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The effects of using advance organizers on improving EFL learners’listening comprehension: A mixed method study

Khadijeh Jafari*, Fatimah Hashim

Department of Language and Literacy Education, Faculty of Education, University of Malaya, Malaysia

Received 12 November 2010; revised 8 April 2012; accepted 13 April 2012

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of using two types of written advance organizers, key sentences and key vocabulary, on theimprovement of EFL learners’ listening comprehension. 108 second year university students at the higher and lower listeningproficiency levels were randomly assigned to one control group and two experimental groups. Prior to the treatment, all the groupswere measured on a listening pretest. The pretest score was used as a covariate to adjust for the initial difference in listeningproficiency. Prior to the listening, the first experimental group received a list of key sentences (Previewing Sentences, PS) and thesecond experimental group received a list of vocabulary items (Vocabulary Pre-teaching, VP). The control group did not receive anykind of advance organizer. After treatment classes, all groups were again measured on a posttest to compare their improvement inlistening. The results of the statistical analysis (ANCOVA) showed that the students who received advance organizers demonstratedsignificant improvement on the listening comprehension posttest while the control group did not. Although participants’ listeningproficiency had a significant effect on listening comprehension performance, there was no interaction effect between the use ofadvance organizers and the listening proficiency level. The pedagogical implications of the study are also discussed.� 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Listening Comprehension; Advance Organizer; Vocabulary Pre-teaching; Previewing Sentences

1. Introduction

Listening is a key skill in second or foreign languages (L2/FL); it plays a critical role in communication and inlanguage acquisition (Anderson and Lynch, 1988; Rost, 1990). Regarding the fundamental role of listening in SecondLanguage Acquisition (SLA), Rost (1994, pp. 141e142) pointed out that, “listening is vital in the language classroombecause it provides input for the learner. Without understanding input at the right level, any learning simply cannotbegin”. According to Nunan (1998, p. 1), “listening is the basic skill in language learning. Without listening skill,learners will never learn to communicate effectively. In fact over 50% of the time that students spend functioning ina foreign language will be devoted to listening”. Regarding the central role of listening in learning a foreign language,Nation and Newton (2009, p. 38) also asserted that listening “gives the learner information from which to build up theknowledge necessary for using the language; and when this knowledge is built up, the learner can begin to speak”.

* Corresponding author.

E-mail address: khadijehjafari2002@yahoo.com (K. Jafari).

0346-251X/$ - see front matter � 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/j.system.2012.04.009

271K. Jafari, F. Hashim / System 40 (2012) 270e281

Listening comprehension is also seen as a polestar of second language acquisition theory building, research, andpedagogy (Dunkel, 1991). Therefore, listening can be considered as one of the most important macro-skills in thedomain of L2/FL learning and teaching.

In spite of the importance of listening, it has been overlooked by L2/FL teachers and researchers and received lessattention than the other language skills (Moyer, 2006) and has often been referred to as a “passive” or “receptive” skill(Elkhafaifi, 2005; Oxford, 1993).

However, for the past few decades, there has been an increased focus on L2/FL listening comprehension and manyhad acknowledged its importance in language acquisition and research (Oxford, 1993; Richards and Renandya, 2002).

For many L2/FL students, listening is stressful (Chang and Read, 2006) and hard work; they believe that listeningcomprehension is more difficult than reading comprehension (Graham, 2006) because there is less opportunity or it isnot as easy to go back over previous input.

Some main factors that have been reported to impair listening comprehension include aspects of the input such asfast speech rate, accent, and complicated syntactic structures, and learner’s shortcomings such as limited vocabulary,insufficient memory, a lack of confidence in listening, and a lack of the necessary cultural and background knowledgeto understand the topic, and so forth (Chang and Read, 2006; Goh, 1999, 2000). Rather than plunging students directlyinto the listening task without any introduction to it, FL/L2 listeners need to be “tuned in” so that before listening theyknow what to expect, both in general and for particular tasks (Underwood, 1989).

Teachers can use various Advance Organizer (AO) activities such as pre-teaching of key vocabulary, auraldescriptions, previewing questions, previewing main ideas, providing background knowledge, introducing culturallyunfamiliar concepts and so forth to help students to “tune in” before listening. These preparatory activities enablelearners to provide a context for interpretation and learners will use this knowledge “as a basis of their hypothesisinformation, prediction and inferencing” (Mendelsohn, 1995).

