MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY
H
THE EFFECTIVENESS OF TEACHING LISTENING COMPREHENSION THROUGH REDUCED FORMS
INSTRUCTION: A FOCUS ON CONTRACTIONS WITHIN THE SETTING OF TOEIC TEACHING
A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (TESOL)
Submitted by TRAN THI THAM
Supervisor
Trang 2ABSTRACT
Reduced forms are amongst the many causes that affect on listening comprehension competence The current study investigated the effectiveness of explicitly teaching reduced forms in terms of contractions such as I’ll, didn’t, who’s in improving EFL students’ listening comprehension within the setting of TOEIC teaching There were forty-seven second year students at Vietnamese American Vocational Training College (VATC), in Ho Chi Minh City involved in this research They were selected and assigned into the experimental group and the control one The aims of this thesis were sought to answer (1) whether there was a significant difference between the experimental group and the control group in improving both identification and meaning comprehension of contraction forms through contraction teaching; (2) whether or not the experimental group outperformed the comparison group in the ability of listening comprehension within the context of TOEIC teaching; (3) whether there was a positive relationship between contraction listening ability and TOEIC listening comprehension; and (4) what the learners’ views were on the contraction instruction The results revealed that contraction instruction did aid listening comprehension, especially TOEIC listening comprehension ability In other words, the treatment group statistically surpassed the contro] one not only in both recognizing and understanding contraction forms but also in TOEIC listening comprehension ability after the explicit contraction instruction Moreover, the retention of the acquired knowledge of the experimental students was proved through the results of the delayed TOEIC listening test In addition, the result of the correlation indicated that there was a positive relationship between contraction listening ability and TOEIC listening comprehension Last but not least, the participants in the experimental group had favorable attitudes towards the explicit contraction teaching in the listening course though students still face a certain amount of difficulty in identifying and
Trang 3TABLE OF CONTENTS CERTIFICATE OR ORIGINALITY .-. ôâcssâcs+eeerxesreetrsrrsettserrsrtsrrassrsseree i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ABSTRACT TABLE OF CONTENTS iv LIST OF TABLES ix LIST OF CHARTS xi LIST OF ABBREVIATION xii Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION „1
1.1 Background of the sfUdyy -s:cccàctcn ng HH re 1
1.2 Purpose of the sfUdy cành H0 cư 4
1.3 Research questÍOnS - + ¿52c 222 2t 2221211211221 12111212121 4
1:4 Hypothe€ses - St nh nh H1 H2 1.01 111 Hư 5
1.5 Significance of the study ¿5c sec HH HH2 gu ườn 5 1.6 The Organization of the Study .cccceeseesees eee teseesseseeseeseeseessseesessessessnseneseeeeeeaes 6
Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW .ssssssssssssssssersssseensssssssenesscsncsseessancenessceseeseese 7
2.1 Overview of listening comprehension ccscscesesesseeeeseseeeeesescececeeseseseeeeceeeeseeee 7 2.2 The process of listening comprehension - 55c 55cccscsesreererrersrerereee 8
2.2.1 Bottom —up prOC€SSing 0à cọ neo Đ
2.2.2 Top — down DTOC€SSÍNE 22 2t v2 HH HH 221111 111i 9 2.2.3 The interactIV€ DTOC€SSỈNE 2 t2 h2 H2 0212111121111 1111 xe 9 2.3 Introduction of reduced ẨOTImS - - + 5+2 S* t2 2x kg x3 2111211711 re 10 2.3.1 What are reduced ÝOorrms? ¿ - +5 cà t2 121171 111 tr rrườc 10 2.3.2 Purposes of reduced forms instruction 5c c+ S5 St cntrntrrrrerirrrrrree 11
