship of use of strategies of the subjects with the protocol score. All subjects took the
Strategic Inventory for Language Learning (SILL), which graphs frequency of use of the following categories of strategies: memory, cognitive, compensation, metacognitive, affective, and social. The results of the SILL were also subjected to statistical analysis to find out whether there was correlation with L2 listening ability.
The purpose of the present study, then, was to continue to establish an empirical base for the use of the immediate recall protocol as an instrument for use in the assessment of listening comprehension. The study did sc by
17 retesting one of the variations used by Taylor (1993) and by attempting to find interaction, covariance, or correlation of protocol scores with other measures of student ability or individual differences.
Significance of the Study
Taylor's study provided insight regarding the most appropriate variant of the immediate recall protocol for L2 listening comprehension. Part 1 of this study provided more insight into the effect of language ability and the variation of the writing of the immediate recall protocol. It did this by partially replicating the Taylor (1993) study with a different population. The subjects, high school students in third-year Spanish classes, performed the variation of the task that produced the most propositions, in which subjects listened, wrote a first protocol and submitted it, listened a second time, and wrote a second and final protocol. A new variation was that half of the subjects were given the option of taking notes. The addition of this variation provides more data on variations of the protocol writing task. Just as important, the study investigated the effects of LI writing ability on the immediate recall protocol.
The data from Part 2 yielded further insight into the appropriate variation of the task. It may be that there are appropriate variations for learners with different strengths in LI skills or with a cluster of individual learner characteristics. These analyses contribute further information toward answering the question of the appropriate immediate recall protocol procedure as a measure of listening comprehension.
18 Purpose of the Study
The research questions were as follows.
1. Does varying the immediate recall protocol procedure by allowing the
subjects to take notes affect recall measures of the L2 listening
comprehension of students of third-year high school Spanish?
2. Does LI writing ability (as indicated by above median or below median
scores on an essay written in the LI) affect recall measures of listening
comprehension as measured by the immediate recall procedure?
3. Do the effects of procedure variation on the immediate recall protocol
interact with the LI writing ability level?
4. Is there any correlation among scores for LI writing ability, L2 course
grades and L2 listening comprehension scores as measured by the
immediate recall protocol?
5. Is there any correlation among scores for LI writing ability, L2 course
grades, the recall protocol writing scores, and a measure of language
learning strategy use (SILL)?
The purpose of Part 1 of this study was to examine the effect of LI writing ability and the effect of the note taking variation of the immediate recall protocol task. In Part 2, correlation among results of the protocol writing, measures of LI writing abflily, and L2 course grades for all subjects were studied. These data yield more insight into learner individual differences and any relation that they may have to task variation in the immediate recall protocol for listening comprehension.
19 The choice to take notes when given the option to do so may reflect individual learner difference factors. Consequently, subjects from each of the four groups completed instruments assessing individual learner strategies, the
Strategic Inventory for Language Learning (SILL). Specifically, th is researcher was concerned with any relationship among cognitive strategy choice, LI writing ability, and L2 language grades, as well as the variation of the protocol writing task itself. The concern was based on the need for more evidence to add to the theoretical base regarding L2 listening comprehension and its assessment by means of the immediate recall protocol.
Definition of Terms
Immediate recall protocol: The subject’s written reproduction of the L2 spoken
(taped) discourse or text, written in English, the Li of the subject, as accurately and as completely as possible.
Note taking: Writing down key words and ideas, in LI or L2, in abbreviated verbal, graphic, or numerical form in order to aid recall of the L2 passage and its replication in an immediate recall protocol for L2 listening comprehension.
LI writing ability: The subject's ability to write coherently and without difSculty on a fa m iliar topic in a limited tim e , as indicated by the subject's score on a composition written the day before the L2 listening task.
L2 language grade: The subject's ability in the L2 as indicated by averaging end of the year grades from current and previous high school Spanish courses.
20 Learning strategy: The behaviors of the L2 language learner, chosen in order to leam the L2. These are reported on the Strategy Inventory for Language
Learning.
SILL: The Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (Oxford, 1990), a self- report questionnaire to assess the frequency and scope of various strategies for learning foreign languages, consists of 80 items in six sub-scales.
Listening comprehension: For the purposes of this study, this term is defined by the subject's ability to write an immediate recall protocol in their L I,
English. (Protocols of two bilingual speakers were, however, used, because both first learned to write in English).
Assumptions
The assumptions of the study are listed below.
1. Subjects were willing and able to participate in the various parts of
th e study.
2. Subjects had no hearing impairments.
3. Subjects competed the essay, the protocols, and the SILL to the best of
their ability.
4. Subjects were able to take notes pertairiing to L2 listening passage, if
they had the desire and the option.
5. The subjects' ability to write an immediate recall protocol of a passage
is a measure of their listening comprehension of that passage.
21 6. The subjects' ability to write a formal essay in English, the LI, is a
measure of their overall LI writing ability when combined with their
English GPA-
7. Subjects had no known learning disabilities.
8. The Spanish of the passage, spoken by a native speaker, was
comprehensible to the subjects.
Limitations
1. Although the listening passage is authentic in the sense that it is the
spontaneous narrative of a native speaker, it has no visual elements and
no interaction between listener and speaker. With these characteristics
of the passage, the immediate recall protocol may only be said to assess
non-interactive listening.
2. The degree of difBculty of the listening passage was similar to that of
others used in recent studies on the immediate recall protocol for
listening. The passage may, however, have been more difBcult than
some passages in the second half, depending on subjects' background
knowledge. There is currently no quantitative scale to assess the degree
of difBculty of a passage, either by itself or in comparison with another
passage.
3. Given the lack of interaction and visual cues, some listeners may have
had little purpose for listening, beyond that of cooperating and
participating in the study.
2 2 CHAPTER 2
REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
Introduction
This chapter integrates several strands of research that pertain to L2 listening comprehension, the construct being investigated, as weU as the skills related to it, the instruments being used to evaluate performance, and relevant issues. In addition to a review of the literature on L2 listening comprehension, some studies of LI listening comprehension relate to the theoretical base, including theories of cognition and memory. Before discussing the immediate recall protocol as a measure of listening comprehension, it is important to note the relationship of reading comprehension and listening comprehension, because the protocol was first used as a measure of reading comprehension.
An overview of the research on the recall protocol will show its advantages and disadvantages as an assessment tool.
Research on note taking in L2 is recent and addresses note taking in a university lecture setting, which has some different features from notes that might be taken during the protocol-writing task. Most studies (e.g., Dunkel,
1988; Flowerdew, 1994; Rost, 1990) proceed firom an LI research base; consequently, it is necessary to include the findings in that area. Writing skills in the native language figure into the note taking process and the protocol writing process. A brief review of LI writing skills as they relate to LI listening 23 and to academic achievement will supplement the sections on note taking and the recall protocol. Finally, language learning strategies were assessed, so it is necessary to provide an overview of and information on the instruments to be used.
An Overview of Listening Comprehension
LI Listening—Processes
After several years of research and debate, the International Listening
Association arrived at a definition of listening: “...the process of receiving, constructing meaning from, and responding to spoken and/or nonverbal messages” (Wolvin, 1995). Massaro (1990) explained that strong evidence exists that listeners make continuous decisions, use multiple sources of information during processing, evaluate each element of information, and integrate it with others in order to make decisions about alternative meanings. Debate continues as to whether listening is one unified skill or a collection of sub skills.
Listening skills vary from individual to individual, and each person uses those skills differently. Bostrom (1990) reported that retention in listening is related to cognitive ability; yet, in normal LI listening situations, a listener retains only about 25% of the information received (Wolvin & Coakley, 1988).
A few insights about LI listening may provide some insight into the L2 listening process. LI listening and speaking skills are clearly interrelated; those who do poorly at speaking in LI are often unsatisfactory at listening in LI
(Anderson & Lynch, 1988). Further, LI listeners make mistakes, though mistakes are less frequent and less potentially serious than in L2 processes
(Long, 1990). Feyten (1991) found a positive relationship among LI listening ability and L2 overall ability, L2 oral skills, and L2 listening comprehension.
These insights derive from results of LI tests for listening.
24 LI Listening—Testing
Of the nearly 100 available instruments to test LI listening, a few have become widely used. Their popularity derives from ease of administration and scoring as well the fit between purpose for testing and the degree of reliability and validity they possess. Coakley and Wolvin (1986), Roberts (1985), and
Rubin and Shepherd (1985) reviewed several of the instruments, including the following widely used today: the Brown-Carlson Test, the Communication
Competency Assessment Instrument, the Kentucky Comprehensive Listening
Test, and The Watson-Barker Listening Test. The reviews do not recommend one test over the others, but Coakley and Wolvin (1986) compiled a list of 12 criteria that merit consideration when choosing an instrument. Only seven of the instruments existing today have over half of these criteria, and no existing test meets all of the following criteria:
25 1. use of oral/visual channels
2. more than a mere oral rendition of written materials
3. characteristics of spoken rather than written language
4. reflecting familiar, day-to-day experiences
5. focus on a variety of oral contexts: small group, public, etc.
6. focus on variety of purposes for listening
7. no discrimination of race, sex, religion, or national origin
8. no reliance on student's ability to read or write
9. tasks requiring students to demonstrate listening sktUs
10. allowance for a range of responses in format
11. recognition of the interactive nature of communication and
its incorporation into the response format
12. response format conducive to observation by tester, peer, and
testee (pp. 40-41)
These criteria could be used to help formulate a similar list for L2 listening tests, but a basic definition of the process is a prerequisite.
L2 Listening—Definition
Rivers (1980) presented a pragmatic example of the importance of listening comprehension, its function, and its interrelationship with other skills. The greatest difficulty for L2 travelers, she said, is not L2 speaking but what they cannot understand being spoken, either to them or around them.
When that lack of comprehension occurs, they cannot use speaking skills or participate in community life and thought. They cannot understand announcements, broadcasts, lectures, plays, films, or other similar insights into the culture. 26 An equally important issue is the nature of the process. Although a single ofScially accepted definition does not currently exist, L2 researchers in the early
1980s began developing taxonomies of listening, some of which focussed on the purpose for listening. Wolvin and Coakley (1993) and Dunkel (1991) cited and discussed the taxonomies developed by Lund (1990), Richards (1985), and Ur
(1984). Byrnes (1984) proposed another method of analysis. She suggested that researchers identify “certain features that make up the totality of listening comprehension behavior and then indicate which feature bundles are more appropriate for which listening tasks” (pp. 327-328).
Lee and VanPatten (1995) proceeded from the Wolvin and Coakley (1988)
(LI) definition of listening, a modified version of which was recently adopted by the International Listening Association: Listening is the act of perceiving, attending to, and assigning meaning to aural stimuli. They discussed these elements in terms of L2 listening and concluded with the reminder that meaning may be retained and acted upon, but exact form may not be remembered. That particular characteristic of LI and L2 Listening may have important implications for those taking hstening tests such as the immediate recall protocol, and some of those implications are addressed in the section on testing.
L2 Listening and Relationships to Other LI and T.2 Skills
Several researchers, both from the field of LI and from the field of L2, discussed the similarities and differences between listening and reading
(Bernhardt & James, 1987; Flowerdew, 1994; Reves & Levine, 1988; Rost,
1990; Shohamy & Inbar, 1988; Wolvin & Coakley, 1988). Both processes involve perception and interpretation of discourse. They also require interactive work and active participation of the comprehender, who m ust have overall
27 language skills (Reves & Levine, 1988). Rost (1990) said that the key differences between listening and reading are that, in reading, one has more control; one can use multiple visual signals simultaneously; and one may backtrack. In listening, however, the information in the text is “packaged” differently, and understanding speech may present several difBculties, a few of which are irregular pauses, false starts, and variation in pronunciation, especially with phonological boundaries (Flowerdew, 1994).
Stanovich and Siegel (1994) found processing differences in children with
(LI) reading disabilities at the phonological level, one area in which many L2 listeners have difficulty. Rubin (1994) said that learning disabilities in LI and in L2 are a direct result of a deficit in LI phonological processing. This and other recent research for LI and for L2 have continued to uncover relationships or similarities between r e a d in g and listening and the degree of transfer from LI to L2. Reves and Levine (1988) found that listening and reading are similar, but listening is a more integrated skill, and several subsküls aid in holistic comprehension. That is, the L2 listener does not process every word but negotiates the most reasonable interpretation of what the speaker intends to say.
Ringbom (1992), in a longitudinal analysis of adult L2 learners, found that, during processing, oral L2 input did not activate formally similar LI items as does written text. In other pertinent research, Haeneggi and Perfetti (1992) found that general (LI) language comprehension processes, as measured by results on listening comprehension tests, word decoding tasks, and working memory constraints contributed independently to reading comprehension.
Townsend, Carrithers, and Bever (1987) found that less skilled (LI) readers are also relatively less skilled in listening. Lastly, Griffin (1993) found that LI and
28 L2 reading skills shared a c o m m on store of knowledge and that L2 listening comprehension had the highest correlation to L2 reading and contributed the most to the variance in scores. The degree of generalizability of these studies will become clearer in the future with replication and more research, but one may observe some degree of interrelationship between LI listening and reading skills, between L2 listening and reading skills, and among LI Listening and reading skills with L2 listening and reading skills, in varying proportions.
Elements of L2 Listening Processes
L2 listening processes require the interaction of many elements within the individual listener and within the listening situation. These elements include but are not limited to the inner processes, the text or listening material, the interlocutor, the listener, the task or situation, the degree of authenticity of text and task, and, when applicable, the L2 test. In addition, the ability to process in L2 is developmental, as it is in LI, and the stage of development may affect the interaction of the above-named elements.
The Developmental Nature of L2 Listening Processes
Vygotsky stressed the developmental nature of (LI) verbal processes of human beings in general, saying that development proceeds along two unified but distinct paths, the biological and the cultural. Development of each process is similar to that of other mental operations involving the use of signs, but each is also distinct from the other. For instance, the pattern of development of writing is not the same as the pattern of development of speech. (Elsasser &
John-Steiner, 1993; Vygotsky, 1978). Lund (1991) found evidence of developmental differences in L2; reading and listening are not only distinct in developmental processes but also in developmental schedules.
29 Lund (1991) and Rost and Ross (1991) described the experience of the L2 listening process at various stages of development. For instance, during initial contacts with the L2, the listener perceives a stream of undifferentiated noises.
In the next stage, one begins to distinguish acoustic and syntactic patterning but m ust leam to distinguish what is crucial for understanding in the particular situation. Beginning learners must allot most of their attention to phonological, then lexical, problems and do not have the extra attention for more advanced metacognitive strategies. Later, the listener develops the ability to recognize fa m ilia r elements but cannot interrelate them (Rivers, 1980). The process continues with the abüity to “chunk” information and interrelate it.
As win be explained more fully in the section on L2 Listening processes, more than linguistic information enters into the process. Background knowledge, in the form of schemas and scripts, organizes world knowledge, factual knowledge, personal experience, and knowledge of text forms and situations. One’s life and experience in society and culture influence the organization (Ausubel, Novak & Hanesian, 1978). One pays attention to that which the culture says is important (Lantolf & Appel, 1994). A listener needs a certain amount of time, experience in life, and interaction in society and culture
(Vygotslq^, 1986) in order to develop the schemas and scripts. The expanded material within the scripts and schemas may then interact with incoming material during listening and help the listener to draw inferences and fiU in gaps in understanding.
Byrnes (1984) said that the pattern of development in these areas may not be directly upward or even in an ascending spiral. It may be a discontinuous process. Because of the discontinuous nature of the process and because of the many skills that require development and strengthening, learners benefit
30 from “a veritable smorgasbord of listening data together with focused, task-
orienting listening activities based on recent linguistic findings" regarding
speech processing and cognitive strategies (Dunkel, 1986, p. 105). Several
authors (Anderson & Lynch, 1988; Celce-Murcia, 1994; James, 1985; Hamp-
Lyons, 1982; Hieke, 1987; Oxford, 1990) gave examples of several such
activities that could aid development of these processes and strategies.
Cognitive Functions of the L2 Listening Process
LI listening sküls do not automatically transfer to L2 listening ability;
however, the L2 process is highly similar though not identical to the LI
listening process. Like the LI listening process, the L2 process is an active one
of making inferences by using background knowledge and partial information.
In addition to physiological factors to process sound and other situational data,
L2 listeners process information linguistically, inferentially, and schematically.
Decisions made about the schema or “script" of the listening text have an effect
on the inferences drawn and thus on the final interpretation of the text.
Background knowledge, composed of individual factual knowledge,
memory, and experience, is organized into prototypes of sequences that help to
define well-known situations in life and types of discourse. These are called
schemas. Another set of knowledge, a script, consists of probable sequences of
events and roles in fa m ilia r situations but not of precise words (Anderson &
Lynch, 1988). Both scripts and schemas can have either helpful or impeding
effects on comprehension, depending on the schema or script that the
listener chooses at some point in the listening process. Just as we have scripts
for sociocultural events such as going to a wedding, we have schemas for various types of text, including various types of narrative. These can aid in
understanding a narrative or other text, or, as Rubin (1994) explained, they can
31 lead the listener to incorrect assumptions. The lack of background knowledge
may result in the listener’s erroneously imposing one’s schema onto a passage,
as did one group of American students of Spanish listening to a passage on the
gold rush in Chile. They overextended their background knowledge of the
American gold rush (Long, 1990). In contrast, background knowledge aided
subjects of Christian background in recalling more from a passage about
Christianity than from a passage about Moslem practices. The converse was
true for the subjects of Moslem background (Markham & Latham, 1987, cited in Rubin, 1994).
Schemas and scripts, formed from life experience in the sociocultural context or from more abstract learning of factual information, may constrain or enhance the comprehension of extended discourse. The learner also uses them to fill in gaps, eliminate implausibilities, and draw inferences to join parts of the text into a coherent structure (Rost, 1990). Still other linguistic information is processed. Flowerdew (1994) listed types of linguistic information that are interactively processed at the same time as the schematic information. These groups of information, while interacting, also facilitate each other during the processes: phonological, syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic. Rubin (1994) added grammatical, lexical, and sentence-level information to the elements being processed.
A widely used metaphor for the manner in which the text is processed refers to the bottom-up/top-down manner, a relationship with which Flowerdew
(1994) disagreed, because it implies a hierarchical relationship among the material—from the bottom, small, linguistic elements, to the top, with large inferences drawn from schema about the general meaning of the text. Several researchers agreed that a variety of processes interact at several levels
32 including in a parallel and simultaneous manner, although research is stUl in progress about the exact manner of the processing (Flowerdew, 1994;
Rost, 1990; Rubin, 1994).
Rubin (1994) discussed one further element of processing. Heuristic strategies to understand or to make decisions about the text—or, in collaborative situations, to negotiate meaning—are a highly individual matter, though researchers have been able to make some generalizations to differentiate strategies of the successful listener brom the unsuccessful listener (Bacon,
1992c; Chaudron et al., 1994; Dixon, 1992; Long, 1991; Lund, 1991; Rost,
1990; Rost & Ross, 1991; Rubin, 1994). Swaffar and Bacon (1993) have suggested that Stanovich’s (1980) compensatory model for LI would extend the field of knowledge of what listeners do when they lack automaticity (that is, how quickly one can retrieve information or perform a sub task). The degree of automaticity is a partly a product of development and partly of experience or practice (Stanovich & Siegel, 1994) and is an important individual characteristic that affects processing.
The L2 Listener—Individual Characteristics
The L2 listener brings to the listening situation several sets of knowledge and several individual characteristics such as age, gender, motivation, affective qualities, intelligence, memory, and processing abilities for both LI and L2 in the various modalities. The sets of knowledge are stored for reference; knowledge is socially and culturally based, but to some degree, also idiosyncratic. Anderson and Lynch (1988) divided the sets of knowledge into three categories: schematic, contextual, and systemic. Schematic knowledge includes factual and sociocultural background knowledge. Context knowledge encompasses the degree of knowledge about the situation (its setting, registers,
33 and participants, for instance) and of the text or co-text (what has been said
and what will be said). In the third category of systemic knowledge is the listener’s knowledge of the language system, including knowledge of the semantic, syntactic, and phonological elements.
An individual’s strengths and deficits in each of the previously mentioned characteristics and knowledge stores wül interact to present whatever advantages and whatever problems an L2 listener experiences in a particular situation and at a particular stage of development. Each factor by itself and as it combines with other factors has been the subject of extensive research, including, but not limited to, studies by Celce-Murcia, 1994; Dixon, 1991; and
Dunkel, 1986 and 1991. (See Rubin, 1994, and Dunkel et al., 1993, for further studies.) This study also involved individual characteristics such as memory,
LI writing ability, and cognitive strategy, which are discussed more fully in separate sections.
The Interlocutor
The interlocutor in a collaborative listening situation plays an important role in creating and negotiating meaning. Rost and Ross (1991) said that L2 learners need to be in an optimal environment for input. In addition to topics that would help to develop comprehension abüily, “they may need the right people...to test out their developing understanding...” (p. 236).
In a non-coUaborative listening situation, the interlocutor continues to have an indirect impact on the meaning of the message, but that impact is due to the listener’s perception of the interlocutor. Interlocutor gender may influence the attention that a listener pays to the content of the text. Chaika
(1994) reported that the speaker’s gender affects his or her persuasiveness, especially when gender accompanies a style that is considered gender-
34 appropriate. Males were equally effective with other males and with females, whether their speech was “tentative” or not. Female speakers with a tentative, nonaggressive style were more effective with males than with other females.
Markham (1988) studied the effects of the gender and the level of expertness of the interlocutor on performance level of L2 listeners. He found that ESL Listeners paid closer attention to a male speaker but that the expertness factor had a neutralizing effect on gender bias. In other words, if there is a possibility of a gender bias, an introduction of the interlocutor as an expert on the topic upon which she is to speak may be an intervention strategy.
Rather than test the intervention strategy, the present study used a male speaker similar in background to the person in the Taylor (1993) study, in order to replicate as many of the conditions of that study as possible.
Characteristics of Listening Texts
Introduction: ease or “listenabüitv”.
Although there are no quantitative scales to determine the difficulty of a passage, text difficulty has been a topic of discussion in the literature. Samuels
(1984) discussed factors “inside and outside the head”—characteristics of the listener and of the listening situation—that affected comprehension in the native language. Factors outside the head included the discussion topic (if the listener had no choice in topic), speaker awareness of listener needs, speaker clarity, and context. For a non-native speaker (NNS), the Hst of interacting factors is longer and more complicated (Anden>on & Lynch, 1988; Bernhardt & James,
1987; Richards, 1985; Rost, 1990; Shohamy & Inbar, 1988). Rubin (1994) organized text characteristics into the following categories: acoustic variables
(especially temporal variables such as speech rate); morphological and syntactic modifications; and text type (for example, lecture, interview, or narrative). Lee
35 and VanPatten (1995) and Anderson and Lynch (1988) both discussed the
nature and degree of collaboration between speaker and listener required in the
situation. AH of these factors contribute to what may be considered the nature
of the text. These factors interact and affect the level of ease or difSculty.
Another characteristic that helps to determine the level of diEBculty is
whether the input is static, dynamic, or abstract. These terms refer to the
complexity of relationships among the elements of the text, such as people,
events, and ideas (Anderson & Lynch, 1988). A dynamic text may tell a story or
recount an incident. If there are many shifts of scene or time, if characters drift
in and out of the account, if the number of potentially confusable elements is
high, the text wiU have more difBculty. Another term for these potential
difBculties is text density (Shohamy & Inbar, 1988).
Text density is one of the factors that affect the hstenabüity of a passage,
along with thematic redundancy, the number of features of oral rather than
literate speech, and the genre of the text (such as narrative, didactic, or social)
(Shohamy & Inbar, 1988). In many cases, narrative text may be easier than
expositoiy, and chronological development may be easier than flashback
(Rubin, 1994), depending on the density of the text. All of these characteristics can affect not only the actual processing of the passage but also the listener’s perception of its ease or difficulty, including the rate of speech.
Rate of speech.
One of the areas of difficulty more frequently listed by subjects in the post-listening questionnaire of the Taylor (1993) study and this study, and a frequent complaint of students in foreign language classrooms, is that the native speaker (NS) speaks too quickly. The perception of rapidity may be affected by the amount of pausing (Blau, 1990; Richards, 1985). Rubin (1994)
36 pointed out that there are different speech rates for radio, interview,
conversation, and lecture, in addition to the differences from language to
language and culture to culture. Flowerdew ( 1994) explained that non-native
speakers have difBculty with speed of dehveiy because they need time to use
compensatory strategies, such as assigning syntax, predicting what words
would be in the content, and attempting to decode. When non-native speakers
cannot use inferential processing, they rely on decoding, which is time-
consuming and less effective.
Slowing the rate of speech for non-native speakers to less than average,
however, does not significantly aid comprehension (Blau, 1990, 1991; Brumfit
& Mitchell, 1991; Derwing, 1989; Griffiths, 1990; Rader, 1990). Blau (1990) investigated the comprehensibüily of the same speech sample that had been
slowed or that contained pauses. She found that pauses containing natural hesitation markers, such as those used in social conversation, aided comprehension significantly and more than blank pauses, without sound, but slowing the speech rate did not aid comprehension.
Orality.
OraHly refers to one end of a continuum of features, the other end of which is literary, that helps to determine the hstenabüity of a passage.
Shohamy and Inbar (1988) cautioned against oversimplifying the ease or difficulty of a text merely on this dimension. Oral text can be complex or dense, and hterate text, depending on several factors, including its rhetorical mode (for example, narrative, persuasive, didactic), can be relatively simple. Certain features of orahty, however, are desirable to those who select authentic texts.
These features include the following the degree of planning by the speaker; the degree of shared context; the speaker’s degree of involvement with the audience;
37 prosodie features (for example, gestures, intonation, stresses); voice and clarity of delivery; and text function (for example, to inform, to persuade, to socialize).
Byrnes (1984), Dunkel (1986), and Rubin (1994) said that unplanned speech is often filled with hesitations, self-corrections, redundancy and other paralinguistic cues that have the potential to help the L2 Listener.
Perception of acoustic variables.
Speech perception is the way in which L2 listeners break up streams of speech sound (Richards, 1985; Rubin, 1994). Perception may be easier or more difficult, depending on the degree and type of sandhi (phonological modification of juxtaposed forms), stress and rhythm. Rubin (1994) said that there are 10 categories of phonological error found in which native speakers make fewer errors, but the point is that even NS still make errors. Visual cues may enhance perception (Dunkel, 1986; Long, 1990), but they are more potentially helpful to the less proficient L2 listener (Rubin, 1994).
Morphological and syntactic variables.
Knowledge of syntax, combined with real-world knowledge, helps a listener form chunks of meaning, or propositions (Richards, 1985). hi addition, pre-listening exercises or other advance organizers (Ausubel, et al., 1978) may aid in processing at the syntactic level (Beme, 1995; Dixon, 1991; Long, 1991), because they help the listener to formulate propositional sense through inference and deduction. The listener continuously updates these inferences during the course of listening and the process of forming a schematic representation (Rost, 1990) or discourse model (Bernhardt 8s James, 1987) of the listening text. No significant effects have been found for simplified versus complex forms of texts (Cervantes 8s Gainer, 1992), but redundancy in the form of a repeated noun has been found to be helpful to many listeners.
38 A distinction m ust be made in the type of redundancy, however, because if the redundancy makes the text more elaborate, beginning and low- intermediate listeners often perceive the redundancy as additional rather than alternative information (Anderson 8s Lynch, 1988). Proficiency level and type of redundancy interact and wül determine the degree of enhancement to comprehension (Rubin, 1994). Discourse markers have been found to be helpful to comprehension, as long as they are signals of major transitions or emphasis in a lecture (Rost, 1990). There also seems to be a hierarchy of word order comprehension difBculty; Subject-Verb-Object construction is easiest to understand. No studies regarding effects of morphological complexity were found (Rubin, 1994).
Sociocultural variables.
Rubin (1994) would classify many of the elements in this category as interlocutor variables. Anderson and Lynch (1988), however, formed a continuum between interactional and transactional speech; the purpose of the former is primarily social and of the latter, exchange of information. This continuum helps to clarify the role of both the speaker and the listener. One may envision another continuum between collaborative and non-collaborative discourse (Lee 8& VanPatten, 1995), which reflects the degree of involvement of the listener with the speaker in negotiating topic and meaning (Bernhardt 8s
James, 1987). Both role and degree of involvement help to determine the degree of explicitness of information (Anderson Sc Lynch, 1988), because there can be no negotiation of explicitness if the discourse is non-coUaborative.
Organization of information (Anderson 8s Lynch, 1988) may affect the density and listenability of the text (Shohamy 8s Inbar, 1988), depending on the degree of collaboration. Visual cues (in the form of gestures and other non-verbal
39 signals) that accompany the message may also be influenced by the social
situation, depending on the d^ree of collaboration between the speaker and the
Listener (Bernhardt & James, 1987; Lee 8c VanPatten, 1995; Rubin, 1994).
