The use of authentic captioned video as listening comprehension material in English language teaching

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T.C.

SELÇUK UNİVERSİTESİ SOSYAL BİLİMLER ENSTİTÜSÜ

YABANCI DİLLER EĞİTİMİ ANABİLİM DALI

İNGİLİZCE ÖĞRETMENLİĞİ BİLİM DALI

İ

NGİLİZCE ÖĞRETİMİNDE ÖZGÜN ALTYAZILI VİDEO’ NUN

DİNLEME-ALGILAMA MATERYALİ OLARAK KULLANIMI

(THE USE OF AUTHENTIC CAPTIONED VIDEO AS LISTENING COMPREHENSION MATERIAL IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING)

Danışman

Yrd. Doç. Dr. Nazlı GÜNDÜZ

Hazırlayan

Mehmet ÖZGEN

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ABSTRACT

THE USE OF AUTHENTIC CAPTIONED VIDEO AS LISTENING COMPREHENSION MATERIAL IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING

ÖZGEN, Mehmet

M.A., English Language Teaching Department

Supervisor: Assist. Prof. Dr. Nazlı GÜNDÜZ

May 2008, 114 pages

This research study aimed to determine the positive effects of captioned authentic video on the listening comprehension of intermediate English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students at Selcuk University, School of Foreign Languages (SOFL).

This study was conducted over 8 weeks during the 2007-2008 spring semester. The two groups of students watched the same chosen episodes of “Everybody Hates Chris”, an Emmy Award-nominated sitcom, and took the same pre and post tests, and questionnaires. The students in the control group watched the episodes without captions. During the treatment, for the purpose of this study, the experimental group watched the episodes with captions. Subjects viewed the episodes once, for nearly 20 minutes. Before each presentation, both groups received work-sheets of the target vocabulary and phrases. The results showed that the group with captioning scored significantly better on the listening comprehension test. Pre/ post questionnaires were also conducted to analyze the students’ perceptions of the effects of captioning on EFL learning and significant results were found;

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iv Captioning helped students understand the plot better.

Captioning helped the students with their vocabulary acquisition. Captioning improved students’ listening skills.

Multi-sensory (to view the video action, hear the spoken word, see the printed text) presentation charmed students, and created a tendency for using captioning technology as a listening and a learning tool by themselves outside the classroom.

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ÖZET

İNGİLİZCE ÖĞRETİMİNDE ÖZGÜN ALTYAZILI VİDEO’ NUN DİNLEME-ALGILAMA MATERYALİ OLARAK KULLANIMI

ÖZGEN, Mehmet

Yüksek Lisans, İngiliz Dili Eğitimi

Danışman: Yrd Doc. Dr. Nazlı GÜNDÜZ

Mayıs 2008, 114 sayfa

Bu uygulamalı çalışmada, S.Ü. Yabancı Diller Yüksekokulu öğrencilerinin İngilizceyi dinleme ve kavrama yetenekleri üzerinde İngilizce altyazılı, özgün video’nun pozitif etkileri incelenmiştir.

Yaklaşık 2 ay, 8 hafta, süren çalışma 2007-2008 Bahar yarıyılında gerçekleştirilmiştir. Her iki gruptaki (Kontrol ve Deney Grubu) öğrenciler ‘Everybody Hates Chris’ dizisine ait aynı bölümleri izlemişler ve öncesi ve sonrasında da aynı testlere, anketlere tabi tutulmuşlardır. Kontrol grubundaki öğrenciler bölümleri altyazısız olarak izlerken, çalışmanın amacı doğrultusunda deney grubunda ki öğrenciler aynı dizileri İngilizce altyazılı olarak izlemişlerdir. Öğrenciler yaklaşık 20 dakika süren her bir bölümü sadece 1 kez izlemişler ve her bir dizi öncesinde her iki gruptaki öğrencilere yardımcı olmak amacıyla öncesinde hazırlanan bilinmeyen kelime ve deyimleri içeren çalışma kâğıtları verilmiştir.

İngilizce dinleme ve anlamayı ölçmeye yönelik yapılan test sonuçları, bölümleri altyazıyla izleyen deney grubu öğrencilerinin önemli oranda daha iyi sonuçlar elde ettiklerini göstermiştir. Öğrencilerin, altyazılı video’nun etkilerine yönelik düşünceleri tespit etmek

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vi adına 8 haftalık çalışma öncesinde ve sonrasında anketler yapılmış ve bu konuda önemli sonuçlara ulaşılmıştır.

İngilizce altyazı öğrencilerin dizinin konusunu daha iyi takip etmelerinde yardımcı olmuştur.

İngilizce altyazı öğrencilerin yeni kelime ve deyimleri öğrenmelerinde yardımcı olmuştur. İngilizce altyazı öğrencilerin dinleme becerilerini geliştirmelerinde yardımcı olmuştur. Çoklu duyusal sunum (izlemeleri, konuşulanları dinlemeleri ve yazılı metin olarak okumaları) öğrencilere cazip gelmiş ve okul dışında da altyazı teknolojisini dinleme ve öğrenme aracı olarak kullanma eğilimi oluşmasını sağlamıştır.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to express my gratitude to my thesis supervisor, Assist. Prof. Dr. Nazlı GÜNDÜZ, for her invaluable guidance and encouraging patience throughout this study.

I would also like to express my indebtedness and respects to Prof. Dr. Fatih TEPEBAŞILI, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Hasan ÇAKIR, Assist. Prof. Dr. A. Gülbün ONUR, Assist. Prof. Dr. Abdülkadir ÇAKIR, Assist. Prof. Dr. Abdülhamit ÇAKIR, and Assist. Prof. Dr. Ece SARIGÜL for their efforts during my master courses.

I am also thankful to my colleagues, especially to Mr. Hüseyin SERÇE, and to Prep 13 and Prep 14 students of the SOFL at Selçuk University, who took part in this study.

Finally I feel obliged to extend my deepest thanks to my wife, Handan, and to my son, Emir. Without their love, smile, patience, support and understanding the whole process would be unbearable.