2.3.3 Aspects ofreduced 2.4 Contraction instruction
2.4.1 What is contraction?
Trang 425:1 POSIEVE CONTECH ONS ssncunvsnrancemnannnem NERA RR 16 2:5.2 N@Bative CONTAC ONS tauststndgioistt4GlGIGOIGBGĐABIAEBSSSEGSIGES34GStlAi2 03888 18 25:3: Oher' CGnitTACDONE sccccsssscynnEiEgi.L02 00A6 12t 034411011345 051556855568465u614195661065616,ã6E 19 2:6/Studies on:reltrced.fưrmas instruotiON ce can cccccccnaEng g0 nH2011 000g 010n0688gã10850 21 2.7 Chapter SUMIMATY csseseeesseseeerseseseessseesseeescsesessessesussesesesseessetetsesscarsaseesseseaees TỔ
Chapter 3: METHODOLOGY .sccssssssssssssossnesnssneenesnseesceseneenecseencanensenecsenecsnenees 26
3.1 Research design .ccccscsessssessssecsseeessessssessescsesessecessesnssesssseeeesseesecenseesacaeersneeessess 26 3.1.1 Pretest-posttest Quasi-experimental design cccccscsseeseseseeeeseteseeceeanees 27 3:1,2 Internal VaHÌTYfssssssasestindittiisgtagt4E0463026138806338433A385044838154011303088G30483g14pstrgiA 28 3.2; Participants atid research Site sis.cssssxsssssvssssesovsssavessseasscseusssnescssavsurasvesvssressaeuseesseees 28
352 Research Site) svvisicauvecnssasssonssecsvaensisevaeavssionasceccsnsnsoinsressestiavaaveniue sais 28
E9 ĩ5 29 3.3 Syllabus for teaching English + + 2rtrtererrrrrrreerrerrrerrerrrree 30 BADAGTPES: - s;z?õ-ỗỹortGIGUU-GGGAONGIIENGGIOAOAGSOAENIELEUEMIRSGOSORUNRitệi 30 SAATESS trreudatttotbGSEBEEOIOGIGUSOIUOGHHNNHENHRERORHaWaNIsaueagdi 30 3.4.1.1 Pretest, posttest and delayed test son 660020151645611811X64:4153088sg8 31
3.4.1.2 Structures and content of the tests 3.4.1.3 Scoring criteria 3.4.2 Questionnaires 3.5 Preparation stages 3.6 Pilot stage
3.6.1 Pilot instrument! ssssssccasnissccn anna 35 3.7 Reliability and validity of the instrumens . 5c + ccccecscerrrrerrrterree 36 3.7.1 Reliability 36 337.2: Validity’ sccicssssssenssccncsscovssusvenvevesveusavevsevessruasvevessiastseusesanstineieninsoussssdsswavensureise Si ái ¬ 37 3.9 Dafa analSiS -¿- 5 St nọ TT” 11 11 T1 111111111 re 40 3.9 LTATESE nnasoenrneresonrsnssanerssensensesendngsbnostenendbnanavensiasseneonenseananeshsandenesanseennenesngaced 40 3:9:2BIVATiStE:-CGITGIRHOfÍzurasesinubostiosatilitt@xagibasuiggsassawaupsgsa 4
Trang 5Chapter 4: RESULTS
4.1 (Statistical apialysis ư01 p†6tGsLTESUÍ szssgavusdsogogl@slo3@isyqgsspsoag 4 4;1:1 The pre-Identiiicatiofi:VESẲossssasetsesssosoilitosgitedstigietg18.03x60.33403uxesuasdl 44 4.1.2 The pre-meaning comprehension test 22222S2rrrrie 44 4.2 Statistical analysis of posttest resuÍf - HH n.eeerrerree 45 4.2.1 The post-identification test 22-2tt2222271, 2 rrrrrrree 44
4.2.2 The post-meaning comprehension t€Sf tt 46
4.3 Statistical analysis of posttest2 reSuÏts -2222crrrrrriiirrrirrrrre 46 4.4 Statistical analysis of delayed TOEIC listening test results 47 4.5 Correlation results for the experimental group . -ccreeririrrrree 50 4.6 Analysis of data from questionnaire .cecsccsesseseesesseseseeseseessnesensesessensenenensete 51 4.6.1 Students°evaluation on recognizing contraction forms - 51 4.6.2 Students' attitudes towards learning contractions -ccccsesrrcev 53 4.6.3 Students’ evaluation on the effectiveness of learning contractions 54 4.6.4 Students’ evaluation on the rate of their confidence - - 56 4.6.5 Students’ difficulties of contractions after the treatment 57 4.6.6 Students’ opinion about the contraction instruction - ccecee 58 4.6.7 Students’ evaluation on the listening course -2222sccccerrerrrre 60 £7} ChapterSumm ary senssnsncensecsrnenneranannscsnsnnosieenstneonsaneosccnusnennnesetinunsuwnsennvarbannensenntnsees 62
Chapter 5: DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS «<-<<c-eseseees L8920580349ss3 63
Trang 7LIST OF TABLES
Table 3.2.2 Description of the participants
Table 3.7.1A Description of reliability statistics of the test
Table 3.7.1B Description of reliability statistics of the questionnaire
Table 3.8 Summary of the treatment for both ørOups .- -<«<scsesesseseese 39 Table 4.1.1 Summary of the T-test result for the pre-ÏT « s-s-s<-ses<=sesees 43 Table 4.1.2 Summary of the T-test result for the pre- MT .-.-. -s<-s-«es<< 44 Table 4.2.1 Summary of the T-test result for the posf- ÍT -«<<ssss<s«seses< 45 Table 4.2.2 Summary of the T-test result for the post- MCT <-s <s<<«s< 45 Table 4.3 Summary of the T-test result for the pOsft€SỂ2 . < << s+<esesesssese 46 Table 4.4A Summary of the T-test result for the delayed TOEIC test 47 Table 4.5 Correlation results for the experimentaÏ ørOup .-.«‹ -s‹se-<<e<<<<s< 50 Table 4.6.1 Evaluation on recognizing contraction ẨOrImS . «‹cec<ceseesexeese 52 Table 4.6.2 Attitudes towards learning Contractions .sssssssesessesesseersnsseenceeseeteeneeeese 54 Table 4.6.3 Evaluation on the effectiveness of learning contractiOnS . ‹- 55
Table 4.6.4 Evaluation on the rate of Confidence sssessessssseseccessnesscsecsecsnceecanesnenecseees 57
Trang 8EFL ESL HCMC L2 sD SLA SPSS TESOL TOEIC VATC LIST OF ABBREVIATION
English as a Foreign Language English as a Second Language
Ho Chi Minh City
Second language Mean
Standard deviation
Second Language Acquisition
Statistical Package for the Social Sciences
Trang 9CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the study
The need to be proficient in the use of English among non — native speakers has become a global phenomenon Among the four skills and three language areas, listening is one of the most important but difficult skills for many EFL learners Though listening has no longer been a passive skill lately, it is still often neglected in many EFL programs (Osada, 2004) Brown (1987, as cited in Osada, 2004) observes a significant number of published courses on listening comprehension and classroom practices in many schools in many countries continue to demonstrate that listening is still regarded as the least important skill in language teaching Nauman (2002) states the listeners have had the least practice in this area Traditionally, teachers of English have focused on passing on knowledge (i.e their attention is on written examination scores and they pay much less attention to cultivating students’ listening ability) Moreover, most of English teachers ( from my short interviews) say they have not focused much on teaching listening because classes are usually large and they do not have enough time to cover all skills