2. Literature review

Before the 1980s, reading comprehension was the focus of many empirical studies in SLA. The use of backgroundknowledge or information in the form of AOs has been well-documented in L1 studies (e.g., Githua and Nyabwa,2008; Graves et al., 1985; Griffin et al., 1995; Neuman, 1988; Neuman et al., 1990) and L2/FL reading compre-hension studies (e.g., Chen and Graves, 1995; Chun and Plass, 1996; Hanley et al., 1995; Lin and Chen, 2006;Omaggio, 1979; Taglieber et al., 1988; Tudor, 1986). However, not many empirical researchers have investigated theirinfluence on L2/FL listening comprehension. Gradually more researchers have begun to apply reading theories andpedagogical techniques to listening.

Ausubel (1960) first proposed the concept of AOs in his Assimilation Theory of Meaningful Learning. Like othercognitive theorists, Ausubel claimed that learning is based on schemata or mental structures by which studentsorganize their perceived environment. He stressed that students can only learn best when they find meaning in theirlearning and that the use of AOs helps students to activate prior knowledge in the new instructional context, makingthe instructional process meaningful to them. AOs provide students with background knowledge that may improvetheir comprehension of foreign language materials (Chung, 2002).

In the following literature review, the focus is only on published studies that have investigated the effects of AOs onL2/FL listening comprehension. AO studies carried out in EFL/ESL context take a variety of forms, including textual/contextual cues (Dixon, 1991), aural descriptions (Herron, 1994), picture (Herron et al., 1995), vocabulary (Chung andHuang, 1998) and question preview (Chung, 2002), and written descriptions (Wilberschied and Berman, 2004).

Dixon (1991) investigated the effects of a written textual AO and a contextual visual aid on FL listening compre-hension; the participants were 198 college students in a beginners’ Spanish class. Results indicated that the studentswith a written textual AO performed better in listening comprehension than those with a visual cue or no cue at all.

In another AO study, Herron (1994) studied the effect of a single AO on the listening comprehension of 38beginning-level French learners. In the experimental condition, the teacher read aloud six sentences describing majorscenes in a video before viewing this. In the control condition, participants just viewed the video without any teacherintervention. Results showed that participants who had access to the AO prior to viewing the video scored significantlybetter than those who were not provided with any advance introduction of relevant concepts.

Contrary to Herron’s previous study, Herron et al. (1995) added another treatment condition in their study in 1995.They compared the effect of two AO conditions on students’ retention of information in French videos. The two AO

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conditions were: (1) Description Only, and (2) Description plus Picture. In the Description Only condition, the teacherread aloud six sentences that summarized major scenes in the upcoming video. In the Description plus Picturecondition, the teacher read aloud the six sentences and showed pictures related to the sentences. The result showed thatthe visual support of the second condition significantly improved students’ comprehension of the video.

In a later study, Chung and Huang (1998) studied the effects of three aural AOs on student comprehension of L2videotaped material. 160 low-intermediate Chinese students of English were the participants of their study. Theyviewed three video programs with three different advance organizers: (a) main characters, (b) vocabulary and (c) maincharacters plus vocabulary. The result showed that under the “vocabulary” condition, participants performed better atcomprehension than under the other two conditions; this finding highlighted that the presence of unfamiliar vocab-ulary was the most critical factor for listening comprehension.

The surprising finding of this study was that students performed least satisfactorily under the combined condition.This rather counterintuitive outcome was interpreted as the result of a possible cognitive overload e students’attention may decrease when they have to process too much information simultaneously.

The AOs used in Chung’s (2002) study were question previewing and vocabulary pre-teaching. The authorexamined the effects of AOs on 188 Taiwanese college students’ listening comprehension of English languagevideotapes. Results showed that the group exposed to a combined treatment of vocabulary pre-teaching and questionviewing between the two video viewings outperformed the groups which only received vocabulary pre-teaching onlyor no treatment on both multiple-choice and open-ended tests.