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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

We, as language teachers, constantly face the question of how to capture the interest and to stimulate the imagination of our students so that they will be more motivated to learn. Currently there is a wide array of teaching materials available for teaching reading, writing, speaking, listening, grammar, vocabulary-building, on the grounds that, these teaching materials are mostly graded text or course books, and practiced on the basis of teacher-talk and student-listen routines which prevents students to develop an interest in learning English. In other words, acquisition, natural communication could not be implemented, but students only learn the structure and grammatical rules of the target language. On the other hand, according to Krashen (1995), “Learning is different from acquisition. Language learning is ‘knowing the rules,’ having a conscious knowledge about grammar. Language acquisition is responsible for the ability to understand and speak second languages easily and well” (p.18). Again according to Krashen (1995), “We acquire when language is used for communicating real ideas, and comprehension precedes production” (p.19). Therefore, in addition to such materials we sometimes need to adopt a material that we think more useful for promoting listening comprehension. By means of using authentic teaching materials, we should help them to notice that learning a language is not just learning its grammatical rules, since authentic materials enable our English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students to interact with the real language and its use. Eventually, they should not concern only with the form of their utterances, but with the message they are conveying and understanding.

For the past several decades, teachers have been continually trying to exploit and manipulate video to enhance classroom teaching and language learning. When captioned

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2 technology emerged to the forefront more than 15 years ago for people with hearing disabilities in the USA, many educators quickly recognized its potential in helping students’ process language differently via this additional modality: the printed word (Goldman & Goldman, 1988; Neuman & Koskinen, 1992). Since the starting point in language instruction is to help acquirers understand what is being said to them), captioned-video may be a promising method as captions may help students comprehend real-English conversation, and may help them to increase their listening comprehension capabilities (Krashen, 1995, p.20).

Listening plays a significant role in the lives of people. Of the four major areas of communication skills and language development--listening, speaking, reading, and writing--the one that is the most basic is listening. It is evident that children listen and respond to language before they learn to talk. As Rost puts it (2002), “Under normal circumstances, we all manage to acquire our first language, and we do it primarily through listening. There is a seamless connection between learning to listen and acquiring our first language” (p.81). According to Stephen Krashen, there are two independent systems of second language performance: 'the acquired system' and 'the learned system'. The 'acquired system' or 'acquisition' is the product of a subconscious process very similar to the process children undergo when they acquire their first language. It requires meaningful interaction in the target language - natural communication - in which speakers are concentrated not in the form of their utterances, but in the communicative act. The 'learned system' or 'learning' is the product of formal instruction and it comprises a conscious process which results in conscious knowledge 'about' the language, for example knowledge of grammar rules. Krashen believes that, 'learning' is less important than 'acquisition'. He further points out that learning does not become acquisition and our ability to use second languages comes mostly from what we have acquired, not from what we have learned. He claims that

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3 acquisition is the result of listening and reading, we can enjoy real language use right away: we can listen to stories, read books, and engage in interesting conversations (Krashen, 1995, pp. 16-17). In the case of an English-as-a-second-language (ESL) situation, students in the classroom are those whose native languages are any language other than English. ESL students are studying English in an English-speaking country. In this environment, students are surrounded by the target language both in the community and in the school. On the other hand, English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students are studying English in their home countries where English is not the native language. Since students reside in the country where the target language is not used, opportunities should be created by the teachers for EFL students to experience English language both inside and outside the classroom. EFL students could be encouraged and motivated by authentic materials. Authentic materials refer to written or oral language materials used in daily and real life situations by native speakers. Ur (1999), for example, emphasizes this point by saying:

In order to provide students with training in listening comprehension that will prepare them for effective functioning outside the classroom, activities should give learners practice in coping with at least some of the features of real-life situations. For example: it would seem not very helpful to base listening exercises mainly on passages that are read aloud and followed by comprehension questions. It is worth nothing also that listening activities based on simulated real-life situations are likely to be more motivating and interesting to do than contrived textbook comprehension exercises. (p.107)

Despite the importance of listening practice in language instruction, English language classes in Turkey still emphasize only the skills of reading and writing. Rivers and Temperly (1978) believe that, “We as language teachers, have an open field. We are free to experiment and innovate”. (p.vii) There currently is a wide array of teaching materials

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4 available to EFL teachers to accommodate their various needs and their unique teaching situations. One innovative approach may be the use of DVD films to teach listening comprehension. An important advantage of DVDs is that there are subtitles/ captions of different languages in DVDs. When watching TV programs or films, subtitles are the printed version of the spoken texts and can be the same as the original speech. This innovation could be viewed as a great teaching instrument when talking about comprehension and the use of close-captioned video in EFL classes could be considered as an innovation.

1.1 Background to the Study

A very simple analysis of listening would give it four headings: understanding a speaker’s accent or pronunciation, understanding his grammar, recognizing his vocabulary and being able to grasp the meaning of what he says (Allen & Corder, 1974, p.93). Rivers and Temperly (1978), for example, describe listening as: “Essential to all interaction is the ability to understand what others are saying” (p.63). Listening plays a significant role in the lives of people. Of the four major areas of communication skills and language development- listening, speaking, reading, and writing- the one that is the most basic is listening, in the same way Rivers and Temperly express that: “Yet it has been estimated that of the time adults spend in communication activities 45 per cent is devoted to listening, only 30 per cent to speaking, 16 per cent to reading, and a mere 9 per cent to writing” (p.62). Moreover Hatfield insists that listening is the most important of the four language skills. It is evident that children listen and respond to language before they learn to talk. Rost (2002) emphasized this point by saying, “We all manage to acquire our first language, and we do it primarily through listening. There is a seamless connection between learning to listen and acquiring our first language” (p.81). Listening is a language activity

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5 in which children, young people, and adults alike spend a great deal of time (Hatfield, 1960, p. 98). Listening is not only the first of the language arts skills developed, it is also the most frequently used in both the classroom and daily life. In a language classroom, listening plays a significant role in the development of other language arts skills. Rost underlines the significant role of listening as; “Because listening is so prevalent in language use and because listening is the primary means of learning a foreign language for most people, the development of listening as a skill and as a channel for language input should assume critical importance in instruction”(p.103).

On the other hand, due to the fact that listening was usually characterized as a passive activity in the past, Rost (2002) remarks, “Ironically, instruction in listening has not received much attention until recently” (p.103) and notes that:

The explicit treatment of listening in language learning is a relatively recent phenomenon. From the time foreign languages were formally taught until the late 1800s, language learning was presented primarily in a written mode, with the role of descriptive grammars, bilingual dictionaries and ‘problem sentences’ for correct translation occupying the central role. Listening began to assume an important role in language teaching during the ‘reform movement’ of the early 1900s, when linguists sought to elaborate a psychological theory of child language acquisition and apply it to the teaching of foreign languages. As a result of this movement, the spoken language became the definitive source for and means of foreign language learning (p.115).