Trang 10In recent years, many English teachers have emphasized top-down process in their listening teaching Research in second language listening instruction has tended to focus more on the development of top-down process than bottom-up process (Vandergrift, 2004) Additionally, Brown (2006) states some language teachers are too quick to jump on the top-down bandwagon
Some teachers think that listening is the easiest skill to teach, whereas most students think it is the most difficult to improve (Yagang, 1993) This contradiction wams us that there are some things about teaching listening in general and TOEIC listening in particular that need to be investigated Thus, in order to help TOEIC students get improved with their listening skill, and gain higher TOEIC scores, it is better to use not only top-down, but also bottom-up processing (Vandergrift, 1997;
Brown, 2006; Fang, 2008; Carreira, 2008)
TOEIC test is a proficiency test, and is currently used in many countries as a standard measure of English ability However, even for teachers with many years experience, teaching test preparation courses for the first time can be a daunting experience (Trew, 2007, p.3) Due to only focusing on background knowledge in listening teaching, when faced with listening to native speakers, foreign students find that sounds are distorted, juxtaposed, or lost altogether Many TOEIC students at my school cannot catch the English sounds when listening, particularly they cannot recognize the sounds they hear, and they are unable to comprehend the language used in TOEIC listening tasks This makes them become fed up with learning TOEIC listening sections This has drawn my attention From long, careful observation and quick interviews for both teachers and students, it can be realized that “reduced forms” might hinder students’ comprehension while most language teachers have not paid attention to phonetics in their listening teaching In spite of reduced forms’ substantial occurrence in spoken discourse, they are definitely not easy for EFL learners In fact, the unfamiliarity with reduced forms is one of the main factors that results in listening
difficulty
Trang 11of it In an EFL environment, language instructors usually speak clearly and teach English with listening materials that are full of clearly pronounced and articulated speech (Rogerson, 2006; Rosa, 2002) Weinstein (1985, as cited in Norris, 1994) says that reduced forms "constitute one of the most neglected areas of listening comprehension." (p.81) Also, according to Shockey (2003, as cited in Ito, 2006, p.18), among many factors that can affect L2 learners’ listening comprehension, one obvious factor is reduced forms Brown (1990) suggests that students who come from English leaming backgrounds in which they got used to slow speech are often shocked when they find themselves in a situation in which native speakers are talking to each other In a moment, they find it hard to understand what is said Natural English, whether formal or informal, fast or slow, is full of these reduced forms and this creates a serious obstacle for students who have little or no exposure to reduced forms (Rosa, 2002)
Indeed, awareness of the sound changes that occur in natural English speech is one of the most important things that students have to pay more attention in doing TOEIC listening tests (Trew, 2007) Many students are unaware that the sound of words spoken in natural conversations can differ dramatically from words spoken in isolation This has led to students who have little difficulty in understanding what their teachers say in the classroom, but find it very hard to follow natural conversations Therefore, assisting students become aware of the ways that sounds are combined, dropped, and changed in natural speech can significantly improve their listening comprehension, both for the TOEIC test and the real world (ibid, p.7) He also suggests that to develop listening skill in TOEIC listening tests, teachers should increase students’ awareness by explicitly focusing on natural spoken forms regularly in class (p 20)
Taking the problem and suggestions manifested into account, it is clearly that teduced forms are identified as a significant characteristic of spoken English and as a listening difficulty faced by many EFL students Therefore, this study seeks to answer the question whether or not it is possible to help the Vietnamese students improve their listening comprehension through the reduced forms instruction in TOEIC listening classes It proposes raising students' consciousness of reduced forms, and giving plenty of practice in recognizing these reduced forms
Trang 12PURPOSE OF THE STUDY:
The specific purpose of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of teaching reduced forms in terms of contractions in EFL students’ listening comprehension within the setting of TOEIC teaching
RESEARCH QUESTIONS:
To achieve the above purpose, the present research seeks answers to the following questions:
1 Does the experimental group, as a result of the treatment, significantly outperform the control one in the identification of contraction forms and meaning comprehension as measured by:
(a) Contraction listening test?