Wilberschied and Berman (2004) conducted a study on AOs which was very similar to Herron et al.’s (1995) study.To investigate differences in achievement in FL listening comprehension, 61 students in an elementary schoolprogram were studied during instruction using video clips from authentic Chinese TV broadcasts in two AOconditions. The first type of AOs consisted of written words and sentences in Chinese. The second AOs involved thesame written words and sentences as the first, with accompanying pictures taken from the video itself. The results ofthe quantitative analysis did not show any statistically significant difference between AO conditions, but the interviewresults revealed that the students perceived the pictures as more helpful than the text alone. An overview of theliterature showed that almost all previous studies supported the use of AOs as an effective strategy in facilitatinglistening comprehension. Overall, previous findings supported the use of advance organizers in facilitating EFLstudent’s listening comprehension.

From the literature review, we found that there seem to be some problematic issues from previous studies that areworth discussing. The first issue is about the mode and the language of presenting AOs to students. For example, inHerron et al. (1995) and in Chung and Huang (1998) AOs were presented orally and students had to use their listeningskills to comprehend them, which may have posed a problem for some students. Furthermore, in Herron (1994) andHerron et al. (1995) AOs were only presented in the target language, which may have been problematic for weakerstudents. In the present study, AOs were presented in writing form and both in the participants’ LI language (Persian)and in the target language (English).

Another issue that was identified in previous studies (e.g., Herron, 1994; Chung and Huang, 1998) was that theL2/FL proficiency level of the learners was not investigated, which complicates the interpretation of the results. In thepresent study, we included listening proficiency as an independent variable in the experimental design.

The type of test method is the third issue that needs to be discussed. Some studies utilized a single test method tomeasure comprehension, for example, short answer (Herron, 1994; Herron et al., 1995; Wilberschied and Berman,2004) or multiple-choice (Dixon, 1991; Chung and Huang, 1998). Some students tend to favor a certain testmethod. We decided to employ more than one method to measure listening comprehension in order to control for testmethod effects.

Finally, some of the previous studies (e.g., Chung and Huang, 1998) do not discuss the validity and reliability of thetests used for data collection. The present study took into consideration all of these issues.

The specific research questions addressed in the study are listed below:

1. Is there a significant difference in listening comprehension test scores between students who received AOtreatment and students who did not receive the treatment?

2. Is there a significant difference in listening test scores between Higher Listening Proficiency (HLP) and LowerListening Proficiency (LLP) students?

3. Do weaker students benefit more from the use of AOs than stronger students do?

273K. Jafari, F. Hashim / System 40 (2012) 270e281

4. Do students consider that AOs help them with their listening comprehension?

3. Method

3.1. Participants

A total of 175 EFL sophomores at Ghaemshahr Azad University in Iran volunteered to participate in the study.First of all, the listening sub-section of the TOEFL test was administered to them. 108 participants who scored onestandard deviation above and below the mean (�1 SD) were invited to take part in the study. Their Englishproficiency level varied from low-intermediate to intermediate. All of them had formally studied English asa Foreign Language for a minimum of seven years. Table 1 indicates the characteristics of these participants bygroup.

To investigate the influence of students’ listening proficiency, they were divided into higher and lower listeningproficiency sub-groups based on their scores on the listening sub-section of the TOEFL test. Within each proficiencylevel, participants were then randomly assigned to one control group and two experimental groups. Prior to treatment,all groups were measured on a listening pretest to control for initial differences in listening proficiency. The results ofan ANOVA showed that there was a statistically significant difference between the groups in terms of listeningproficiency, F(1, 102) ¼ 32.182, p ¼ .000, eta squared ¼ .240.

3.2. Design

This study employed a 3 � 2 factorial design: AOs at three levels (VP, PS, and no AO) and listening proficiency attwo levels (HLP vs. LLP). The dependent variable of the study is the participants’ scores on a listening comprehensiontest.

3.3. Instruments and materials

3.3.1. Listening passagesTwenty listening passages were selected for the treatment lessons. In selecting the passages, an attempt has been

made to include a variety of topics which were appropriate to the participants’ ages and were not culturally biased.The length of the passages was between 148 and 480 words. They were approximately between 1 and 4 min long. Thedifficulty level of the passages was verified using the Flesch and the FlescheKinkaid readability formulae. Theaverage FlescheKincaid grade level score of the entire passages was 7.71. The Flesch reading ease mean score for allpassages was 65.87.

3.3.2. Previewing Sentences (PS)PSs were constructed by the first author and two other EFL experts; they read the passages independently, then they

wrote several sentences that summarized the major ideas that constituted the gist of the passage. Finally, the ideas thatall three judged to be essential were included in the preview. The main purpose of having two other preview developerswas to minimize the threats to internal validity.