Sociocultural factors, then, are essential to the development of speech and
thought in the individual, as Vygotsky (1978, 1986) described, and they continue to influence the listening process.
Authentic texts.
For various reasons beyond the scope of this review, many L2 researchers and educators have advocated the use of authentic speech samples that become the texts for listening tasks, either for practice or for testing (Bacon, 1992a 8 e b;
Byrnes, 1984; Dixon, 1992; Fahmy 8c Belton, 1990; Glisan & Shrum, 1994;
James, 1985; Hamp-Lyons, 1982; Rivers, 1980). James (1985) said that one example to consider as authentic is material that was produced for consumption by native speakers. Rivers (1980) said that such materials should have a high probability of occurring in real Life and should include details involving the customs and behavior of the target culture.
The excerpt prepared for this study fits into the category of deliberate free speech, “as it occurs in interviews and discussions, which has a higher information value but maintains some of the interactional and production- related characteristics of spontaneous speech” (Byrnes, 1984, p. 19). Several researchers found results to confirm that L2 listeners can indeed process authentic material at any level, depending on the task (Bacon, 1992b; Glisan 8s
Shrum, 1994; James, 1985; Lund, 1990). Further, in some studies, results indicated that those who had listened to authentic materials showed better L2
40 listening skills than those who had not (Glisan & Shrum, 1994). Besides the nature of the materials, there are other factors to consider in planning or choosing a listening task.
L2 Listening Tasks
Rubin (1994) explained that learners modify their behavior according to the task they are given. That is, the task influences learner behavior. The type and the nature of the listening task aflfect the number and type of propositions that the listener recalls as well as the number and type of distortions that the learner makes of the original text, Lund (1991) found. Rubin cautioned that output tasks should not rely heavily or exclusively on memory or writing ability.
Such a reliance may interfere with comprehension and may make the task diflicult.
Rost (1990) created a two-dimensional grid to delineate the difBculty of tasks along two continua, the degree of understanding and the degree of linguistic encoding required. For instance, echoic response or imitation would be among the easiest listening tasks. Partial dictation, listening cloze, and cloze recall are examples of more difficult tasks. Paraphrasing, recalling text, written recall and comprehension question response tasks are among the most difficult tasks. These are guidelines to follow when choosing tasks for several purposes that may include instruction and practice; they are, however, especially important to consider when designing tests.
Elements of this Study
Testing a n d L2 Listening
Rost (1990) added some words of caution regarding the use of authentic texts: “Real life conditions of listening that the instructor seeks to create in the classroom may be lost with ‘genuine’ texts because they do not lead to
41 authenticity of purpose” (p. 159). Schmidt-Rinehart (1992) expressed this criticism of the recall protocol task. It is important to note that the criticism is not with the text but with the task. Beme (1993) found that assessment task was a significant factor in L2 comprehension performance. Authentic materials can be misused or ül used in many different ways. Authenticity of purpose is an issue related to validity, which must be considered along with reliability when constructing tests and making decisions based on results of testing.
Bachman (1991) and others (Buck, 1992; Dunkel, et al., 1993; Glisan &
Shrum, 1994; Jones, 1989; Long 8s Maciân, 1994; Rost, 1990; Shohamy 8s
Inbar, 1988) stressed three basic ideas to keep in mind when constructing tests: what a test score represents, the correspondence of abilities measured on tests with abilities used in non-test situations, and the correspondence of test tasks with the characteristics of the L2 used in context.
First, a test score represents a complexity of multiple influences. Several of those influences on L2 listening comprehension have been outlined in previous sections. Swaffar and Bacon (1993) said that “multidimensional comprehension necessitates a multidimensional teaching and testing program”
(p. 131). Valdes, Lessa, Echeverriarza, and Pino (1988) also advocated using many different kinds of measures. Dunkel (1993) et al. presented a model with multi-faceted listening comprehension tests to fit the complex process with the specific purposes of the assessment.
Second, the language abilities measured on tests m ust correspond to the language abilities used in nontest situations. This requirement is an issue that reflects content, procedural, and construct validity (Buck, 1992; Rost, 1990).
These types of validity concern the degree to which the items in the test adequately reflect samples of the ability to be assessed. That is, the test should
42 incorporate the theoretical idea of the skills being tested and distinguish among those who have gained the targeted sldll. The test taker must be given an opportunity to use contextual knowledge. In addition, scoring should focus on meaning rather than form and provide an opportunity for a range of reasonable responses (Rost, 1990).
Third, the characteristics of tasks in the test must correspond to the characteristics of the L2 used in context. The task and the language used in it should reflect activities in actual target situations. The more abstract the information or the more removed from context the task and the language, the more difflcult and possibly the less valid the assessment. Richards (1985) said that the completion of some L2 listening tasks depends more on reading or general intelligence than on listening skills. The tasks must adequately or actually require skills and behavior that are part of L2 listening in the real world. As Dunkel et al. (1993) summarized, comprehension and the ability to apply what has been comprehended are not the same. For instance, a subject may understand the information in the aural passage but have poor reading skills and thus not be able to read the questions well on a test comprised totally of multiple-choice items. Models of testing need not only validation but also correspondence with appropriate purposes.
Finally, Rost (1990) observed that the issue of reliability m ust also be considered when choosing texts and tasks for testing. He said that reliability is a first condition for a test but is often achieved at the expense of other aspects of a test that make it useful, such as its maximal relevance to the learning situation. Another risk in overemphasizing reliability “is that it may sacrifice important aspects of content validity* (p. 180). The concern for reliability, then, m ust be weighed along with concern for validity.
43 The Immediate Recall Protocol and its Scoring
The immediate recall protocol is an instrument often used to test reading or listening. The procedure varies, but the general format is that subjects are exposed to written or aural text one or more times, after which they tell as much as they can recall about the text. In most cases, the recall is written, but it has been used with younger children who give their recall orally (Chan,
Burtis, Scardamalia, & Bereiter, 1992). Johnson (1970) developed a scoring
^stem for the recall protocol for use in a study on reading. Other LI studies, however, have used the immediate recall protocol as an instrument to test reading and to test listening. (See Johnson, 1985; and Wolvin and Coakley,
1988, for examples). Bernhardt (1991), Block (1986), Connor (1984), and Lee
(1986) have used the protocol to study L2 reading processes and to compare the
Johnson (1970) scoring system with one later developed by B. J. F. Meyer
(1985). (See Connor, 1984, for further discussion.)
Jam es (1986) first advocated the use of the immediate recall protocol for
L2 listening, for teaching, for assessment, and for testing. One feature that makes it a desirable instrument is that it provides no leading information about the passage content, in the manner that multiple choice, cloze or other traditional instruments do (Devüle 8s Chaloub-Devdle, 1993). Further, it focuses the student’s or the subject’s attention on meaning in the text, not on units of text itself (Bernhardt 8s James, 1987). Recalls written in the subject’s
LI help to avoid encoding difficulties that might obscure what a subject did understand but was unable to express (Rost 8s Ross, 1991).
Despite these desirable characteristics, the instrument has received some criticism. Protocol scoring is done on the basis of propositions or pausal units.
A proposition is defined as a unit of meaning that always consists of a predicate
44 (a “relation") and one or more arguments that belong to it (Connor, 1984). A pausal unit was defined by Johnson (1970) as a group of words grouped together and ended with a pause, the function of which could be “to catch a breath, to give emphasis, or to enhance meaning* (p. 13). Buck (1991) said that constructing the propositional model for the protocol poses a problem, because the construction involves more than linguistic knowledge; it is also an inferential process. Sometimes, there are no objective criteria to judge the appropriateness of a specific interpretation. Further, it may sometimes be impossible to separate propositional analysis from inference. These issues affect construct validity, said Buck (1991).
Schmidt-Rinehart (1992) observed a limitation in the authenticity of the protocol task and said that a person would rarely be asked to perform such a task in real life. The writing portion of the task may present some problems for those who have difficulties in LI, noted Connor (1984), because it requires a change in perspective, perhaps simple grammatical changes from first to third person, or perhaps more extensive changes in point of view. Block (1986) noted that writers of protocols, both in LI and L2, who were poor readers mixed in their own associations (background knowledge) with passage information.
Finally, the concern of this study was the load on the subject’s memory when not being permitted to take notes. Both Rader (1990) and Taylor (1993) corroborated this concern.
Memory and Language Processing
This section discusses three currently used theories of memory, the schematic, the cormective, and the Vygotskian model. Schematic organization of memory originated with the assimilationist theory of David P. Ausubel and, later, the works of J. R. Anderson and others. Rumelhart, Norman, and their
45 associates, working together as the Parallel Distributed Processing (POP) group, investigated multistore (connective) models of memory, although Wolvin and
Coakley (1988) noted that attempts are being made to develop alternative theories and to correct and extend the multistore model. Followers of Vygotsky continued after his death to develop his theory on memory.
One difference in the theories is the conceptualization of the way that information is organized. According to schema theory, information is organized hierarchically, with the meaningful information being more accessible in the hierarchical structure. New ideas are assimilated to anchoring ideas and are retained and become available for further use (Ausubel et al., 1978). According to connectionist theories, each bit of information forms interconnections with other bits or chunks of information; the more often a connection is used, the more quickly information becomes accessible (Medin & Ross, 1992).
Information storage moves along multiple parallel paths rather than through a hierarchical structure, with multiple interconnections among chunks. The more frequently a connection is used between one bit and another, the more quickly the information travels in subsequent use.
In the theory of Vygotsky (1978, 1986) culture and society influence the development of individual processes such as memory. Human society uses both concrete, material tools and psychological tools, such as signs, some of which are language. Human beings actively use signs to help them remember and to function in other ways in their environment (Vygotsky, 1986). Signs, then, are the basis of a dynamic memory system. Memory is not a repository of material but rather the ^stem that transforms material, analyses it, deconstructs it, and reprocesses it before reproduction (Leontiev, 1981).
46 Lantolf and Appel (1994) explained that information is retrieved from memory by means of a mediating device, the ^stem of signs and language that help to form thought. That mediating device is socioculturally formed, so that mental and sociocultural material are bound together. Memory, according to Leontiev (1981), is a p^chological process in which a person incorporates and uses elements that have a well-known and socially accepted meaning and are available to conscious grasp. Memory includes (re)creating meaning by use of a psychological ^stem that has been developed in and through the sociocultural environment (Leontiev, 1981). Several different processes are linked and blended into a cognitive system.
The notion of several different processes and ^stem s is also common to the theory of working memory. Several recent studies discuss the role of short term memory (STM) in the native language (LI) listening process (Bjorklund,
Schneider, Cassel, & Ashley, 1994; Ferguson 8s Hegarty, 1994; Futransky,
1992; Greenburg 8s Roscoe, 1988; Joiner, 1986; Martin, Shelton, 8s Yaffee,
1994; Medin 8s Ross, 1992; Rost, 1990; Wolvin 8s Coakley, 1988). Studies discussing or investigating the role of memory in the L2 listening process are also numerous (Connor, 1984; de Guerrero, 1994; Long, 1989; O’Malley 8s
Chamot, 1990, 1993; Ringbom, 1992; Service, 1987).
STM retains pertinent information and permits it to be compared and integrated with existing information, but STM has constraints (Medin 8s Ross,
1992). In order to keep recent information available, the capacity of STM is limited to a few items at a time, and newly entering items can crowd out some of the earlier items. “If subjects cannot rehearse the items, they do not remember them for more than a few seconds” (p. 175). Rehearsal is attending to the stimulus, either by focus or repetition (Wolvin 8s Coakley, 1988).
47 A stimulus that does not receive attention by an LI listener will be lost within a range of 20 to 60 seconds. STM is limited not only by time but also by the number of stimuli. This number is constrained to a range of five to nine units or “chunks” of information. Comments by some of the Taylor (1993) subjects and by the non-note takers of the present study indicate that the 99-
100 chunks of information within 124-132 seconds were an overload on STM.
The task that these subjects performed basically asked them to process one new chunk on the average of every 1.25 seconds without pause, and to continue this for more than 60 seconds. Therefore, a portion of the material probably went unrehearsed, and some of the material, though it was not unfamiliar, had not attained automaticity (“the development of processes that can be run off without the use of attentional resources,” Medin 8s Ross, 1992, p. 513).
Service (1987) described the processes of STM specifically in relation to
L2. An area called Baddely’s Articulatory Loop stores phonological material and acts as a subvocal rehearsal system, where, for a few seconds, partially recognized material can be temporarily stored before attempting a final interpretation. Service said that L2 comprehension makes extensive demands on memory, so that there is an almost constant overload on working memory.
More research into working memory wiU help to determine strategies and aids for coping with the process. Other researchers have found that inner speech may work as a coping strategy.
Inner Speech
Introduction.
de Guerrero (1994) found that inner speech in L2 was used to aid memory in several ways: to store and retrieve verbal data; to self-teach; to evaluate
48 one’s own or someone else’s language; to clarify thought; to create, organize and
experiment with L2 oral or written text; to imagine conversations, and to talk to
oneself. Johnson (1993) cited the following as providing grounding for the
theory of inner speech: Dance (1979); Johnson (1982, 1984); Korba (1986,
1989); Luria (1966, 1981); Sokolov (1972) and Vygotsky (1986). The work of
Vygotsky is the focus of this review.
Some of the literature (Bernhardt 8s James, 1987; Coakley & Wolvin,
1986; Zamel, 1987) described or even labeled unspoken mental language as
“inner speech,” the term that Vygotsky used when he first analyzed it in the
1930s. This analysis was only part of the Russian p^chologist’s work; he
unified the studies of semiotics, neurolinguistics, psychology, and
psycholinguistics into a framework that could explore and explain the human
mind’s development and function. After his early death, his followers, A. R.
Luria and A. N. Leontiev, refined his ideas into a “sociocultural theory of human
mental processing” (Lantolf 8s Appel, 1994, p. 3). Each culture constructs
artifacts or tools, which include symbols and elaborate sign systems—for
example, language. These artifacts mediate the transformation of elementary
mental processes into higher order ones.
A very simple example may help anyone unfamiliar with the theory.
Language is a sign system—a tool that one uses to think as well as to speak.
Without language as a tool to communicate, one might have to resort to referring to concrete objects. Even then, one would have to develop a sign for referring to them, such as the gesture of pointing. Language helps to organize mental processes and to put them into terms that we ourselves and others can understand. Thus, the artifact or tool of language mediates the elementary process of seeing, perhaps, an apple, and being able to think or communicate
49 about the apple later, without having to have an apple. One has a word instead, so language acts as a mediator. One mental process that helps to mediate is inner speech. Vygotsky (1986) described this process as being not a function in itself or an internal aspect of talking. It is an interface between the cultural system and one’s own private language and imagery.
The development of inner speech.
Both thought and speech develop as social, cultural tools. A child’s primary speech is social and communicative but soon expands to egocentric speech, which is verbalized but private (Wertsch, 1985). That is, the child is his or her own interlocutor. Because of the relationship of speaker to interlocutor, egocentric speech has distinctions from social speech. For instance, it is more condensed. The syntax changes, and discourse becomes more predicated, that is, abbreviated to nearly telegraphic proportion, yet expressing the most meaning. Vygotsky (1986) observed egocentric speech extensively and found that it was the precursor of the next developmental stage of thought and language, inner speech:
Egocentric speech is inner speech in its functions; it is speech on
its way inward, intimately tied up with the ordering of the child’s
behavior, already partly incomprehensible to others, yet still overt
in form and showing no tendency to change into whispering or
any other sort of half-soundless speech, (p. 86)
Wertsch (1985) explained that the entire purpose for egocentric speech is to move inward to culminate in inner speech. The characteristics of egocentric speech parallel those of inner speech and formed the basis of Vygotsky’s
50 observation and study of inner speech. As egocentric speech moves inward, it becomes an autonomous speech function, a separate plane of verbal thought that has several functions.
Johnson (1993), citing Korba (1986), said that inner speech has functions parallel to other forms of spoken language. It helps hum an beings relate to their various environments—physical, psychological, or social. It regulates or controls human behavior. It performs the critical function of developing and maintaining symbolic thought. Each of these three functions would aid in recall after note taking.
Thought and speaking.
Vygotsky (1986) said that thought and speech might be conceived schematically as two intersecting circles. These coincide in the overlapping parts to generate verbal thought. Not all forms of thought are verbal, and not all forms of speech contain thought. For instance, my grandfather's repetitive vocalization of a car advertisement did not necessarily contain thought.
Conversely, some students have read a poem by Wordsworth that refers to
“thought too deep for words” and understood, perhaps even without their being able to explain in words.
In the area of intersection of the two circles that Vygotslqr described, one’s general intelligence and one’s thinking that involves the use of tools lie in close association with one another, but they are not figurative Siamese twins. Takala
(1983) explained that thought and word are not connected by a primary bond.
The connection between the two is formed in this intersection, and the cormection changes and grows during the course of development of thinking and speech.
51 Structure and characteristics of inner speech.
Inner speech is closely associated with thought, but it has several unique
structural and functional characteristics. Johnson (1993) outlined four
features.
1. It is intrapersonal, designed for the self, not for use
with others.
2. It is silent.
3. Its syntax is compressed, meaning predicated, elliptical,
and crushed; there is little syntactic elaboration.
4. It has semantic embeddedness; one word can refer to much
more than it could if it were being used in a personal
exchange, because the user always knows the subject.
Because of these characteristics, said Johnson, inner speech is an extremely efficient and rapid way to decode, store, and encode information to make associations between concepts (pp. 172-174).
Several of these characteristics of inner speech resemble the descriptions of notes taken during LI and L2 listening studies. These notes were described as idiosyncratic (sim ila r to egocentric), and the most efficient notes were described as “terse,” (Dunkel, 1988), which would fit the characteristics of compression and embeddedness. Inner speech may have served as an aid in note taking during the recall protocol task of this study, in which many subjects listened to L2 input but may take notes in their LI.
The degree of compactedness of inner speech illustrates its economy and therefore its usefulness. Lantolf and ^ p e l (1994) described it as “a cognitive black hole," in which a single word is so laden with meaning and with new information that it cannot be known (p. 14). Takala (1983) said that in inner
52 speech a single word is so saturated with sense that many words are needed to explain it in external speech; it is an abbreviated, predicative arrangement of units of sense. Sense predominates over meaning; Ushakova (1994) said that inner speech is contracted, fragmented and agglutinated, which indicates the compacting and combining of many types of meaning or significance. One unit of inner speech, then, has more meaning than a word of extrapersonal speech.
Johnson (1993) put the idea into quantitative terms. He explained that
Korba ( 1986) looked for the number of words embedded in inner speech, using self-report data and triangulation with electromyography. Korba found that it takes over 4,000 words to expand semantically and syntactically one minute of inner speech into extrapersonal or conversational speech. Vygotsky (1986) explained that when speech undergoes such progressive isolation, in being used for oneself, vocalization of speech becomes both unnecessary and meaningless.
The lack of vocalization indicates the development of abstraction fi-om sound; one is able to think words instead of pronounce them, and as the process continues, words become units of sense until, as Vygotsky (1986) said,
“Inner speech is to a large extent thmking in pure meanings." It is possible to understand the true nature of inner speech “...only after exarniriing the next plane of verbal thought, the one still more inward than inner speech. That plane is thought itself* (p. 249).
Thought and inner speech.
Thought, like inner speech, has its own structure, and the transition from thought to speech is not simple. Takala (1983) said that it takes several minutes to disclose one thought. The whole thought is present at one time in a person’s mind, but in speech the idea m ust be developed successively, because there is an independent grammar of thought. Vygotslqr (1986) compared a
53 thought to a cloud that must shed a shower of words in order to accomplish such a transition. Conversely, said Vygotsky, the structure of speech does not reflect the structure of thought; thought is not able to clothe itself with words, like a ready-to-wear garment. It must undergo several changes to find reality and form in speech; the change is not accomplished in a straightforward m anner.
Although the transformation process from inner speech or from thought is not simple, they both aid tremendously in mental processing. Symbolic thought makes associations among words in order to make word meanings.
Inner speech influences that associative process by making it more efficient, according to Johnson (1993): Inner speech, then, aids in thinking but is distinct from thinking. Johnson describes the relationship of the two processes as a symbiotic one, in which each depends on the other for producing word meaning. The description of these processes is akin to the description of the LI and L2 listening processes in the literature.
Inner speech. LI and L2 listening, and other modalities.
Coakley & Wolvin (1986) cited Lundsteen (1979), who described a perceptual filter for listening; the listener interprets the heard message through internal speech and gives it meaning. Bernhardt and James (1987) described a similar process in L2. Johnson (1993) said that structural characteristics of inner speech "directly and irrevocably affect the process of listening" (p. 177).
While listening, a person decodes and reduces the syntax of the message.
These processes account for the difference between speaking and listening rates: 125-150 versus 500 or more words per minute, respectively (Wolvin &
Coakley, 1988) in LI.
54 In the process of L2 acquisition, Ushakova (1994) found, children tap into their LI inner speech mechanisms. She concluded that the influence of the LI mechanism on the L2 can rarely, if ever, be completely eliminated. The interaction of new speech material with the LI is very strong; the L2 is incorporated into the LI classification system and relies on the previously developed semantic and phonological ^sterns. “This all means that the main driving force is not so much inner self-development as it is use of first language development. To put it figuratively, second language is looking into the windows cut out by first language” (p. 154).
No literature was found for similar transférabilité' between L2 listening and LI writing, as would occur during some of the note taking during listening before the recall protocol writing. Coakley and Wolvin (1986), however, found evidence of inner speech during the composing process in LI. Cazden (1994) discussed the relationship between intensive oral discussion, in LI and L2, and the L2 composing sequence, from inner speech to final product. Carson,
CarreU, Silberstein, Kroll, and Kuehn (1990) said that Cummins (1981) constructed the strongest case for interlingual transfer of literacy skills.
BeU (1995) discussed research on linguistic interdependence, especially the work of Cummins (1981), and noted that the research suggests that the transfer of linguistic and literacy knowledge between languages is possible.
To summarize, inner speech, as analyzed by Vygotsky, results fiom primary speech developed in a social setting and evolves inward, to become a mechanism for processing and thought. It is intended for private use and may occur when the individual is in isolation or in the presence of others. It is a mediator; it can process the pure thought of the individual or the speech to which one is listening. Its compact nature assures that the mediation
55 processes are efEcient, and its presence has been noted in listening, reading, and writing in the LI. Its presence in L2 is the product of transfer from LI.
Note taking
Introduction.
Johnson (1993) drew a comparison between inner speech and note taking. While using inner speech, a person silently generates a few key words as a self-reminder of a much larger set of ideas or concepts. He uses the example of the grocery list that contains simply the words eggs, bread, mük.
The list is abbreviated and does not elaborate on brand name, quantity, flavors, colors, or other characteristics. It is quick and eflScient, without elaboration.
The above is a simplified example, but it is sufficient to raise many of the questions that have been investigated in note taking studies. Merely substitute the term “notes* for “grocery list.* For instance, what exactly is note taking?
What are “good* notes and who takes them? Under what circumstances or conditions would it be best to take notes? What are the benefits of taking notes? Does one need notes?
Definitions of note taking.
Chamot (1990) defined note taking as “writing down key words and concepts in abbreviated verbal, graphic, or numerical form to assist performance or recall of a language task—jotting down ideas, words, phrases, or concepts to aid spoken or written production. The mere act of writing something down is a form of repetition and an aid to memory* (p. 31). Note taking provides an opportunity to interact with the material to be learned, to manipulate the material mentally or physically, or to apply a specific technique to a learning task (Chamot & Kupper, 1989).
56 The demands of note taking are numerous. The note-taker must listen continuously and simultaneously to the material while selecting, interpreting, holding, manipulating, and transcribing notes, Hanson (1994) observed. Yet, the integrative demands may enhance the learning process for some learners.
Until recently, the majority of studies regarding note taking has been with LI subjects and conditions; therefore, results from these studies are included in this review.
Advantages, lack of advantage, or disadvantages in note taking.
Chaudron, Loschky and Cook (1994) observed that L2 listeners in academic settings are encouraged to take lecture notes, but there is little research to ascertain whether such note taking actually enhances comprehension or what the idea of “good notes' means. Research findings on the benefit of note taking are mixed. Most students believe that note taking aids memory (Hale 8s Courtney, 1994), but several reviews of the literature concurred that findings are mixed on the advantages of note taking (Chaudron et ai., 1994; Dunkel, 1988; Flowerdew, 1994; Hale 8s Courtney, 1994; Peck 8s
Hannafin, 1983). A further question is whether note taking is an advantage to or an interference with the learning process. Dunkel (1988) completed a review of the literature on LI note taking dating from 1925. She concluded that little is known about the auditory, cognitive and functional skills that produce successful note taking, or about the notion of ideal notes as far as amount, content, or style. Hale and Courtney (1994) concluded that the opportunity to take notes may not necessarily produce beneficial effects, and benefits might greatly depend on the conditions under which note taking is assessed.
Peck and Hannafin (1983) also concluded that the effects of note taking might be conditional, perhaps depending on the conditions and on the note
57 taker—one’s intelligence and verbal ability, for instance. Dnnkel (1988) did find some noticeable differences in results between genders and speculated that, if such differences exist, it is possible that other differences, possibly ethno cultural or regional, might be important- Her point is well taken, because
Haeneggi and Perfetti (1992) found that prior knowledge affects note taking behavior.
Studies that found an LI advantage for note taking include Barnette,
DiVesta and Rogozinski (1981); Einstein, Morris, and Smith, (1985); DiVesta and Gray (1973); and Fisher and Harris (1973). Yet, some reviews found that as many as 50% of the studies found no effect. Carter and VanMatre (1975) found no effect. Two recent studies finding no effect for note taking were
Chaudron et al., (1994) and Dunkel (1988). Hale and Courtney (1994) found an interfering effect for note taking and cited two other studies with similar results;
Peters (1972) and Aiken, Thomas and Shennum (1975).
Hale and Courtney (1994) were particularly interested in the potential interference of note taking. Under some test conditions, note taking is not permitted, and the use of notes during the test is prohibited. Yet, some observers had argued that allowing students to take notes during some tests would make the tests more similar to classroom listening. In view of widespread interest in making testing as authentic as possible. Hale and
Courtney were concerned about the structure of the note taking situation and about the effect of explicitly asking students to take notes. Their study incorporated note taking under two conditions, allowed and urged. The subjects of the “urged” condition, instead of merely being told that they could take notes if they wished, were told that it was extremely important for them to take notes. They found that giving permission to take notes had little effect, but
58 urging note taking significantly impaired the performance of the subjects, even
for students who usually took notes or who had had some training in note
taking.
Bostrom and Searle (1990) found s im ila r non-benefidal results. Haeneggi
and Perfetti (1992) also found that note taking interfered with comprehension
for subjects who were low in working memory capacity, though subjects with high working memory capacity profited more from taking notes.
Rost (1990) explained that another condition may generate poor results.
If listeners are without prior expectations about subsequent tasks, the quality of notes will vary widely. Because the discourse of lectures is mainly non- coUaborative, listener behavior varies unsystematically, “thus providing only an idiosyncratic view of listener encoding processes” (p. 126).
Functions of note taking.
Note taking may function as an external storage device or as a cueing/ encoding activity that may help to organize information. Either function has the potential to provide additional rehearsal as an aid to memory.
Chaudron et al. (1994) said that the encoding function helps to organize the content of a lecture in that it helps promote any or all of the following: meaningful chunking, attention and focus, general effort, and assimilation of new and old information. Further, the external storage or review function helps rehearsal and provides a basis for reconstruction.
There is still dispute, however, as to whether the act of note taking itself is of any benefit or whether the benefit actually derives from the subsequent review of the notes. Rost (1990) said that the learner’s ability to reconstruct useful information from notes probably depends on how well the items in the
59 notes relate to the overall representation that the listener has constructed at the end of the discourse or during subsequent review sessions, rather than at the tim e of note fa k in g .
Kiewra et al. (1991) concluded that both encoding and external storage are aids to learning, but external storage in the form of subsequent review contributes more, because more learning results from repeated exposures to text. Carter and Van Matre (1975) and Dunkel (1988) saw little benefit in the note taking itself but rather in the review of notes. Review, also called repetition or rehearsal, is beneficial, said Kiewra et al., because those who review tend to recall a large percentage of what they wrote in their notes and a small percentage of what was not recorded in notes. This observation coincides with Carter and Van Matre’s (1975) c o m m e n t that the cueing function of notes fosters reconstruction of parts of the text that was not originally recorded in notes. Einstein et al. (1985), further, observed that note taking affects recall patterns. That is, students organized and structured information differently and processed information more integratively and remembered a higher number of high-importance propositions.