(b) And listening comprehension in English listening ability test?
2; Does the experimental group outperform the comparison group in the ability of listening comprehension as measured by the TOEIC listening test after the treatment? 3 Is there a relationship between contraction listening ability and TOEIC listening
comprehension?
4 What are students’ views on the contractions instruction?
Trang 13With reference to the first question, it may be hypothesized that the experimental group, which received the contraction instruction, outperforms the control one in the identification of contraction forms and meaning comprehension after the treatment Concerning the second question, it is hypothesized that the experimental group surpasses the comparison group in the ability of listening comprehension through the TOEIC listening test after the treatment
As regards the third question, it is hypothesized that the improvement of the experimental group’s contraction listening ability influences their TOEIC listening comprehension scores
For the last question, it is likely to hypothesize that the contraction teaching can help the students in the experimental group identify and understand the contraction forms easily when they occur in any types of contractions
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
This study done for and then reported in this M.A thesis focuses on contraction instruction to facilitate students’ TOEIC listening comprehension Hopefully, the study’s effects of contraction instruction on TOEIC listening comprehension and its teaching implications and recommendations may help instructors who give TOEIC listening lessons and students in teaching and learning TOEIC listening comprehension
THE ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY
Trang 14CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
To achieve the aim of the current research, chapter two will provide a theoretical framework that serves as a basis for establishing conceptual framework for the study
This chapter first presents an overview of listening instruction, which is follow by a brief introduction to the listening comprehension process Then, literature on reduced forms is reviewed in detail Among many types of reduced forms, contraction is taken into consideration Next, the chapter continues with prior research related to reduced forms instruction Finally, this chapter ends with a concise summary to give readers a better understanding of chapter 2
2.1 Overview of Listening Comprehension
Trang 15Overall, listening is considered as an active skill that involves many processes Effective language instructors show students how they can adjust their listening behavior to deal with a variety of situations, types of input, and listening purposes They help students develop a set of listening strategies and match appropriate strategies to each listening situation In fact, listening is a complex, an active process of interpretation in which listeners match what they hear with what they already know Therefore, listeners use both bottom-up process (linguistic knowledge) and top-down process (prior knowledge) to comprehend (Vandergrift, 1997a) These processes are discussed in the following sections
2.2 The Process of Listening Comprehension
In recent years much research and discussion has been carried out concerning what processes are involved in listening comprehension and how this pertains to teaching With a greater understanding of language quality and the development of teaching theory, there has been recognition of the process of listening comprehension as needing greater emphasis The principle of schema leads to two fundamental modes of information processing: bottom-up processing and top-down processing These two processes intersect to develop an interactive processing Thus, models for listening process fall into three types (Fang, 2008)
2.2.1 Bottom-up Processing
Trang 162.2.2 Top-down Processing
The second type, top-down processing is explained as employing background knowledge in comprehending the meaning of a message (Fang, 2008) When listening, the listener actively constructs or reconstructs the original meaning of the speaker employing new input as clues In this reconstruction process, the listener uses prior knowledge of the context and situation within which the listening takes place to comprehend what he hears Researchers must realize that if the incoming information the listener hears is not familiar to him, it cannot remind his schemata and he can only depend heavily on his linguistic knowledge in listening comprehension (LC) Although the listener can trigger a schema, he might not have the suitable schema expected by the speaker As a result, only relying on top-down processing may result in the failure of comprehension (ibid)
2.2.3 The Interactive Processing
According to Vandergrift (1997a), listening comprehension is neither top-down nor bottom-up processing, but an interactive The interactive processing which overcomes the disadvantages of bottom-up processing and top-down processing to enhance the comprehension is the third type (Fang, 2008) In the early 1980s, it was the tendency that only top-down processing was admitted to improve L2 listening comprehension Yet, it is now accepted more generally that both top-down and bottom- up listening processing should be combined to augment listening comprehension
(p.23)
Trang 17learners to understand enough linguistic elements of what they hear, and then they can employ their top-down skills to fill in the gaps Some researchers choose top-down and bottom-up strategies that are suitable for the listening tasks and use them flexibly and interactively (Fang, 2008) Students' comprehension improves and their confidence increases when they use top-down and bottom-up strategies simultaneously to construct meaning In fact, it is believed that bottom-up and top-down processing work together to form the most suitable interpretations of information (Rost, 1994, p.32) Brown (2006) states better teachers are those who strike a conscious balance between top- down and bottom-up learning, which both have roles in language instruction He also emphasizes:
“Students obviously need both bottom-up and top-down processing skills in listening as well Students must hear some sounds (bottom-up processing), hold them in their working memory long enough (a few seconds) to connect them to each other and then interpret what they have just heard before something new comes along At the same time, listeners are using their background knowledge (top-down processing) to determine meaning with respect to prior knowledge and schemata.” (p.3)
Trang 1823 Introduction to Reduced Forms
Reduced forms are widely used in spoken English regardless of the speed or register of speech Therefore, L2 students need to become familiar with them in order to comprehend English, their L2 Definitions, purposes of reduced forms instruction, and aspects of reduced forms are included in this section