3.3.3. Vocabulary listThe first author and the two other EFL experts also prepared a list of potentially difficult vocabulary items and

idiomatic expressions considered to be important for understanding the passages individually. Finally, the vocabulary

Table 1

Participants’ demographic characteristics by group (N ¼ 108).

Groups Male (%) Female (%) Average age

Previewing Sentences 10 26 23.7

Vocabulary Pre-teaching 13 23 24.2

Control 15 21 23.5

Total 38 (35.19%) 70 (64.81%)

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that all three judged to be essential was included in the vocabulary list. The target key vocabulary or expressionsaccompanied by their English definitions and two illustrative examples were written on one side of the card and theirPersian equivalents were on the other side of the card.

3.3.4. Listening pre- and posttestsListening pretests and posttests were developed in three test formats: multiple-choice, short answer and true/false.

Six passages were included in the pilot study and, based on the students’ feedback, four of the six passages wereselected for the final tests. To establish the content validity of the tests, a panel of three EFL experts was providedwith a copy of the teaching materials used in the treatment and with a copy of both tests. Test items that did notachieve minimum agreement by the expert panel were either removed or revised and resubmitted to them for a finalassessment. In each treatment session, students were required to answer some comprehension questions afterlistening to the passage. Some questions focused on main ideas and inferences, but most were constructed based onspecific details in the passage. The same listening sub-skills were also emphasized in both listening pre- andposttests.

Pretest and posttest were parallel in content but different in the test format. For both pre- and posttests, the listeningpassages were identical but the test format was different. For example, multiple-choice questions were used forpassage one in the pretest while for the same passage in the posttest we used short answer questions. The Cronbach’salpha reliability coefficient for the pre- and posttests was .76 and .78 respectively.

3.3.5. InterviewTo gain rich qualitative data, the researchers also conducted an informal interview with 12 students (six from each

treatment group) at the end of the experiment in the Persian language. The purpose of the interview was to elicitinformation regarding students’ ideas and reflections on the use of different AO activities in their listeningcomprehension classes. The main interview question was, “What is your opinion about vocabulary pre-teaching/previewing activities that we had before listening?”

3.3.6. Attitude questionnaireTo elicit participants’ opinions and beliefs towards the role of AOs in facilitating their listening comprehension, the

researchers developed two versions of an attitude questionnaire, one for the PS group and the other one for the VPgroup, with 5 items each. Participants were asked to indicate the degree to which they agreed with each statementusing a 5-point Likert scale where 5 showed “strongly agree” and 1 showed “strongly disagree”.

4. Experimental procedures

All the groups were instructed by the same teacher. The experimental and control groups were taught the samelistening sub-skill. At the beginning of each session, the teacher handed out the written AOs to the participants in eachexperimental group; each student was provided with one card, and then the teacher read aloud the contents of the card.The participants in the VP group were required to study the vocabulary list on their own. Similarly, the participants inthe PS group were also required to read the sentences silently. The teacher gave opportunities to both groups to askquestions. Finally, the cards were collected by the teacher. The control group practised listening comprehensionwithout using any AOs.

Participants in the control group were not provided with any kind of pre-listening activities (e.g., vocabularypre-teaching). First, students were required to listen to the passage. After the first listening, they had time to lookat the comprehension questions, and then they were asked to listen for the second time. After the second listening,they were given time to answer all comprehension questions. Finally, the teacher gave them feedback on theirtasks.

At the end of each session, participants in both the control group and in the two experimental groups wererequired to answer some comprehension questions before the teacher gave them the correct answers. A total oftwenty hours of listening practice was given to the participants. The treatment lasted for five weeks, four sessionsper week. Finally, the listening comprehension posttest was administered to all groups in the same manner as thepretest.

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5. Data analysis

The data collected from the pretest and posttest was analyzed with SPSS (version 18.0). Descriptive statistics(mean and standard deviation) were calculated and a 3 � 2 ANCOVA, with listening proficiency scores as thecovariate, was performed to evaluate the effects of the use of AOs, at three levels; of listening proficiency, at twolevels; and of the interaction effect of these two on the participants’ listening comprehension score. The pretest scorewas used as a covariate to adjust for any pre-existing differences in participants’ listening proficiency.