Again according to Rost (1991), listening plays an active part in language learning and listening is involved in many language-learning activities, both inside and outside the language classrooms. Rost believes that progress in listening will provide a basis for development of other language skills (p.3). Littlewood(1981) shares a similar idea, “Listening has often been called a passive skill. This is misleading, because listening

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6 demands active involvement from hearer. In order to reconstruct the message that the speaker intends, the hearer must actively contribute knowledge from both linguistic and nonlinguistic sources” (p. 66).

In today’s world, with the development of technology, the instruction of English listening comprehension has moved into a technology-based age. This age brought to language teaching and learning a wide range of audio-visual technologies. From among these, using videos to develop learner’s listening comprehension has been widely investigated in recent years (Baltova, 1994; Chung, 1999). In the opinion of Rivers (1988), “Such technologies permit us to see and hear language in a cultural context as well as observe the impact on language meaning of things like real time, word stress, and gestures (p.155). The following example is taken from Rivers (1988):

The greeting ‘How are you today?’ can be presented in a variety of mediums: Print: ‘How are you today?’

Audio: We hear the phonic chain, with stress and intonation for the particular meaning intended.

Video: We observe one individual greeting another and saying, ‘How are you today?’ with gestures appropriate to the culture. (p.155)

On the other hand, one of the most commonly adopted ways of teaching English listening is that a teacher selects a textbook attached with cassettes or interactive CDs, and brings the materials into the classroom. These kinds of listening classes are combined with the instruction of speaking most often. The teacher follows the lesson plans designed by the publisher of the chosen textbook, in which students might have inadequate English input and the efficiency of learning listening and speaking is expectably low, such activities mostly based on teacher-talk and student-listen routines, students lacking motivation to learn a language need variety and excitement. Teachers should help them to notice that

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7 learning a language is not just learning its grammatical rules, vocabulary items and so on besidesEFL students are studying English in their home countries where English is not the dominant native language. Students who are from environments where English is not the language of the country have very few opportunities to hear real language; these students therefore are not accustomed to hear the language as it is produced by the native speakers. Consequently, students from the countries in which English is taught as a foreign language frequently have great difficulty understanding English spoken to them when they come into contact with native speakers of the language. Similarly Brown and Yule (1983) explain:

The student is taught to speak slowly and clearly and his teacher generally addresses the class in a public style (sometimes in a caricature ‘speaking to foreigners, the stupid or the deaf style) which is also slow and clear. Native speakers, much of the time, don’t speak slowly or particularly clearly. Moreover, the student is often only exposed to one accent of English, usually only that spoken by his teacher and as spoken by his teacher. The normal habits of simplification which characterize the accent may be lost when the teacher speaks slowly and ‘artificially’ clearly. Students consequently get used to a model of speech where every segment is clearly articulated (p.54).

We have reason to hypothesize that students who have been used to listening to clearly articulated sentences in English will encounter great difficulty when suddenly faced with spoken English produced by normal native speakers. Thus, instead of listening to artificial materials produced for language learning purposes, students are confronted with challenges of authentic English such as chatting native speakers, watching English TV shows. Students have to learn to cope with the living English. As Ur (1999) comments, “In order to provide students with training in listening comprehension that will prepare them for effective functioning outside the classroom, activities should give learners practice in coping with at least some of the features of real-life situations” (p.107).

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8 Due to this fact, Katchen (2001) in his dissertation conducted a study based on the idea of designing a listening course, which could be not optional, and incorporated with the school curriculum. In addition, instead of choosing a listening text book inclusive of specifically-designed listening training lessons, the main materials of this listening course could be all derived from certain materials which would motivate students to learn listening, and create a learning environment with lower-affective filter. Thus, the researchers chose the DVD films as the main materials and made the basic treatment of the study as teaching listening by DVD films, in which the classroom activities and the content taught in the class were all derived from the DVD films. The use of DVD films as the teaching materials would provide learners with rich-content contexts with the instruction of authentic language; what is more, in a learning environment like this, the learners are expected to be motivated and their listening are hypothesized to improve. Katchen (2001) expresses one uniqueness of DVDs as follows, “There are subtitles/captions of different languages in DVDs. When watching TV programs or films subtitles are the printed versions of the spoken texts. Through using DVDs, the user can choose different languages for both the audio track”. Rivers (1988) underlines this point by saying, “captioned films make it possible to work with three mediums simultaneously: video, audio, and print” (p.165). Price and Dow (1981) conducted a study at Harvard University to determine whether nonnative English speakers could benefit from captioned materials originally targeted for the hearing impaired. Would it be possible for foreign speakers to process both aural and visual cues and attend to captions without getting bogged down, and if so, would this be equally true for all of the ESL population? Results showed that viewers, regardless of educational level or language background, benefited significantly from captioning, even with one viewing. In a study commissioned by the National Captioning Institute, Neuman and Koskinen (1992) found that using captioned science materials from the television program "3-2-1

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9 Contact" with Asian and Hispanic seventh and eighth grade ESL students resulted in higher scores on tests of word knowledge and recall of science information. These results support the theory that multisensory processing of the audio, video, and print components of captioned TV enhances language learning and content. Rivers (1988) claims that, “Captioned-video provides the authenticity of situations badly needed for language learning and enables the viewer to acquire more of the cultural script while relating aural material to the written form” (p.166).

In this section, the importance of listening and the connection between listening and acquiring our first language have been mentioned, secondly the importance of authentic materials was underlined in order to prepare students for real life situations, and finally briefly touched the on some of the principles behind the use of captioned video in language teaching as an authentic material.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

Rost (2002) mentioned that comprehension has been regarded as the most essential aspect of listening, and comprehension has been defined as “The process of relating language to concepts in one’s memory and to the references in the real world “(p.59). That is, a listener realizes what he hears, and has the ability to connect the already-heard knowledge to the outside world. Another explanation of listening comprehension given by Brown and Yule (1983) is that the process of listening comprehension is a process of understanding: repeating what was just heard, figuring out the meaning of an exact word, then knowing what an anaphoric expression refers to. Furthermore, a listener will try to relate what he has heard to his own relevant experience in order to make his ‘own’ reasonable

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10 interpretation. The importance of listening comprehension is probably best described by Wong-Fillmore (1991):

It has been noted that for a person to learn a foreign language three major conditions are required: (1) a learner who realizes the need to learn the foreign language and is motivated to do so; (2) speakers of the target language who know it well enough to provide the learner with access to the spoken language and support (such as simplification, repetition and feedback) they need for learning it; and (3) a social setting which brings the learner in frequent enough and sustained enough contact with target-language speakers to make language learning possible. Most cases of difficulty or failure of a learner, either a child or an adult, to acquire a second language are generally due to a lack in one or more of these factors (quoted in Rost, 2002, p.91).