2.3.1 What are Reduced Forms?
The term “reduced forms” has been used by many linguists and researchers Reduced forms are the spontaneous pronunciation changes in adjacent words or sounds spoken at a natural speed Within the research community, other terms have been used to describe this phenomenon Bowen (1975) uses the term “reduction” as universal and an ever-present phenomenon in spoken English Henrichsen (1984) call such forms “sandhi forms”, Ur (1984) calls them “weak forms”, “reduced — speech forms” is called by Celce Murcia (et al., 1996), and Brown & Kondo-Brown (2006a) calls them “connected speech” Brown and Hilferty (1986) use the term "reduced forms" to refer collectively to the processes of contraction, elision, assimilation, and reduction (e.g.,
on wn,
there's, coulda, wanna, and howarya for "there is," "could have," "want to," and "how
are you," respectively The present study will use the term “reduced forms” to refer to this phenomenon
As can be seen from the above definitions, some researchers have taken
“reduced forms” as an aspect of natural speed (Bowen, 1975), and others consider it as one of the most common features of informal situations (Weinstein,1982) One of Weinstein’s studies proves how common it is to use reduced forms in spoken English In a seven-hour unscripted recording by highly-educated native English speakers in both formal and informal situations, 305 reduced forms were used (Weinstein, 1982)
Trang 192.3.2 Purposes of Reduced Forms Instruction
English listening is an important skill for communication However, EFL teachers generally speak in a slow and artificially clear speech style in which the normal habits of simplification that characterize natural speech may be lost in the class (Rosa, 2002) As Brown and Yule (1983) conclude, “students consequently get used to a model of speech where every segment is clearly articulated” (p 54) This phenomenon makes English students merely get used to a model of speech where every segment is clearly articulated In other words, they are not usually familiar with reduced forms That makes students difficult in listening Naiman (1992), (as cited in Cahill, 2006) claims that a large percentage of reduced forms occurs in interrogatives Thus, the importance of raising students' awareness of reduced forms cannot be overstated, especially within the setting of TOEIC teaching because in TOEIC listening tasks there are a lot of reduced forms occurring which are really obstacles for TOEIC students (Trew, 2007) That students cannot recognize words they know (Chen, 2002), and segment speech
(Sun, 2002) while listening that makes listening difficult Besides, despite the fact that
foreign students may already know a lot of vocabulary and grammar rules, it does not mean that they are familiar with each item of knowledge Recognition of known words and expressions is often linked to foreign students' knowledge of what the words look like on paper and how they sound when spoken slowly Norris (1993) also called for a systematic knowledge of spoken English for increased listening comprehension: “In order to effectively help students improve their listening skills, teachers must be aware of the characteristics that mark informal spoken English” (p 56) Ur (1984) claims that when listening to informal speech and having to face reduced forms students may simply not recognize familiar vocabulary, or they miss its existence altogether Specially, Hasan (2000) has highlighted the importance of pre-teaching reduced forms in teaching listening Noticeably, it is fair to suggest that in the listening materials used in TOEIC listening classes, these aspects are given little or no place to help students improve their listening comprehension Therefore, when students find themselves in a situation where English is spoken naturally, they have difficulty in carrying out a conversation Additionally, according to Rogerson (2006), most of the teachers who taught reduced forms explicitly said that their students were very interested in learning
Trang 20reduced forms, but other teachers who neglected teaching reduced forms reported that it was due to not enough material, not enough time, and not enough experience teaching of these forms Norris (1995) states:
“One of our responsibilities as teachers is to be aware of the existence of reduced forms
and the problems they cause learners We should give our students plenty of practice in getting accustomed to recognizing them when they occur If we jump right into listening comprehension activities that require the students to use native speaker processing skills without first giving the students a firm grounding in decoding the stream of sounds they hear, we run the risk of putting the cart before the horse and causing the students more frustration and confusion than they can handle.” (p.50)
According to these researchers and scholars, it is obvious that the presence of teduced forms affects not only the pronunciation of foreign language students, but also the listening comprehension of students, particularly TOEIC students As a consequence, the research aims to explore the effects of reduced forms instruction on TOEIC listening comprehension, but only contraction is focused in the present study
2.3.3 Aspects of Reduced Forms
The term "reduced forms" is used by Brown and Hilferty (1986) to refer
collectively to the processes of contraction, elision, assimilation, and reduction Among
Trang 21that contractions be used to introduce reduced forms They also indicate that contractions are subject to numerous phonological, grammatical, and sociolinguistic constraints that are potentially confusing Especially, as mentioned in Chapter 1, many TOEIC students have faced a lot of reduced forms in TOEIC listening tasks in which contractions occur the most frequently (based on transcripts in TOEIC listening books) Additionally, Bowen (1975b) declares in informal speech, contractions are used “virtually universal” (p 156) Hence, this study only focuses on the impact of contraction instruction on listening comprehension, namely in the TOEIC context, where no comprehensive research has been done on the techniques used in classroom though there are many universities, colleges, and language institutes offering TOEIC
