Abstract R & D Background Purpose & Design Action Plan Findings & Analysis Implications Remarks
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Findings
Analysis
The teachers believe teaching has become more structured by stressing the three listening stages. They can design different activities for different teaching and learning purposes at different stages.  They are also glad that with their support and guidance, students have gradually learned to reflect on their learning and make plans for improvement.

After the project, teachers have more confidence in designing materials to improve students’ listening skills.  They are able to design different activities and materials for different learning stages.  For example, they pre-teach language, vocabulary and skills at the pre-listening stage to prepare students for listening.  At the post-listening stage, they assess student performance through debriefing and listening diaries. 

To help students make sense of their learning, teachers’ role is important.  They believe that before students attempt a listening task, teachers should guide them to find out what strategies they can use.  Such knowledge would be useful when students fill in a listening diary to make reflections on their listening performance because it gives them concrete criteria to assess themselves.  They would be able to tell if they have used the strategies and how effectively they have used them.  With time, students will gradually move from making self-reflections in a teacher-facilitated environment to self-assessment and making plans for learning on their own.
Stressing the three stages of listening has heightened students’ awareness of what strategies they can use before, during and after listening.  Many students are able to keep up a habit of using the SUPERMAN strategy.  They make predictions, take notes and reflect on their learning. Teachers believe that it is not too difficult to tell students what they should do but it is much more challenging to make sure they keep up a good habit.  Therefore, they thought of the catchy term ‘SUPERMAN’ to help students remember the strategy.  They found it easier to have the ideas imprinted on students’ mind.  They only introduce the strategy once.  Most students remember the term ‘SUPERMAN’ and use it when they do other listening tasks.    When comparing the listening diaries completed after students had done the pre-test and post-test, more students said that they used ‘SUPERMAN’ to remind themselves to pay attention (increased by 61%) and take notes (increased by 27%).  The teachers are glad such a strategy has a long-lasting effect on students.
The variety of listening materials used has maximised students’ learning opportunities, improved their exposure and boosted their confidence. Students were exposed to a range of spoken texts presented by different people and from different sources.  In the student interview, students said that they understand the way English speakers speak may vary.  They will not be as intimidated when they come across different accents in future.  As they have become more confident, they said they will even focus on ‘how speakers feel’ and will ‘think about what it is about’.  They will also consider speakers’ ‘use of words’.  Now, they realise that they should ‘listen more’ to get more exposure and ‘never give up’ when developing their listening skills.
Comparing the results of the pre- and post-listening tests, it was found that students had improved in almost all target listening skills such as identifying sequencing of ideas, and identifying speakers’ feelings.  They also showed significant improvement in jotting down information for open-cloze questions.

The majority of students showed improvement in almost all the target listening skills since the teachers have taken into consideration many factors when planning and implementing all the measures.  The following may account for the progress in student learning:

  • There was explicit teaching of listening skills, helping students listen with a purpose.  For example, they listened for sequential words when answering questions on sequencing of ideas/ actions.  They also learned to identify modal verbs when the question is about a speaker making choices.
  • The explicit strategies used at the three listening stages have helped students with listening.
  • The teachers designed a range of listening tasks, including simple box-checking questions, MC questions and even exam-formatted open cloze questions in the task-based units.
On the whole, the teachers are quite satisfied with students’ progress.  They believe developing students’speaking skills at KS3 is helpful as it paves the way for students to transit to the NSS curriculum and prepare them for the listening component of the HKDSE.

 

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