In the opinion of Rost (2002), “Listening comprehension is required in two of these conditions, and is therefore an essential means of language development, a point that is often overlooked in language pedagogy and research” (p.91). Similarly, Krashen (1995) claims:

Language acquisition does not require extensive use of conscious grammatical rules, and does not require tedious drill. Acquisition requires meaningful interaction in the target language - natural communication - in which speakers are concerned not with the form of their utterances but with the messages they are conveying and understanding. (p.26)

Nevertheless, listening comprehension still receives little time and attention in most foreign-language programs. Traditionally, many teachers have believed that listening comprehension is a natural skill that is developed by students on their own and does not require teaching. Brown and Yule (1983) emphasized this point by saying, “It seemed to be assumed that the student would pick it somehow in the general process of learning. It seemed reasonable to assume that he would learn to understand it as he learnt to speak it

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11 and, anyway, he would of course understand the language addressed to him by his teacher” (p.54). On the other hand Brown and Yule (1983) claim that this apparently natural process doesn’t seem to produce the desired results (p.54), with this in mind they assert: “If the ability to understand the spoken form of the foreign language is not acquired naturally, then it appears obvious that this ability must be taught” (p.55).

Ur (1999) has the following to say about listening practice: “It would seem not very helpful to base listening exercises mainly on passages that are read aloud and followed by comprehension questions”. She believes that, “It is worth nothing also that listening activities based on simulated real-life situations are likely to be more motivating and interesting to do than contrived textbook exercises” (p.107). Listening practice as a preparation for real-life listening comprehension is particularly difficult for learners to cope with. Knowing what difficulties students might encounter during the process of learning real-life listening would give great help for teachers. Ur summarizes learner difficulties in listening as:

1._{Trouble with sounds}

2._{Have to understand every word}

3._{Can’t understand fast, natural native speech (p.112)}

In order to help students overcome the listening difficulties, close-captioned video could be a promising teaching material, due to the fact that captioning technology displays the dialogue, narration, sound effects of a video program as words on a television screen. As Neuman and Koskinen state (1993), “Captioned videos allow viewers to focus attention on both definitional and contextual information; they enhance word meaning by providing a semantically rich visual setting that presents printed words in context with pictorial images” (p.6).

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12 Captioned television and videos provide a presentation of information that includes opportunities to view the video action, hear the spoken word, and see the printed text. This multi-sensory presentation attracts the students, Neuman and Koskinen observe, “Not only does it decreases the difficulty of learning new words, but it is a medium with which students feel confident (p.6).

1.2 Purpose of the Study

Despite the importance of listening practice in language instruction, English language classes in Turkey are still based on mastering skills especially on grammar, and vocabulary, and listening comprehension based on teacher-talk, student-listen routines. Students lacking motivation to learn a language need variety and excitement. Based on his article, Krashen (2004) believes that:

We have made a serious error in language education: We have confused cause and effect. We have assumed that students first need to consciously learn their "skills" (grammar, vocabulary, spelling), and that only after skills are mastered can they actually use these skills in real situations. Only after hard and tedious work do we earn the right to actually enjoy the use of language (p.3).

Besides, the EFL students in Turkey have very few opportunities to hear real language, so these students not accustomed to hear the language as it is produced by the native speaker. Maxwell and Meiser (1997) states: “Listening can and should be taught, not through talking about listening skills but rather by engaging students in authentic communication (p.99). With these points in mind, the purpose of this study is to examine and compare whether authentic closed-captioned video helps or hinders the listening comprehension development of two groups of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners at School of Foreign Languages (SOFL) at Selçuk University. The use of closed-captioned video as a

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13 teaching material in order to motivate learners with rich-content contexts and with the instruction of authentic language will also be discussed.

1.3 Research Questions

1. Will the subjects who watched eight episodes of the sitcom, Everybody Hates Chris, outperform those who watch traditional, without captions, on a listening comprehension test?

2. Will captioned videos improve EFL students’ vocabulary and phrase acquisition? 3. Will closed-captioned presentation help students to overcome their listening

difficulties?

4. Will this multi-sensory (to view the video action, hear the spoken word, and see the printed text) presentation charm students, and create a tendency for using captioning technology as a listening and learning tool by themselves outside the classroom?

1.4 Hypothesis

It is assumed that:

1. Subjects who watch the episodes with captions will score higher on a listening comprehension test when compared to the ones who watch without captions.

2. Captioned video will improve EFL students’ vocabulary and phrase acquisition. 3. This multi-sensory presentation will help students to overcome their listening

difficulties.

4. Closed-captioned presentation will attract students and motivate them to use this method as a listening and learning tool outside the classroom.

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1.5 Limitations

Limitations that may influence the findings of this study are as follows:

This study was applied only to intermediate level preparatory classes at SOFL (School Of Foreign Languages ), including students ages ranging from 18 to 22. Therefore, it cannot be generalized for other groups. It also had a time limitation preventing the researcher to carry on the study and get a better result. If time had been extended to two semesters, the progress of each student could have been more clearly observed and reliable results could have been obtained. This study is only valid for Selçuk University School of Foreign Languages.

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CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

2.1 Overview

The past two decades have brought to language teaching and learning a wide range of audio-visual technologies. From among these, using videos to develop learner’s listening comprehension has been widely investigated in recent years (Baltova, 1994; Katchen, 2003; Neuman & Koskinen, 1992; Garza, 1991). The literature relevant to the present study is presented in this chapter in three major categories; first the rationales of listening comprehension and the factors influencing the learning of listening. Then the review of the advantages of using authentic materials is given. Finally the focus is led to a thorough review of the use of close-captioned video as listening comprehension material.

2.2 Listening Comprehension

When we speak of listening what we really mean is listening and understanding what we hear. In our first language, we have all the skills and background knowledge we need to understand what we hear, so we probably aren't even aware of how complex a process it is. Here we will briefly describe some of what is involved in learning to understand what we hear in English as a foreign language.