It is important to emphasize that the conditions for note taking varied in these studies, including the time between note taking and retrieval; the authenticity, meaning, and relevance of the text for the subjects; the availability of notes during testing; the rate and manner of delivery of the text; the type of test used to assess memory; and the opportunity to review notes or the amount of tim e allotted for review. These variations in conditions are mirrored in the variations in assessment of the notes taken.
60 Evaluation of notes.
Flowerdew (1994) concurred with Dunkel (1988) that researchers still need to determine a measure for quality of notes, and a single model wül probably not be of much value, due to the variation of the function of the notes and their relation to the subsequent tasks. Chaudron et al. ( 1994) compiled a summary of the assessments of quality and quantity of notes. Quantity measures record either the total number of words or the total number of concepts or of information units. (An information unit, according to Dunkel
(1988), is the smallest amount of knowledge that can stand as a separate assertion and be judged true or false.) These quantities are usually correlated with some measure of long-term recall. Measures of quality may be in terms of efficiency, completeness, test answerability, information level, or organizational features such as outlining, diagrams, titles, or numbers. The quality measure of efficiency assesses the density or terseness of notes and compares it with test performance. Sometimes, the comparison will be a ratio of ideas or of information units to the total number of words in the notes; or, a more holistic assessment may be made as to whether the notes are verbatim rather than telegraphic or abbreviated. Dunkel ( 1988) found that those who remembered most successfully, whether they were native speakers or non-native speakers, compressed large amounts of discourse into propositional information units.
She concluded that terseness is an essential ingredient of effective LI or L2 note taking, and it relates to the immediate retention of lecture information.
Dixon (1992) found similar results and said that successful listeners write key words or phrases, but unsuccessful listeners do not take organized notes.
Dunkel (1988) observed that writing down as much as possible in a lecture might not result in effective encoding, because success was related to terseness
61 of notes and the proportion of test information that appeared in notes. Rost
(1990) cautioned that there is httle likeliness of a clear correspondence between the quality of understanding and the quantity or the quality of the notes taken, because of learner idiosyncra^ and variability in conditions.
In summary, note taking can be helpful, but the advantages vary according to conditions and learner individual differences. Notes of the most helpful type possess several characteristics identical to those of inner speech: compact, terse, and supercharged with sense rather than meaning; idiosyncratic in form; evocative of longer streams of discourse; and influenced by prior knowledge and background knowledge. Notes, hke inner speech, can make symbolic thought more efficient, and note taking, like inner speech, can imbue a term with sense, an agglutination of meanings. Researchers have not yet learned enough to determine the optimum conditions for each learner for note talring, but note taking as a learning strategy has provided another perspective for research.
L2 Learning Strategies in Listening
Rubin (1994) echoed the comment that the act of listening is not passive;
Listeners, both LI and L2, process input actively. Further, it seems almost intuitively clear that L2 learners vary their strategies according to the text, the task, and their level of proficiency. Recent research by Bacon (1992a) confirmed these ideas and added that more successful L2 learners are more flexible in their use of strategies, they monitor their use of strategies more, and they are more realistic in their assessment of their degree of success. Bacon
(1992b) also found that L2 students did not transfer the use of all of their
LI strategies. Ellis (1994) provided a point of departure for this discussion.
62 though other recent articles by Bacon (1992a), Ehrman and Oxford (1995),
Oxford (1990), O’Malley and Chamot (1990, 1993), and Skehan (1991) have
contributed greatly to the recent literature.
Oxford (1990) said that a commonly accepted definition of learning
strategies—operations that are used by the learner to help in acquiring, storing,
retrieving, and using information—omits a dynamic aspect of learning
strategies. Learners use such strategies to help them learn more easily,
quickly, effectively, and enjoyably, with more focus and transferability. Ellis
(1994) drew a distinction between language learning strategies and skill
learning strategies. He gave a sample of definitions from recent literature and discussed several problems associated with them. The main problem, said
Ellis, is whether strategies are to be considered as behavioral (skill learning) or as mental (language learning) or both (cognitive).
Skehan (1991) was less concerned with definition than with a theoretical base. He described the work of O'Malley and Chamot (1990), who attempted to ground strategy research within the cognitive theory of Anderson (1980; cited in
Skehan, 1991). Skehan pointed out an underlying assumption, that learning a language is the same as learning content, and that such an assumption does not address any specific linguistic faculty.
A second concern of Skehan (1991) addressed classification. A considerable degree of overlap exists between two well-known classifications by
O’Malley and Chamot (1990) and Oxford (1989). Skehan said that it is important to go beyond convenient classifications and make connections to underlying theory. Despite the problems described above and the fact that
63 strategy research is said to be in its infancy, both Skehan (1991) and EUis
(1994) agreed that the area of learning strategies does hold promise in helping
to explain learner differences in L2 learning.
Among the instruments developed to assess and research learning
strategies are those by Bialystok (1981), Chamot, O’Malley, Kupper, and
Impink-Hemandez (1987), McGroarty (1987), Oxford (1986-present), PoHtzer
(1983), Politzer and McGroarty (1985), and Weinstein, Palmer, and Schulte
(1987). The instrument chosen for this study is the Strategy Inventory for
Language Learning (SILL) (Oxford, 1990), a questionnaire of 80 items placed in
six subscales, accompanied by a background questionnaire, scoring worksheet,
a self-interpretive profile, and a graph on which to plot individual results.
Oxford and Burry-Stock (1995) said that it is the most extensively used strategy
scale worldwide, probably because it has been translated into 10 languages,
because of the presentation extensive p^chometric data, and because it offers more advantages than disadvantages. The SILL is administered quickly and easily, it offers general assessment across a wide range of possible tasks, it is cost-effective, and it is non-threatening and instructive to the student, because it can be self-graded and self-interpreted.
One clear disadvantage of the SILL is that it does not necessarily give specific description of strategy use in a specific task, such as the recall protocol.
Bacon, (1992a, b, and c) and D. R. Long (1990, 1991) studied the use of strategies in specific L2 listening tasks but used interview and self-report as the means of gathering data; their methods did not fit the purposes of this study.
64 Ehrman and Oxford (1995) discussed self-report as an issue that makes such instruments less desirable. One reason is the social desirability response bias (SDRB), when the respondent answers in the manner that he or she thinks would please the researcher or that would show him or her as a “good person."
Ehrman and Oxford discussed mitigating factors of SDRB in studies using the
SILL and found few indicators of SDRB in those studies. Another important issue is p^chometric data, which Oxford and colleagues said are absent from other instruments (Ehrman 8s Oxford, 1995; Oxford, 1990; Oxford 8s Burry-
Stock, 1995). The key reason for the development of the SILL, said Oxford and
Burry-Stock (1995), is for reliability and validity of measure, along with systematic representation on a large scale. Ehrman and Oxford (1995) reported: “In studies worldwide, the SILL’s reüabüity using Cronbach’s alpha is
.93 to .98, with an average of .95, and it has been shown to be a valid, significant predictor or correlate of language proficiency and achievement" (p.
73). Oxford and Burry-Stock (1995) reported validity measures: Content validity at .95; construct with r = .30 (p < .001); and concurrent validity with general language proficiency tests, oral language proficiency tests, language achievement tests of course content, and grades in a language course.
Predictive validity was found to be from 33-58%, and construct validity is based on strong relationships between SILL factors and language proficiency, language motivation, and linguistic training profiles.
LI Writing Abflitv and its Relationship to Other LI and L2 Skills
Note taking as a language learning strategy enters into this study, but another important role of LI writing ability is in the written portion of the
65 immediate recall protocol. As was previously mentioned, one may understand
s o m e th in g well enough but not be able to apply what he or she understands. It
is therefore necessary to review the theoretical base on LI writing and whatever
relationship it m ig h t have, either direct or indirect, with L2 listening or other LI
or L2 s k ills .
An extensive search of the literature reveals no direct research to relate LI
writing abüily and L2 listening ability. Because subjects listened to a text in
the L2 and sum m arized its content in LI, the relationship of these two skills
may be reflected in results. The relationship between LI writing and L2
listening, however, must be approached indirectly, first by viewing the
relationship of LI writing to other LI skills and then any relationship of those
skills to L2 skills. The underlying assumption is that such skills will have some
degree of transfer, so the issue of transfer requires discussion.
Some widely accepted models of LI writing have been assessed as lacking grounding in theory. Lee and VanPatten (1995), described one such model, the
Flower and Hayes cognitive model of processes. Emig’s model is a respected model of LI writing and was described by Diaz (1988). Emig brought together the arguments of Vygotsky, Luiia, and Bruner (Diaz, 1988; Glisan & Shrum,
1994; Zamel, 1987). Connection between LI and L2 skills was described in
Alice Homing’s theory of writing development, in which “academic written language is a second language for basic writers” (Diaz, 1988, p. 3). An interactionist model by Elsasser and John-Steiner (1993) is grounded in the theory of Vygotsky (1978, 1986).
66 Coakley and Wolvin (1986) explained that the LI ability to speak, read, and write depends directly or indirectly on listening ability. The development of writing ability, they said, is affected greatly by listening vocabulary, which exceeds visual vocabulary until at least age twelve. Rubin and Roberts (1987) described the research of Bostrom and Waldhart (1980a), who found LI lecture comprehension related to general mental ability and written examination scores. Bostrom and Waldhart also found that short term Listening ability was closely related to LI oral performance (i.e., speech and communication).
Freedman et al. (1987) corroborated these relationships and presented a model of writing as a collaborative activity, as described by Vygotsky. The writer engages in exchange, in listening and speaking with others before, during, and after the writing process. Such exchanges may enhance the writing process.
Cazden (1994) referred to Vygotsky’s notion of scaffolded assistance in such situations, because, hke an actual temporary framework for construction in progress, the assistance of and interaction with others helps the writer to construct linguistically. Vygotsky identified the Zone of Proximal Development in his analysis of learning in the social and cultural context. The zone is the learner’s area of scaffolded capabüity. More specifically, the zone delineates the area of additional capabüity of a learner when the learner collaborates with others who are more capable (either peer or instructor). When collaborating with more capable helpers, the learner is able to accomphsh more than he or she could by working alone and unaided. This collaborative aspect illustrates the interrelationship of all or most LI skills.
67 Removed from a collaborative situation, the act of writing still involves more than one set of processes. Coakley and Wolvin (1986) discussed the relationship of LI listening and LI writing; listening and writing may seem to be the least s im ila r of the four major language arts but are the most closely related in that “writers frequently engage in inner speech and thus listen to themselves as they compose ideas” (p. 22). The work of Vygotsl^ once again helps to explain and to provide a theoretical base.
Elsasser and John-Steiner (1993) said Vygotsky’s theory of inner speech provides a powerful explanation of why some students’ writings are context- bound. Effective writing requires multiple transformations of inner speech in order to elaborate for an unknown audience. In inner speech, ideas may be represented in the mind in a single word or phrase, which is extremely compact in meaning and in which experiences are stored. From this point, the writer must work toward highly detailed written speech that requires a deliberate restructuring of “the web of meaning” (p. 268) a difBcult type of translation from inner speech to public document.
Capps (1991) said that Vygotsly detailed the development of oral speech and inner speech. These develop unconsciously, and they serve immediate and real needs, but a child m ust acquire writing skills through formal training and effort. Children have oral skLUs, but they must master technical skills in order to write. In addition to deliberate and conscious effort and technical skills, the ability to write requires abstract thought. As Bruner (1973) explained, “writing, then, is a tra in in g in the use of linguistic contexts that are independent of the immediate referents” (p. 388). Further, writing requires a more complete
68 linguistic structure than that of inner speech or oral speech, and a syntax that is nearly opposite that of inner speech, from which writing is transformed
(Bruner, 1973; Capps, 1991).
A few stu d ies an d commentaries attempted to relate the demands of the
LI composing process and the influence they might have on L2 skills. Kirtland and Saunders (1991) discussed the cognitive demands of summarizing in the
L2, saying that the process is a recursive reading/writing activity. The task involves both internal and external constraints. Elxtemal constraints include audience, purpose, and the nature of the material. The internal constraints involve L2 proficiency, affect, formal and content schemas, and cognitive and metacognitive skills. For a summarizing task involving writing, such as the immediate recall protocol, the demands would be more extensive because of the demands on memory.
Carson et al. (1990) found evidence that transfer patterns from LI to L2 do occur, but they vary from one LI group to another. The relationship between reading and writing skills also varies from LI group to LI group.
Reading ability transfers more easily from LI to L2 than does writing abüity.
These results still do not establish a direct relationship between LI writing and
L2 listening. Both Carson et al. (1990) and BeU (1995) referred to Cummins’
(1981) and Cummins and Swain’s (1986) theories of transferability of skills from
LI to L2. For now, these must serve to confirm some connection between LI writing and L2 listening.
69 CHAPTER 3
PROCEDURES
Population and Sample
The population from which the sample was drawn consists of high school students in their third year of Spanish at North Royalton (Ohio) High School.
This high school, with grades nine through twelve, is located in Cuyahoga
County, the most populous county in Ohio. Until recently, the community had been exurban or semirural, with a slowly growing population, many of whom were members of families that had Lived and farmed in the area for over a century. Many of the residents were of central European descent and conservative in values. After World War n, the number of eastern European families increased in proportion.
In 1980, a population shift and more rapid increase began as a result of land development with a mixture of moderate-rent apartments, rental homes, condominiums, and homes with increasingly higher prices. The incoming population now ranges from single-parent families on welfare to two-income families with monthly house payments of approximately $3000. Cultural diversity has replaced the school’s formerly homogeneous population. There are native-bom and second-generation Korean, Filipino, Eastern Indian,
70 Russian, and Latino students within the school population. The diversity will probably continue as the present population of 30,000 increases to a projected
90,000 within the next 20 years.
The high school enrollment has grown from 800 to nearly 1400 since
1980. There is a perennial shortage of funds, possibly because the taxable value of real property per student is low. Although a small tax increase was passed at the most recent election after two previous defeats, a chronic shortage of revenue remains. The chief effects have been large class size (40 or more per section) and outdated materials. Nearly 60% of the land remains undeveloped and therefore produces little tax revenue. The number of students enrolling in higher education programs after graduation, however, has increased from 45% to 80% since 1980.
The foreign language department, during this time period, has increased from four teaching assignments to six, not including one teacher in the expanding middle school p ro g ra m that offers an exploratory program for fifth and sixth graders and Spanish I. Foreign languages offered (in order of highest enrollment to lowest) include Spanish, French, German, and Latin. Students are usually self-placed in foreign language courses; that is, they enroll on a registration card during the previous year. A parent and the current first or second language teacher signs the “recommended* column. Students often meet with guidance counselors in order to review their schedules, but there is no placement test for any foreign language course.
Curricula for most foreign language courses at most levels have been written. Training in note taking is not part of any L2 course. (It is part of only one course, Notehand, in the business department, which serves approximately
71 50 students a year.) The recently created departmental final exam policy may help to decrease some differences in uniformity of instruction that exist in the foreign language department.
Giving final exams in all courses is administrative policy, but only in
June, 1996, was a foreign language departmental final exam policy created and executed by a majority of the teachers. The policy follows the State of Ohio
Guidelines for foreign language instruction, which are not mandatory but recommended. Semester and final tests each account for ten percent of the yearly grade (20% total) and are based on speaking (25%), reading (with culture)
(10%), listening (25%), and writing (with culture) (40%).
Writing accounts for the highest proportion of the grade for several reasons. First, it incorporates gra m m a r and formal study and may be tested at the word or sentence level. No more than half of any writing portion may be at word or sentence level. Second, it is often necessary to read portions of text in order to respond in writing. The 10% allotted for reading seems low, but an additional percentage of reading is incorporated into the writing section.
Culture does not have a separate grade, because the teachers attempt to integrate it into the curriculum daily. It is therefore integrated into the reading and speaking grades. It is hoped that the departmental testing policy will encourage more uniformity in instruction, an effect which is called washback
(Hancock, 1994). (Data may be confirmed through annual reports filed by the school system and in departmental minutes.)
One reason for taking a sample from this population is that it is similar in ethnic diversity to the population in Spanish classes at The Ohio State
University, at which previous listening comprehension studies were conducted using the recall protocol. Another reason for choosing this group is that most
72 public universities in this state (like The Ohio State University) have a
m in im u m of a two-year high-school foreign language study requirement for
entrance. Students in the sample wül have completed that minimum
requirement by having completed Spanish II.
Of the students graduating (up to 200 per year) from North Royalton High
School who go on to higher education, at least 20% of them state their intention
to enroll at The Ohio State University. The third-year course should be simüar
to the 103.01 course taught at The Ohio State University (Elementary Spanish
111) in terms of the tyUabus structure and content. Classes meet daüy for 51
minutes. The school year is 181 days, but assemblies, announcements,
disaster drills, and other interruptions detract from instructional time.
Enrollment in Spanish classes is larger than that of the other three
language courses. Class sizes are also the largest, and the variety of levels of
motivation and ability is wider than in other language courses. The range of
students extends from potential National Merit Scholars to slightly below
average students, all of whom plan to enroll in college.
The range and variety are two reasons that students from Spanish 111 were
chosen. The population of the Spanish 111 students is generally composed of the
more able students from Spanish 1 and II. The third and fourth year of Spanish
are not required at North Royalton High School. Those who enroll in Spanish
111—above-average, average, and below-average alike—often say that they do so
because they think that a third (and possibly a fourth) year of a foreign language will give them a more competitive “edge” for admission to colleges with more stringent admission requirements.
To earn a high school honors diploma, a student must have four years of one foreign language or two or more years of two foreign languages. Students
73 may not earn credit for one single year of foreign language unless it is the second foreign language. (In other words, a student may not earn credit for
Spanish I and German I. He or she would have to take a second year of one of the languages.) The Spanish LU sections may include one type of student that might be found in a 103.01 course at The Ohio State University—one who is earning a C or below but who is attempting to complete various language requirements. With random selection, the scores of some of these students found their way into the sample so that it more nearly parallels the scores from the Taylor (1993) study.
The department members use audiocassette exercises for listening and speaking that accompany each text. Many work for authentic input from classroom exchange and the speech from authentic music and video. Most students have daily input, not only from the teaching materials, but also from the structure and interaction of the class.
Three intact classes of third-year Spanish were tested. Half of each class formed control groups by not being permitted to take notes during listening.
Class size ranged from 31 to 40 students. From this total of 106 students, a total of 100 were randomly selected to form cell sizes for each variation of the immediate recall protocol task and level. The LI writing ability of these students fell into one of two categories, above the median score or below the median score, based on hoHstic grades determined by two raters using the rubric in /^pendix I. The frnal sample size totalled 100.
The textbook used for this course is Nuestro mundo (1991), the third in a series published by Harcourt Brace. The structure of the text comprises 12 units that combine communicative functions, grammar, and cultural material.
EXreiy fourth unit is a review unit that “recycles” the material, or uses the
74 previous material in different ways, sometimes with a reading selection that may be either nonauthentic or authentic but abridged and glossed. The aim of the publishers is to create a spiral approach to curriculum. Themes are sometimes repeated in each year’s textbook, so that a focus on the fa m ily and health in the second-year book is treated again in the third-year book but combined with fa m ilypastimes. Audiocassette tapes include many exercises for listening and speaking.
A shortage of funds prohibits the purchase of supplementary materials with school funds. The teachers purchase books, newspapers, magazines, and rent authentic videos with their own funds. Some teachers also have private access to Spanish-speaking cable television programs and occasionally use these for classroom exercises in listening comprehension and cultural discussion.
Research Design
P art 1
Several ANCOVAs were performed using the Statistical Analysis
System (SAS), th e General Linear Model Procedure (Proc GLM). Factors of analysis for this part of the study were variation in constraints for the completion of the task and first language writing ability scores as they covaiy with the protocol score. A layout of the design is presented in Table 3.1.
This part of the study replicates one of the task variables used in the
Taylor (1993) study, which was carried out with Spanish 103.01 students at
The Ohio State University. That variation—in which students listened, wrote a protocol that was turned in, listened again, and wrote a second protocol- resulted in the writing of the highest number of propositions. Subjects of that study were not given the option of taking notes.
75 Note taking Condition (A)
Prohibited / Optional (Al) (A2)
LI Writing
(B)
Above Median/Below Median (Bl) (B2)
Control Group I (AlBl) No notes/Above Median LI n = 25
Control Group II (A1B2) No notes/Below Median LI n = 25
Experim ental Group I (A2B1) Notes Optional/Above Median LI n = 25
Experim ental Group II (A2B2) Notes Optional/Below Median LI. n = 25
Table 3.1: Formation of Groups
76 In this study, the first independent variable was the option of taking notes. The second independent variable is the subject’s LI writing ability as determined by the score on an essay (written the day prior to completing the L2 listening and protocol writing) averaged with the student's English grade point average (GPA). Subjects were randomly selected from three classes to complete one of the variations of the protocol writing procedure (notes optional or notes not permitted). Classes met at 9:15 a.m., 11:05 a.m., and 1:30 p.m. Table 3.1 shows the formation of groups.
Variables and Treatment Conditions
P art 1
During the protocol task, all subjects listened to the text twice. Subjects wrote one protocol after the first listening; this was collected before the second listening and subsequent second protocol writing. Before undertaking the procedure, all groups received information about the nature of the task, including a statement of expectations for writing the protocol in as much detail as they were able. They were given an opportunity to hear a 30-second segment of narration by the same speaker, one that is not part of the listening task, as was done in the Taylor (1993) study and other studies. This introductory segment came from the same session from which the protocol listening text was taken but is unrelated to the subject matter. Listening to it permitted subjects to become accustomed to the speaker’s voice and to report any difficulties with equipment or sound.
The dependent variable in all variations was the subjects’ L2 listening comprehension score, indicated by the number of propositions or pausal units
77 recalled and their weight. This system of scoring is called the Johnson Method
(Johnson, 1970). The most important propositions of the text carried a weight of four points; the least important had a weight of one. (The text and scoring sheets are found in Appendixes D, G, and H.) Scores from the protocols were analyzed along with subjects' LI writing ability using an ANCOVA which also separated the subjects into note taking groups and non-note taking groups.
All groups wrote an im m e d ia te recall protocol after listening to the protocol audiotape selection. The excerpt was from a longer piece of discourse that is described as deliberate free speech (Byrnes, 1984). It is unrehearsed discourse, is 2 minutes 12 seconds in length, and contains 343 words spoken at a rate of 156 words per minute. The speaker is a native-born Mexican male, age 23 and a doctoral student in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at
The Ohio State University, who spoke extemporaneously about family Ufe, members of his family, and the type of customs, holidays, and pastimes they experience together.
The subjects had written about a related topic prior to listening. One independent variable, subjects' LI writing ability, was determined by a composition written on the day before the immediate recall protocol task, the score from which was averaged with the student's English GPA. Subjects were assigned one topic, "Pastimes with my Family," and were given as much time as needed to write a composition similar to the ones that they write in English classes. Two raters scored the compositions; they assigned holistic scores using the criteria outlined in the rubric in the Appendix 1. Interrater reliability was 1.00 because calibration sessions were held after each group of ten papers
78 to bring each score to an agreed-upon level. Based on the averaged scores
(essay score and English GPA), subjects were divided into above the median and below the median writing ability groups.
Prior to the day of the listening task, half of the number of the subjects in each class was randomly assigned to the notes optional/ notes prohibited condition, and students became part of one of the following groups.
Control Group I lAlBH.
This group served as one of the control groups. It was randomly drawn from half of the three intact third-year classes. The method of randomization was to place the names of class members into a container and select names one at a time, alternating between choices for this group and choices for a note taking group, until names were used up. All subjects listened twice to the passage and wrote protocols that were collected after each listening, but the subjects of this group were not given the option of taking notes. This group was separated from the note taking group. The protocols of no-notes subjects who scored above the median on LI writing ability ultimately formed this group of
25. One reason for random selection in this manner was so that equal numbers of 25 would occur within each statistical cell. A design using unequal cell numbers may increase the chance of Type I statistical error and may decrease power for the F statistic (Kennedy, 1978).
Control Group II (A1B21.
This group served as the other control group, randomly drawn from three intact third-year classes. All subjects listened twice to the passage and wrote a protocol after each listening, and the protocol was collected after each task.
79 Subjects of this group were separated from the note taking group and were not
given the option of taking notes. From those who performed the task, the
protocols of those subjects who scored below the median on LI writing ability
formed a group of 25.
Elxperimental Group (A2B1).
These subjects were randomly drawn from the three intact third-year
Spanish classes who, before listening, were told that they could take notes, if
they wished. Subjects in this group, separated from the non-note taking group,
listened, wrote a protocol, turned in notes and protocol, listened again, and
wrote a second and final protocol. Protocols of subjects who scored above the
median in LI writing ability formed this group of 25.
Experimental Group (A2B2).
Subjects of this group were told that notes were optional. They had been
separated from the non-note taking subjects. They listened once, and, with the
aid of any notes they had taken, wrote a first protocol that was collected along
with their notes before the second listening. After a second listening, subjects
wrote a final protocol, again, with the aid of any notes. Those students with
scores from below the median in LI writing ability formed a group size of 25.
In selection of groups, randomization was employed twice—first, to divide the classes into writing and non-writing groups, and second, to remove names
from cells that exceeded 25. The number of possible subjects totalled 106; one
subject was absent during all phases of the procedure. Another student was absent for the listening tasks. From the protocols of the 104 subjects that remained, two from the note taking group were randomly omitted, as well as
80 two from the non-note taking group. The method for the second randomization was first to determine that the protocols, one stack for each of the four conditions, were devoid of any numerical or alphabetical order. Then, with protcols face down and showing no identification, protocols were drawn until 25 for each of the four groups were assembled.
P art 2
For this part of the study, ANCOVAs and Pearson correlations were completed in order to analyze L2 listening comprehension as measured by the immediate recall protocol as it relates to L2 ability, defined as GPA in Spanish, and overall GPA (both gathered from student transcripts) (Kerlinger, 1979, pp.
179-188). In addition, students had completed the Strategy Inventory for
Language Learning (SILL), and correlations were obtained for results from this instrument compared with the above-mentioned scores. Although it was not of primary interest to this study, the variables of gender, time of day of the class, and instructor (nested in time of day) were figured into the correlation as well as some of the ANCOVAs. These last three variables were of interest only to watch for factors that might influence Spanish GPA or the SILL measurement.
Explanation of the Variables
P art 1
The immediate recall protocol procedure.
Taylor (1993) investigated the effect of variation of the task upon recall scores of L2 listening. Nonetheless, the data base for the procedure requires further information regarding note taking by subjects during the listening portion. It was not known whether such a variation would aid subjects in
81 reconstructing the text or whether it would hinder them by detracting attention
from the listening task. This study investigated the variation from the Taylor
study in which subjects wrote the greatest total number of propositions, in
which they listened twice, writing a protocol after each listening. Neither in the
Taylor study nor in this study did subjects keep their first protocol during the
second listening or writing.
Variation of the protocol procedure.
Half of the students in three third-year Spanish classes performed the variation of the protocol procedure that produced the highest results in the
Taylor (1993) study. This was the variation in which subjects listened once, wrote a protocol and submitted it, listened again, and wrote a second protocol.
These subjects formed the two (non-note taking) control groups.
The variation of the protocol procedure is that subjects in experimental groups were permitted to take notes, if they desired. They were neither urged to take notes nor discouraged from taking notes. They did not receive specific
instructions regarding note taking, except to say that notes could be in
Spanish, English, drawing, or symbols. They were required, however, to take notes on a designated side (the left half) of a sheet of paper provided for notes and protocol writing.
The listening passage.
The aural text for this study was authentic to the extent that it is extemporaneous Spanish discourse spoken by a native of Mexico who lives and studies in Columbus. The discourse is largely personal narrative, but there is some expository material as the speaker explains customs in his country.
82 The speaker is educated, literate, and articulate but did not knowingly change
his speech patterns in order to prepare the tape. The speaker was given a copy
of the Spanish II and the Spanish HI text to look at for five m in u t e s before
speaking. He thus became acquainted with the topics of the text only enough
to generate a list of his own topics, merely to serve as prompts. His list was no
more than five words long. He talked for 12 m in u t e s and 26 seconds about
these topics, which included sports, holidays, fa m ilylife, favorite relatives, and
school.
From that 12-minute tape, the listening text for this study was excerpted.
It is 132 seconds (2 minutes 12 seconds) long and contains 343 words, with a
speech rate of 156 words per minute. During the taping, the researcher was present and acted as a silent interlocutor, responding with facial expressions and body language. The researcher is a non-native speaker (NNS) of Spanish.