preparation courses
2.4 Contraction Instruction 2.4.1 What is Contraction?
According to Chung (2008), a contraction is firstly a word that is formed by combining two or more words which often occur together in speech This process occurs with the disappearance or the phonetic changes of words or segments The most common contractions in English involve the auxiliary verbs "be," "have," "will," and
wm, won,
"would" Here are some examples "I'm," "he's," "we're," "she's been," "they've gone,"
"Tl," and "he'd" Most students are aware that “contractions” such as theyre, we're,
he'd represent, in writing or print, the usual spoken form of they are, we have, he had (or he would) Many students, however, are not sure how such contractions should be pronounced, or lack experience in pronouncing them Although contractions have been taught in listening classes, few teachers emphasize the importance of using them in everyday speech and in TOEIC listening sections
Teaching contractions to EFL students is very crucial because contractions which are one of the common types of reduced forms are so regularly used in spoken English (Weinstein, 1984) While contractions are not either examples of formal language or they are examples of slang These shortened words are used particularly in speech, and that is why educators must teach this concept explicitly with EFL students
Trang 22Contractions are combined forms of English words Words like it + is become, or are combined to form, it's Contractions, such as it's, are real words in English The most common contracted forms in English include the auxiliary verb forms Some examples of these forms are "J'm happy," "She's a nurse," "They're in the house," "He's lost ten pounds," "They've already left," "I'll go," and "I'd like to be rich." Generally speaking, foreign language students entering university have had some exposure in their previous study to these contractions, but still have trouble recognizing them when they are used by native speakers of English In fact, most students are aware that “contractions” such as they’re, we're, he’d represent, in writing or print, the usual spoken form of they are, we have, he had (or he would) As mentioned in Chapter 1, after a long and careful observation and quick interviews, the teacher found that many students are not sure how such contractions should be pronounced, or lack experience in recognizing and pronouncing them Thus, students need to use contractions in order to sound more natural They need to know contractions in order to understand conversations between native English speakers because contractions are used extensively in American TV, movies, music, literature, and in conversations among native English speakers, especially to recognize and understand the meaning of these forms when used in TOEIC listening sections Indeed, whether or not nonnative speakers choose to use contractions, they must be exposed to the way native speakers use them if they wish to comprehend informal spoken English (Celce-Murcia, Brinton, & Goodwin, 1996) Hence, so as to help students comprehend spoken English, it is necessary for teachers to find out a suitable approach to teach contractions effectively, particularly for the EFL setting Currently, there have been a number of studies involving reduced forms teaching However, the role of explicit instruction has received very little attention in this field In this research, contractions were presented and explained explicitly
2.4.2 Explicit Contraction Instruction
Trang 23are encouraged to develop metalinguistic awareness of the rule This can be achieved deductively (i.e by providing the learners with a grammatical description of the rule) or inductively (i.e by helping learners to discover the rule for themselves from data provided) Therefore, explicit instruction necessarily constitutes direct intervention (ibid) Leow (2007) states “the role of attention is deemed crucial for further long-term memory storage of L2 information to take place” (p.22) With this method, the teacher could assist students to know the categories of contractions in order to be familiar with them and understand native English speakers more
Classification of Contraction
As Celce-Murcia, Brinton, & Goodwin (1996) affirm contractions are the larger phenomenon of reduced speech in English Contractions are a subset of blendings All written contractions represent a spoken blending but not all spoken blendings are conventionalized as orthographic contractions (ibid) In this study, nevertheless, only contractions are taken into consideration Learners should notice that these contractions are used much more in spoken English than in written English The more formal the writing is, the less contractions will be used In informal emails, lots of contractions are used In a business document, few contractions are used (ibid) There are 4 categories of contraction:
positive contractions, negative contractions, other contractions, and informal contractions
However, beyond the recognized contractions that are acceptable in writing, there are a number of informal contractions, such as going to + gonna, want to > wanna, and should have — shoulda People hear these in very casual speech, and see them used at times in comics and jokes, but they cannot find those words in most dictionaries, and those words should be limited in most kinds of writing Yet, they are spoken more than most Americans ever even realize Thus, it is probably true to say that informal contractions are more common in American English (in American English Pronunciation Podcast, retrieved from http://www.pronuncian.com/materials/podcasts/Episode_13.aspx, 28 April, 2010) Indeed, informal contractions are popular in North American English (Celce-Murcia, 1995) Whereas, the books which students learn in this course are British English, and informal contractions are rarely used in most listening TOEIC tests As a result, to be more effective,
Trang 24the present study only focuses on three categories of contractions Each of them will be presented below respectively
2.5.1 Positive Contractions
Positive contractions are very common The caution with positive contractions tells us that some of them have multiple meanings Learners must be careful with them because they are ambiguous First,'d can represent had, would, or even did Look at these examples:
« He'd like to go (He would like to go.)
« He'd finished when I arrived (He had finished when J arrived.) « Where’d you go? (Where did you go?)
Second, the contraction 's can represent is, has, or even does Here are some examples: « He’san athlete (He is an athlete.)