2.2.1 Definitions of Listening

Definitions of Listening have been proposed by various scholars. Rivers and Temperley (1978) defines listening as “Essential to all interaction is the ability to understand what others are saying” (p.62). A very simple analysis of listening would give it four headings:

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16 understanding a speaker’s accent or pronunciation, understanding his grammar, recognizing his vocabulary and being able to grasp the meaning of what he says (Allen & Corder, 1974, p.93). Brown and Yule’s definition is; “The ability to understand the spoken form of language” (p.54). Listening is not simply hearing or perceiving speech sounds. It can be concluded from reviewing a number of proposed definitions, that listening is an active process. Littlewood (1981), for example, emphasized this point by saying, “Listening has often been called a passive skill. This is misleading, because listening demands active involvement from the hearer. In order to reconstruct the message that the speaker intends, the hearer must actively contribute knowledge from both linguistic and nonlinguistic sources” (p.66).

An expansive definition comes from Rost (1991):

In order to define listening, we can ask two basic questions: What are the component skills in listening? And what does a listener do? In terms of the necessary components, we can list the following:

• Discriminating between sounds • Recognizing words

• Identifying grammatical groupings of words

• Identifying ‘pragmatic units’-expressions and sets of utterances which function as whole units to create meaning

• Connecting linguistic cues to paralinguistic cues (intonation and stress) and to non linguistic cues (gestures and relevant objects in the situation) in order to construct meaning

• Using background knowledge (what we already know about the content and the form) and context (what has already been said) to predict and then to confirm meaning

• Recalling important words and ideas

Successful listening involves an integration of these skills. In this sense, listening is a coordination of the component skills, not the individual skills themselves (p.4).

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17 Similarly Murcia states, “Listening is the most frequently used language skill in everyday life and when people listen, they listen to a stretch of discourse (p.102).

In this section, some definitions of the word “listening” have been presented. As it can be easily seen, listening implies more than just perception of sounds. Listening is not only hearing, but an act of attending to the speech and trying to understand the message.

2.2.2 Importance of Listening

How important is listening? Hatfield (1960) claims that, “Quantitatively speaking, listening is without doubt the most important of the four language arts. There are, however, other criteria for assessing the importance of an activity. One is its role or influence in the lives of men” (p.99). “In fact, listening is the most frequently used language skill in everyday life. Researchers (e.g. Morley, 1991); Rivers, 1981; Weaver, 1972) estimate that we listen to twice as much language as we speak, four times as much as we read, and five times as much as we write” (Quoted in Murcia, 2000, p.102). Similarly, Rivers and Temeperly (1978) elaborate the importance of listening as, “Yet it has been estimated that of the time adults spend in communication activities 45 per cent is devoted to listening, only 30 per cent to speaking, 16 per cent to reading, and a mere 9 per cent to writing (p.62). That is to say, listening plays a significant role in the lives of people. Listening is even more important for the lives of students since listening is used as a primary medium of learning at all stages of education. On the other hand, despite of its importance, listening has been the neglected language art for generations. Hatfield (1960) emphasized this point by saying:

Evidence of this neglect is not difficult to document. In 1945, the National Council of Teachers of English appointed a national Commission on the English Curriculum. The

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18 commission was charged with the responsibility of producing a series of volumes on the English curriculum from kindergarten through the university. At the outset, the Commission agreed that listening should be accorded its rightful emphasis as one of the four language arts--reading, writing, speaking, and listening. (p.93)

A similar idea is expressed by Rost (2002), “Because listening is so prevalent in language use and because listening is the primary means of second language acquisition for most people, the development of listening as a skill should assume critical importance in instruction. Ironically, instruction in listening has not received much attention until recently” (103).

On the whole, Rost (1991) even argued that unless listening is given priority at the right level, learning cannot begin and he believes that, “Progress in listening will provide a basis for development of other language skills” (p.3).

Obviously, apart from communicative interaction, listening plays an active part in language learning, on the other hand, the importance of listening in classroom instruction has been less emphasized than reading and writing.

2.2.3 Listening as an Active Process

According to Littlewood (1981), “Listening has often been called a passive skill. This is misleading, because listening demands active involvement from the hearer. In order to reconstruct the message that the speaker intends, the hearer must actively contribute knowledge from both linguistic and nonlinguistic sources” (p.66). As Gephard (2006) puts it, “Listening is not a passive activity. Rather, listening places many demands on us. When we participate in face to face or telephone exchanges, we need to be receptive to others, which includes paying attention to explanations, questions and opinions” (p.148). Listening implies more than just hearing or perceiving a stream of sounds; it also requires

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19 comprehension of the speaker’s intended message. Anderson and Lynch (1988) underline the complexity of listening comprehension by pointing out that the listener must simultaneously integrate the following skills:

-_{Identify spoken signals from the midst of surrounding sounds;} -_{Segment the stream of speech into words;}

-_{Grasp the syntax of the utterances(s);} -_{Formulate an appropriate response.}

They point out that in addition to these linguistic skills, the listener must also command a range of non-linguistic knowledge and skills. These include having an appropriate purpose for listening; having appropriate social and cultural knowledge and skills; having the appropriate background knowledge. They stress the active nature of listening. (Quoted in Nunan, 1989, p.23)

Rost (2002) states, “Although it is often ignored in language analysis, the listener has a subtle but powerful role in conversation, shaping the meaning of the interaction in collaboration with the speaker” (p.50). Besides he emphasizes listening as an active process by saying, “Listening is primarily a cognitive activity, involving the activation and modification of concepts in the listener’s mind” (p.62).

In summary, listening is an active process of attaching meaning to the speech sounds. As a listener performs a variety of tasks in a comprehension process, he or she needs to connect the new knowledge to the background information in order to comprehend the new knowledge.

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20

2.2.4 Schema Theory

Nunan (1999) states, “We do not simply take language in like a tape-recorder, but interpret what we hear according to our purpose in listening and our background knowledge” (p.23). As Littlewood (1981) puts it, “In order to reconstruct the message that the speaker intends, the hearer must actively contribute knowledge from both linguistic and nonlinguistic sources”. Besides he concludes this point by saying, “It is only by applying his knowledge of the language that he can divide the continues stream of sound into meaningful units at all, and it is only by comparing these units with the background and shared knowledge between himself and the speaker that he can interpret their meaning”(p.66). Rost (2002) believes that, “Listening is primarily a cognitive activity, involving the activation and modification of concepts in the listener’s mind”, and he assumes that, “Due to the evolutionary causes, the conceptual that the listener brings to the text comprehension is organized in ways that allow him to activate it efficiently. As a way of referring to activated portions of conceptual knowledge, cognitive psychologists and linguists often refer to modules of knowledge as schemas”(p.62).