The excerpt from the longer tape was chosen because the pauses before and after it, and the material within it forms a coherent block of discourse, even though the speaker did not preplan that outcome. The other reason for choosing this excerpt is that speech rate and length of text are comparable to that of the Taylor (1993) study, the conditions of which this study attempted to reproduce as much as possible in order to isolate the effect of note taking. The average speaking rates of passages used in other studies are listed in the table on page 85. Gaps in information indicate that the data were not provided in that particular study.
Average rate for the studies is 162 words per minute. Long (1991) considered 168 words per minutes to be average, but as Rubin (1994)
83 explained, the rate that is considered average will vary, not only from region to region and from culture to culture, but also from situation to situation. The rate for the listening passage for this study is within the range of those used in other recent studies and is very close to average, especially if one considers other features of authentic speech that appear in the passage.
Several features of the excerpt make it listenable (Shohamy & Inbar,
1988). It is unrehearsed discourse, though it is collaborative only to the extent that there was a silent NNS interlocutor. The speaker’s voice is pleasant and clear, and the quality of the recording is excellent. It contains some redundancy and some examples, but not so much that a listener would confuse them with new information (Anderson & Lynch, 1988; Rost, 1990; Rubin,
1994). There are six self-corrections (for example, “...se co...se acostumbra...,”
“a...en...," “...el...una...,"); eleven self-repetitions (for example “...de...de...,"
“...puede...puede...," “...el... el...”); one pause (“...ahm...," ); and one comprehension check (indicated by rising intonation as the speaker discusses the singing of the national anthem que se canta despué...antes de cada partido intemacional?" ). These features combine to help make the text listenable.
84 Study Year Total Word Total Time W ords Rate
Bacon 1992b 321 129 wpm 2 m 30 s 248 142 1 m 45 s
Blau 1991 170 145, 185
Dixon 1992 200
Hale & 1 m 15 s to Courtney 1994 145 1 m 40 s
Long 1991 234 6 m 20 s 156 168
Rader 1990 156
Schm idt- Rinehart 1992 128 Im 26 s
Taylor 1993 391 189 2m 4 s
Wilberschied 1998 343 156 2m 12 s
Table 4.2 Speech samples used in recent L2 listening assessments
85 LI writing ability.
Students wrote a composition the day before they completed the recall protocol task. They were given the topic "Pastimes with my Family" and asked to write a composition in the same manner that they do for their English class.
Two raters scored the compositions according to the rubric in I. Interrater reliability was 1.00 because scores were calibrated in regular meetings after every 10 compositions. The median score was determined for the note taking group and for the non-note ta k in g group. Of the 104 scored essays, 52 were from the note taking group and 52 from the non-note taking group; these required division into above and below median groups for each condition. For each "B" condition 25 of the resulting 26 were then randomly chosen for one of two groups, one group for those above the median score, the other group for those below the median score.
P art 2
Correlations were calculated in order to analyze the relationship among the L2 Listening comprehension variable from Part 1 and L2 GPA, academic
GPA, and SILL scores (along with gender, time of day, and instructor, merely as a precaution).
L2 abüitv.
Several studies (Long, 1990; Rader, 1990; Schmidt-Rinehart, 1992) used student-reported previous FL course grades as the indicator of L2 ability. In this study, previous course grades for Spanish, as listed on student transcripts, represented L2 ability. The grade point average for all Spanish courses on the student’s transcript (ranging from 0 to 4.) was correlated with the LI writing
86 ability scores and the protocol writing scores to look for any significant relation that L2 grades might have with the variables from Part 1 {LI writing ability and protocol writing score).
Strategv Inventorv for Language Learning.
All subjects completed this instrument on the day before the listening task. The scores, ranging firom one to five, were analyzed by ANCOVA and correlated with the LI writing ability score and with the protocol writing score to look for any relation that strategy use might have with the variables in Part 1.
Scoring
The first procedure in scoring of the immediate recall protocols was the construction of the scoring template, which is found in the Appendix G. The passage was divided into pausal units in the original Spanish by the researcher and, independently, by an educated native speaker of Spanish, hi addition, a translation of the passage was divided into pausal units by the researcher and the second protocol scorer, each person also working independently.
The passage was analyzed according to the Johnson system (Johnson,
1970; Bernhardt, 1991). Each proposition of the passage was identified by pausal units. A proposition is a unit of meaning containing a predicate (a
“relation”) and one or more arguments that belong to it (Connor, 1984). A pausal unit, according to Bernhardt (1991), is marked by a breath before and after it. The weight of each of the propositions was assigned independently by the researcher and the native speaker of Spanish. In a subsequent meeting, the native speaker and the researcher came to a final agreement for each
87 pausal unit and its weight. When final agreement was reached on pausal units and their English equivalent, the protocol score sheet was prepared in English, because the subjects wrote in English and because the other scorer was a native speaker of English. The researcher trained the other rater. Interrater reliability was 1.00 because calibration sessions occurred after every tenth scoring.
Data Collection
Prior to any data collection, the permission and approval of the the high school administration was sought and received. The researcher met with the high school administration to present a copy of the research proposal and to explain any other details regarding the study. The researcher also met with the teacher of the other Spanish classes in order to explain the purpose of the study, the procedures, and the date of the data collection.
No expense was borne by anyone other than the researcher. In addition, results of data collection through any instrument have been available upon request to subjects and their parents or guardians. Further, following the procedure of Schmidt-Rinehart (1992), the researcher reminded all parties involved that the listening passage was made by a native speaker and provided instructional practice during data collection, so that little instructional time was lost. One day prior to administration of the listening task, subjects wrote a formal essay on the topic of fa m ily pastimes. This exercise provided part of the data to assess LI writing skills according to the rubric included in
Appendix I. When they had finished writing their essays, students completed
88 the SILL. The class length of 51 minutes permitted these tasks to be completed in one instructional session. The researcher gathered other data for correlation with total confidentiality from the school Gles after permission was granted.
Although foUow-up with students is not part of the data-coUection procedure, the researcher, on the day after protocol-writing, played the excerpt once again for the students, showed them a transparency of the transcription, and discussed and corrected hypotheses. Finally, a transparency of the English translation was displayed. These follow-up activities assured that full advantage was taken of the educational opportunity for practice that the procedure offers.
Data collection occurred during the eighth week of the second semester.
A date this far after the beginning of the school year allowed enough time for integration into school routine, review of basic material, and input from daily sessions in Spanish. Because the school has no language laboratory, data collection took place in classrooms with equipment that was in excellent working order. The locations were checked more than once to make sure that outlets were operable, that sound, light, heating, and seating were as conducive to testing procedures as possible.
The teacher and the researcher made explicit that no student would be penalized in any way for choosing not to participate, and all chose to do so.
Subjects were asked to participate with sincere involvement and effort.
Everyone received a typewritten copy of the instructions, which were also read aloud and paraphrased. Instructions were in English.
89 Each subject received two sheets of 17” by 11" paper, one pink and one
white, each folded in half so that each half was a rectangle 8 1/2” x 11”. The
left half each sheet was to be used by any subjects in the A2 groups only for
notes for the first or the second listening, according to color, if the subject
chose to take notes. Students in the A1 groups left this side blank. Subjects were permitted to keep their notes during protocol writing, but notes were to be written only in the space designated. The other half of the paper was for writing
the immediate recall protocol. Students wrote at the top of each half the purpose for which it was to be used. The researcher circulated and monitored
the room during writing to help assure that subjects wrote on each section of the paper at the designated time. Although each subject wrote his or her name on the upper right hand comer, the researcher replaced it with a code number.
Any documents pertaining to the students had names replaced with code numbers. This procedure helped to assure the privacy of each subject.
Before the listening for the immediate recall protocol procedure began, the researcher read the instructions for the protocol listening and played a warmup excerpt of a different section of the same tape from which the listening comprehension procedure tape is excerpted. No practice in note taking or in protocol writing was given, because subjects from the Taylor (1993) study had none. One of the purposes of this study is to follow up on the comments of some of those subjects that being allowed to take notes would be helpful.
Subjects of the Taylor (1993) study from which this investigation derives were not given practice either in note taking or in protocol writing for the purposes of that study, and this study attempts to reproduce those conditions.
90 Students heard 30 seconds of an introductory portion of the same tape from which the passage comes. This listening gave the students warmup time
(Long, 1991) and allowed for any needed adjustments needed in volume or positioning of the tape player. After hearing instructions another time and reading along if they wished, subjects listened to the tape, those students in A2 groups taking notes if they wished.
Protocols were collected after each listening and subsequent writing, and each subject completed a post-task questionnaire. Once again, students were told that completion was voluntary but sincerely appreciated. The questionnaire asked about the student’s grades in Spanish for the present course and about their note taking practices on the protocol task, if they took notes. It also asked about any difEculties with the passage and what might have made the task easier.
Pilot Study
Püot studies were conducted in January, 1995, and January, 1996, with groups of fourth-year students of Spanish. The pilot studies provided opportunities to test options in equipment and the oral and written instructions for the warmup procedures as well as for the listening comprehension procedures. Students were told that they could take notes if they desired. All of them did, except for one student who wrote nothing for the second listening.
She said that she had gotten all she could out of the first listening. When instructions were given regarding note taking, several students asked whether they should take notes in English or in Spanish. They were told that each individual should do what was most comfortable or what seemed to be best.
91 They were told that their notes might even be a combination of English,
Spanish, and signs or symbols. Most students wrote in English or a mixture of
Spanish and English. Another question arose regarding the language of the protocol. Although the researcher told the subjects to write their protocols in
English, one subject nonetheless wrote in Spanish. The result of these preliminary discussions was to add the above information re g a rd in g note taking to the instructions given to subjects and to emphasize that subjects should write protocols in English. As for equipment, a Sony portable stereo was used, and the sound fidelity, quality, projection, and amplitude were far superior to the standard equipment used for presentation of lesson tapes. The researcher decided that this equipment would be used for the study, rather than the school equipment used daily.
Subjects in pilot studies wrote protocols in English (James, 1986), even a bilingual student, whose English writing is stronger than his Spanish, because he first learned to write in English. The researcher found that te llin g subjects that they had ten minutes to write a recall resulted in a few of the subjects’ seeming to rush. Instead, subjects of the current study were told to take as much time as they needed, because no student from the püot study took more than ten minutes to write either the first or the second protocol. Subsequent scoring of this group’s protocols alerted the researcher to a few changes needed in format of the scoring template, mainly regarding breakdown of scores and score grids.
Some of the subjects in the püot studies found the writing of two protocols, along with note taking and a post-procedure questionnaire, a good
92 deal of writing for one class session. Other than the post-listening questionnaire, nothing but the two protocol writings after listening should be done during one session. A fin a l observation from the pilot studies was that some students wrote much less on the second protocol than on the first. The researcher decided to instruct subjects at the beginning of the second listening and the second protocol writing that they should write at least as much on the second protocol as they had on the first.
Once again, students commented that the speaker spoke very fast.
When asked for recommendations, students recommended listening a total of three times, once without notes and twice with notes. That format goes against the recommendations of Chamot (1990) and James (1986), who said that repetitions more than twice are much unlike a social situation, in which listeners rarely have the opportunity to hear the entire passage more than once or twice.
Data Analysis
Part 1 of the study was analyzed by means of an ANCOVA conducted on the Statistical Analysis System (SAS). Part 2 correlations were run using SAS and Microsoft Excel. The researcher and one other rater scored the recall protocol, the LI essay, and the SILL by hand.
Null Hypotheses
Hoi: There wül be no significant effect attributable to variation of the recall protocol task (notes prohibited versus notes permitted) on recall measures of L2 listening comprehension of third-year high school Spanish stu d en ts.
93 Ho2: There will be no significant effect for variation in LI writing ability (above median versus below median) on recall scores of L2 listening comprehension.
Ho3: There will be no significant interaction between variation in the protocol task scores and LI writing ability scores.
Ho4: There will be no correlation among scores for LI writing abüity, L2 grades, and L2 listening comprehension scores as measured by the recall protocol.
Ho5: There will be no correlation among scores for LI writing ability, L2 grades, the recall protocol writing scores and measures of language learning strategy u se (SILL).
94 CHAPTER 4
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Introduction
This chapter reports findings that resulted from investigation of the research questions presented in Chapter 1. The first question was concerned with the effect of allowing some subjects to take notes during the recall protocol for listening comprehension. Other research questions were concerned with the effect and possible interaction of LI writing abüily on the recall score and significant relationship among recall scores and LI writing ability, L2 course grades, and language strategy use. Each research question is repeated in the discussion of the statistical analysis that relates to it.
The purpose of Part 1 of this study was to examine the effect of varying the immediate recall protocol task by allowing half of the subjects to take notes if they wished. Further, Part 1 examined the effect of LI writing ability on results of the immediate recall protocol task. Part 2 of the study examined relationships among protocol scores, L2 course grades, general academic point average (GPA), and degree of strategy use (SILL score) for all subjects.
95 Students in three sections of third-year high school Spanish were randomly assigned to a note taking condition or a non-note taking condition.
They listened to a tape-recorded passage, of 2 minutes 12 seconds in length, containing 343 words, about leisure activities of a native speaker of Spanish.
The listening selection falls into the category of "deliberate free speech" (Byrnes,
1984, p. 319) because the speaker responded to a list of topics that had been given to him but did not have time to plan by writing out or to read any part of his speech. His speech was extemporaneous, and the text of the discourse was transcribed later. After listening to the passage once, listeners in each group wrote down as much as they could recall of the passage. Recalls were written in English, the native language of the students. The first recalls were collected, and each group of students listened again to the passage and wrote a second recall, without having access to the first written recall (or the first set of notes, for those who took notes).
The independent variables of the study were (a) the option of taking notes and (b) the subject's LI writing ability (the average score of an essay and
English GPA). The dependent variable was the subject's listening comprehension score gained from the recall protocol task. The combinations of procedures (note taking variation) and abilities for LI writing ability (above or below the median of essay score and English GPA averaged together) yielded four groups, as depicted on the following page.
96 Group Label ______Description
AlBl No notes; L1 writing score above median A1B2 No notes; LI writing score below median A2B1 Notes permitted; LI score above median A2B2 Notes permitted; LI score below median
Table 4.1 : Identification of cells
The protocols written by all groups were scored using the Johnson (1970) method, a system for dividing a passage into pausal units, each of which has a value assigned (from one to four) according to its importance in meaning. The listening comprehension score was indicated by the percentage of material recalled from the listening passage according to the Johnson scoring method.
Because one independent variable was categorical (notes or no notes) and one was continuous (LI writing ability), the Analysis of Covariance
(ANCOVA) was used for Part 1 of the study. In addition, a Pearson Correlation was used to look for relationships among the dependent and independent variables. The correlation matrix (Appendix Q) shows the relationship among several different measures of LI ability—the essay score, the English GPA, and a combination of the two, called LI writing ability. These measurements were completed, using the Statistical Analysis System (SAS) in order to determine main effects among the independent variables in addition to interaction effects between or among variables.
97 Data Analysis
An ANCOVA was performed on the recall protocol scores to identify significant main efiects of either or both independent variables and any interaction effects. Interaction between the variables of note taking and LI writing ability was not significant. Summary tables are located in Appendix J, and descriptive statistics are in Table 4.1.
The group means for protocol scores indicate that groups who took notes
(A2) scored higher than their counterpart groups (that is, the A1 group above and below the writing score median). The ANCOVA results for note taking were statistically significant, p < .0078, F (7, 92) = 7.39; in addition, LI writing ability was statistically significant p < .0001, F (7, 92) = 22.99. The summaiy table in Appendix J gives details. Taking notes, then, had the same positive effect for groups who scored above the median or below the median in LI writing. Higher writing ability also had a positive effect for subjects, whether they took notes or not. There was no significant interaction between the note taking variable and the LI ability variable, p < .914, F (7, 92) = .01.
98 Variable N Mean SD
Protocol Score 100 29.77 12.52
Procedure No Notes (Al) 50 26.63 11.03 Notes (A2) 50 32.93 13.21
Writing Ability Above Median (Bl) 50 34.04 11.99 Below Median (B2) 50 23.44 10.81
Both Independent Variables A lB l 25 32.10 10.71 A1B2 25 25.14 8.43 A2B1 25 37.91 12.69 A2B2 25 27.94 11.98
LI Writing Ability Scores 100 3.17 .48
Above Median (Bl) 50 3.13 .51 Below Median (B2) 50 3.20 .46
Spanish GPA 100 3.25 .71 A lB l 25 3.67 .38 A1B2 25 2.69 .55 A2B1 25 3.71 .71 A2B2 25 2.94 .57
Academic GPA 100 3.19 .63 A lB l 25 3.64 .35 A1B2 25 2.60 .61 A2B1 25 3.67 .34 A2B2 25 2.84 .34
SILL 100 2.92 .56
Table 4.2: Sample Means and Standard Deviations
99 Alternate LI Measures
The day before completing the listening task, all subjects wrote a formal essay on the topic of "Pastimes with my Family" (instruction sheet is in
Appendix A). Students were given the title and asked to write an essay that would be an example of the best work that they would submit in English class.
No other instructions or criteria were given. Two raters graded essays, and interrater reliability was 1.00, because each score given by one grader was calibrated with the other during regular meetings. LI writing ability, however, was finally designated as a combination of essay score and English GPA, in order to avoid bias. One reason for this decision was that the essay was only one measurement. In some cases, the topic (pastimes with family) may not have been as challenging as some topics that students receive as writing assignments or exam questions. In other cases, student motivation and effort may not have been typical, because the essay was not receiving a grade and was therefore not affecting grade point averages. Another reason was that use of the English GPA alone does not isolate grades for writing, since reading and speaking are also evaluated in English classes.
The ANCOVA, however, was ru n several tim es more to include one of three possible measures of LI writing ability (essay score, English GPA, essay and GPA combined, called LI writing abüily). These runs were made in order to determine whether one measure would faü to achieve significance or whether any other insights could be gained into any of the three measures. Each measure was statistically significant in its ANCOVA- The essay score was significant, p < .0032, F (6, 93) = 9.14, as well as the English GPA measure,
lOO 2 < .0001, F (6, 93) = 34.91. The slope figures for essay score and for English
GPA were 12.01 and 7.4, respectively. The measure that combined the essay score with English GPA, called the LI Writing Ability measure, was also statistically significant, p < .0001, F (6, 93) = 37.37, with a slope of 12.01 in relation to the protocol score. On the basis of these values, the researcher decided to retain the combined score to serve as the measure for writing ability.
The Pearson Correlation (Appendix Q) shows the relationship of these m easures.
Running a full model ANCOVA that included these measures of first language abüily, however, inflated the estimated variability of the Standard
Error and returned statistically non significant results for LI, Spanish GPA, academic GPA, and the SILL measurements. The Standard Errors were larger than the correlation coefBcients, and this disparity is an indication of the inflation. The most straightforward solution to the problem was to run several
ANCOVAs, removing those variables that were highly correlated and would give nearly the same results. Thus, separate ANCOVAs were run for academic GPA,
Spanish GPA, and the SILL in relationship to the protocol score and note taking variables. The following is a rep o rt of each of those ANCOVAs.
ANCOVAs: Academic GPA. S panish GPA. and SILL with the Variables
An ANCOVA for academic GPA was significant, p < .0001,
F (6,93) = 30.28. Ehddence of colinearity of academic GPA with the protocol score was strong, with a slope of 9.53. Every unit of increase in academic GPA would predict an estimated increase in the protocol score of 9.5 points.
101 An ANCOVA for Spanish GPA returned statistically significant results,
2 < .0007, F (6, 93) = 12.27. Colinearity between protocol scores and Spanish
GPA exists, and the slope for Spanish GPA was 5.75. That figure indicates a
predicted increase in protocol score of 5.75 points for every point of increase in
S panish GPA.
An ANCOVA for protocol scores and the SILL along with the note taking variable (Appendix P) returned statistically significant results for both note
taking and the SELL. The note taking variable was statistically significant, p <
.0232, F (5, 94) = 5.32, as well as the SILL variable, p < .0029, F (5, 94) = 9.33.
The slope for the SILL was 6.6. An ANCOVA (Appendix J) for the SILL and LI writing returned statistically significant results for both. For the SILL,
significant levels were p < .0357, F (7, 92) = 4.54. For the LI Writing, results were p < .0001 and F (7, 92) = 22.99.
Correlations: Protocol scores and LI writing abflity. English GPA.
S panish GPA. Academic GPA. and SILL
Several correlations were figured and found to be signiGcant. The critical value for all correlations is .31 for p < .0005.) The correlation coeflGcient between the protocol score and LI writing abiUly score was .50. Between the protocol score and Spanish GPA, the correlation coefficient was .41. The
Academic GPA and the protocol scores had a correlation coefGcient of .52.
Correlations were also Ggured between the SILL and several measurements.
Between the SILL and the protocol score, the correlation coefGcient was .34.
102 The correlation coefficient for the SILL and LI writing ability was .31, and for
the SILL and Spanish GPA it was .34. Appendix Q displays the correlation matrix for all correlations.
Null hypotheses
The following section restates each nuU hypothesis and gives the results of the research.
Hoi: There will be no significant effect attributable to variation of the recall protocol task (notes prohibited versus permitted) on recall measures of L2 listening comprehension of third-vear high school Spanish students. The analysis of covariance reported a main effect for note taking variable p < .0078
F (7, 92) = 7.39. Least squares mean for groups, Al (the non-note taking groups) was 25.8279. The groups that took notes (A2) had a least squares mean of 31.6405, which is almost six points difference. On the basis of these figures, the null hypothesis is rejected.
Ho2: There wül be no significant effect for variation in LI writing abüitv (above median versus below median) on recall scores of L2 listening comprehension.
The analysis of covariance also reported a main effect for the variable for LI writing abüity p < .0001, F (7, 92) = 22.99. Least squares means for the two groups above the median were 31.2514 (AlBl) and 36.8279 (A2B1). The groups that did not take notes had lower least squares means: 20.4045 (A1B2) and 26.4531 (A2B2). The second null hypothesis can also be rejected.
Ho3: There will be no significant interaction between variation in the protocol task and LI writing ability. There was no interaction reported by the analysis of covariance (Appendix B) between note taking and writing ability p < .914,
103 F (7, 92) = .01. The effect of taking notes is the same, whether the group is
above or below the median in LI writing ability. This hypothesis is retained.
Ho4: There will be no correlation among scores for LI writing ability. L2 grades,
and L2 listening comprehension scores as measured by the recall protocol. The
Pearson correlation coefficient for the protocol scores and LI writing ability was
.5013, p < .0001. The correlation coefficient for the protocol score and Spanish
GPA was lower, at .4079, p > .0001. The highest correlation was between the
protocol score and academic GPA (.5219, p < .0001). Although these
correlations are not extremely high, they do indicate some relationship and are
sufficient to reject null hypothesis number four.
Ho5: There will be no correlation among scores for LI writing ability. L2 grades, the recall protocol writine scores and measures of language learning strategy use (SILLL The SILL measurement was statistically significant, p < .0232, F (7,
92) = 5.32 and had an intercept of 6.6 in relation to the protocol score. That is, every unit of increase in the strategy score is associated with a 6.6 increase in the protocol score. The correlation coefficient for the SILL and protocol score was .3395, p < .0005. For the SILL and Spanish GPA, the correlation coefficient was .3194, p < .0012. The correlation between the SILL and LI writing abüily was significant as well, at .3109, p < .0001. LI writing ability was statistically significant at p < .0001, F (7, 92) = 22.99, and, in the same ANCOVA, the SILL was statistically significant, p < .0357, F (7, 92) = 4.54. The null hypothesis is thus rejected.
104 Descriptive Analysis
Analysis of Propositions
Protocols were evaluated on a score sheet that divided the discourse into
4 groups of 25 propositions, for a total of 100 propositions. The text, then, had
25 propositions with a value of 4; 25 propositions with a level of 3; and so on.
The following analyses were undertaken to look for any patterns of recall.
This section analyses the results of the propositions recalled in four ways. First, the numbers of propositions from the first half of the text and from the second half of the text were tabulated. Next, the number of recalled propositions by each of the values (one through four) was tabulated. Third, the propositions were tallied according to what percentage of the subjects recalled them—fewer than 25%, 25% or more, 50% or more, and 75% or more. A final analysis discusses the gain in score from first protocol to second protocol for each of the four groups.
The first analysis shows that subjects uniformly recalled more of the propositions that appeared in the first half of the discourse sample. Secondly, recall was highest for level 4 propositions, but the A2B1 group recalled the largest number of lower level propositions. Thirdly, 46 propositions were recalled by fewer than 25% of the subjects, in contrast to 17 remembered by
50% or more, and only 2 propositions were remembered by more than 75% of all subjects. Finally, recall gain figures indicate a mean gain of 5.9 propositions in the second protocol, or a 16.34 point gain in score.
105 First Half / Second Half Comparison
Subjects uniformly recalled at least one proposition more from the first half of the protocol than from the second. The subjects were told before listening to the tape that the speaker would be ta lk in g about things that he did with his fa m ily - The first sentence of the discourse on the tape serves as a brief introduction. The speaker said that another activity that he did with his family was to go to church all as a fam ily and devoted another sentence to describing that activity. Then, he spent nearly the rest of the first half describing the custom of going to the United States every one to three months in order to go shopping. He explained that the Free Trade Act (his wording translates to "the common market" in English) has nearly obviated the need for such family trips.
He gave the example of the gigantic Wal-Mart store recently built iii Monterrey,
Mexico, that has 75 checkout stations. Such stores also contribute to the decline in number of family shopping trips.
At the beginning of the second half, the speaker made a transition from the subject of shopping to the subject of attending soccer games with family and friends. The second half of the discourse was a description of the 1986
World Games played in Mexico, to which the speaker went with his uncle. He described how, during Mexico's last game against Germany, as the national anthem was being played, Mexican fans on three tiers of the stadium held up colored cardboard to create the semblance of a huge flag of Mexico in red, white, and green.
Although soccer is popular in North Royalton, it is likely that subjects have more background knowledge on shopping than on this sport. Also, several
106 subjects heard fu tb o land wrote football in their protocols, rather than soccer, and thus lost credit. The term for football in Spanish is Jütbol americano.
Students were given vocabulary used by the speaker that had not appeared in their texts (or that had appeared in the level one book and was not repeated)
(Bernhardt & James, 1987). They were given the words Mmrw (anthem), cartel
(cardboard), esta d io (stadium), and A lem arda (Germany). A few subjects may have used this brief List as an advance organizer or as a pre-Ustening aid, such as a basis for hypothesis regarding the content, but some may have hypothesized incorrectly and assumed that a football stadium would be discussed. In addition, the list of propositions recalled by fewer than 25% of the subjects contains 33% more of the propositions from the second half of the discourse, 24 propositions from the first half and 32 from the second half. This slight difference in recall between first and second half may also indicate some fatigue and burden on memory, as students were trying to retain and/or process the text from the first half. It is interesting that the largest difference in scores occurs with the A2B1 group, but it is impossible to determine whether the difference may be attributed to better comprehension, better memory, or better writing ability. There are no data in the Taylor (1993) study or similar studies with which to compare these figures.
107 All G roups A lB l A1B2 A2B1 A2B2
F irst Half 14.23 15.08 9.24 19.28 13.32 (6.61) (5.48) (5.38) (5.57) (6.03)
Second Half 13.09 14.20 8.56 17.24 12.36 (7.71) (6.93) (6.65) (8.61) (7.78)
Table 4.3: Means and standard deviations of number of propositions recalled in first half and second half of text of protocol
Analysis of Propositions bv Value
A second analysis was done of the value of propositions most frequently recalled in each of the protocols and as a whole. Level four propositions had a noticeably higher mean than the other three propositions, but the standard deviation and the range were also larger for level four, in protocol one, protocol two, and as a whole. For instance, the mean number of level four propositions across protocols was 10.57, in contrast to 5.86, 5.06, and 5.36 for levels 3, 2, and 1 respectively. (This "overall" or "across protocols" figure was tabulated by counting which level 4 propositions were recognized in both of the protocols for a subject. If the same proposition was recalled both in protocol 1 and in protocol 2, it was counted only once.) A few subjects mentioned in the 108 self-evaluation form that they were Listening for main ideas, and that strategy is probably sufficient to explain this pattern. Taylor (1993) reported that most subjects in that study recalled more semantic units with a value of four than any of the other values.
Propositions Valued at:
4 3 2 1
First Protocol 6.92 3.19 3.06 2.92 (4.19) (2.25) (2.40) (2.36) 1-29 0-13 0-16 0-13
Second Protocol 8.93 4.66 3.97 4.29 (3.93) (2.78) (2.94) (3.22) 1-21 0-12 0-17 0-14
Across Protocols 10.57 5.86 5.06 5.36 (4.23) (3.10) (3.16) (3.42) 2-22 0-16 0-20 0-14
Table 4.4: Means, standard deviations, and ranges of propositions in first protocol, second protocol, and across protocols for all groups.