The data from the interview and from the attitude questionnaire were analyzed manually.

5.1. Quantitative results

The results of the descriptive statistics for each group on the listening comprehension test are reported in Table 2.As shown in the table, participants in the AO groups scored higher in the listening comprehension test as compared

to those in non-AO group. Table 2 also shows that the mean score of the students in the HLP groups was higher than themean score of the students in the LLP groups.

In order to evaluate the statistical significance of the difference in the mean scores, a two-way mixed ANCOVAwith a 2 � 3 factorial design was conducted. The result indicated a significant main effect for AOs, F(2,101) ¼ 41.730, p ¼ .000 and eta squared ¼ .452 (Table 3). Using a significance level of .05, a Tukey’s post-hoctest revealed significant differences between the control group (M ¼ 14.44) and each of the two advance organizergroups (HSD ¼ .487): Previewing Sentences (M ¼ 15.81), Vocabulary Pre-teaching (M ¼ 15.73). However, themean difference between the PS group and the VP group was not statistically significant in the post-hoc test(Fig. 1).

The ANCOVA results also showed that the effect of listening proficiency was significant, F(1, 101) ¼ 20.745,p ¼ .000, eta squared ¼ .170. As shown in Fig. 2, the HLP students performed significantly better than the LLPstudents on the listening comprehension posttest.

On the other hand, the interaction effect between AOs and listening proficiency levels into students’ listeningcomprehension test scores was not significant F(2, 101)¼ 2.231; p¼ .113. That is, the effect of the AOs did not differdepending on whether listening proficiency was higher or lower. All the students benefited equally from the use ofAOs, regardless of their listening proficiency level.

5.2. Qualitative results

5.2.1. Analysis of the interview with the PS groupThe analysis of interviewees’ opinions about the influence of PS activities revealed a number of key themes that are

summarized below.Almost all the interviewees responded quite similarly to the questions regarding the PS treatment, with a majority

of them finding these sentences very helpful and facilitative. Some interviewees believed that reading PS beforelistening helped them to comprehend the material better by providing a purpose for listening, focusing on the mostimportant information, and connecting the information in the text to what they already know. The intervieweesbelieved that these previewing activities provided them with a general overview or outline of the main topic whichprepared them to be more involved in their own listening comprehension. The interviewees also believed that havingno prior knowledge in advance may generate a heavy cognitive load. Regarding the positive psychological effect of

Table 2

Listening comprehension posttest: mean scores and standard deviations (in brackets) for each group.

PS VP NAO

Mean (SD) Mean (SD) Mean(SD)

HLP 17 (1.46) 16.83 (1.5) 15.22 (1.6)

LLP 14.77 (1.6) 14.66 (1.1) 13.66 (.8)

Note: HLP ¼ Higher Listening Proficiency; LLP ¼ Lower Listening Proficiency; PS ¼ Previewing Sentences VP ¼ Vocabulary Pre-teaching;

NAO ¼ Non-Advance Organizer.

Table 3

Listening comprehension posttest: summary of 2 � 3 ANCOVA.

Source of variation DF SS MS F Sig. eta squared

Advance Organizer (AO) 2 44.475 22.237 41.730 .000 .452

Listening Proficiency (LP) 1 11.055 11.055 20.745 .000 .17

AO � PL 2 2.377 1.189 2.231 .113

Covariate 1 137.178 137.178 257.425 .000

Error 101 53.822 .533

Total 107 348.630

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AO activities, one interviewee mentioned that she did not experience the stress of not understanding anything at all;she believed that the PS helped her to overcome this negative feeling.

The analysis of the interview also showed that previewing activities strengthened students’ confidence andmotivation. as one of them said, “Because I already knew the main ideas of the passage, therefore I didn’t have towaste my time to understand the main ideas first; I could calmly concentrate on details without any stress andeventually answer the comprehension questions with more confidence.” He also mentioned that he had a highermotivation for practicing listening and attending classes.

Another interviewee believed that pre-listening activities even had an influence on the interaction between studentand teacher in the classroom; he mentioned that their class was more student-centered than teacher-centered, andstudents were encouraged to be active in their learning process rather than being passive. Almost all the intervieweesbelieved that PS helped them to predict the content of the upcoming passage accurately.