Anderson and Lynch record an anecdote which illustrates the importance of background knowledge. An old woman, passing one of the authors in the street, said ‘That is the university. It is going to rain tomorrow’. Initially, the listener was unable to interpret the utterance. It was only after the speaker repeated herself, and drew the listener’s attention to a bell ringing in the distance, that he was able to get to the meanings behind the words. In doing so, he needed to draw on the following information:

General factual information:

1._{sound is more audible downwind than upwind} 2._{wind direction may affect weather conditions} Local factual knowledge:

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21 3._{the University of Glasgow has a clock tower with a bell}

Socio-cultural knowledge:

4._{strangers in Britain occasionally refer to the weather to ‘oil the wheels’ of social life.} 5._{a polite comment from a stranger usually requires a response}

Knowledge of context:

6._{the conversation took place about half-a-mile from the University of Glasgow} 7._{the clock tower bell was just striking the hour}

By drawing on these various sources of knowledge, the listener was able to conclude that the old woman was drawing his attention to the fact that the wind was blowing from a direction which brought with it the threat of rain. The change in the wind direction was signaled by the fact that the university clock tower was audible. (Quoted in Nunan, 1999, p.25)

Similarly, Murcia (2000) argues that, “listening process involve activation of schematic knowledge and contextual knowledge, i.e., background information on the topic, and an understanding of the specific listening at hand (i.e., listeners access who the participants are, what the setting is, what the topic and purpose are)” (p.103).

This section has provided a description of schema theory which explains the role of background knowledge in language comprehension. To this end, Ur (1999), who views classroom listening is not real-life listening, states that, “it would not very helpful to base listening exercises mainly on passages that are read aloud and followed by comprehension questions”. He claims that, “It is worth nothing also that listening activities based on real-life situations are likely to be more motivating and interesting to do than contrived textbook comprehension exercises” (p.107). Accordingly, DVD films would provide a real-life listening course with plenty of information, which students could relate to their life experiences.

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2.2.5 Listening Comprehension

According to Rost (2002) “Comprehension is often considered to be the first-order goal of listening, the highest priority of the listener, and sometimes the sole purpose of listening” (p.59). Rost (2002) believes that, the term ‘listening comprehension’ is widely used to refer all aspects of listening, the term ‘comprehension’ is used in a more specific sense. He defines ‘comprehension’ as, “the process of relating language to concepts in one’s memory and to references in the real world. Comprehension is the sense of understanding what the language used refers to in one’s experience or in the outside world” (p.59). That is, the listener realizes what he or she hears, and has the ability to connect the background knowledge to the outside real world. Rost (2002) describes this mental process as the listener’s schema (p.59). Brown and Yule (1983) define comprehension as: comprehension is a process of understanding: repeating what was just heard, figuring out the exact meaning of a word, and then knowing what an anaphoric expression refers to. Furthermore, a listener will try to relate what he has heard to his own relevant experience, in order to make his ‘own’ reasonable interpretation (p.58). Littlewood (1981) builds upon this definition and elaborated the concept as, “In fact, the majority of utterances that we hear in daily life could be conceived as carrying different meanings in different circumstances, and it is only because we are actively involved in the communication process that we are generally able to relate them to a single appropriate meaning”(p.66). On the other hand, Brown and Yule (1983) believe that, “In normal language interactions, a speaker exposes some of his intentions in uttering language and achieves understanding by his listeners of only some of those intentions. We achieve a partial interaction of point of view, a partial understanding of what the speaker intended” (p.59). Brown and Yule conclude this point by saying, “It should follow from this that we should not train our students to expect that they ought to be achieving 100 per cent correct comprehension and that they are failing if

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23 they fail to achieve 100 per cent correct comprehension” (p.59). Littlewood (1981) shares a similar idea, “the learner should be made aware that not every clue is equally important to the message. Therefore, even when he misses a piece of language, he need not panic: there is a good chance that other clues will enable him to understand the message, or at least, enough of the message for his own purpose” (p.67).

Language learners usually assume that successful comprehension only occurs with total comprehension. This belief causes some language learners to become frightened when they fail to understand every single word they hear. This section has emphasized the importance of giving sufficient attention to a message once it has been perceived during a listening process. However, it is not necessary for a listener to know each word in the speech in order to succeed in comprehending the message.

2.2.6 Nature of Language Classroom Speech

Allwright and Bailey (2004) states that, “Observations of many different classes, both in content area subjects and in language instruction, consistently show that teachers typically do between one half and three quarters of the talking done in classrooms (p.139). And they define ‘teacher talk’ as, “One of the major ways that teachers convey information to learners, and it is also one of the primary means of controlling learner behavior (p.139). As Rost (2002) puts it, “Teacher-talk – how the teacher talks to students- is one of the vital sources of listening input for learners” (p.134). On the other hand, classroom activities do not provide students with natural language or 'real' language. Rost (2002), for example, observes that, “Teachers typically accommodate their speech to the comprehension abilities of their students. Although it is desirable to expose learners to genuine language rather than overly simplified versions of the target language (p.134). Similarly, Allwright

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24 and Bailey (2004) put it, “A number of studies have revealed, and quite convincingly so, that the language to which second language learners are exposed in the classroom is often unlike the language they will encounter in talking to native speakers outside the classroom” (p.140). According to Krashen (1995), teacher talk is characterized by slower production, reduced syntactic complexity and utterance length, limited lexicon, and more well-formed sentences (p.34). Brown and Yule (1983) emphasize the nature of language classroom speech by saying, “Students is taught to speak slowly and clearly and his teacher generally addresses the class in a public style (sometimes in a caricature ‘speaking to foreigners’, the stupid or the deaf’ style) which is also slow and clear” (p.54). On the other hand, it is a fact that native speakers don’t speak slowly or particularly clearly. Moreover, Brown and Yule underline that:

The student is often only exposed to one accent of English, usually only that spoken by his teacher and as spoken only by his teacher. The normal habits of simplification which characterize the accent may be lost when the teacher speaks slowly and artificially clearly. Students consequently get used to a model of speech where every segment is clearly articulated. (p.54)

On the contrary, the characteristics of real-life listening situations are rather different from teacher talk, or from the nature of language classroom speech. Ur provides a detailed expression of the characteristics of real-life listening situations. In real-life situations, most of the spoken language we listen to is informal and spontaneous: the speaker is making it up as he or she goes along rather that reading aloud or reciting from memory. It is usually broken into short chunks, in a conversation people take turns to speak, usually in short turns of a few seconds each. The pronunciation of words is often slurred, and noticeably different from the phonological representation given in a dictionary. The vocabulary is

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25 often colloquial, and in such real-life situations, the grammar tends to be somewhat ungrammatical: utterances do not usually divide neatly into sentences (Ur, 1999, p.106). Accordingly, Brown and Yule (1983) claim that, “Most foreign learners will not acquire a comfortable ability to listen and understand the foreign language as spoken by native speakers if they only listen to their teacher and classmates and feedback from their own spoken production” (p.55).