In addition, the number of propositions of each value was tabulated for each group (Table 4.5). The A2B1 group had the highest number of propositions recalled for all four groups in aU four values, and the number of
109 propositions valued at one is nearly two-thirds that of the number of value four propositions. It is interesting to note, however, that the group recalling the second highest number of propositions is the AlBl group, in which subjects took no notes but were above the median in LI writing ability. This result may indicate that the recall of lower level propositions may be due less to note taking than to higher LI writing ability, to better memory, or to some portion of
L2 comprehension found within the correlate with LI writing ability.
4 3 2 1
A lB l 11.72 5.96 5.24 5.64 (3.90) (2.32) (2.96) (3.28) 4-21 1-11 2-14 0-13
A1B2 7.88 3.88 3.44 3.04 (2.88) (2.26) (2.66) (2.44) 2-17 1-10 0-12 0-9
A2B1 12.48 7.76 6.88 8.20 (4.06) (3.02) (3.53) (3.07) 3-22 3-16 2-20 3-14
A2B2 10.20 5.84 4.68 4.48 (4.583) (3.496) (2.561) (2.663) 4-21 1-14 1-14 1-13
Table 4.5: Number, standard deviation, and range of propositions of each value recalled by each group
110 Propositions Recalled bv Percentage of Subjects
The propositions recalled by 20% to 24% of the subjects do not appear to follow a pattern. Rather, they seem to be the result of learner individual differences.
Prop Value Text (English Translation) AlBl A 1B2 A2B1 A 2B2 T otal (%) # 1 1 abroad 5 3 8 4 2 0 30) 1 A n d so 1 1 17 1 2 0 37) 1 w e h a d to go 7 4 4 5 2 0 61) 2 were held in '86 4 2 10 4 2 0 78) 3 a n d everyoneh a d 3 5 8 4 2 0
9) 1 s o w e always 5 2 9 5 21 25) 2 once eveiy threemonths 5 3 9 5 2 2 66) 3 to the last g^une 8 4 5 5 22 58) 2 A n d I remember 1 1 21 0 2 3 12) 2 And it is also very customary 10 2 7 5 2 4
Table 4.6: Propositions remembered by 20-24% of the subjects
111 Pr V alu Text (English Translation) AIB AIB A2B A 2B T otal op e 1 2 1 2 (%) # 7) 2 My fomity 5 5 11 4 2 5 33) 2 Now, 2 2 21 0 2 5 51) 1 Another th in g 8 5 3 9 25 44) 4 that has like 75 cash registers 2 1 2 4 0 2 7
1) 1 another 8 3 12 5 2 8 84) 1 T he persons 5 11 8 4 2 8 26) 1 or 0 0 27 2 2 9 79) 3 a type ofcolored 4 3 13 9 29 38) 2 to the United States to b u y 11 5 8 7 31 60) 4 the soccer World Games 14 10 3 4 31 22) 1 are used to going 10 6 9 7 3 2 41) 1 For example 6 4 17 5 3 2 21) 3 middle class people or people of 9 6 9 10 3 4 th e... 23) 2 to the United States 11 5 9 9 3 4 42) 4 in Monterrey 9 9 11 6 3 5 71) 4 that the national anthem 15 9 3 8 3 5
6) 4 to go to church 12 3 14 7 3 6 81) 1 T he persons 9 7 13 7 36 72) 3 w a s sung, that is sung 10 6 14 8 3 8 13) 2 in Mexico 7 9 12 12 4 0 80) 4 p oster or cardboard 18 11 1 11 41 31) 1 on e ca n buyth in g s 2 0 8 0 14 4 2 39) 2 c a n be b o u ^ t 12 8 15 7 4 2 35) 3 manyof the products 18 8 7 13 4 6 40) 4 in Mexico 11 6 18 13 4 8
Table 4.7: Propositions remembered by 25-49% of the subjects
112 Pr V alu Text (English translation) AIB AIB A2B A 2B Total op e 1 2 1 2 (%) # 75) 4 T h e stadium 17 11 8 14 50 53) 4 w a s to g o 14 4 22 11 51 17) 4 in cities like Monterrey 12 14 14 12 52 32) 2 in th e United States 16 10 16 12 54 18) 3 which is veryclose 14 10 19 12 55 57) 3 m yuncles 13 9 19 14 55 89) 4 h a d green cardboards 16 9 17 13 55 52) 3 th a t I u s e d to Uke a lot 14 14 13 16 57 54) 4 to soccer g a m es 2 0 17 12 12 61 86) 4 h a d a white cardboard 18 14 16 14 62 56) 1 or 13 11 23 16 63 2) 4 o f th e activities 17 10 21 18 66 3) 2 th a t w e used to do 16 11 20 19 66 4) 4 a s a family 17 13 19 19 68 14) 3 to go shopping 15 16 24 13 68 19) 4 to th e United States 19 13 21 16 69 83) 4 had the color red 2 0 16 18 18 72
Table 4.8: Propositions remembered by 50% or more of the subjects
The group of propositions remembered by 25-49% of the subjects includes 25 propositions. One generalization is that much of the vocabulary comes from first-year units on numbers or shopping. Another cluster involves cognates such as personas, productos, ejemplo, and M éxico. In addition, all but four of the propositions are from the first half of the discourse sample.
113 In the group of propositions remembered by 50-74% of the subjects, the
pattern is similar. Seventeen propositions were recalled. The first-year unit on
the family included the word for uncle, and an earlier unit in that year included
the colors red, white, and green. The verb g u s ta is r taught in first year and
again in second and third. Cognates included actividades, familia, and E ^ta d o s
Urtidos. Lastly, the word for stadium, given as one of the four vocabulary words
prior to listening, was recognized by 50% of the subjects.
In the last category, of the two propositions remembered by
approximately 75% of the subjects, one was the Spanish pronunciation of an
English word, Wal-Mart. The other was among some of the first words learned
in first year Spanish as well as a word commonly known by English speakers,
even those who have studied little or no Spanish, am igos.
In order to form some conclusion about the type of proposition recalled,
it is also necessary to consider the 46 propositions recalled by fewer than 20%
of the subjects. The A1B2 group recalled more of the propositions from this
Hst, but the AlBl group was the group to recall the second highest number.
This result may indicate that recall of propositions of this categoiy had less to
do with note taking and more to do with recognition, comprehension, or
memory.
Protocol Gain Score
The protocol gain score consists of the difference between the score for
protocol 1 and the score for protocol 2. The mean gain score for all subjects
was 5.9 propositions, an approximate gain of 34% from the first protocol score.
The benefit of writing a second protocol seemed to occur in the above median
114 writing groups rather than in the note taking groups. The first protocol writing served as a prompt for these subjects, according to the post-task questionnaire.
It may also have enhanced some cognitive functions that aided in recall.
Although some subjects appeared to benefit greatly from a second listening and protocol writing, the ranges and standard deviations for aU groups are high—even to the point that, in the below median LI writing groups, the standard deviations exceed the means. For some members of all groups, then, the repeated listening and protocol writing may have no benefit for comprehension. An additional possible explanation is that motivation to write the second protocol may be low for some subjects. Less able writers are often less motivated to write. Another factor that may have affected motivation for some subjects is that the activity was not graded, so the subjects did not receive credit. For a few subjects, credit or grade is the most motivating or the only motivating factor.
115 All G roups A lB l A1B2 A2B1 A2B2
M ean 5.95 5.88 3.75 8.89 5.28
S.D. 5.75 5.02 4.84 6.54 5.54
Range 30 21 14 24 19
Min./Max -6/24 -5 /1 7 -6 /1 4 -3 /2 4 -3 /1 6
Table 4.9: Means, standard deviations, and ranges for protocol gain scores
Analysis of the SELL Results
Descriptive statistics for SILL scores in Table 4.10 show that the subjects who reported making most use of strategies were in the above median LI writing group (Bl), in the note taking group (A2), and in the A2B1 experimental group (a combination of note taking and higher writing ability). This pattern reflects the results of a Pearson correlation (Appendix Q) that indicated a .31 correlation between the SELL and LI writing ability. This correlation, however.
116 was done for the overall score on the SELL. The SILL is composed of six
sub tests, and correlation statistics for those areas appear in Table 4.10.
Group # M ean S.D. Range M in./M ax.
All subjects 100 2.92 .56 2.49 1.66/4.15
No notes (Al) 50 2.84 .58 2.42 1.66/4.09
Notes (A2) 50 3.01 .54 2.09 2.06/4.15
Above Median (Bl) 50 3.02 .50 2.42 1.66/4.09
Below M edian (B2) 50 2.83 .61 2.35 1.80/4.15
A lB l 25 2.95 .54 2.42 1.66/4.09
A1B2 25 2.72 .60 2.26 1.80/4.06
A2B1 25 3.09 .45 1.65 2.33/3.98
A2B2 25 2.93 .61 2.09 2.06/4.15
Table 4 .1 0 : Means, standard deviations, minimum /m aximum SELL scores
117 Pearson SILL Subtest Correlation Coefficient Slope Covariance
A (Memory) .2331 4.8443 .3627
B (Cognitive) .3972 7.5427 .4344
C (Compensation) -.0219 -0.5573 .2411
D (Metacognitive) .3861 7.0852 .4651
E (Affective) .1035 1.8933 .4677
F (Social) .3220 5.2568 .5876
Table 4.11: Pearson correlation coefBcients, slopes, and covariances of SILL subtests with recall protocol scores
Figure 4.11 shows the subtests of the SILL. Examples of use of memory strategies include grouping, making associations, and review. Strategies in this category are used during the learning process/acquisition process and would not necessarily be useful for remembering content of a listening passage.
Cognitive strategies include practice of the sound and writing systems, practice in authentic situations, looking for language patterns, skimming and scanning to grasp main ideas quickly, and taking notes. Several strategies in this category are pertinent to the recall protocol Listening task and show the highest correlation with recall protocol scores. Compensation for missing knowledge has a negative correlation. Examples of strategies pertinent to the immediate
118 recall protocol listening task include using any available clues to guess meaning and attempting to understand overall meaning. Metacognitive strategies include overviewing and linking with background knowledge, focussing attention, identifying the purpose of a language task, and planning for a language task. This subcategoiy had the second highest correlation with protocol scores. Examples of affective strategies are lowering anxiety and self encouragement; this category had the lowest correlation with protocol scores.
Social factors in language learning had a high correlation with protocol scores, but, because the immediate recall protocol task is not interactive, only a few of the strategies figured in any aspect of the task. Some examples of strategies that might pertain in an interactive task are cooperating with proficient speakers of the L2, developing cultural awareness, and becoming aware of others' thoughts and feelings. In other words, those who cooperate more may have tried harder to listen and to write as much and as well as possible in both the essay and in the protocol. Those subjects who are more interested in developing cultural awareness and awareness of the thoughts of others may have had more motivation or more insight.
Means and standard deviations were calculated for the two subtests correlating most highly and the subtest correlating negatively with the protocol scores—subtests B, C, and D (Table 4.12). Subjects of the AlBl and the A2B1 groups reported using cognitive strategies more than the B2 groups, the below median LI writing groups. These two subject groups had the two higher sets of protocol scores, and the correlation coefficient between protocol scores and LI writing ability was .50. These associations point to a possibility that more
119 skillful writers use a different cluster of cognitive strategies or use the same cluster more frequently, either while listening to L2 input or in writing about that input in their LI, or both.
Means and standard deviations for Compensation strategies, the SILL C subtest, were higher for the A1B2 and A2B1 groups. The A2B1 group, with no notes and lower median LI writing scores, reported highest use of compensation strategies. The protocol scores for this group were the lowest of all four groups. Highest protocol scores were in the A1B2 group, which took notes and was above the median in LI writing skills. These results probably indicate that, although the A1B2 group was compensating heavily for missing knowledge, the hypotheses formed were less logical, accurate, or contextually based. The pattern of A1B2 scores probably explains the negative correlation between overall means of this subtest and the protocol scores.
Use of metacognitive strategies, SILL sub test D, was highest in the two higher scoring groups AlBl and A2B1 (a finding that corroborates Bacon,
1992). Subjects reported using the strategies of self-monitoring, overviewing and linking with background knowledge, focussing attention, identifying the purpose of a language task, and planning for a language task. Use of these strategies in general seems to have been applied specifically during the recall tasks, whether students took notes or did not.
120 Subject SILLB SILLC SILLD Group (Cognitive) (Compensation) (Metacognitive)
All Subjects 2.97 3.72 2.79 (.66) (.49) (.68)
A lB l 3.09 3.67 2.83 (.61) (.47) (.62)
A1B2 2.66 3.83 2.44 (.73) (.43) (.72)
A2B1 3.22 3.80 3.12 (.50) (.53) (.55)
A2B2 2.93 3.59 2.76 (.67) (.51) (-69)
Table 4.12: Means and standard deviations for SILL subtests and subject groups
Results of Post-listening Evaluation and Self-evaluation
Subjects completed the post-listening questionnaire (Appendixes E and
F) after turning in their second protocol. One category of questions asked about
English writing ability—what one liked about writing in English, what was easy, and what was difEcult. Another category asked subjects to assess their performance on the listening portion and in the protocol writing portion of the task. Two questions asked about the most difEcult element of the task and
121 what would have made comprehension and recall easier. Other questions
inquired about the purpose for note taking and use of notes in writing the
protocols. Two questions inquired about the benefits of writing the first
protocol—that is, whether it promoted better understanding during the second
listening and whether it aided in writing the second protocol. The last question
asked subjects for any final comments or suggestions that they wished to
include.
Responses to the two questions about writing ability were similar,
most probably because the questions were highly related, hi answer to the
question, "What do you like about writing in English?" the most frequently given
response was related to automaticity—control over vocabulary, sentence
structure, and verb forms as well as ease of expression, including the ability to
say precisely what one wanted to say without having to circumlocute or
simplify, as an intermediate student m ust often do. The second most frequent response was the opportunity for self-expression (of ideas, opinions, or
emotions) and the opportunity to exercise creativity. Responses to the next question, 'What is easiest about writing in English?" followed the same pattern.
122 Like A lB l A1B2 A2B1 A2B2
Autom aticily 12 13 11 13
Accomplishment, Good Grades 4 0 0 1
Topic Choice 3 0 0 0
Self-expression, Creativity 5 9 13 10
Nothing 1 3 1 1
Table 4.13: Responses to, "What do you like about writing in English?"
Easy A lB l A1B2 A2B1 A2B2
Control, Fluency, Automaticity 12 17 15 17
Accomplishment 1 0 0 0
Self-expression, Creativity 10 4 8 6
Not easy 2 1 0 0
Miscellaneous 0 3 2 2
Table 4.14: Responses, 'W hat is easiest about writing in English?"
123 Although responses did not yield information about writing ability in relation to the listening task itself, the similarity of responses testifies to the homogeneity of the sample, in terms of attitudes toward writing.
Answers to the question, "What is most difficult about writing in
English?" were more varied, but the majority fell into the categories of spelling, punctuation, or grammar/mechanics for all four groups. A few answered that thinking of or developing ideas presented difScully, and others wrote that it was diSicult to develop ideas regarding topics that had been assigned, especially those in which they had no interest or lacked expertise. Responses ti) this question indicate that there was little that would interfere with the task of writing the recall protocol. These responses also corroborated trends in scores on the essay, in which some credit was lost for lack of control over grammar and mechanics, and, in other cases, for poor development of ideas.
Questions 5 and 6 asked subjects to evaluate their performance on listening comprehension and then on the subsequent protocol writing task.
Ranked on a scale of one to five, with five being excellent, most subjects ranked themselves at two or three. Only one group did not follow this pattern. In
Group A1B2 (no notes, below median in writing), 12 members gave themselves the poorest rating on listening comprehension of the tape, and nine responded in this manner for the protocol writing task. Members of this group would have had the fewest resources at their disposal—no notes and less ability in writing.
It is interesting to note, however, that a few from each of the four groups ranked themselves higher on the writing task than on listening comprehension. This shift probably indicates that subjects feel more confident with their writing
124 skills in English in comparison with their listening skills in Spanish, but it may also indicate a lack of understanding of the task, in which the protocol writing is a measure of listening comprehension. A third possibility is that the writing task may have aided comprehension.
A few comments for question 5 give information about the difEculty of listening and taking notes for some subjects: "I heard a lot but with writing notes it was hard to jot down ideas and remember what was said. You really miss a lot. " A comment from the other note taking group echoed the difSculty:
"I understood I think at least half of it—I could understand more but wasn't fast enough to write it." Similar comments occur in later sections and will be discussed there and in the "Pedagogical Implications" section in the next chapter.
Comments for question 6, the protocol self-evaluation, lend insight into the load on memory for this type of task. For example, one subject from Group
AlBl wrote, "No very good because a few words stuck in my head but I didn't the whole sentence a concept [sic]." Subjects from Group A1B2 said, "I forgot a lot of stuff," and, "I had to go on memory." In the note taking groups, two subjects mentioned memory as a problem: "Even with the notes I missed details." In total, five subjects from the non-note taking group mentioned burden on memory in this question. Other comments regarding memory occur in response to later questions.
Question 7 asked subjects, "What was the most difficult part of this listening activity for you?" A tabulation of their responses follows in Table 4.15.
125 Difficulty A lB l A1B2 A2B1 A2B2
Attention 1 3 1 1
Understanding 13 16 14 16
Speed (words/minute) 7 5 13 8
Memory 5 5 3 0
Lack of Note 1 2
Notes + Speed/Decode 5 3
Table 4.15: Responses to question 7, "What was the most difScult part of this listening activity for you?"
A few subjects mentioned that they had had difficulty concentrating, due to sickness or fatigue. The non-note taking groups commented more frequently about the difficulties in remembering or the lack of notes, as would be expected.
A total of eight members from the note taking group mentioned difficulties in taking notes rapidly enough or in concentrating on Spanish while taking notes in English. In all four groups, several subjects mentioned word rate as a problem. The majority of the responses, however, designated comprehension as the greatest difficulty.
Some respondents specified the cause for lack of comprehension; the two problems mentioned were lack of vocabulary and linking. Subjects had been
126 given the words that had not appeared in their texts prior to listening, along with the English equivalent: e sta d io (stadium), A lem a n ia (Germany), M m no
(anthem), and cartel (cardboard). Rader (1990), Schmidt-Rinehart (1992), and
Taylor (1993) reported s im ila r findings and have explained that linking exemplifies normal Spanish pronunciation and that the word rate in their studies (and in the present study) falls within the average word rate. Rader
(1990) speculated that the linking aspect of the speech may heighten subjects' perception of speed.
The issue of word rate appeared again in responses to Question 8, "What would have helped you in your comprehension and recall of the listening passage?" (Table 4.16). The most frequent response (44%) for all groups was that the speaker's word rate posed difficulty and should have been slower. This
44% rate was consistent within the non-note taking subject groups. Within these Al groups, however, the second most frequent response (38%) was permission to take notes. One subject from the A1B2 group said that using the notes from the first listening on subsequent listening and writing would have helped. Clarity refers specifically to linking. As on subject commented, "He mumbled and didn't pronounce his words." A few subjects from each group mentioned that a visual element, such as video or having the speaker in person, would have helped by giving clues through gestures, facial expression, and shape of the mouth. One subject (A2B1.66) wrote, "being able to ask questions, if I could have asked him to slow down or re-explain a few parts. "
127 Easier with AlBl A1B2 A2B1 A2B2
Attention 0 2 1 0
Understanding 15 4 3 9
“Clarity* 3 2 3 3
Speed 11 11 12 10
N otes 14 5 1 1
Visual / Personal 4 2 3 1
Repetition 0 1 1 2
Table 4.16: Answers to Question 8, "What would have helped your comprehension/ recall?"
Question 9 applied only to the note taking groups. It asked, "Did you take notes during listening? Why or why not?" AU but three subjects reported that they took notes. The three who did not take notes wrote that the conflict of modalities was the reason for their choice. It was not possible for them to listen and write at the same time. The most frequently mentioned reason for taking notes was as an aid to memory (28 subjects). The second most frequently mentioned purpose was getting the main idea (9). Other purposes listed were for use as an organizer or outline (8 helping with guessing meaning
(1), helping with translation (1), and using writing as a preferred modality (2).
128 Those who mentioned the last categoiy, modality, commented: "1 leam better by writing than by listening," and, "Seeing the words helps me remember."
Question 10 was also one that pertained only to the A2 groups: "Did you use your notes to write the first protocol? Why or why not?" The responses to this question followed the same pattern as the previous question. The most frequent response (23 in all) was that the notes were an aid to memory. The next most frequent response was that notes served as an organizer (10 subjects). A few other responses mentioned that the notes served as a prompt for writing (3 subjects), as an aid in comprehension (1 subject), and as an aid in adding details to the protocol (2 subjects). Individual responses for this question along with those for questions 7, 8, 11, 12, and 13 are in Appendix T.
Responses to Question 11 corroborate findings from the Taylor (1993), in which 60% of the subjects said that they believed that the writing of two protocols was beneficial. Question 11 asked all subjects whether writing the first protocol helped in understanding the second listening. Several subjects
(23 in all) from each group answered that it did not, mostly because they had not understood the first time (8 subjects), and some because they had not understood either time (7 subjects). The remaining eight subjects listed the following reasons: understood most of it the first time (1), unable to concentrate (1), unable to listen in Spanish and write in English (1), and no new comprehension (5). Of those who replied yes, the reasons more frequently given were that the first writing helped them to add details or fill in gaps (33 subjects) and that it provided a basis or focus for listening (31 subjects). Some comments included, "I anticipated the stuff I knew and tried to listen for other
129 stuff," and, "I had already thought about it and didn't have to concentrate on what most of it meant." Other ways in which the first writing helped in the second listening were that it aided memory (9 subjects), it helped to correct misunderstandings (1 subject), and it had provided additional time to think (2 subjects).
The variety of responses indicates that the opportunity to write helped most of the subjects, either by allowing them to listen for new details (33) or in providing a focus or organizer for the subsequent listening. Aid to memory was probably provided through the opportunity for rehearsal, either during the writing process or, as two subjects stated, by providing "time to think" or process the content of the passage.
130 Aided AlBl A1B2 A2B1 A2B2
Memory 3 2 2 3
Filling in gaps/ adding details 8 8 10 7
Additional Comprehension 7
F o cu s/ Basis for Listening 5 10 9
Correct Misunderstandings 1
Time to think 2
Totals 77 19 15 24 19
Table 4.17: Affirmative responses to Question 11, "Did the writing of the first protocol help you to understand better during the second listening?"
Responses to the next question, "Did the writing of the first protocol help you in writing the second protocol?" were similar to those for the previous question and parallel the comments discussed in Taylor (1993). This time, however, 30 subjects reported that writing the first protocol had not been helpful. Reasons most frequently given were that they had not understood the first time (8 subjects) or that there had been no increase in comprehension ( 11
131 subjects). Other reasons were that the first protocol had been minimal (2 subjects) or that the second protocol was distinctly different from the first (2).
One remaining reason was given: "I have a good memory," and eight subjects did not comment.
The most frequent response from the subjects who answered that the first protocol writing had been helpful was that it helped them to add details or fill in gaps in understanding (24 subjects). Two other frequent responses were that it had aided their memory (16) and that it had served as an organizer (16 subjects).
132 Aided A lB l A1B2 A2B1 A2B2
Memory 9 3 1 3
Filling in gaps/ adding details 3 5 9 2
Additional Comprehension 1 2 3
Focus/Organizer Basis for Listening 6 10
Wrote the Same Thing 3 2 1
Miscellaneous or No Reason 2 2 3
Totals 70 18 14 20 18
Table 4.18: Affirmative responses to Question 12, "Did the writing of the first protocol help you in the writing of the second protocol?"
The last question asked subjects for any final suggestions, comments, or messages. Most of the 23 responses followed the patterns of responses to previous questions. Ten subjects mentioned the speech rate and linking of the speaker, and five subjects (three from A2B1 and two from A2B2) mentioned that it was difficult to listen and take notes at the same time. One subject from the
133 AlBl group mentioned that notes should have been allowed. Another subject from the AlBl group asked for another repetition of the listening passage.
Finally, six subjects remarked that the tasks had been good practice (one from
A2B1 and five from A2B2).
134 CHAPTER 5
SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Overview of the Study
Previous studies focussing on the immediate recall protocol for listening comprehension in a second language have not permitted students to take notes
(Bernhardt & James, 1987; James, 1986; D. Long, 1990; Rader, 1990;
Schmidt-Rinehart, 1992; Taylor, 1993). Research in note taking in the L2 has concentrated on the classroom lecture format, and findings are almost equally mixed (Dunkel & Davis, 1994; Ellis, 1994; Flowerdew, 1994; Hansen, 1994;
Rubin, 1994). Research regarding note taking during L2 listening comprehension of brief texts of nonacademic content is nearly nonexistent.
This study sought to add to the existing research base by investigating the effects of varying the immediate recall protocol task by allowing half of the subjects to take notes if they chose to do so. A second purpose concerned the effect of higher LI writing ability on the immediate recall protocol scores. In addition, correlations were obtained between the protocol scores and LI writing ability, along with several other measures of individual learner differences; academic GPA, English GPA, essay writing score, Spanish GPA, and language learning strategy use (SILL). A final purpose was to follow up on Taylor's (1993)
135 findings that the writing of a second protocol without access to the first is an aid to memory for most subjects. Descriptive data confirm those findings.
One hundred students in three sections of high school Spanish IE classes were randomly divided into note taking or non-note taking groups. All subjects listened to a passage spoken by a native speaker of Spanish, and subjects in the note taking groups took notes if they wished. The listening text may be classified as authentic deliberate free speech (Byrnes, 1984), which is unplanned and retains some of the interactional and production-related aspects of spontaneous speech. The subjects then wrote an immediate recall protocol, using notes if they had taken them. Notes and protocols were collected before a second listening and protocol writing, again with notes if they had been permitted. These protocols were the L2 listening comprehension measurement.
Subjects then completed a post-listening questionnaire and self-evaluation.
The day prior to listening, all subjects had written a formal essay on one assigned topic. They then completed the Strategy Inventory for Language
Learning (Oxford, 1990). The essay scores were averaged with English GPA and formed the measure for LI writing ability. LI writing ability scores for both the note taking group and the non-note taking group were ranked. Those above the median and those below the median were combined with each note taking condition to form four groups: no notes, above median LI writing; no notes, below median writing; notes permitted, above median LI writing; and notes permitted, below median writing. Other measures were subsequently correlated with the entire sample mean, and some measures were correlated with the
136 means of the various subgroups. Some subtests of the SILL were investigated further, and the results of the post-task questionnaire were tabulated to provide corroboration for the quantitative data.
Summary of the Findings
The following section restates each research question and summarizes the findings of the present study that are associated with it.
Question 1: Does varying the immediate recall protocol procedure by allowing the subjects to take notes affect recall measure of the L2 listening comprehension of students of third-year high school Spanish?
The analysis of covariance reported a significant main effect for the note taking variable. The scores of the two groups that took notes (two groups of 25, n = 50) were nearly six percentage points (x = 31.64) above the non-note taking groups (n = 50, X = 25.83). These results indicate that note taking was beneficial to subjects whether they were above the median or below the median in LI writing ability. In Chapter 4, descriptive statistics indicate that below the median writers who took notes (x = 27.94) scored nearly three percentage points higher than below the median writers who did not take notes (x = 25.14).
Subjects above the median in writing ability who took notes (n = 25; x = 37.91) scored nearly six percentage points higher than their counterparts in the non note taking group (n = 25, x = 32.10). So, note taking was beneficial for all, but appears to have been most beneficial for more capable LI writers.
Research findings for benefits of LI note taking (that is, listening in LI and taking notes in LI) are mixed almost evenly and have focussed primarily on note taking during academic lectures (Chaudron, L o sc h lq r , & Cook, 1994).
137 Research into L2 note taking and listening comprehension has focussed on lectures of 10 minutes or more in length and has once again shown mixed results (Flowerdew, 1994). The findings of the present study add to the research base regarding briefer L2 listening tasks regarding nonacademic content and regarding variation of the recall protocol task.
Responses from the post-task listening questionnaire also testified to the advantages of note taking to aid memory and the writing process. Of the 50 subjects from the two subgroups of 25 each, three chose not to take notes because, they wrote, it was difficult for them to operate in two modalities at once. The remaining subjects described their motivation for having elected to take notes and for using them during the writing of the protocols. Below the median writers gave several reasons:
"...because I wouldn’t have to memorize that much."
"...so I could look back & keep the same order."
"...because I leam better by writing than by listening."
"It helped me in my comprehension + helped in the composition for detailing."
"For ideas."
"I don't have to concentrate to remember as much and still listen for more details."
"I thought it would help me to write and think."
To this variety of uses, the above the median writing group added a a few additional purposes:
"...I could fit them together 8s maybe guess on some things because I had the main idea."
"...I was able to translate."