However, after expressing their overall positive attitudes towards previewing activities, a few interviewees reflectedthat sometimes PS was not adequate to help them comprehend the detailed information in the spoken text. As oneparticipant said: “I think I had the ability to understand general information by listening only once, I believe it wouldhave been better if more detailed ideas had been given to us.”

5.2.2. Analysis of interview with the VP groupStudents’ responses were analyzed manually to find areas of agreement and disagreement on VP treatment.Analysis of the interview showed that almost all the interviewees believed that it was a good idea to practice key

vocabulary before listening to the main text because it gave them helpful linguistic knowledge about the listeningpassages. Some interviewees reported that they could deduce the gist of what they were going to listen from thevocabulary items. In general, the interviewees believed that those activities helped them to gain confidence in listeningand that developed a positive attitude towards listening. Almost all the interviewees expressed that they enjoyedlearning new words in the listening classes. They believed that vocabulary pre-teaching activities brought abouta stress-free atmosphere, and that consequently, their anxiety level was lowered and they were more confident in

Fig. 1. Mean comparison of advance organizer groups. Note: Different letters above the bars indicate statistically significant differences between

treatments (p < .05). *PS ¼ Previewing Sentences; VP ¼ Vocabulary Pre-teaching; NAO ¼ Non-Advance Organizer (the control group).

Fig. 2. Mean comparison of listening proficiency levels. Note: Different letters above the bars indicate statistically significant difference between

treatments (p < .05). *HLP ¼ Higher Listening Proficiency; LLP ¼ Lower Listening Proficiency.

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answering comprehension questions. This result is somewhat in agreement with the qualitative result of Chang andRead’s (2006) study which showed that students had a very positive attitude towards the vocabulary instructionbefore listening.

Some interviewees, however, believed that this method did not help them too much. According to one of them, “Ilike vocabulary pre-teaching activities and it makes me less nervous before listening, however, as I was listening to thepassage, I found that my newly acquired knowledge was not accessible, and it was somewhat useless for me inpractice.”

Another interviewee found VP activities to be distracters. This result partly confirms Berne (1995) and Chang andRead’s (2006) assumption that pre-teaching vocabulary before listening might negatively affect students’ strategiesbecause the listeners may concentrate on local cues and neglect to focus on the global ones.

The third interviewee said: “I think this method may decrease my self-confidence in authentic listening situations, Imay get used to this method of listening practice and in real situations of listening I don’t have the opportunity topreview the key vocabulary, therefore I won’t have enough self-confidence to comprehend the passage”

This interviewee’s opinion accords with Richards and Renandya’s (2002) idea who claimed that in real life learnerscannot expect unknown words to be explained in advance; instead they have to cope with situations where part of whatis heard will not be familiar.

Overall, the finding regarding students’ attitudes towards vocabulary pre-teaching is in-line with previous studiesthat reported students to have positive attitudes towards vocabulary pre-teaching activities.

5.2.3. Results of the analysis of the VP questionnaireOverall, students had a positive attitude towards the vocabulary pre-teaching activities. An analysis of their

responses is presented in Table 4.86.1% of the students agreed that the use of vocabulary pre-teaching activities facilitated their understanding

of the listening passages. This finding is compatible with the results of a study by Chung (2002) who reportedthat 89.76% of the students agreed that teaching vocabulary prior to viewing helped their understanding. 80.6%agreed that vocabulary pre-teaching activities had a positive psychological effect in reducing their anxiety. Only13.9% of the participants disagreed with this idea. A majority of the participants (83.4%) agreed that explanationof the meanings of the difficult vocabulary items was clear and helpful. Only 5.6% disagreed and 11.1% wereundecided. Around 80% of the participants disagreed that studying the key vocabulary items was unhelpfulbecause they were not able to memorize them. This result reveals that many of them were able to remember thevocabulary items while listening. Finally, 91.7% did not think that vocabulary pre-teaching activities waste classtime.

5.2.4. Results of the analysis of the PS questionnaireAn analysis of students’ responses is presented in Table 5. This shows that 88.8% of the respondents affirmed that

reading PS before listening was very helpful to their comprehension. More than half of the respondents (77.8%) felt

Table 4

Frequency and percentage (in brackets) of students’ responses to each item in the VP feedback questionnaire (N ¼ 36).

No. Items SA (%) A (%) U (%) D (%) SD (%)

1 I think vocabulary pre-teaching

activities could facilitate my

comprehension of the listening passages.