It can be concluded that to better prepare students and enable them to react accurately to the spoken language outside the classroom, it is necessary that teachers provide their students with ample opportunities to listen to samples of natural or real language in the classroom.

2.2.7 Comprehensible Input

According to Allwright and Bailey (2004), ‘comprehensible input’ is a term popularized by Krashen (p.120). As Brown (1993) puts it, “Krashen’s hypotheses have had a number of different names. In earlier years ‘Monitor Model’ and the ‘Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis’ were more popular terms; in recent years the ‘Input Hypothesis’ has been a common term to refer to what are really a set of interrelated hypotheses” (p.279). Rost (2002) believes that, “ While it is clear that input plays an essential part in second-language acquisition, the amount and type of input that is required for a learner to acquire a second language has not been clearly described” (p.93). In his Input Hypothesis, Krashen (1995) says that, “This hypothesis states simply that we acquire (not learn) language by understanding input that is a little beyond our current level of (acquired) competence. We move from i, our current level, to i+1, the next level along the natural order” (p.32). Besides Krashen believes that:

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26 The most important and useful theoretical point is the acquisition-learning distinction; the hypothesis that adult language students have two distinct ways of developing skills and knowledge is second language. Simply, acquiring a language is ‘picking it up’, i.e., developing ability in a language by using it in natural, communicative situations. It appears that language acquisition is the central, most important means for gaining linguistic skills even for an adult. (p.18)

Krashen’s (1995) input hypothesis claims that listening comprehension and reading are of primary importance in the language program, and that the ability to speak or write fluently in a second language will come its own with time. Speaking fluency is thus not ‘taught’ directly; rather, speaking ability ‘emerges’ after the acquirer has built up competence through comprehending input. (p.32) Input Hypothesis is summarized by Krashen as;

1._{Relates to acquisition, not to learning.}

2._{We acquire by understanding language a bit beyond our current level of competence. This} is done with the help of context.

3._{Spoken fluency emerges gradually and is not taught directly.}

4._{When caretakers talk to acquirers so that the acquirers understand the message, input} automatically contains ‘1+i’, the grammatical structures the acquirer is ‘ready’ to acquire. (p.37)

According to Rost (2002), “Krashen’s Input Hypothesis has been widely criticized (p.93). A criticism, for example, is stated by Allwright and Bailey (2004), they underline the fact that not all language learners live in the in the target culture, and may be exposed to a great deal of language. (p.129) and then they state the difficulty of a learner’s listening radio broadcast since 1. The listener could not digest the rapid speech at his own pace, as he can with written material, and 2. The oral presentation would presumably provide fewer contextual clues to help him interpret the spoken text. (p.121)

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27 Allwright and Bailey conclude by saying, “Krashen’s concept of comprehensible input, though intuitively appealing to some, is nevertheless problematic in a variety of ways” (p.121). These problematic ways may be handled by the advantages of captioned video. As captioned video has multi-sensory (to view the video action, hear the spoken word, and see the printed text) presentation, the learner could easily digest the rapid speech by the help of the captions, video action would provide enough contextual clues to help learner to interpret the spoken text, and finally we can use DVD films as authentic materials to our EFL students, to provide a real life listening.

2.2.8 Listening Difficulties

Knowing what difficulties students might encounter during the process of learning listening would give great help for teachers’ course design and help them to create a positive emotional learning environment. Ur (1999) actually classifies listening difficulties of the EFL learners and their comments into several categories as follows;

1._{I have trouble catching the actual sounds of the foreign language.}

2._{I have to understand every word; if I miss something, I feel I am failing and get} worried and stressed.

3._{I can understand people if they talk slowly and clearly; I can’t understand fast, natural} native- sounding speech.

4._{I need to hear things more than once in order to understand.}

5._{I find it difficult to ‘keep up’ with all the information I am getting, and cannot think} ahead or predict.

6._{If the listening goes on a long time I get tired, and find it more difficult to concentrate.} ( p.111)

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28 In order to help students overcome the listening difficulties, instructors could design listening activities with captioned video which allows learners to focus attention on both definitional and contextual information; they enhance word meaning by providing a semantically rich visual setting that presents printed words in context with pictorial images.

2.2.9 Reading Comprehension versus Listening Comprehension

Despite the similarities between some aspects of listening comprehension and reading comprehension there are some important differences between two processes. According to Donough and Shaw (1998), “The clearest way of distinguishing between listening and is to think of the medium itself, and the nature of the language used” (p.129). They have the following to say about the differences:

• The medium is sound, and not print. This self-evident statement has a number of implications. We are dealing, for example, with a transient and ephemeral phenomenon which cannot be recaptured once it has passed (unless it is recorded, or we ask for repetition).

• A listening context often contains visual clues, such as gesture, which generally support the spoken words. More negatively, there can also be extraneous noise, such as traffic, or other people talking, which interferes with message reception.

• Information presented in speech tends to be less densely packed than it is on the page, and it may also be more repetitive.

• There is evidence to show that the spoken language is often less complex in its grammatical and discourse structure. At the same time, however, much speed gives a ‘broken’ impression, with new starts in mid-sentence, changes of direction or topic, hesitation and half-finished statements. This is obviously more true of informal than of formal speech.

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29 In addition, McKeating (1981) states, “If he knows how to interpret them, the listener gets considerable help in comprehension from such aspects of speech as intonation and the placing of stress. These are not available to the reader, who has to rely on the hints provided by such devices as punctuation” (p.65). At the same time, Donough and Shaw (1998) maintain that, “We have seen that the traditional labeling of reading as a ‘passive’ skill is both misleading and incorrect: this is now well recognized as being equally so for listening. Like the reader, the listener is involved” (p.128). Rost (2002) even sees the listener in certain circumstances as ‘co-authoring’ the discourse, not just waiting to be talked to and respond, but actually by his responses helping to construct it. (p.51)

This section has centered on the characteristics of listening and reading comprehension, Similarities, differences, advantages or disadvantages are mentioned. Accordingly, these characteristics bring to light captioned video can be a beneficial comprehension tool for English learners, as captioned video provides a combination of printed word, spoken word and rich pictorial context. For language learners, the advantages of reading and listening are both accommodated at the same time with a combination of pictorial context, an all in one process.