138 Notes served as an aid to memory both during and after listening. These results corroborate research on both LI (Aiken, Thomas, & Shennum, 1975;
Carter & Van Matre, 1975; Einstein, Morris, 8 g Smith, 1985; Kiewra et al., 1991;
Peck & Hannafïn, 1983) and L2 (Dixon, 1992; Flowerdew, 1994; Rost, 1990) note taking behavior and benefits during listening tasks of longer duration
(lectures). Notes enhanced memory by acting as external storage and by cueing, which helps to promote reconstruction of parts of the lecture that were not recorded in the notes.
Descriptive data from the post-task questionnaire included some comments from the two A1 groups, those that had not taken notes. In answer to question 7 ("What was the most difficult part of the listening activity for you?"), one subject from group A lBl and two from group A1B2 answered, "not being able to take notes." In addition, five other subjects from AlBl and four from A1B2 said that remembering was the difficulty. Responses to question 8
('What would have helped you in your comprehension and recall of the listening passage?"] contained 14 comments from AlBl subjects (including the one who had mentioned notes in the response to question 7) saying that notes would have facilitated the task. Five subjects in A1B2 (different from those who had replied to question 7) said that notes would have helped in comprehension and recall.
The total combined responses (excluding one response for the subject who mentioned notes twice) indicate that 42% of the subjects in the non-note taking groups believed that note taking would have helped them. These results corroborate those of the Taylor (1993), in which 37 of 120 subjects or 41%
139 responded that taking notes would have been helpful. The response occurred more frequently in the AlBl group, in which subjects were above the median in
LI writing skills, 14 in contrast to 7 responses from A1B2 subjects. One other result in this study substantiates the above observation that more skilled writers use the cognitive learning strategy of note taking more frequently. That finding is discussed under research question 5, correlations of SILL subtests.
Chaudron, Loschlqr, and Cook (1994) remarked that there was very little research to determine whether note taking aids in L2 comprehension. One subject of the present study explicitly stated that taking and having notes helped her to comprehend. Other subjects described uses for note taking and note having that may have further aided comprehension. Other reasons listed by subjects in the two A1 groups have been discussed but not necessarily confirmed in the previously cited LI and L2 studies: to free the attention that would be devoted to memory in order to invest it in comprehension, to grasp main ideas, to organize information, to provide a basis for hypotheses, to provide opportunities for further rehearsal (including translation), and to capitalize on a preferred modality.
Question 2: Does LI writing ability (as indicated by above median or below median scores on an essay written in the LI and averaged with the LI grade point average GPA) affect recall measures of listening comprehension, as measured by the immediate recall protocol?
The analysis of covariance reported a significant main effect for the LI writing ability variable. Least squares means for both groups above the median in LI writing ability were 31.25 (for the A lB l group, which took no notes) and
140 36.83 (for the A2B1 group, in which notes were permitted if desired). These means are in contrast to the two groups below the median in Li writing ability,
20.40 (for the A1B2 group, no notes) and 26.45 (A2B2, notes permitted). In both the non-note taking group and the note taking group, the differences in means exceeded 10 percentage points.
The Pearson correlation coefficient between the LI writing ability scores and the protocol was .50 and was also significant, and r^ was .25. Other significant Pearson correlations occurred between the protocol scores and other measures of writing and LI ability. The correlation between the protocol score and the score on the essay written by each subject on the day prior to the listening tasks was .36. The correlation coefficient for the protocol score and the subjects’ cumulative grade point average in English (for three years, including current year) was .48.
Further observation may be made of the protocol gain score, the result of subtracting the score for protocol 1 from the score for protocol 2. The B1 groups, those above the median in LI writing ability had scores higher than the
B2 groups. Group AlBl scores had a mean gain of 5.88, and group A2B1 had a mean gain of 8.89. In contrast, the below the median writing group that took notes had a mean gain of 5.28, whereas the group that had no notes and lesser writing ability, A1B2, had the lowest mean gain of 3.75. (See Table 4.9 for additional simple statistics.)
Although a search of the literature revealed no research that directly relates LI writing ability to L2 Ustening ability, results of the present study corroborate Cummins’s interdependency principle discussed by Ellis (1994).
141 This principle derives from the h^’pothesis that cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP) is an underlying commonality across languages. The learner, therefore, can transfer these academic skills from use in LI to use in
L2. The correlations with protocol scores and the r^ figure are sufficient to establish a Link between the LI writing skills needed to complete the protocol and L2 listening ability. These findings offer further opportunities for research.
Question 3: Do the effects of procedure variation on the immediate recall protocol interact with the LI writing ability level?
The ANCOVA results indicate no significant interaction between the effect of note taking and LI writing abüity. Values were p < .914, F (7, 92) = .01. As reported in the sections above, results for each variable were significant, and the group that completed the task with both variables present (A2B1) scored higher than the other three groups (x = 37.91). The fact that writers of lower ability also benefited from taking notes corroborates the lack of finding for interaction (A2B2, x = 27.94, in contrast to A1B2, x = 25.14). In addition, subjects of higher writing ability (AlBl) who did not take notes had the second highest means for protocol scores (x = 32.10). These results also help to corroborate the lack of interaction as well as to illustrate the beneficial effects of each independent variable.
Question 4: Is there any correlation among scores for LI writing ability, L2 course grades and L2 listening comprehension scores as measured by the immediate recall protocol?
Correlation coefiBcients for all comparisons exceeded critical values, most of them at p < .0001. A complete table of the Pearson correlation coefficients is
142 included in ^pendix Q. Correlation coefiBcients for protocol scores and LI writing ability and L2 course grades were .50 and .41, respectively. L2 course grades would reflect some degree of the subject's listening comprehension ability. Based on these correlation coefiBcients, however, it is possible that, for some subjects, LI writing ability is contributing more to the variance of the protocol score than is overall L2 ability as measured by course grades. This question merits further investigation.
Question 5: Is there any correlation among scores for LI writing ability, L2 course grades, the recall protocol writing scores, and a measure of language learning strategy use (SILL)?
All correlation coefiBcients exceeded critical values. The Pearson correlation coefiBcient for the SILL and LI writing ability was .31. For the SILL and L2 course grades, the correlation coefiBcient was .32. The correlation coefiBcient for the SILL and the protocol score was .34.
Because these coefiBcients were among the lower of the measures of individual learner differences, scores for the SILL sub tests were correlated with protocol results in order to leam whether the overall score failed to reflect specific areas of strategy use. These results were reported in Chapter 4. Of the six categories of L2 learning strategy use, three seemed to warrant further observation. These were the clusters for cognitive, compensation, and metacognitive strategy use with correlation coefiBcients to the protocol scores of
.40, -.02, and .39, respectively.
Means and standard deviations for these three subtests for all four groups also appear in Chapter 4. Use of cognitive strategies was higher for the
143 B1 (the LI writers above the median in both the non-note taking group and in the note taking group) subjects. The correlation coefiBcient for the SILL metacognitive subtest and protocol scores was .39, nearly equal to the .40 of the correlation coefiBcient for cognitive strategy use. Breakdown of the negative correlation coefiBcient revealed that compensatoiy use had been reported most frequently by subjects in the group with the lowest protocol scores (A1B2); the mean for their strategy scores for this subtest was 3.83 out of 5.00 possible, which is considered moderately high. Subjects of the highest protocol scoring group (A2B1) had a mean of 3.8.
When protocol score means are compared with SILL compensation means of each group (25.14 versus 37.91), it becomes clear that the group with fewer advantages (A1B2, lower LI writing ability and no option to take notes) was probably using two of the strategies described in the SILL (trying to use clues to guess the meaning of what was heard and trying to understand the overall meaning without understanding every word) frequently, but their use was ineffective and inaccurate, in contrast to the A2B1 group that used the same strategies efiBciently. Protocol scores within the A1B2 group help to explain the negative correlation between the SILL subtest and the mean for aU protocol scores. The negative correlation for this subtest serves as a partial explanation for the lower correlation coefiBcients between the overall SILL scores and other variables.
Use of metacognitive strategies was the subtest with the second highest correlation coefiBcient with protocol scores at .39. Strategies in this category were more frequently used by the two groups that had higher protocol scores.
144 the B1 groups (above the median in LI writing ability). Some of the appropriate
strategies in this category are self-monitoring, identifying the purpose of a
language task, planning for a language task, overviewing and linking with
background knowledge, and focussing attention. Whether subjects of higher LI writing ability took notes or not, they reported using these strategies more frequently and extensively. The focus, planning, and organization needed in LI writing would also be needed for writing as complete a protocol as possible.
The results for strategy use corroborate recent research findings regarding strategy use in listening tasks. Ehrman and Oxford (1995) found use of the same cluster of three subcategories among Foreign Service Institute language learners, but in different rate of firequency (compensatory, most frequently used; cognitive, second most firequently, along with social; and metacognitive, less frequently used, along with memory and affective strategies).
Rubin (1994) described the use of cognitive and metacognitive strategies during listening tasks but added that more research was needed to validate findings, especially because of variation of definition of proficiency levels.
Limitations of the Study
The findings reported above may be generalized only to the extent that the following limitations would dictate.
Data Analvsis
There are a number of ways that the data could have been analyzed.
Analysis of the data was primarily by means of Analysis of Covariance or
ANCOVA, and use of this analysis may raise concern among some researchers because of the use of the ordinal explanatory variable (LI writing abüity scores)
145 as a covariate. This approach was chosen because it provided two advantages.
First, covariates use one degree of freedom and provide a statistically efiScient method of analysis by making more degrees of freedom available to the error term. Second, it did not mask the natural ordering of the scores that would have occurred if they had been considered a factor.
Several modifications or alternatives exist. It would have been possible to convert the LI writing ability scores to percentiles before running the
ANCOVA- Or, the original essay scores could have been derived from a score sheet rather than the guidelines for holistic grading. Other approaches could have been the use of the ANOVA or log linear analysis. Those who are concerned regarding the method of analysis are likely to find these alternatives more suitable.
Subjects
Subjects participating in this study were students at the same high school, all from the same community; each was enrolled in one of three sections of Spanish III. Despite individual differences, the school and community setting are factors in the homogeneity of the sample. Randomization was used in selecting subjects for the note taking condition and in eliminating students to form cells of equal numbers. AU subjects were at the same course level, but proficiency levels were not identified. Instead, L2 ability was designated by each subject's cumulative grade point average in Spanish over three years.
Each subject participated only once, either in the note taking variation or in the
146 non-note taking variation. Despite random assignment and random
elimination, other differences of which the researcher was unaware could have
existed among treatment groups.
Listening Passage
One of the purposes of this study to was to attempt to replicate as many as possible of the conditions of the Taylor (1993) study in order to investigate further the variation of the recall protocol task in which subjects listened twice and wrote twice, without access to the first protocols during the second listening and writing. The listening passage, therefore, was similar in length, word rate, origin, and degree of authenticity. It was a portion of a longer, taped discourse sample created to incorporate the aspects of "deliberate free speech"
(Byrnes, 1984, p. 319). The native speaker was taped while responding to a list of topics that had been given to him just before he spoke, but he had not been given time to develop a written plan or text. The word rate (156 words per minute) and the length (2 minutes, 12 seconds) are similar to those used in the
Taylor study and in other recent studies investigating the use of the recall protocol for L2 listening comprehension, as listed in Chapter 1.
The theme of the passage was the speaker's pastimes with family, one that had been included in the course textbook and covered in class. AU but one vocabulary word had appeared in the textbook chapters or in the glossary because it had appeared in the vocabulary for the textbooks for the previous two years. Subjects looked at and listened to a list of four words before completing the listening tasks. This list included the one unfamiliar word and three words that were of low frequency use.
147 Overall mean score for this sample were somewhat lower than those of two previous studies. Overall mean for this study was 29.77, in contrast to those of Schmidt-Rinehart (1992), 35.64, and Taylor (1993), 40.1. Differences may have existed in raters, but an even greater difference may have been in the difficulty of the listening text. Every effort was made to choose a text with nearly identical levels of "listenabilify" (see Chapter 2, pp. 35-36), but this text may have been more difficult than texts used in previous recall protocol studies and may thus have masked some of the results. At present, there is no known quantitative scale that evaluates text difficulty.
As Byrnes (1984), Long (1990), and Rubin (1994) explained, listening texts used for research vary. The researcher kept the listening passage within the aspects of a profile of passages used in recent research, but it remains possible that some aspect of this particular discourse sample affected results of this study in some way.
Immediate Recall Protocol Procedure
The protocol variation procedure was selected so that some aspects of
Taylor's (1993) study could be replicated and some results corroborated. The results are not triangulated with any other measure of either LI or L2 listening.
One reason for lack of triangulation was an interest in avoiding test fatigue in subjects and in avoiding the use of more time away from the core curriculum.
Another reason was the nature of LI listening instruments. A few reliable instruments are time-consuming; others, though briefer, are less reliable or have other disadvantages. Results are consistent with those of similar recent
148 studies using the immediate recall protocol as an instrument (Rader, 1990;
Schmidt-Rinehart, 1992; Stansfield, 1990; and Taylor, 1993) to measure general L2 listening comprehension.
As in other studies, subjects had not had practice in writing recall protocols. In addition, other than permission to take notes, in any form that they wished, students had not received instruction in LI or L2 note taking, either before the listening task or as part of the Spanish I, II, or III curriculum.
Subjects who took notes thus had several decisions to make—for example, about what kind of notes to take, whether to continue taking notes if writing interfered with listening, and which details would require notation.
Further, even though explicit instructions were given and repeated, orally and in writing, regarding permission to take notes and the writing of the protocol in English, at least one subject failed to understand the instructions.
A response to question 9 of the post task ("Did you take notes during listening?
Why or why not?") contained the answer, "Yes, because we were told that we had to." The first protocol of one subject was written in Spanish rather than in
English. (It was randomly drawn during selection for equal cell numbers and is therefore included in the AlBl group.) Despite clear and repeated directions, instructions regarding protocol writing may have been misunderstood, including the instruction to write as much as possible as closely as possible to what was heard. These limitations make for cautious generalization.
L2 Ability
The only measure of L2 ability is the subject’s cumulative Spanish grade point average, gathered from final grades of three years. This figure is not
149 necessarily a measure of proficiency. Average cumulative GPA for all subjects was 3.25, (SD = .71) with averages of 3.67, 2.69, 3.71, and 2.94 for each of the respective groups AlBl, A1B2, A2B1, and A2B2. Language ability within the groups did not vary much; standard deviations for the same respective groups were .38, .55, .71, and .57. In addition, the Spanish GPA is highly correlated with measures of LI ability (.59 for LI writing ability, .37 for simple essay score, and .59 with the English GPA). This tendency toward high correlation has been present for years in foreign language course grades in this particular school's department. The correlation may reflect teaching and grading practices of this department as well as those of the English department. The Spanish GPA was not triangulated with any measure of L2 proficiency.
Conditions
The absence of a language laboratory presents limitations in that some results may have been affected because of acoustics or because of background distractions from having no individual booths. E^very effort was made to assure that conditions in the classrooms in which the procedures were administered were optimal under the circumstances, but differences that testing in a lab might have made are unknown
Motivation
Most subjects appeared to have done their best with all that they were asked to do over the two days of the study. They did not, however, receive a grade for any of those tasks. Since some students are conscious of grades to the point that they do not put forth effort for an ungraded assignment, motivation may have affected the results for some subjects.
150 One or two subjects coped with the frustration of low comprehension by writing fantasies based on the few words that they understood, and submitting these as their protocols, one or two of which are included because they were selected during random drawing for equal cell numbers. For other subjects, essays were brief. Of course, it would be unethical to administer the tasks for a grade, unless protocol writing were part of the course material. E)ven in such a case, anxiety factors might offset any additional motivation that might occur from having the task based on a grade.
Finally, six students remarked that the tasks had been good practice. All post task questionnaires were completely filled out, and several contained helpful and insightful remarks. Such commentary indicates that intrinsic motivation was present for some of the subjects.
Recommendations for Further Research
Three avenues for further research are apparent: one pertaining to the immediate recall protocol procedure, including replications and variations; another regarding LI writing ability as it pertains to L2 proficiency and listening comprehension; and L2 note taking for authentic L2 listening tasks.
Replications and Variations of the Immédiate Recall Protocol Studies
The limitations of this study would dictate replication with larger numbers, with subjects from varied backgrounds, with different L2s, and with triangulation of measures. Further variations in the recall protocol procedure could be assessed. In addition, variations suggested by subjects in the post task questionnaire merit consideration, as does the use of technology such as video, website, and interactive programming.
151 It is important that this study be replicated using a language laboratory and using large numbers of subjects from various communities and educational settings. If results can be replicated, the findings will be valuable for the research base regarding note taking and L2 listening that is non-academic, specifically non-lecture.
Responses from post-task questionnaires indicate that, even if subjects are given the opportunity to take notes, they perceive the aspects of word rate and linking to be major impediments to comprehension. Replications should be done in other languages, in order to see whether the same issues arise, such as word rate, linking, memory burden, L2 ability, and strategy use.
In such replications, it would be extremely valuable to include triangulation for several of the measures, when they can be obtained without causing test exhaustion to the subjects or too much additional time away from the core curriculum. A baseline LI listening measurement might be obtained from subsets of standardized test scores. Another alternative might be to administer a nationally used instrument such as the Watson-Barker test. L2 ability as reflected by the cumulative GPA also needs to be triangulated with a nationally used instrument such as the National Spanish Exam, the ACTFL
Proficiency Interview, or the Ekiucational Testing Service Proficiency Exam.
Such triangulation would give information about performance as well as proficiency in the L2.
The post-listening questionnaire needs expansion in order to provide information on motivation and test fatigue. A Likert scale format would allow subjects to rate to what degree they would have written more on the protocols
152 or tried harder during other tasks, if they had received a grade. Responses to these questions, along with clarification or follow-up questions on cognitive, metacognitive and compensatoiy strategy use, LI writing practices, and inner speech during aspects of the task could be triangulated in personal interviews with a small number of subjects.
Variations introduced into the format of the task used for this study would exploit the potential of the instrument. Subjects could receive training in note taking using the wide variety of discourse texts recommended by Byrnes
(1984). Texts could continue to focus on second culture content or could include material from other content areas or courses. Students could receive training and practice in the recall procedure. Studies with such variations would allow investigation whether there are any benefits gained from training and from L2 comprehension, over tim e . Pre- and post-training assessments would lend more information about optimum use of training as it relates to performance on the recall protocol. Further variations could include shorter segments of discourse in order to determine whether the memory burden (Buck,
1991) is lessened.
Suggestions by subjects offer further possibilities for variation. One subject said that having her notes from the first listening would have helped her. Kiewra et al. (1991) found that, when an LI lecture was repeated, students added information that they had not previously noted, particularly details, in order to make the existing notes more nearly complete. Another area of investigation might be to ask in what proportion L2 subjects transfer such behavior. A further variation could be writing only one protocol after two
153 listenings, using both sets of notes, with a pause in between in order to amplify notes, to use inner speech for processing, and to integrate material cognitively.
Three subjects suggested additional listenings; one even wrote, "Let us listen as much as we want until we get it." Some researchers have argued against such repetitions, saying that they are unnecessary (James, 1986) or unnatural and would not occur in social conditions. Chamot (1990) said that unlimited repetition might give students unrealistic practice for social situations. D. R. Long (1991) allowed subjects as many repetitions as desired in order to study strategy use. She observed that subjects often use a
"multilayered processing strategy," attending first to some aspects of the material, then to others, and then integrating. An alternative to additional listenings might be the suggestion of one subject who recommended listening with pauses.
Ten subjects suggested that a visual element be added. Although there are several opportunities for bias (for instance, the speaker's appearance, the distraction for some subjects of the visual element, the complications of assuring that large numbers of subjects would be able to see and write at the sam e time) with such a variation, if it were used in a repeated measures design, it might yield valuable information.
Moreover, in order to take full advantage of alternatives offered by other technological tools, variations could be delivered through several of them.
Some L2 classes already have "video pals" with whom they correspond.
Segments of these videos offer authentic (but perhaps planned) text, as do
154 movies in the L2. Answering machines provide an authentic purpose and
possibly authentic content. Some students still need practice on the computer.
Authentic interactive web sites and software provide several types of text that
could be processed o n lin e or tape recorded first for protocol tasks and accessed
later for foUowup and feedback.
Finally, national and state standards contain suggestions for integration
into L2 instruction of content areas and of avenues for future employment
using one's L2 skills. The recall protocol might be adapted for assessment of
this instruction. For instance, business persons, as proficient speakers of the
L2, might be (audio or video) recorded talking about the type of duties
necessary for their jobs, about customs of the country or countries in which or
with which they work, or actually giving training in some skill needed for their jobs (for example, accounting, sales, records, production, quality control, or
advertising). Many universities are now offering L2 for business courses, either
exclusively or in addition to L2 courses with a grammar or literature base.
Content similar to that used in such L2 business courses could provide authentic listening material. Further, samples of authentic discourse and authentic purposes can be gleaned using Integrated Distance Learning (IDL) from law enforcement workers in agencies such as the highway patrol or the
Federal Bureau of Investigation or L2 speakers working and using their L2 proficiency in other content areas and professions. With so many alternatives available, the recall protocol task need not be unauthentic in purpose or in content.
155 LI writing ability. L2 proficiency and L2 Listening Comprehension
This study is one of the few to investigate possible links between LI writing skills and L2 listening comprehension. Correlation coefficients and r^ figures indicated that LI writing ability contributed more to the variance of the protocol score than did L2 ability as measured by course grades. Replication studies may find that LI writing abüily masks or enhances one or more L2 sub skills used in comprehension. Studies need to be designed to investigate the nature and degree of relationship of Li writing skills to L2 proficiency in general and more specifically to L2 listening comprehension. Triangulation of protocol scores with LI listening and with other measures of L2 listening and
L2 general proficiency would be the first steps in the direction of investigating whatever direct links may exist.
Note Taking for Authentic L2 Listening Tasks
A previous section discussed several suggestions for authentic listening samples and tasks to be used in conjunction with the recall protocol and L2 listening. The same types of tasks need to be developed for note taking in authentic situations. For some L2 note takers, however, such a focus may not address a more urgent need—the conflicting demands of two tasks, listening in the L2 and writing in LI, L2, or a combination of both. Hansen (1994) described the complexities: "The note-taker must listen continuously and simultaneously to the lecture while selecting, interpreting, holding, manipulating, and transcribing notes" (p. 132). One subject in the present study reported finding the task impossible and abandoned note taking. Some
L2 listeners have had little or no experience or instruction in LI note taking.
156 Instruction and demonstration of the aspects of note taking could be the first authentic L2 input and task in training L2 listeners to take notes in preparation for the protocol writing task. Classroom research would provide insight into which input and tasks are more effective in preparing subjects for note taking during the recall protocol task. Several categories of input and tasks are possible.
Other categories of authentic content and tasks are available for practice and assessment. One such category is directions—oral directions to a web site, directions to finding the prize on a treasure hunt, directions to a party or to someone's home. Another category is messages, either on the answering machine or delivered by a third party, if they have authentic tasks, goals, or rewards associated with them. A third category could be student/subject generated, as long as the tasks are authentic—errands, favors, puzzles, or problem solving, for example.
Implications
Theoretical Implications
Rubin (1994) described the results of recent research into L2 listening processes. E)vidence exists for real-time interactive language processing theory, in which factors inside the L2 listener interact with factors outside the learner as learners use and integrate signals to interpret what is said. This study contributes findings to the knowledge base regarding variation of an external factor and several internal factors. The procedure variation of note taking can affect results on the immediate recall protocol, and allowing listeners to take notes helps L2 learners, both those who are stronger in LI writing skills and
157 those who are weaker. In addition, the internal factor of LI writing ability can
affect results of the immediate recall protocol. A further contribution is the
finding of the degree of correlation of the individual learner factors of L2 ability
(course GPA), general academic ability (overall cumulative GPA), and degree of
L2 strategy use (SILL score) with the recall protocol score and with LI writing
ability.
The highest correlation among factors was between LI writing ability and
protocol scores, not protocol scores with any other L2 ability. The benefit of
writing a second protocol increases if one is permitted to take notes. The
increase is even more, however, with better LI writing ability. Medians for the
SILL subtests for cognition, compensation, and metacognition were higher for
more skillful writers in every case but one (who misunderstood directions).
Although findings cannot be generalized beyond L2 learners who are similar to
the subjects of this study, the immediate recall protocol, if it is to be used for
evaluation, is, for the time being, more appropriate for use with L2 learners with stronger LI writing skills.
Findings in this study corroborate those by Rader (1990), Schm idt-
R hinehart (1992) and Taylor (1993) that linking between syllables in Spanish is a key external factor affecting subjects’ degree of L2 comprehension. To date, no definitive research into the way in which linking affects the L2 listening process (Schmidt-Rinehart, 1992, p. 97) has been published. Findings of this study also corroborate those by Taylor ( 1990) that a second protocol writing without access to the first has a positive effect on scores.
158 Note taking while listening in the L2, despite its benefits, remains a task filled with conflicting demands. An informal assessment of notes in relation to protocol scores revealed that many subjects did not demonstrate knowledge of effective note taking for short term L2 listening. A search of the Literature revealed no studies regarding this type of listening task, and not all the note taking studies done from lecture listening can be generalized to short texts requiring intense listening and reproduction afterward. The theoretical base needs to be expanded.
Pedagogical Implications
In addition to expanding the theoretical base, it remains necessary to expand the variety of types of listening texts and tasks used in the classroom, in order to continue to help L2 learners develop hstening comprehension skills as well as to prepare them for tasks üke the immediate recall protocol. This pedagogical implication is one of four; the other three discuss strategy training, teacher preparation, and testing.
Byrnes (1984) and Dunkel (1986) advocated the use of a variety of listening data and tasks. Dunkel said that teachers must provide L2 learners with "a veritable smorgasbord of listening data together with focused, task- oriented listening activities based on recent psycholinguistic findings..." (p.
103). These tasks would be geared toward aspects that posed difficulty in comprehension, such as linking in Spanish and the steps in processing of speech. Students might even be asked to mimic the linking patterns in various speech samples, in order to provide some students with understanding at the
159 phonological level. Repeated and varied exposure to a variety of authentic speech samples can also be used during training in taking notes, which some subjects reported as an aid to comprehension.
Note taking training and strategy training must provide practice with several text types (for example, short message, dictation, or summary of video clip) for authentic purposes. Strategy training would be especially beneficial in the cognitive, compensation, and metacognition categories. Among the specific cognitive strategies to be practiced should be identification of authentic purposes for L2 listening, especially in work situations, in use of technology, and in interpersonal skills. Such practices conform to Ohio and national standards for L2 instruction.
Several publishers are now producing materials with some excellent practice components, but teacher training programs need to be aware of what is needed in curriculum, rather than depending solely on the textbook. Glisan &
Shrum (1994) reviewed the research, explained the Listening process, and depicted the stages of instruction for listening texts. It is important for teachers to understand the theoretical base as well as its applications to instruction.
One of the best ways to foster such understanding is through classroom research. Areas for further research are delineated in the previous section, and several of them would lend themselves to studies conducted by preservice and/or inservice teachers. Teachers are under further obligation to update skills in emerging technology and to adapt listening activities for use in a variety of ways. Classroom research could again be a vehicle for such adaptation.
1 6 0 Teacher preparation programs must also assure that present and future
teachers are familiar with research on testing and assessment. Just as one
identifies purposes for listening, one must identify purposes for testing or assessment and choose or create the appropriate instrument (Dr. G. A. Jarvis,
personal communication, April 2, 1993). Teacher candidates need to exit their preparation programs knowing that they must test what was taught in the way it was taught. Above all, in regard to use of the immediate recall protocol or any other measure to evaluate L2 listening comprehension, one should keep in mind two thoughts: Test comprehension, not LI writing; test comprehension, not memory.
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172 Ushakova, T. N. (1994). Inner speech and second language acquisition In J. P. Lantolf & G. Appel (Eds.), Vygotskian approaches to second language research (pp. 135-156). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
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173 APPENDIX A:
INSTRUCTION SHEET for ESSAY WRITING
174 Wednesday, March 12, 1997
S panish HI
PURPOSE: To evaluate student’s writing and foreign language strategy use.
ASSIGNMENT:
1. You may write on this paper, if you wish, to plan.
2. Plan a composition of the same quality and length as you would write for 100 points in English class.
3. Use the same format and requirements as you would for your English class.
4. Topic: the activities or pastimes that you most enjoy with your family.
5. No further instructions wiU be given regarding this composition.
175 APPENDIX B:
INSTRUCTION SHEET FOR PROTOCOL WRITING
NO NOTES GROUPS (Al)
176 Instructions for Listening and Protocol Writing
Please read these instructions now. They will be read aloud in a few minutes.