22 (61.1) 9 (25.0) 3 (8.3) 1 (2.8) 1 (2.8)

2 I think studying the key vocabulary

items before listening had a positive

psychological effect in reducing my anxiety.

14 (38.9) 15 (41.7) 2 (5.6) 3 (8.3) 2 (5.6)

3 Explanation of the meanings of the

key vocabulary items was

clear and helpful.

10 (27.8) 20 (55.6) 4 (11.1) 2 (5.6) 0

4 I think studying key vocabulary

items was not very helpful because

I was not able to memorize the words.

1 (2.8) 2 (5.6) 4 (11.1) 22 (61.1) 7 (19.4)

5 I think vocabulary pre-teaching

activities waste class time.

0 0 3 (8.3) 20 (55.6) 13 (36.1)

SA: Strongly Agree; A: Agree; U: Undecided; D: Disagree; SD: Strongly Disagree.

278 K. Jafari, F. Hashim / System 40 (2012) 270e281

that pre-teaching activities improved their confidence level. Roughly three-quarters of the participants (77%) believedthat PS gave them ideas to predict the content of the incoming listening. Approximately 80% of the participantsclaimed that PS decreased their anxiety level. Only a small percentage of the participants (8.4%) disagreed with theidea.

The majority of the participants (94.5%) did not think that reading PS waste class time. The remaining students(5.6%) were undecided. In conclusion, students felt that previewing the main ideas helped them to understand better.

6. Summary of the qualitative results

Judging from the students’ comments, it can be concluded that they had very positive attitudes towards using AOactivities in teaching listening comprehension. The results also showed that this method of teaching provided a non-threatening and friendly environment; and students were highly interested to have pre-listening activities as regularactivities in their classroom. Their attitude and perception of AO activities were consistent with their actual perfor-mance in a listening comprehension test. Although the quantitative results did not show a significant differencebetween AO conditions, the interview results indicated that the interviewees in the PS group had more positiveattitudes towards their treatment than the students in VP treatment.

7. Discussion

In this study, the effects of using two written AOs on the improvement of EFL students’ listening comprehensionwere explored. The findings indicated that AO groups who had been taught with any of the two treatments significantly

Table 5

Frequency and percentage (in brackets) of students’ responses to each item in the PS feedback questionnaire (N ¼ 36).

No. Items SA (%) A (%) U (%) D (%) SD (%)

1 I think reading previewing sentences before listening

was very helpful to my comprehension.

16 (44.4) 16 (44.4) 1 (2.8) 2 (5.6) 1 (2.8)

2 Reading previewing sentences before listening improved my confidence 13 (36.1) 15 (41.7) 6 (16.7) 1 (2.8) 1 (2.8)

3 I could make prediction based on previewing sentences. 10 (27.8) 18 (50.0) 5 (13.9) 2 (5.6) 1 (2.8)

4 Previewing activities had a positive psychological

effect in reducing my anxiety.

14 (38.9) 15 (41.7) 4 (11.1) 2 (5.6) 1 (2.8)

5 I think previewing activities waste class time. 0 0 2 (5.6) 19 (52.8) 15 (41.7)

SA: Strongly Agree; A: Agree; U: Undecided; D: Disagree; SD: Strongly Disagree.

279K. Jafari, F. Hashim / System 40 (2012) 270e281

outperformed the control group. However, students’ performance on the listening comprehension posttest did not varyaccording to the type of AO. So it appears that teaching with any kind of advance organizer was better than not usingany advance organizer at all for these participants. When the participants’ listening proficiency was taken into account,the result showed that the facilitative effects of AOs were consistent across both higher and lower listening proficiencylevels.

The results of the current study generally support the findings of a great deal of previous work in this field (Chung,2002; Chung and Huang, 1998; Hanley et al., 1995; Herron, 1994; Herron et al., 1995; Lin and Chen, 2006) whichhave proved the facilitative effects of AOs.

This finding is also consistent with Ausubel’s Theory of Meaningful Learning (1960) which supports the use ofAOs. Ausubel’s Theory ofMeaningful Learning fits within the larger theoretical viewpoint of “Information ProcessingTheory”, which metaphorically views human learning and memory from a computer model perspective (Dell’Olioand Donk, 2007).