« She’s seen that movie (She has seen that movie.) « What’s it cost? (What does it cost?)
's is not used only with pronouns It can also be used with nouns, names, question words and words like "here" and "there", for example: The train's late John's arrived Where's the phone? Here's your change There's a policeman These common positive contractions are presented below
° Ứm=lam Ex: I’m waiting for my friend
° T’ve = I have Ex: I’ve worked here for many years
° HH = I wiH/ shall Ex: I’ll see you tomorrow ° I'd =I would/had Ex: I’d like to meet him
Or I'd already eaten by the time he arrived
° You’re =you are Ex: You’re joking!
° You’ve = you have Ex: You’ve been to London many times ° You'll = you will Ex: You'll be sorry!
Trang 25Or you’d left before he arrived, hadn’t you? e He’s = he is/ has Ex: He’s on the phone now
Or he’s been playing tennis since this morning
° He’ll = he will Ex: He’ll be here tomorrow
° He’d=he would/had _ Ex: He’d prefer to meet you later in the week Or he’d finished before the meeting began
° She’s = she is/ has Ex: She’s watching TV at the moment Or She’s had a lot of trouble lately
° She’ll = she will Ex: She’ll be at the meeting
° She’d = she would/had Ex: She’d like to have a glass of beer
Or she’d been working for 2 hours when he telephoned ° It’s = it is/ has Ex: It’s very difficult to learn English
Or it’s been a long time since we saw each other ° It'll = it will Ex: It'll be here soon
° It'd = it would/had Ex: It’d be difficult to say no Or It’d been a long time
° We’re = we are Ex: We’re working hard this week
° We’ve = we have Ex: We’ve been waiting for you ° We'll = we will Ex: We’ll begin when he arrives
° We’d = we would/had Ex: We’d better hurry up if we want to catch the train Or we’d like to invite you to our party
° They’re = they are Ex: They’re studying German this afternoon ° They’ve=they have Ex: They°ve just bought a new house
° They'll = they will Ex: They’ll finish soon if they concentrate ° They’d = they would/had Ex: They’d rather not come to the meeting
Trang 26Ệ In writing, the not looks like it is disappearing because it is written n’t But in lieu English it actually may disappear Some call this the disappearing negative It happens in American English because the ¢ disappears in rapid speech when it follows n Thus, EFL students usually feel difficult to recognize it Moreover, they are also confused with negative contraction because of its forms For example, with the verb “to be”, and the auxiliary “have”, two negative forms are possible —- we aren’t or we’re not; we haven’t or we’ve not etc When the negative becomes less emphatic, it is contracted Nevertheless, some dialects are more likely to contract the auxiliary, whereas others more often contract the negative Trudgill (1986) claims that reduction of the negative element of a contraction (we haven’t) is the rule in American English, but that contraction of the auxiliary, leaving the negative intact (we’ve not) , is more sommon in at least some Southern British dialects Therefore, it is better for EFL students to know two negative forms in order to recognize them better
According to Celce-Murcia, Brinton, & Goodwin (1996), communication can sreak down in interesting ways when learners are unaware of phonetically subtle lifferences in English For example, the modal can and its negative contraction can’t nake listeners confused easily when they occur in context and are spoken rapidly p.230) Also, learners usually have difficulty pronouncing negative contractions like
souldn't, wouldn't, shouldn't, and didn’t, where n’t comes after a /d/ sound They tend 0 either omit the /d/, or add a vowel sound between the /d/ and /n/ The /n/ here is a
¡yllabic /n / Syllabic n is the most common after the consonants t and d, and after f or 7, syllabic n is more common than an (Roach, 2000) As a consequence, EFL teachers ind learners should take these issues into consideration Here are some common legative forms
Aren't = are not Ex: They aren't coming next week
Ù Can’t = cannot Ex: I can't understand you
» Couldn’t =could not Ex: He couldn't get his shoes on!
» Didn’t = did not Ex: We didn't visit Rome We went straight to
Trang 27Doesn”t = does not Ex: He doesn't play golf Don’t = do not Ex: They don't like cheese Hasn’t = has not Ex: She hasn't telephoned yet Haven’t = have not
Hadn’t = had not Isn’t = is not
Mightn’t = might not Mustn’t = must not Needn’t = need not Oughtn’t = ought not Shan’t = shall not
Shouldn’t = should not
Wasn’t = was not
Weren’t = were not
Won’t = will not Wouldn’t = would not
Ex: We haven’t finished the meeting yet Ex: I hadn't thought of that!
Ex: She isn't listening to you
Ex: It mightn’t rain tomorrow
Ex: Children mustn't play with fire Ex: You needn't worry about that Ex: You oughtn’t to stay up too late Ex: We shan’t go with him
Ex: You shouldn't smoke cigarettes Ex: I wasn't joking when I said that Ex: They weren't invited to the party
Ex:
Ex:
I won't be able to attend the conference
: She wouldn't be surprised if he showed up at the arty
5.3 Other Contractions
Positive and negative contractions are by no means the only variety There are ther contractions that are every bit as commonly used Here are some more examples howing some very common contractions
, Here’s = here is Ex: Here’s your meal » — Let’s = let us Ex: Let’s sit here
, There’ ll = there will Ex: There'll be nobody here tomorrow
, There’s = there is Ex: There’s a taxi
Trang 28» _ There'd = there would/had for this ® Thats=thatis » Thafll=that will » That’d = that would/had »e How's=howis/has/does working? » — How’re = how are » _ Howd=how would/had/did ® — What’! = what will/shall
» What’s = what is/has/does » What’re = what are
» — What’ve = what have
» — What'd = what would/had/did
» When’s =when is/has/does
gone?
