Running head: KINESICS’ EFFECT ON LISTENING COMPREHENSION
The Impact of Kinesics on the Listening Comprehension of
Iranian EFL Female Learners
Purebrahim
Islamic Azad University
Science and Research Branch
Professor: Dr.
Fall, 2014
Abstract
The present study analyzed the effect of kinesics on listening comprehension of pre- intermediate Iranian EFL learners. Two classes of EFL female students were selected for the study, class A with 15 students had audio-visual films, containing kinesics for listening but group B, got tapes with the same content. Two listening tests were performed using a tape and a video, the first test was 27 minutes, and the second test was 29 minutes. Results of the study showed the positive effect of kinesics in listening comprehension. The results showed that comprehension was higher among students who had video-oriented tests.
Introduction
Review of literature Nowadays English has become a common feature in today’s society. In the language learning process, even in first language acquisition (L1), all aspects of linguistic comprehension precede, or facilitate, linguistic production (Brown, 2000, P. 34). Among 4 language skills, Bulletin (1952) suggested that listening is the most important and essential one. Lynch mentions that “ listening involves the integration of whatever cues the listener is able to exploit incoming auditory and visual information, as well as information drawn
“Oral language is a skill that is acquired naturally by the young. The importance of its development in early childhood cannot be overemphasised. It underpins the whole scope of learning and is employed to question, to seek information and to proffer ideas. A child who has a well – grounded ability in oral language will usually be nicely poised to cope with reading and writing. Anyone who lacks this will be at a disadvantage.” (J.Fellowes & G.Oakley, 2010, pp4) It is a vital component of every human beings life as it is a means of communication and interaction with their family, friends and
In order to improve students’ listening comprehension they should use their prior knowledge. In a typical reading lesson there are “pre” activities, “while” activities, and “post” activities. In reading learners can skim a text quickly to get a good idea what it’s about, but listeners cannot skim. In listening lesson also has “pre”, “while” and “post” listening tasks. Each of these tasks is very important in order to ensure that the students understand
Listening is to coherent speaking as reading is to effective writing. English and all other language irrespective of nation or dialect is a totality of four skills: Listening, reading, writing, speaking. Underwood (1989) simplified the definition of listening to "the activity of paying attention to and trying to get meaning from something we hear" (p. 1). Mendelsohn (1994) defines listening comprehension as ―the ability to understand the spoken language of native speakers.''
The second aspect of listening is to avoid the barriers to efficient listening. Since words can be influential, there are some issues that may get in the way of listening effectively, such as bias, accents, and noise. These specific matters will result in poor listening communication because there are some people who are collective listeners because of their favoritism toward specific speakers; the language is not clear due to diverse accents, and depending on
Listening is the first of the four language skills. According to Naveed Fakhar (n.d.), he states that listening is process that involves identifying a message or information that is sent through sound. Listening proficiency can be categorized into 6 types; No practical, elementary, limited working, minimum professional, full professional and bilingual proficiency.
It is safe to say that those who can communicate excellently in English tend to possess good listening skills. Therefore, it is no doubt that the importance of listening skills is undeniable in foreign languages learning. There are a wide range of studies considering the importance of listening in language learning and in other aspects of life as well. It is obvious that listening skills has been considered as frequently used skills during classroom and in life. Salisonline contends that listening is used more frequently than the other three language skills in our life. Listening skills doubles speaking one, quadruple reading one, and is used five times more than writing one ( Salissonline,2015) . At
Inspired by Dr. Ronald H. Heck, I always attempt to embrace the mission of conceptualizing and conducting meaningful studies that are functional and accessible for frontline practitioners. I never struggle to quest for a research topic. Instead, I reflect back on my pedagogical practices. In my prior TOEFL listening teaching experience, as I perceived learners’ cognitive difficulties in recognizing phonological changes among adjacent linguistic units, I speculated that connected speech may partly affect their listening comprehension. Consequently, I developed my inquisitiveness into my senior honors thesis entitled A Correlational Study on Connected Speech Recognition and English Listening Comprehension. This first venture not only affirmed my penchant for second language education, but equipped me with the self-assurance to question, reason,
Without effective strategies, students' listening comprehension turns to be challenging, problematic, and ineffective activity (Mendelsohn,2006:79).Using listening strategies by the second language learners help them to cope with the difficulties they experience while listening. Concisely, teaching listening strategies supports listening comprehension, forms learners' self-control learning habit and increases independent learning ability. Listening strategies as well as linguistic knowledge are necessary to successful listening comprehension(Wen-sheng,2007:73).Historically, Rubin(1975)was the first academic in the field of second language acquisition who saw a direct association between good language learners and learning strategies. Indeed, Rubin's(1975)study paved the way to a strategy based approach of L2 teaching and learning concluding that good language strategies create good language
the development of language. Not only do students hear words pronounced correctly several times, they also see them spelled correctly. Moreover, it provides the extension of vocabulary range. Especially in countries where English is not spoken as the first language, people find it difficult to express themselves properly due to a lack of vocabulary and pronunciation. However, this method does not only improve oral skills (listening and speaking) but also enhances the process of learning how to read and write. Moreover, it helps students discovering useful language concepts and
Elvis Wagner investigated the use of video texts in testing the listening of ESL students within the experiment exhibited in his article, “The effect of the use of video texts on ESL listening test-taker performance.” While the article itself was based heavily around the experiment conducted to test the effectiveness of video texts in testing listening, Wagner posed very interesting questions which he hoped his findings would portray. Wagner’s first question was the most interesting and asked,
Listening is an important skill for the person who is learning English because in verbal communication we cannot communicate with each other without listening to the speaker’s utterances and understanding them. However, listening is a very demanding and challenging skill for the learners to master. Many students often encounter trouble in listening to foreign people even though they are doing well in the English classroom. According to Rubin (1995:8), “For second/foreign language learners, listening is the skill that makes the heaviest processing demands because learners must store information in short term memory at the same time as they are working to understand the information”. Furthermore, as she explains, “Whereas in reading learners can go over the text at leisure, they generally don’t have the opportunity to do so in listening”. As Broughton and et al (1988:65) claim it appears that listening is a passive skill, and speaking is an active one. This is not really true, since
English, as a lingua franca, is a complex process that you need to train and focus on speech, the first thing you should do is to learn how to listen. In the sense that listening means that you have the ability to receive the information issued by the speaker and the ability to understand and respond to the speaker and other information. Because plays an important role in language acquisition. and the ability to distinguish
Nowadays, although teaching and learning English has constantly changed, the Audio-Lingual Method still plays a significant role in many English classes around the world. According to Larsen-Freeman (2000), the Audio-Lingual Method was developed from an interesting idea that behavioral psychology and linguistic conventions are closely related to each other. Thus, this method aims to enhance learners’ ability by overlearn and habit formation.
When examining the research behind the cognitive processes in second language learning, attention and awareness are two key processes that aid in L2 development through interaction- as mentioned previously. “Attention allows learners to notice a gap between what they produce or know and what is produced by the speakers of the L2, and the perception of the gap or mismatch can lead to grammar restructuring” (Mackey, 2006). In order for attention and awareness to
In this research there are three basic things that have been focused, effect of audio-visual aids, speaking skills and listening skills. Listening is a basic and the first primary skill to which everyone should be familiar with that in order to getting the idea of speakers. Listening means to pay conscious attention to the sound or voice of the speaker. This skill is also known as passive or receptive skill.