Relan (1991, p. 214) noted that using AOs provides a “hierarchical framework” for students so that they can moveinformation into their long-term memory efficiently and effectively. She asserted that “memory traces resulting fromsuch learning would be firm and enduring, ensuring effective transfer into long-term memory”.

The current study also found that the level of FL listening proficiency had a significant main effect onstudents’ listening comprehension performance; in other words, HLP groups produced significantly higher meanscores than the LLP groups regardless of the AOs. The present finding seems to be consistent with other studieswhich found proficiency level as a major variable in listening comprehension. This finding suggests that teachersshould provide appropriate listening materials in accordance with students’ listening proficiency levels.

One of Ausubel’s assumptions was that students having either low ability or low prior knowledge of the materialshould be helped more by AOs than other students. Contrary to Ausubel’s assumption, our finding showed that theinteraction effect of the AO with participants’ listening proficiency was not statistically significant. In other words,all students can potentially benefit from the use of AO regardless of their proficiency level. This finding is inagreement with Barnes and Clawson’s (1975) conclusions. Based on a review of 18 studies in L1 context, theyreported no trends that would suggest AOs have a differential effect on learning with students of low, average, or highability.

8. Conclusions and implication of the study

The overall results of this study showed that introducing the main ideas of a passage and teaching the keyvocabulary items could enhance EFL learners’ listening comprehension at both higher and lower proficiency levels. Inaddition, AOs had the potential to enhance students’ motivation to practice listening comprehension compared toconventional teaching methods.

The results of this study have clear implications for FL/L2 teachers, teacher trainers and curriculumdesigners. Teachers need to be aware of the importance of listening comprehension; they should be trained toincorporate techniques and strategies to help students with listening comprehension. An introduction of themain ideas and key vocabulary before listening can enhance EFL learners’ listening comprehension.Curriculum designers can easily include a previewing stage in listening curriculum. Also, the use of advanceorganizers in teaching listening comprehension should be more rigorously integrated into teacher educationprogrammes.

Selecting appropriate listening material based on students’ instructional proficiency level is another implication foreducational practice. The findings of the current study suggest that it is essential to select listening passages that arematched with the learner’s abilities when teaching listening comprehension. Further research is necessary to inves-tigate the effect of other forms of AOs and varied listening proficiency levels on learners’ listening comprehensiondevelopment.

Acknowledgements

Wewould like to thank all participants for taking part in our study.Wewould also like to express our gratitude to theeditors and anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments.

280 K. Jafari, F. Hashim / System 40 (2012) 270e281

Appendix. Samples of VP and PS advance organizers

A sample of VP advance organizer

Daunting: making you feel slightly frightened or worried about your ability to achieve something.

Example: She has the daunting task of cooking for 20 people every day.

Example: Shakespeare’s plays can be daunting for a young reader.

Competitor: a person or an organization that competes against others, especially in business.

Example: We produce cheaper goods than our competitors.

Example: There were more than 500 competitors in the race.

Literature: pieces of writing or printed information on a particular subject, brochures, leaflets.

Example: Literature describing company products

Example: Can you send me some literature about your product?

Hold-up: a situation in which something is prevented from happening for a short time.

Example: Sorry, I’m late there was a hold-up on the motorway.

Example: Despite the odd hold-up, we finished on time.

Trial run: a testing exercise.

Example: They will put the software through many trial runs before putting it on the market.

Example: We will have to give the machine a trial run.

Hygiene: the practice of keeping yourself and your living and working areas clean in order to prevent illness and disease.

Example: He has very poor personal hygiene.

Example: Brushing your teeth regularly is an important part of good dental hygiene.

Impression: the opinion or feeling you have about someone or something because of the way they seem.

Example: Arriving late won’t create a very favorable impression.

Example: My first impression of him was that he was a kind man.

Persian equivalents

Daunting:

Competitor:

Literature:

Hold-up:

Trial run:

Hygiene:

Impression:

A sample of PS advance organizer

You are going to listen to a speech on guidelines when attending an interview. The speaker explains five job interview tips that people should keep

in mind before and throughout the interview. Before talking about the guidelines, the speaker talks about our general feeling when attending an

interview, and then he mentions the five tips:

1. Gathering information about the company beforehand.

2. Thinking about some questions relating to company and the job beforehand.

3. Being on time.

4. How to dress appropriately?

5. How to make a good impression?

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