2.3 . The Use of Authentic Materials

The use of authentic materials in language classrooms have been much discussed by researchers. Here a review of the advantages of using authentic materials is presented with the emphasis on authentic video, authentic video and culture, and motivation.

2.3.1 Definitions of Authentic Materials

Melvin and Stout (1988) state that, “As language teachers, we have all used some authentic materials that bring students into contact with language as it is used in the culture to meet

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30 actual communication needs” (p.44). Similarly Crystal (1986) states, “One of the most interesting developments in the field of language teaching in recent years has been the concern to provide students with ‘authentic’ spoken materials with which to work” (p.411). Crystal believes that “the concern is understandable- a reaction, largely, against concocted texts and artificial situations which used to be so common in language teaching textbooks” (p.411). Gebhard (2006) puts it, “To move beyond limitations of a text, many EFL/ ESL teachers adapt or create authentic materials and media” (p.103). Accordingly, it is easy to understand the purpose of using authentic materials, since they have been argued to improve ESL students’ communication skills and to increase learners’ motivation, involvement, and interest to learn the target language. On the other hand, although language teachers have applauded authentic materials’ benefits, what makes materials “authentic” in ESL classrooms is difficult to define. According to Gephard (2006), “Authentic materials include anything that is used to communicate in the target language” (p.103). Similarly, Abbot and Wingard (1981) put it as, “materials actually used in a mother tongue situation” (p.279). Gower, Phillips and Walters (1995) define authentic materials as:

Anything a native speaker of English would hear or read or use can be described as authentic: theatre programmes, newspapers, magazines, poems, songs, brochures, information leaflets, menus, news broadcasts, films on video- the list is endless. Because authentic materials are not designed for the EFL students, they are not graded for level, although some are obviously more difficult to understand than others. (As they would be for native speakers.) (p.82)

Consequently, Abbot and Wingard (1981) emphasize, “Many teachers would probably agree, however, that a course-writer would be producing ‘authentic’ material if he made up a weather forecast or an advertisement, provided his versions were pretty much like the

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31 real thing” (p.279). At the same time, he underlines the fact that, “But as soon as he started simplifying the language, or regularizing it in some way, the advocates of authenticity would criticize or reject his material” (p.279). According to this definition, authentic materials can be unedited or unmodified from their original purposes. On the contrary, Lee (2004) claims that, “authenticity can only be achieved when there is agreement between the material writer’s intention and the learner’s interpretation” (p.652). With this in mind, materials could be considered authentic if they are real to the learner, and if they simulate the real-life situations.

This section has presented some definitions and some arguments of the term "authentic materials". Generally, authentic language is that which is used by native speakers communicating orally or in writing, or simulations of real-life situations.

2.3.2 Authentic Materials and Language Performance

Authentic materials have been argued to improve language learners’ communication skills and to increase learners’ motivation, involvement, and interest to learn the target language. Based on his research, Peacock (1997) describes a classroom research project to investigate whether authentic materials increase the classroom motivation of learners, a claim often made but rarely, if ever, tested. Twobeginner-level EFL classes participated, and both used authentic and artificial materials alternately. Results from two observation sheets and a self-report questionnaire indicate that observed motivation increased significantly whenauthentic materials were used, self-reported motivation only increased over the last 12 of the 20 days of the study (p.154). According to Gower, Phillips and Walters (1995), there are number of good reasons to use authentic materials in the classrooms:

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•

For most students authentic materials, because they are ‘real’, are intrinsically more

interesting and motivating and they give students confidence when they understand them

.

• They provide examples of language as it is really used. By being exposed to authentic

materials students have the opportunity to acquire or ‘pick up’ language.

• The real cultural content of many authentic materials encourages involvement and comparisons (especially in a multicultural group).

•

Authentic materials lend themselves to authentic tasks: for example, getting information

students may really need if they are planning a trip; listening to songs for pleasure; reading the menu of a restaurant they are going to eat in; etc.

•

The use of authentic materials can be effectively linked with ways of helping students be

more independent learners: making predictions and guesses, using reference books (grammar and vocabulary books, dictionaries). (p.83)

Gebhard (2006) has following to say about the reasons to use authentic materials, “Because they can reinforce for students the direct relation between the language classroom and the outside world. In addition, they offer a way to contextualize language learning” (p.105). In the same way, he believes that, “authentic materials offer students a valuable source of language input, since they can be exposed to more than just the language presented by the teacher and the text” (p.105). Ur (1999) claims that, “In order to provide students with training in listening comprehension that will prepare them for functioning outside the classroom, activities should give learners practice in coping with at least some of the features of real-life situations” (p.107). He believes that, “It would seem not very helpful to base listening exercises mainly on passages that are read aloud and followed by comprehension questions, when we know that very little of the discourse we hear in real life is read aloud, and we do not normally respond by answering comprehension questions” (p.107). As a result Ur (1999) emphasizes that, “It is worth nothing also that listening

The use of authentic captioned video as listening comprehension material in English language teaching

İ

NGİLİZCE ÖĞRETİMİNDE ÖZGÜN ALTYAZILI VİDEO’ NUN

DİNLEME-ALGILAMA MATERYALİ OLARAK KULLANIMI

Yrd. Doç. Dr. Nazlı GÜNDÜZ

Mehmet ÖZGEN

ABSTRACT

ÖZGEN, Mehmet

M.A., English Language Teaching Department

Supervisor: Assist. Prof. Dr. Nazlı GÜNDÜZ

May 2008, 114 pages

ÖZET

ÖZGEN, Mehmet

Yüksek Lisans, İngiliz Dili Eğitimi

Danışman: Yrd Doc. Dr. Nazlı GÜNDÜZ

Mayıs 2008, 114 sayfa

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1.1

Background to the Study

1.2 Statement of the Problem

1.2

Purpose of the Study

1.3

Research Questions

1.4

Hypothesis

1.5

Limitations

CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

2.1 Overview

2.2 Listening Comprehension

2.3

. The Use of Authentic Materials

•

.

•

•