1. In a few moments, you will be given paper and pencil.
2. Each sheet of paper wül be folded in half.
3. You wül be asked to write your protocol on the RIGHT HAND SIDE of the folded paper, in English.
4. You will have as much time as you need to write your protocol, and then it win be collected. Write as much as you can, including as much detaü and similar wording to the tape as you can remember. Use complete sentences.
5. You wül listen a second time.
6 . You WÜ1 have as much time as you need to write your second protocol. Please write the second protocol on the right hand side of the paper and in English once again. Please write in as much detail and in wording as similar to the message on the tape as possible, using complete sentences.
7. Thank you for participating.
177 APPENDIX C: INSTRUCTION SHEET FOR PROTOCOL WRITING
NOTE TAKING GROUPS (A2)
178 Instructions for Listening and Protocol Writing
Please read these instructions now. They will be read aloud in a few minutes.
1. In a few moments, you will be given paper and pencil.
2. E)ach sheet of paper will be folded in half. You may take your notes on the LEFT HAND SIDE of the paper as you listen, if you wish. You may write in English, Spanish, or whatever is most comfortable, including symbols or pictures. Please do not write any more on the “notes” side after you have finished listening.
3. You will be asked to write your protocol on the RIGHT HAND SIDE of the folded paper.
4. You will have as much time as you need to write your protocol, and then it will be collected. Write as much as you can, including as much detail and similar wording as you can remember. Use complete sentences.
5. You will listen a second time. You may also take notes this time, if you wish, but please, once again, take them on the LEFT HAND SIDE of the paper. You may write in English, Spanish, or whatever is most comfortable, including symbols or pictures. Do not write on the notes section after you have finished listening.
6 . You wül have as much time as needed to write your second protocol. You may use your notes as you write. Please write the second protocol on the right hand side of the paper once again. Please write in as much detaü and in wording as simüar to the message on the tape as possible, using complete sentences.
7. Thank you for participating.
179 APPENDIX D:
TRANSCRIPT OF DISCOURSE SAMPLE FOR LISTENING TASK
180 Transcription of Discourse Used for Recall Protocol Task
Otra de las actividades que también haciamos como familia es, por ejemplo, ir a la iglesia. Mi familia es muy religiosa; entonces, siempre vamos a la iglesia todos.-.todos en conjunto. Y también se co...se acostumbra mucho en México ir de compras al extranjero, especialmente en ciudades como Monterrey, que esta muy cerca ... ahm ...a Estados Unidos. Normalmente la gente de la clase media o clase alta de clase media-baja acostumbra ir a ...a Estados Unidos a veces una vez cada tres meses o hay gente que va mâs seguida. O, hay personas que van una vez al mes. Y asi uno puede ...puede comprar cosas en Estados Unidos. Ahora ya con el mercado commun muchos de los productos que antes teniamos que ir a ... a comprar a Estados Unidos se pueden comprar en...en México. Por ejemplo, en Monterrey hay un Wal-Mart que tiene como setenta y cinco cajas registradoras. Entonces, es una tienda inmensa. Entonces, ya no hay necesidad ir a Tejas a hacer ese tipo de compras.
Otra cosa que tam bién me gustaba mucho era ir a partidos de futbol con...con amigos o con mis tios. Y recuerdo que en México se celebrô el...el Mundial de futbol en el '86 y un tio mio y yo pudimos ir a...en Monterrey pudimos ir al ultimo juego de México contra Alemania en el...que fue muy emocionante ya que en el momento de que se canto el himno nacional—(£)que se canta despué...antes de cada partido intemacional(?). El...el estadio se dividiô en tres y todo el mundo tenia una especia como de cartulinas o cartones de colores. Y la...las personas que estaban abajo tenian el color rojo. Las personas del...del balcon del medio tenian el...una cartulina blanca. Y nosotros que estâbamos hasta arriba teniamos cartulinas verdes. Entonces se formo una bandera gigantesca, una bandera mexicana gigantesca en todo el estadio. Y eso nos animé mucho a nosotros. Nos...nos dio un sentido como de...de patriotismo a la hora del...de disfrutar también de un.. .de un evento deportivo.
(343 words; 2 minutes 12 seconds)
181 APPENDIX E;
POST-LISTENING EVALUATION QUESTIONNAIRE
NO NOTES GROUPS (Al)
182 Post-Listening Evaluation and Self-Evaluation
1.. What is your average grade on ess^ s and compositions in English?
2. What do you like about writing in English?
3. What is easiest about writing in English?
4. What is most difiScult about writing in English?
5. How well do you think you did during the listening part of this activity?
5. How well do you think you did during the protocol writing part?
7. What was the most difficult part of this listening activity for you?
8. What would have helped you in your comprehension and recall of this listening passage?
9. Did the writing of the first protocol help you to understand better during the second listening? Yes _____ No
Why or why not?
10. Did the writing of the first protocol help you in writing the second protocol? Y e s No Why or \^ y not?
11. Any other suggestions, comments, or messages? (Use the back of this paper, too, if you wish.)
183 APPENDIX F:
POST-LISTENING EVALUATION QUESTIONNAIRE
NOTE TAKING GROUPS (A2)
184 Post-Listening Evaluation and Self-Evaluation
1. What is your average grade on essays and compositions in English? _____ %
2. What do you like about writing in English?
3.. What is easiest about writing in E n g lis h ?
4. What is most difficult about writing in English?
5. How well do you think you did during the listening part of this activity?
6. How well do you think you did during the protocol writing part?
7. What was the most difficult part of this listening activity for you?
8. What would have helped you in your comprehension and recall of this listening passage?
9. Did you take notes during listening? Why or why not?
10. Did you use your notes to write your first protocol? Yes _____ No
Why or why not?
11. Did the writing of the first protocol help you to understand better during the second listening? Yes _____ No
Why or why not?
12. Did the writing of the first protocol help you in writing the second protocol? Y e s No Why or vdiy not?
13. Any other suggestions, comments, or messages? (Use the back of this paper, too, if you wish.)
185 APPENDIX G:
SCORING GRID-SPANISH
186 Scoring Grid — Spanish
O tra...... 1 de las actividades...... 4 que también haciamos ...... 2 como familia es ...... 4 per ejempio ...... 1 ir a la iglesia ...... 4 Mi familia-...... 2 es muy rehgiosa ...... 4 entonces, siempre ...... 1 vamos a la iglesia ...... 2 todos en conjunto ...... 4 Y también se co. .se acostumbra mucho ...... 2 en México ...... 2 Ir de compras ...... 3 al extranjero ...... 1 especialmente en ciudades como Monterrey ...... 4 que esta muy cerca ...... 3 a Estados Unidos ...... 4 Normalmente ...... 1 la gente de la clase media o clase alta de clase media-baja ...... 3 acostum bra ir...... 1 a Estados Unidos ...... 2 a veces...... 1 una vez cada tres meses...... 2 o hay gente que va m as ...... 1 seguida ...... 2 0 ...... 1 hay personas que van una vez al mes ...... I Y asi...... 1
187 puede comprar cosas ...... 1 en Estados Unidos ...... 1 A hora ...... 2 ya con el mercado commùn ...... 3 muchos de los productos ...... 3 que an tes ...... 1 teniamos que ir ...... 1 a comprar a Estados Unidos ...... 2 se pueden comprar ...... 2 en México ...... 4 For ejempio ...... 1 en Monterrey ...... 4 hay un Wal-Mart...... 4 que tiene como setenta y cinco cajas registradoras ...... 4 Entonces, es una tienda inmensa ...... 4 Entonces, ya [...] hay ...... 2 no ...... 4 necesidad...... 3 ir a Tejas...... 3 a hacer ese tipo de compras ...... 2 O tra cosa ...... 1 que también me gustaba mucho ...... 3 era i r ...... 3 a partidos de futbol ...... 4 con a m ig o s ...... 2 o ...... 1 con mis tios ...... 3 Y recuerdo ...... 2 que en México ...... 2 se célébré [...] en el '86 ...... 2 el Mundial de fûtbol...... 4 y un tio mio y yo ...... 3
188 pudim os i r ...... 2 en Monterrey ...... 3 pudim os i r ...... 3 al ultimo juego ...... 3 de M éxico ...... 2 contra Alemania ...... 1 que fue muy emocionante ...... 3 ya que en el memento ...... 2 de que se canto ...... 3 el himno nacional-- ...... 4 que se canta ...... 3 an tes d e ...... 1 cada partido intemacional ...... 1 El e s ta d io ...... 4 se d ividiô...... 2 en t r e s ...... 4 y todo el mundo tenia ...... 3 u n a especia [...] de colores ...... 3 como de cartuHnas o cartones ...... 4 Y las personas ...... 1 que estaban abajo ...... 4 tenian el color rojo ...... 4 Las personas ...... 1 del balcon del medio ...... 1 tenian una cartulina blanca ...... 4 Y nosotros ...... 1 que estâbamos hasta arriba ...... 4 teniamos cartulinas verdes ...... 4 Entonces [...] una bandera gigantesca ...... 3 se form é ...... 2 una bandera ...... 4 m exicana g ig an tesc a ...... 3
189 en todo el estadio ...... 3 Y eso nos animé mucho a nosotros ...... 2 Nos dio un sentido ...... 3 como de patriotismo ...... 4 a la h o ra ...... 2 de disfrutar también ...... 1 de un evento depordvo ...... 3
190 APPENDIX H:
SCORING GRID FOR PROTOCOL-ENGLISH
191 APPENDIX I; SCORING GRID FOR PROTOCOL - ENGLISH
Student LD.______Grader initials
#1 #2 Protocol number
_ I _____ Another...... _ 4 ______of the activities ...... _ 2______that we used to do 4 _____ as a familv is...... _I ______for example ...... _ 4 ______to go to church ...... _ 2 ______My family...... _ 4 ______is verv religious ...... _ 1 ______so we always ...... _ 2 ______all go to church ...... _ 4 ______all in a group ...... _ 2 ______And it is also verv customarv ...... _ 2 ______in Mexico ...... _3 ______to go shopping ...... _ 1 ______abroad ...... _1 ______especially ...... _ 4 ______in cities like Monterrey ...... _ 3 ______which is very close ...... _ 4 ______to the United States ...... _1 ______Normally ...... middle-class people or people _ 3 ______of the upper to lower-middle class ...... _1 ______are used to going ...... _ 2 ______to the United States ...... _ 1 ______sometimes ...... _ 2 ______once every three months ...... _1 ______or ...... there are people who go more _ 2 ______continuouslv ...... j ______Or : ...... _ 1 ______there are persons who go once a month _1 ______And so ...... _1 one can buy things ...... _1 ______in the United States...... _ 2 ______Now ...... _3 ______with the common m arket ...... _ 3______many of the products ...... _1 ______that before ...... _ 1 ______we had to go ...... 2 ______to the United States to buy ...... _ 2______can be bought ...... _ 4 ______in Mexico ...... _ 1 ______For example ...... _ 4 ______in Monterrey ...... _ 4 ______there is a Wal-Mart...... 4 ______that has like seventy-five cash registers..
192 _ 4 ______So. it is an immense store...... _ 2 ______Thus, now there is ...... _ 4 ______no ...... _ 3 ______necessity...... _ 3 ______to go to Texas ...... _ 2 ______to make this type o f purchase.. _1 Another thing ...... _ 3 ______that I used to like a lot ...... _ 3 ______was to go ...... _ 4 ______to soccer games ...... _ 2 ______with friends...... _ 1 ______or...... _3 ______my uncles...... _ 2 ______And I remember...... _ 2 ______that in Mexico...... _ 4 ______the Soccer World Games ...... _ 2 ______were held in ‘86 ...... _3 ______And an uncle of mine and I ...... _ 2 ______could go ...... _ 3 ______to Monterrey ...... _ 3 ______We were allowed to g o ...... _ 3 ______to the last game...... _ 2 ______of Mexico ...... _ 1 ______against Germany ...... _ 3 which was ver> thrilling ...... _ 2 ______since, at the moment ...... _ 4 ______that the national anthem ...... _ 3 ______was sung, that is sung...... _ 1 ______before ...... _ 1 ______each international game ...... _ 4 ______...The stadium...... _ 2 ______was divided...... _ 4 ______into three ...... _ 3 ______and everyone had...... _ 3 ______a t\pe of colored ...... _ 4 ______poster or cardboard ...... _1 ______The persons ...... _ 4 ______who were below ...... _ 4 ______had the color red ...... _ 1 ______The persons ...... _ 4 ______on the middle balcony ...... _ 4 ______had a white cardboard...... _1 ______And we...... _ 4 ______who were at the top ...... _ 4 ______had green cardboards ...... _ 3 ______So a giant flag ...... _ 2 ______was formed ...... _ 3 ______a giant Mexican ...... -■f______flag- ...... _ 3 ______over the whole stadium ...... _ 2 ______And that encouraged us a lot... _ 3 ______and gave us a feeling......
193 _4______like patriotism.... 1 ______at the same time _l ______as also enjoying.. _ 3______a sports event .....
Totals
Sum of Totals
# 1 #2 Totals
4s_ 4s_ _ 4 s _
3s_ 3s_ 3 s _
2s_ 2s_ _ 2 s _
Is Is I s _
194 APPENDIX I:
WRITING EVALUATION PROCEDURE USED FOR LI ESSAYS
195 WRITING EVALUATION PROCEDURE for ENGLISH CLASSES
GRADE TEN
TIME: The Writing Competence’ Test evill be administered to all tenth graders during the first week of the third grading period, at least two weeks prior to the CTBS.
TYPE OF PROMPT : Students will be given a choice of two expositor} prompts.
EVALUATION PROCEDURES:
1. Papers will be scored on a four point holistic scale.
2. Graders will receive release time to score the tests.
3. Prior to grading, the readers should receive one-half day of inservice.
4. Each writing will be read by three graders. In the e\ ent that there is no mode score, the readers will conference on the writing and agree on a final rating.
5. Intervention must take place at Level One.
TESTING INFORMATION:
1. All tenth gratters should be tested in one location, such as the media center.
2. Test booklets or paper will be provided.
3. Students are permitted to have the prompt read aloud.
4. Students are not permitted to use dictionaries and spell checks.
5. Students are encouraged to plan, invent and organize before writing (without teacher direction).
6. Final drafts should be written in ink.
7. Each student must complete the test diuing the time allotted.
8. All papers should be assigned a number to allow for anonvmitv diuing grading.
9. Level One papers should be returned to the classroom teacher for intervention.
10. Prompts will change yearly. These will be written by the evaluation team after each testing session.
(from North Royalton Citv School District Writing Competencv Evaluation Procedure, p. 22) HOLISTIC SCORIN(3
196 LEVEL FOUR - Excellent (Exceeds Competency )
-flair in sty le -energy flowing through writing -fresh, unconventional treatment of the unexpected -independeiiL self-assured point of \iew -coherence (demonstrated tw sentence structure, transition, strong beginning and ending) -explicit details -very few errors in mechanics and spelling -thorough development of prompt -mature vocabulary
LEVEL THREE - Acceptable (Competent)
-focus -appoach and tone may be inappropriate for audience and purposes -main ideas are explained in general terms -smooth sentence structure and paragraph transition -phrasing may be commonplace -some expanded vocabulary -shows understanding of grammar usage, pimctuation. and spelling with some errors -ideas developed but not flilly supported
LEVEL TWO - Marginally Acceptable (Marginally Competent)
-choppy and sometimes disconnected -tone and aRMoach may be inappopriate for audience and purpose -generalizations with few supporting details -limited vocabulary choice -minimal sentence \ ariety -frequent errors in grammar, usage, and punctuation -may or may not have fiequent spelling errors -few relevant details -responds to prompt in a limited way
LEVEL ONE - Not Acceptable (Not Competent)
-lacks structure and coherence -tangled sentence constructions -lack of controlling idea -many errors in grammar, usage, and punctuation that impair meaning -irrele\ ant details -may not respond to prompt
(from North Royalton City School District Writing Competency Evaluation Procedures.
p. 24)
197 APPENDIX J:
ANALYSIS OF COVARIANCE FOR MAIN EFFECTS OF NOTE TAKING AND
LI WRITING ABILITY AND FOR INTERACTION
198 Source SS MS F
Model 7 5354.9970 764.9996 6.93*
Error 92 10154.5689 110.3578
Total 99 15509.5670
*E < .0001 R - sq u are = .3453
Sources SS ^ F Pr > F
Note taking 815.82 1 7.39* .0078
Gender 79.80 1 0.72 .3974
Instructor 733.80 1 6.65 .0115
Time (Instructor) 157.10 1 1.42 .2359
LI Writing 2537.15 1 22.99* .0001
SILL 501.57 1 4.54* .0357
Note*Ll Writing 1.29 1 0.01 .9140
Within 10154.57 92
Total 15509.57 99
Appendix J: Analysis of Covariance for main effects of note taking and LI writing ability and for interaction
199 APPENDIX K:
ANALYSIS OF COVARIANCE FOR ACADEMIC GPA
2 0 0 Source df 88 M8
Model 6 5935.0186 989.1698 9.61'
Error 93 9574.5484 102.9521
Total 99 15509.5670
*2 < .0001 R - square = .3827
Sources SS df F Pr > F
Note taking 578.92 1 5.62* .0198
G ender 1.16 1 .01 .9158
Instructor 615.61 1 5.98 .0461
Time (Instructor) 124.99 1 1.21 .2734
Academic GPA 3117.84 1 30.28* .0001
SILL 216.92 1 2.11 .1500
W ithin 9574.55 92
Total 15509.57 99
Appendix K: Analysis of Covariance for academic GPA
201 APPENDIX L:
ANALYSIS OF COVARIANCE FOR 1 WRITING ABILITY
2 0 2 Source df SSMSF
Model 6 5765.2000 960.8667 9.17*
Error 93 9744.3670 104.7781
Total 99 15509.5670
*E < .0001 R - square = .37
Sources SS dj; F Pr > F
Note taking 663.19 1 6.33* .0136
G ender 76.20 1 .73 .3960
Instructor 595.41 1 5.68 .0192
Time (Instructor) 136.73 1 1.30 .2563
LI Writing 2948.02 1 28.14* .0001
SILL 292.13 1 2.79 .0983
W ithin 9744.37 92
Total 15509.57 99
Appendix L: Analysis of Covariance for LI writing ability
203 APPENDIX M:
ANALYSIS OF COVARIANCE FOR ENGLISH GPA
204 Source SS MS F
Model 6 5713.2000 951.2289 9.04*
Error 93 9796.1936 105.3354
Total 99 15509.5670
*E < .0001 R - square = .37
S ources SS ^ F Pr > F
Note taking 688.70 1 6.54* .0122
G ender 77.46 1 .74 .3934
Instructor 530.61 1 5.04 .2778
Time (Instructor) 125.53 1 1.19 .2778
English GPA 2896.19 1 27.49* .0001
SILL 478.51 1 4.54* .0357
W ithin 9796.19 92
Total 15509.57 99
Appendix M: Analysis of Covariance for English GPA
205 APPENDIX N:
ANALYSIS OF COVARIANCE FOR SPANISH GPA
206 Source SS MSF
Model 6 4296.8407 716.1401 5.94*
E rror 93 11212.7263 120.5669
Total 99 15509.5670
*2 < .0001 R - square = .28
Sources SS df F Pr > F
Note taking 603.67 1 5.01* .0276
G ender 3.81 1 .03 .8593
Instructor 375.22 1 3.11 .0810
Time (Instructor) 72.82 1 .60 .4390
S p an ish GPA 1479.66 1 12.27* .0007
SILL 450.51 1 3.74 .0563
W ithin 11212.73 92
Total 15509.57 99
Appendix N: Analysis of Covariance for Spanish GPA
207 APPENDIX O;
ANALYSIS OF COVARIANCE FOR ESSAY SCORE
208 Source SSMS F
Model 6 3952.8280 658.8047 5.30*
Error 93 11556.7390 124.2660
Total 99 15509.5670
*2 < .0001 R - square = .25
Sources SS F Pr > F
Note taking 658.91 1 8.00* .0235
G ender 34.36 1 .28 .6002
Instructor 537.49 1 4.33 .0403
Time (Instructor) 70.32 1 .57 .4538
Essay score 1135.65 1 9.14* .0032
SILL 427.51 1 3.44 .0669
W ithin 11556.74 92
Total 15509.57 99
Appendix O: Analysis of Covariance for essay score
209 APPENDIX P:
ANALYSIS OF COVARIANCE FOR SILL
2 1 0 Source df SS MS F
Model 5 2817.1785 563.4357 4.17*
Error 94 12692.3885 135.0254
Total 99 15509.5670
*E < .0018 R - square =.18
Sources SSF Pr > F
Note taking 994.39 1 7.36* .0079
Gender 23.97 1 .18 .6745
Instructor 420.77 1 3.12 .0808
Time (Instructor) 118.87 1 .88 .3505
SILL 1259.18 1 9.33* .0029
W ithin 12692.39 94
Total 15509.57 99
Appendix P: Analysis of Covariance for SILL
211 APPENDIX Q:
CORRELATION MATRIX for
PROTOCOL SCORES and LI WRITING ABILITY,
ESSAY SCORES, ENGLISH GPA, SPANISH GPA, ACADEMIC
GPA, and SILL
2 1 2 Pearson Correlation Coefficients
L1 Essay Eng. GPA Span. GPA Acad GPA Protocol SILL
L1 1.00000 .74193 .95838 .58938 .85084 .50130 .31085
Essay .74193 1.00000 .51964 .37400 .46366 .36226 .37039
Eng. GPA .95838 .51964 1.00000 .59185 .88662 .48458 .23840
Span. GPA .58938 .37400 .59185 1.00000 .65482 .40792 .31941
Acad. GPA .85084 .46366 .88682 .65482 1.00000 .52193 .32339
Protocol .50130 .36226 .48458 .40792 .52193 1.00000 .33948
SILL .31085 .37039 .23840 .31941 .32339 .33948 1.00000 APPENDIX R:
SAMPLE PROTOCOLS AND NOTES FROM EACH SUBJECT GROUP
214 SAMPLE PROTOCOLS FROM EACH SUBJECT GROUP (transcribed as written including errors)
(A1BI.06) (Final Protocol Score: 44.223%)
Protocol I: Some Ideas I like to do as a family are we like to go to church because my family is very religious. Also we like to go to various Mexican cities like Monterrey which is very near to the United States. We like to go shopping but we can't buy thing in the U.S. because of the border police. However, there is a WalMart in Monterrey and we like to shop there because of their great selection and low prices. We also like to go to soccer games at the stadium, soccer is a sport that is well like world wide and it is fun to listen to the National Anthem.
Protocol H: Other activities I like to do with my family are to go to church because my family is very religious. We also take trips to other places, especialy mexican cities like Monterrey . My family is middle class or upper class. We woitld probably be middle class in the U.S. We like to go shopping but we cant buy things in the US because the border police dont let us. But there is a Walmait in Monterrey that we like to buy things at because of their great selection and low prices. I also like to go to soccer games with my friends or uncles. Soccer is a popular sport world wide and is especially popular in Monterrey because we sing a very catchy anthem about people wearing different colors like red before every game.
(A1B2.84) (Final Protocol Score: 19.522%)
Protocol 1: Esteban plays soccer at Wal-Mart. Sometimes he goes to a cardboard stadiiun where he listens to anthems worldwide. He lives in Monterey. Although I really didn't understand I thing I heard (except Wal-Mart). 1 think it would be a lot easier if 1 could have my pen in my hand while listening
Protocol II: This time I heard a little more. 1 think Esteban works at Wal-Mart. He like to play soccer in the stadium. Some people wear red and others wear white. Who know what was colored, but I have the feeling there is a conspiracy going on. Also I think he said something about 3 monthes. That might be the time that it "all goes down!"
215 (A2B1.99) (Final Protocol Score; 39.044%)
Notes from Listening 1: from Motarey Just outside ÙS Buy thins in US Buy US things in Mexico hav e Walmart He likes play foobal vv/ his friends y imcles Sing national anthem start at 3 use cardboard use a red ball
Protocol I: I'm from a citv- named Montcray in Mexico. It is just outside of the United States. We have stores here but we like to buy American things better. Sometimes we go to the US to buy things. We have a Wal-Mart in Monteray that sells American products and also products from Mexico. On the weekends he likes to play football with this best friend or his uncles. Occasionally we go to games at the stadium. The games usually start at 3 o'clock. At the start of every game they sing the national anthetiL This weekend Mexico played Germany. They wore red jersevs.
Notes from listening II): fromc things he docs in with his famly tio goes to gcrcmany cn junto He spends 3 months in the USA a year Many products from US sold in Meico Walmart
Last game of the year sing anthen Have colored floats maid of cardbord
Protocol 11: Other activities that 1 like to do with my family. Once a year we take a vacacion to Germany every June. Its really fun. 1 have great memories of them. My family and I live in MonteRay Mexico. Its just outside of the United States boarder. Every summer we spend 3 months in the United States. I really like going there because thev have so many neat things you can buy. Sure we can buy american products in Mexico but buying them in the US is much more fun. We have a Wal-mart near our town. It sells American products along with things from Mexico. I also like playing football with my friends and uncles. Usually we start at 8:45 in the morning and play until 3 in the afternoon. This past weekend was the final football game of the yearPeople from all aroimd the w orld come around to see the game and to see our parade that we have. (Dur floats are made out of cardboard. They arc of all sorts of colors and sizes. Then the game begin by the playing of the Mexican national anthem.
216 (A2B2.28) (Final Protocol Score: 45.418%)
Notes from Listening 1: Activies that were done with family customs in Mexico close to US middle class, lower class get things in U.S. communit} market Wal-mart soccer with his uncle & father, they sing a song cardboard with color red white & green the color of the flag.
Protocol I: Activities that he did with his family. Some of them were customs in Mexico. He lived close to the U.S. Middle class and lower class have a little bit of different customs between them. Since they live so close to the United States they can go to the stores there. They hav e a community market where they can get lots of different things. They also have a Wal-Mart where he lives. Whe his uncles and father go play soccer together the) sing a common song Each one of them hold a different color cardboard, either green, white, or red. They color of the flag
Notes from Listening II: other activities alot of customs Products from U.S. in communitv market soccer - with friends or (Tios) uncles card bottom, middle, top.-red. white, green
Protocol II: Activities that he does with his family are customs of the country. Have alot of different customs. The middle & lower class, their customs are a little bit different from each other. A city in Mexico, thev' have a large community market that sells a lot of different things. Alot of people that live in Mexico but close to the U.S. border go to the U S to shop. Thev also have a Wal-Mart in Mexico. He also like to play soccer with his friends or uncles. When they go to soccer games everyone on the bottom of the stadiiun get red cardboard people in the middle get white, and people on the top get green to form the Mexican flag
217 APPENDIX S:
SAMPLE ESSAYS FROM EACH SUBJECT GROUP
2 1 8 Writing sample from each of the subject groups — transcribed as written, including errors.
(AlBl.06) Essay
It has been said that blood is thicker than water. For the most part this is probably true but when a person reaches a certain age it seem that water gets a whole lot thicker and that the blood becomes perhaps a lit thirmer. 1 don't consider myself to be an exception.
1 would not go so far as to say that 1 have completely forsaken my family for my friends, but as for current activities and past times, these are a whole lot fewer than there used to be. Any more, im family and 1 do a lot less together than we used to.
The things my 6mily do together usually involve an activity that my sister or 1 is invoked in. For instance, we (my sister and 1) are currently swimming competatively. This is one of the few things my family does as a group and it involves little participation &om my parents.
The only thing that 1 can think of that my family does as a whole that involves all four of us is oiu’ armual vacation to my grand parents house on Lake Michagan. Even then I spend less time with them because 1 have fnends who live near to my grandparents. As is normal for a person my age. 1 find it difBcult to rattle off a list of pastimes 1 enjoy doing with my family. I'm not sine this is a sign of any kind of moral decay or of a disfunctional family. 1 think, how ever, that it is just a symptom of that chronic and uncurable disease they call getting older. (LI = 3.534 Essay = 3.400)
(A1B2.84) [No Title Given]
Of all actirities I like to do with my family, vacationing is my favorite. 1 have been to many places, in and out of the country.
Every summer, we go on vacation. Since 1985 (when my Grandma bought a house there), until 1995. we have gone to Florida. We stayed in my Grandmas house located in Winter Haven. Florida. It was centrally located between a lot of things. She sold that house a couple of years ago. so we decided to vacation to Ft. Lauderdale. Florida. Our first year there was about 1993. We stayed in a house that was right off of AlA. which is the main street in Lauderdale.
While in Florida we would visit all of the theme parks. Usually, we saw 2 each year, may it be Disney. MGM. Studios. EpcoL or Universal. Also, there are a lot of water parks in Orlando.
Last summer, my family decided to skip Florida, and get a time-share on the outer banks of North Carolina. We went down there right after the big hurricane hit. A matter of fact the first day of it being gone was our first day of arrival! Even though it was only a week, we had a lot of fun because we w ere there with 3 other families that we were friends with.
My family also goes on side-vacations. Two years ago. when there were no Indians tickets left, my family went to Canada to see the tribe play the Blue Jays. Also, about four years ago. we visited N/bckinac Island. Michigan, and about five summers ago. my Grandma took me to Russia with her. We visited Moscow, and St. Petersbmg. On the way there, we stopped in New York, and on the way home we stoR)ed in Helsinki. Finland. It was very educational.
Vacations are times when family & friends can spend time away from normal life. 1 enjoy them very much. (LI = 2.950 Essay = 3.400 )
219 ( A2B1.99) Going to the Mo\ics
There are many different things that I enjoy doing with my family. We ail get along well and even the simplest little things turn into big ev ents. We have long discussions over dinner than sometimes can last the course of the week. Vacations are very enjoyable since we only go once about every 5 years. There is one thing though that 1 enjoy doing more that's all of those thhigs put together, and that's going to the movies or renting a movie with my hunily.
I love the arguing that goes on before every movie that we decide to go and see. We always have huge arguments because everyone wants to see something different. This is more fun than seeing the movie itself because we get to see who wins over the other persort By the time were done arguing, we have about 10 minutes to get from our house to the theater itself. Theres no theaters around so we always have to go way out of the way. Sitting in the back seat of the car. me and my brother always watch the speedometer of the car as my dad puts the petal to the metal. It always makes us laugh because he never got a ticket in all the years that weve been going.
Going to a movie is always an event when we get there. The best times are when the big summer movies come out and we get there an hour early to buy tickets so it isn't sold out. Then after the movie we go for a drive or go to the nearest Dairy Queen and get ice-cream or go out to dinner.
1 enjoy going to the movies with my family because it makes me feel good when I see my dad (who gets all excited about seeing a movie) tell our friends and relatives about the movie we just saw. We become our own critics after the movie. My mom usually loves ev ery movie. My dad is alway s optimistic and if he doesn't like it he'll say so. It takes a lot to get my brother to like a movie unless its i^lly something he wants to see. Me 1 just love going to spend time with my family. I really don't care what we go see 1 just argue for the sake of arguing
We've seen about 20 movies this year and its like this everytime. If it wasn't like this everytime. I don't think it would be as fun as it alwa} s has been. If 1 had the opportunity every weekend would be a movie weekend. 1 hope when 1 have kids, going to the movies will be as much fun as 1 had when I was growing up. Those are truly mv best and most enjoy able adventures that I've taken thus far in my childhood. (LI =3.702 Essay = 3.570)
(2B2.28) [No TiUe Given] Some things that my family and I do together are; having holidays either at my house or my grandparents, go on v acation, have parties with fnends. and sometimes eat dinner together.
We don't spend every waking moment with each other but we have our time together. We actitally spend to much time together because we are constantly fighting
Sometimes when we are together we get along great but other times it's bad.
Every Sunday we eat together, my grandparents, uncle, cousiiu and us. either at our house or my grandparents. It's kind of nice but there's always a fight that breaks out You usually get to catch up on what's everybody been doing because we don't all see each other during the week.
We also celebrate birthday parties together, which feels like Sunday dirmer so. its really no big deal. So. my family and I get along great but 1 feel we need a little more space. We don't have to see each other every minute or eat dirmer together every night. It's nice but get overw helming at times.
(LI =2.140 Essay = 2.610)
2 2 0 APPENDIX T:
POST-LISTENING QUESTIONNAIRE RESPONSES-
QUESTIONS 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, and 13
221 Appendix U: Responses on Post-task Questionnaire Questions 7, 8, 10*. 11, 12, 13**
7. What was the most difBcult part of this listening activity for you? 8. What would have helped you in your comprehension and recall of the listening passage? 10.* Did you use your notes to write your first protocol? Why or why not? (*for A2 subjects only, n = 50) 11. Did the writing of the first protocol help you to understand better during the second listening? Why or why not? 12. Did the writing of the first protocol help you in writing the second protocol? Why or why not? 13.** Any other suggestions, comments, or messages? (**Not Listed means that subject wrote nothing.)
A1B1.04 7. trying to understand what the man was saying, 8. if the speaker would slow down and speak clearly. 11. No. I didn't understand it the first time, so how could I improve on the second. 12. No. sam e ^ 13. The speaker should slow down and speak clearly.
A1B1.06 7. understanding vocabulary 8 . taking some notes 11. No. I got most things out of it the first time 12. Yes. They were almost the same
AlBl.lO 7. the guy talks fast 8 . slower 11. No. Made up m y first one. 12. Yes. I had a little understanding.
A lB l.ll 7. I tended to remember quite clearly what was said at the beginning, then, while trying to remember these details, not grasp the middle and end. 8. Being able to take notes would have helped a great deal. Also, watching the person could have told me more about what he was saying and what was most important to remember. 11. Yes. Because it's a proven fact that writing something down implants it in the memory (best for 5 minutes) and knowing that I would remember what I'd written I tried to look for points and details that I'd missed or forgotten completely. 12. It helped me to understand better which in turn helped me in the actual writing.
2 2 2 A1B1.26 7. The most difBcult part of the listening part was his speech is garbled 8s hooked together from years of speaking. 8. what would have helped my comprehension if it had been slower 11. No. Because I had very little ideas of what was already being said. 12. Yes.
A1B1.27 7. understanding details 8. slower speaker 11. Yes. Knew some ideas already just needed details 12. No. Cause I write what I hear. 13. C learer voice needed
A1B1.31 7. He talked very fast and I didn't understand what he said, hardly a t all. 8. if I could take notes, and if they guy slowed down. 11. Yes. I caught a couple more things in the second. 12. No. No, not really. I wrote essentially the same thing.
A1B1.34 7. The m ost difficult part was trying to make out what the guy was saying. 8 . if the guy speaking wasn't mumbling and talked slower 11. Yes. Yes because the first time 1 listened for basic concepts, the second time I listened for detail. 12. Yes, because once I wrote down the first one, I remembered it 8c all I had to remember for he second one was more details.
A1B1.41 7. understanding him. He talked so fast, 8. taking notes. 11. No. I didn't write much in the first one. 12. No. I didn't write much.
A1B1.44 7. The guy sort of slured fsicl his sentences together. 8 . if I could have taken notes 11. Yes. I remembered certain parts. 12. I could elaborate on what I wrote before.
A1B1.46 7. trying to keep ^ with the speed at which the guy talked 8. to actually see the person talking 11. Because I had a basic understanding of what was going on. 12 . I didn't have to recall as much because I already did once.
223 A1B1.50 7. The guy's voice seemed muffled, so it was hard to hear some of it. 8. if we could take notes. 11. Yes. You could listen for detail, or for things you didn't understand the first time. 12 . Yes. I just had to write what I did for the first time and add to it.
A l B 1.58 7. understanding 8s remembering everything while trying to keep up with the talker 8. if it were slower or if a person was talking so I could watch their mouth form the words. 11. Yes. I could remember a few main points from the first one and it helped me understand more. 12. Yes. It did a little. I could remember what my sentences were on the first one, but I changed a lot, too.
A l B 1.62 7. putting vocabulary into sentences 8. notes 11. Yes. I knew he was talking about things he liked to do, but I listened for them the second time around. 12. I didn't really write anything.
A1B1.67 7. not knowing the vocabulary and the speech at which he talked, 8. if we could read it and listen to it, or if we could hear it more times. If I could take notes during listening. 11. Yes. Because 1 wrote down what I thought I heard which helped me remember it for the next time. 12. Because I used the same basic stuff in the 2"^ one as in the first one. 13. We should be able to write down notes when listening to something. It should be repeated at least twice for better comprehension.
A1B1.71 7. trying to remember what 1 had figured out in enough time to write it down. 8. a little slower speaking 11. Yes. Now, I could listen for other stuff I missed 12. 1 just wrote the same stuff over in some parts
224 A1B1.75 7. understanding what he said 8. taking notes 11. Yes. I was able to understand more because I remembered some Things from the first one. 12. Yes. I remembered from the 1»‘ one
A1B1.78 7. the guy talked too fast 8. if I could write stuff down while he was talking 11. No. Didn’t understand it the 1*' time 12 . No. I wrote something different for the 2™*
A1B1.81 7. remembering and understanding what Esteban said 8. if the man spoke slower 11. Yes. It helped a veiy little because you look out for other things. 12. No. I listened the first time, and remembered it for the next protocol. 13. It would be easier if he talked slower.
A1B1.82 7. I couldn't take notes, 8. taking notes. 11. Yes. I knew a little bit of what to look for. 12. Yes. I remembered some of what I wrote on the 1=: and put it on the second.
A1B1.83 7. the most difBcult was trying to understand what he was saying with his accent 8. writing notes down would have helped me. 11. Yes. It did because the second time around you can hear more of the details. 12. Yes. I could remember what I wrote in my first one so I wrote all of that in my second protocol. 13. I think if the speed of the speaker was slower it would have helped a lot to understand.
A1B1.88 7. trying to listen to the fast speaker. 8. if I could take notes & less distractions hke the beU & students whispering. 11. Yes. Because it gave me a chance to clear up any misunderstood words. 12. Yes. I remembered stuff that I had written down before.
225 A1B1.89 7. staying focused and remembering details, 8. tal^g notes 11. Yes. for repetition, but not much. 12. Yes. same as above
A1B1.91 7. translating Spanish words to English words to make sense of eveiything. 8. maybe taking notes or hearing it a 3"^ time. 11. Yes, because I knew a lot of it but I needed more to help me make it somewhat complete. 12. Yes. Yes because I didn't have to remember to write some things I had already had down.
A1B1.96 7. understanding his words 8 . having it read by someone instead of on tape & maybe slower, so we have time to think 11. Yes. Remember more 2™* time around 12. Yes. wrote what you knew then second time tried to add to it
A1B2.01 7. translating and remembering what I translated 8. if they guy speaking talked slower 11. I listened for other words besides the ones in the first listening 12. I remembered more things
A1B2.02 7. paying attention 8. paying more attention & not being tired 11. No. 1 didn't understand either of them. 12. Yes. I was able to make up a little more.
A1B2.12 7. understanding what he said 8. slowing it down 11. Yes. A little you picked up on a few more words 12. No.
A1B2.14 7. didn't understand 8. taking notes 11. No. 12. No.
226 A1B2.16 7. understanding it 8. that guy to slow down 11. Yes/No. Only a little bit more 12. Yes/No. Only a little bit more
A1B2.20 7. understanding the Spanish 8. to have been able to read it 11. Yes. because I knew a little more to listen for 12. Yes. because I knew what I wrote before so I just ktnda copied it
A1B2.24 7. understanding the person talking 8. if I understood everything he said 11. Yes. because I was aware of more info 12. Yes. because I understood better
A1B2.29 7. understanding the guy 8. nothing 11. Yes. remember some I listen for new 12. Yes. same idea as #11
A1B2.33 7. not falling asleep because I didn't understand the guy 8. if 1 spoke Spanish 11. No. It didn't make sense either time. 12. Yes. I wrote basically the same thing.
A1B2.42 7. listening 8. taking notes 11. Yes/No. Yes=hstened twice No=no use notes 12. Yes/No. see above
A1B2.47 7. He went fast and 1 couldn't remember all that he was saying. 8. Slow down and add pauses so we can remember. 11. Yes. 1 could pick up more words. 12. No. Writing is all the same.
A1B2.51 7. remembering eveiything he said 8. taking notes while he was speaking 11. Yes. The first time I was just trying to remember eveiything. The second time 1 already knew some things he was going to say & so I was able to concentrate on the things I didn't get the first time.
227 12. Yes. because I added to eveiything I wrote the 1*» time
A1B2.53 7. understanding what he was saying, comprehending something and forgetting it because of another thought. 8. if I could take notes while he was speaking 11. Yes. because you already had a base leaving you room to listen for detail next time. 12. Yes. answer same as 11.
A1B2.57 7. when he talks to fast at times it s hard to make out key words 8. listening to it several times 11. Yes. because it let me listen more accurately w/o losing other ideas. 12. No. writing things down doesn't help me all that much. I have a pretty good memory.
A1B2.59 7. understanding the listening part 8. if it would have been slowed down a bit 11. Yes. a little. I had a better idea of what he was taUdng about 12. Yes. I had a better idea about what to write. 13. He talks too fast.
A1B2.61 7. I couldn't take note & the Spanish language is spoken very fluently. 8. if they guy talked slower & his voice was clearer. 11. Yes. because I was able to listen to the key words & possibly pick up a little more information 12. No. Not really, I really don't know why. 13. I know we are in Spanish III but the language is difficult + it is hard to pick up. I think if he spoke slower more people would be able to comprehend because we have more time.
A1B2.63 7. Listening and translating at the same time 8. writing down notes 11. No. because the first time I had no clue what I was writing about 12. No. I had no idea on what I was writing the first time
A1B2.65 7. understanding what Esteban was hying to say 8. if it was in English 11. No. because I'm no good at picking up additional info 12. No. because it didn't
228 A1B2.68 7. understanding what he said & keeping up 8. a dialogue to follow 11. No. I didn't understand the first one so how was I supposed to understand the second 12. No. It just didn't.
A1B2.70 7. He didn't speak very clearly. 8. him speaking clearly 11. No. I heard the same. 12. No. I wrote the same because that was all I could understand.
A1B2.72 7. Paying attention 8. a slower speaker 11. Yes. because I knew to listen for the things I didn't write down 12. Yes. because you can just add on to your old one
A1B2.84 7. I can't translate speaking. 8. if I understood Spanish, and if he wouldn't talk so fast 11. No. I couldn't understand the point. 12. Yes. No. Yes=I knew what I wanted to write. No=I still couldn't comprehend.
A1B2.86 7. The speaker talks so fast. 8. for him to slow down 11. Yes. because I already wrote about these facts so I could listen for other facts. 12. Yes. same as #11
A1B2.97 7. making myself concentrate on what was being said 8. probably more sleep the night before 11. No. I didn't understand the first one to begin with. 12. No. "
A1B2.98 7. It was hard to teU what he was saying. 8. if he went slower and pronounced words better 11. No. I still understood the same things. 12. No. same reason
229 A2B1.03 7. understanding a few of the sentences 8. if he talked a little slower 10. Yes. so it would be easier to write the protocol 11. Yes. I was listening hard the 2™* time to catch some of the words I missed the first 12. Yes. I got new information.
A2B1.05 7. keeping up w/the speaker 8. if the pace was slower or if I was used to the pace of the speaker 10. Yes. because I used them to put things in order 11. Yes. I anticipated the stuff I knew & tried to write the other stuff. 12. Yes. the same as #11, I sort of knew some info ahead of time. 13. that was pretty dificil
A2B1.08 7. I was able to remember the things I heard & understood, but a lot I wasn't able to translate. The speaker spoke fast. 8. If the speaker would have actually been in this room fis spoken to me directly rather than on a tape, it would have been easier for me to understand. 10. No. I w as able to rem em ber the th in g s I heard. 11. Yes. I was able to pay more attention to things I didn’t understand the first time. 12. No.
A2B1.09 7. He talked so fast fis slurred his words together. It was hard to figure out what he said in Spanish fis then translate it. 8. If I could've seen the words—but I suppose then it wouldn't really be a listening activity then. 10. No. I miss parts of what he's saying while I'm concentrating on writing. I jotted a few things down + it messed me up. 11. Yes. Gave me time to think. I probably would've done the same if I hadn't written anything. 12. Yes. A little—I had forgotten a part and it reminded me to write it down. 13. We need to be exposed to this all the time to get better at it. It's very hard.
A2B1.13 7. recalling the smaller details throughout the exercise 8. Seeing it on video, where maybe I could follow his lips if I didn't hear something right. 10. Yes. so 1 could add details to the broad comprehension I had 11. Yes. because I knew what to listen for and I could make sure that I heard every word.
230 12. Yes. because I could add more details based on the first one, s im ila r to writing the second draft of a paper 13. The only thing that could have made it better could have been to use a video because there were three times when I knew what he was saying, but I could not catch very specific details (such as the number of registers at the WalMart.
A2B1.15 7. comprehending what the speaker was saying 8. a slower rate of speaking 10. Yes. all of my info came from my notes 11. Yes. I could pick up on details 12. Yes. I could ignore what I already knew. 13. It was hard to listen to the whole thing because at times I was writing notes and not listening.
A2B1.19 7. He talked too fast and his words aU blended together. 8. For him to talk slower and clearer. 10. Yes. because otherwise I wouldn't have wrote anything down. They helped me to remember. 11. Yes. because the more I hear things, the more words I pick up 8s therefore I understand better 12. No. It was pretty much the same.
A2B1.21 7. He was speaking pretty fast so it was hard to understand what he was saying. 8. Taking notes. 10. Yes. to remember what he said 11. Yes. I had some idea of what he was talking about. 12. Yes. I basically had the main ideas down, I just was able to add more detail.
A2B1.22 7. catching everything he was saying 8. if he had more major ideas that would stick in my mind so I could figure out the lesser ideas 9. Yes. Once those are in my head then I won't have to write them down as notes again. 11. Yes. the things I had to think about previously I knew so I could focus on others 12. Yes. My ideas were down once so I could add more thoughts with the 2™* one
231 A2B1.32 7. Esteban’s accent & how fast he went 8. if he would have slowed down 10. Yes. 11. Yes. 12. Yes. It helped a little.
A2B1.35 7. The last few sentences. I could teU if he was saying words not in my vocabulary or if I just couldn't understand them. 8. If he talked slower and if I had a bigger vocabulary. 10. Yes. To make sure I kept things in order. 11. Yes. I knew what to expect. 12. Yes. Some of what I wrote was just repetition.
A2B1.38 7. thinking of what they said (trying to translate it) & taking notes while still trying to grasp what they were saying next 8. slower speaker 10. Yes. so I used those points then I branched off of them 11. Yes. because I could find the parts that I missed the first time 12. Yes. because I was able to see the points that weren't clear the first time and try to pick those up
A2B1.40 7. taking notes while listening—I couldn't hear 8s write at the same tim e 8. using my notes fi*om the first time 10. Yes. I took them, why not use them? 11. Yes. I got more out of it the second time—certain words 1 recognized fell into place 12. No. not really because I basically wrote the same thing
A2B1.45 7. understanding he man, he ran his words together and he didn't enunciate very well 8. if the man would have spoken clearly 10. Yes. to remember the things 1 could actually almost understand 11. Yes. I had the basic idea so I just had to listen for details. 12. No. It seemed aU 1 could remember was what 1 wrote on the first one.
A2B1.48 7. it was taking notes on one part while he was saying something else because he talked so fast 8. if the speaker would have talked slower 10. Yes. I couldn't remember much else than what I wrote down 11. Yes. I already had an idea of what he was going to say.
232 12. No. It helped a little, but I only heard the same things 1 heard the first time. Those things kind of stood out. 13. Get a slower speaker who pauses.
A2B1.49 7. understand much of the vocabulary 8. to have him speak slower 10. Yes. I thought they would help me 11. Yes. I knew the basic idea and just added details. 12. Yes. Here again, 1 could write more details. 13. When 1 write stuff down I seemed to miss much of what he was saying.
A2B1.52 7. staying focused on what was being said 8. to have focused more—for some reason, I couldn't seem to concentrate today 10. Yes. because that is what I relied on to write it 11. No. I couldn't seem to concentrate enough 12. No. because the second writing came out a lot different from the first 13. wasn't able to stay focused on his talking, don't really know why, because I usually have no problem w / staying focused on what is being said.
A2B1.66 7. trying to get the most out of what he said then not getting lost while trying to write things down 8. being able to ask questions, if 1 could have asked him to slow down or re-explain a few points 10. Yes. a httle, but I could have done just fine without them 11. Yes. I had already thought about it & I didn't have to concentrate on exactly what most of it meant 12. Yes. I already had an idea of how to say what I needed to say. 13. I don't really like these very much but I can see their purpose & im portance.
A2B1.74 7. picking up all the words 8. if he talked slower 10. Yes. so I would remember more 11. Yes. I already knew parts of it so 1 could pay attention to the others. 12. Yes. same reason
233 A2B1.77 7. trying to comprehend the sentences and pick out "key words" 8. hear it more and slower 10. Yes. to be able to look back at what the passage was about 11. Yes/No. It was hard to pick out words but it gave me a general overlooking of it. 12. Yes. I knew what it was about ahead of time.
A2B1.79 7. while I was writing down notes I was missing the rest of the speaking 8. to iust sit and listen for the first time to get a broad understanding 10. Yes. 1 used them as an outline to follow. 11. Yes. I was able to listen to other things to get more info so I could take time to think about the vocabulary. 12. Yes. I was able to listen to other things so 1 got more info and was able to write the first one over and then add in what I heard on the second
A2B1.87 7. still not used to the natives speaking it. 8. slower speaking 10. Yes. I had down basic ideas. 11. Yes. You already know some things & can listen for others. ^ 2 M •» »• »• " •• *• 13. I think that in another year in IV we'U be ready for this.
A2B1.90 7. understanding the speaker's accent, and especially when he ru sh es 8. if someone whose accent and voice I recognized read it 10. Yes. so my thoughts weren't as jumbled 11. Yes. I could listen for a clearer meaning instead of the main idea & m ain words. 12. Yes. I could elaborate somewhat. 13. Because the speaker speaks rapidly (compared to English speakers), when I wrote notes I missed certain information.
A2B1.94 7. trying to understand him 8. if he would have talked clearer or louder. It sounded like m um bling. 10. Yes. I can't remember all that too well. 11. Yes. I sort ofhad an idea of what he was talking about 12. Yes. I knew more stuff. 13. Get a better speaker! Or just have him talk louder
234 A2B1.99 7. remembering and understanding the things he said 8. the taking of notes helped a lot during the listening part of the passage 10. Yes. I caught some main points. 11. Yes. I already had a main idea of what was going on. 12. Yes. I worked off what I had before. 13. It was good that you told us what some of he foreign words were it helped in the comprehension a little bit
A2B2.07 7. comprehension of the story 8. a dictionary 10. Yes. I needed a reference to get started. 11. Yes. I had the general idea of what he was talking about. 12. Yes. I knew what else to Usten for.
A2B2.17 7. the shopping part 8. better hearing 10. Yes. so I could remember what he said 11. Yes. I already knew what to listen for. 12. Yes. I had a general idea of what I was writing. 14. This is good practice for the real world. It helps you to keep up w/ speed of the Sp. speakers, which is very fast.
A2B2.18 7. understanding everything he said 8. if I could have understood what he was saying 10. Yes. so I would remember 11. Yes. 12. Yes.
A2B2.23 7. listening & writing at the same time 8. talked slower 10. Yes. we could 11. No. I still didn't get the main clue. 12. No. no clue as to what he said 15. Please do not do this activity again. It makes me feel that I cannot speak or remember any form of Spanish. I go brain dead.
A2B2.25 7. understanding what he was saying 8. if he talked slower and I could hear each word 10. Yes. So I could look back & keep the s a m e order. 11. Yes. I could pay attention to the things I missed 12. Yes. It was pretty much the same thing.
235 14. He should've talked slower & not mumbled so I could hear what he was saying. There should've been an opening sentence on what it was about—then go into the details.
A2B2.28 7. trying to understand him and write in English at the same time 8. nothing because I already took notes 10. Yes. to help me remember what was said 11. Yes. I got to pick up more things I didn't hear the first time 12. Yes. so I could pay attention to what I didn't pick up
A2B2.30 7. figuring out what he was trying to say 8. if I could know more Spanish 10. Yes. because they helped me a little but not much 11. Yes. because I kind of knew what he was going to talk about 12. Yes. because it was the same thing I wrote in the 1®‘ one
A2B2.36 7. he talked too fast and he wasn't very clear 8. if we would have heard more Spanish people talking fast 10. Yes. because I don't have a good enough memory to remember 11. Yes. because had I already used the information, and it helped me to understand the 2"^ one 12. Yes. because I remembered the other things I heard, and added them to what I heard in the second reading
A2B2.37 7. keeping up with him 8. if I could have heard it at a slower rate 10. Yes. because every bit counts—seeing the words helps me rem em ber 11. Yes. It helped me in my comprehension + helped me in the composition for detailing. 12. Yes. because I was able to concentrate on what I didn't already know 13. No. I remember what I thought, not what I wrote
A2B2.39 7. the man talked very fast, it was hard to keep up with him 8. maybe if I understood more vocabulary + listened to it more than twice—I don't know 10. Yes. It helped me in my comprehension + helped me in the composition for detailing. 11. No. I pretty much heard the same thing over again. 12. No. I pretty much heard the same thing + wrote the same thing. 13. This really helps our Spanish listening skills it helps me better understand the language.
236 A2B2.43 7. understanding what it was about 9. playing the tape over for repetition 10. No. I didn't take any. 11. No. He was hard to understand in both activities. 12. No.
A2B2.54 7. listening 8s understanding 9. a man that did [not] talk fast 10. Yes. for ideas 11. Yes. to me they are the same 12. Yes. I listened more.
A2B2.55 7. following the language 9. being Spanish 10. Yes. otherwise it wouldn't have made send 11. Yes. already had an idea of what I knew 12. Yes. see #11
A2B2.56 7. trying to catch everything the guy said 9. the guy speaking slower 10. Yes. I can remember more with notes 11. Yes. Since I caught a lot the first time 1 could listen more carefully the next time. 12. Yes. see #11 13. The more I do, the better 1 get—I think we should do more.
A2B2.60 7. trying to decipher what was being said 9. if the speaker talked slower and more clear 10. Yes. because 1 had them to use 11. Yes. I could listen again for other things I need to understand 12. Yes. I had a basis to follow for writing the second one.
A2B2.64 7. the listening 9. if the guy spoke in English 10. because creating new interesting things is fun 11. because I knew what he was talking about 12. Yes. because it just did
237 A2B2.69 7. understanding what that man was saying 9. if Raquel from Destinos was speaking; if it was slower; if it was in English 10. Yes. I was allowed. 11. Yes. 1 had previously heard it. 12. Yes. They are the same passage.
A2B2.73 7. it was harder to write & listen at the same time, the guy talked too fast 8. If you could have understood the guy better 10. Yes. 1 did a little, but 1 basically knew what I wanted to write. 11. Yes. 1 knew what he was talking about. 12. Yes. 1 remembered things that 1 wrote the first time and not the second.
A2B2.76 7. catching small details 9. probably repetition and not trying to take notes—1 think that 1 missed what the speaker said because I concentrated on writing something down 10. No. not really because I remembered that part of it 11. No. Because I didn't listen as well because I was trying to concentrate on writing English equivalents down 12. Yes. because I saw the outline of the section 13. 1 can understand male speakers better, why I don't know, but 1 think that my errors were made because 1 concentrated on taking notes the second time. If 1 hadn't 1 believe that I’d have done better.
A2B2.80 7. the guy talks as if a sentence is one big word 9. play it in slow motion 10. No. didn't have notes. I can remember stuff for a minute without writing it down (usually). Also, if I'm writing. I'm probably not listening to what he's saying while I'm writing. 11. No. 1 can't learn new stuff just by writing down other stuff. 12. No. Well, I didn't leam much the second time around.
238 A2B2.85 7. listening to the tape. The voice was difScuIt to understand. 9. If I was allowed to look up words I didn't know. 10. Yes. because I could use the information 1 wrote 11. Yes. I could listen for parts 1 didn't understand the 2"^ time around 12. Yes. All the mistakes I did in the first were corrected in the 2"^ one 13. This is a good exercise for Spanish. I like these listening comprehension tests. They are fun. A2B2.92 7. the speed of the guy talking 8. if the guy slowed down I could have understood more 10. Yes. because that's why you take notes 11. No. because the guy was talking too fast I did not understand everything 12. No. because I did not understand 13. In my years of Spanish 1 have struggled a lot but I think if there were a structured essay to do every once in awhile I think that would have help my vocab and stuff like that. Also I think the listening is good because we did not do much with writing what we knew.
A2B2.93 7. 1 missed some ideas 8. if the speaker was here, I could watch expressions and gestures 10. Yes. I thought I might forget some ideas. 11. Yes. I thought it might help me to write and think. 12. Yes. I had most of the ideas so 1 put them together. 13. It seems Mexicans talk too fast, and it's hard to comprehend sometim es.
A2B2.95 7. not understanding some of the words being said by the Mexican m an. 8. to understand what he was saying 10. Yes. to help write it. 11. Yes. because you had already gotten some understanding of it 12. Yes. prepared you more 13. 1 feel this is a good lesson + it helps you understand more.
A2B2.100 7. keeping my train of thought on listening to the speaker 8. if he talked slower and more clearly 10. Yes. some of the phrases helped me to think of things to write 11. Yes. I remembered things better from the first time. 13. Yes. I remembered things better that way.
239 IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (Q A -3 ) y
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