» When’re = when are
» When’d = when would/had/did » Where’s =where is/has/does
gone?
° 'Where°ve = where have
° Where’d = where would/had/did se Who”s = who is/has/does
here?
Ex: Thered be some reason for that Or there'd better be a good explanation
l1
Ex: That’s my car
x: That'll be $10, please
m1
Ex: That’d be the reason why he came here Or That'd happened before my time
Ex: How's it working? Or how’s it been Ex: How’re you?
Ex: How’d he come here?
Ex: What’ll people think?
Ex: What’s the matter? Or What’s she said? Or What’s he do?
Ex: What’re you doing? Ex: What’ve you done? Ex: What’d you do there?
Or what’d you do if you saw her? -
Ex: When’s the wedding? Or When’s she Ex: When’re you going?
Ex: When’d he leave?
Ex: Where’s the cinema? Or Where’s he Or Where’s he live?
Ex: Where’ve you been?
Trang 29e _ Who'd= who would/had/did Ex: Who’d like ice-cream?
Or Who'd made this cake? Or who'd he go
with?
° 'Who'll = who will/shall Ex: Who’ll be there?
e Who're=who are Ex: Who’re you waiting for? ¢ Who’ve = who have Ex: Who’ve you been with? ° Why’re = why are Ex: Why’re you going there? ° 'Why”d = why would/had/did Ex: Why’d you do that? e — Why’s = why is/has/does Ex: Why’s it here?
The three common categories of contractions have just been presented briefly Because of the pervasiveness of contractions in spoken English, especially in TOEIC listening sections, students must be careful with these forms so that they can be successful in listening to and doing TOEIC tests In order to know whether there have been many studies on contraction instruction recently, the answer will be found in the following last section of this chapter
2.4 Studies on Reduced Forms Instruction
Despite the potential difficulties in listening comprehension that reduced forms may contribute, they have not been explored very much in the research on L2 acquisition and pedagogy This section reviews several studies currently available that investigated reduced forms instruction These studies can be classified into two categories: (1) whether the presence of reduced forms affects on listening comprehension, and (2) whether reduced forms instruction can improve L2 learners’ listening comprehension After reviewing these studies, the relationship between the present study and these studies will be discussed
Generally, although reduced forms have received little attention in SLA or in the ESL/EFL pedagogy literature, there are some studies of the effectiveness of instruction on reduced forms contributed much improvement in SLA First, Henrichsen (1984) examined the effect of presence/ absence of reduced forms, or what she called “sandhi - variation” on ESL learners’ listening comprehension skill She administered two
Trang 30dictation tests (in which sentences were presented with and without reduced forms) to non-native speakers from different levels of English proficiency and native speakers The results showed a statistically significant interaction between proficiency level and the presence/absence of reduced forms This finding led her to conclude that the presence of reduced forms affected the learners’ listening comprehension In 2006, Ito tepeated the Henrichsen experiment and found similar results However, Ito classified reduced forms into two different categories: lexical and phonological In other words, Ito added two variables to Henrichsen’s basic design: modifications of sentence complexity in the dictation test and the effects of different types of reduced forms Two versions of a dictation test were given to native speakers as well as to nonnative speakers from two different English proficiency levels As in Henrichsen’s study, the nonnative participants in Ito scored statistically significantly higher on the dictation test when reduced forms were absent than when they were present, while native speakers’ scores did not differ for the two conditions This finding, together with that in Henrichsen (1984), suggests that L2 learners’ listening comprehension is affected by the presence of reduced forms The findings of these studies point out that the presence of reduced forms in the input can negatively affect learners’ listening comprehension ability The next question is that whether or not reduced forms instruction can help students improve their listening comprehension skill
Trang 31the dictation scores They found no improvement on the performance on the section of aproficiency test designed to measure general listening comprehension One explanation given for this was the limited duration of the study This finding indicates that instruction on reduced forms can improve L2 learners’ listening comprehension skill Also in the Japanese EFL context, Matsuzawa (2006) revealed that explicit instruction of reduced forms of English can improve listening ability He concluded that reduced forms “present barriers to listening comprehension” (p 64) for Japanese EFL learners, and that instruction can help overcome such obstacles However, his study did not have a control group to compare with the treatment group
Another study related to the effect of reduced forms instruction on listening comprehension was made by Carreira in 2008 Carreira’s study investigated the effects of reduced-form instruction with EFL students (N =19) from a variety of Asian countries (i.e., China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and India), who were studying in a thirty-week preparatory course at a Japanese university Carreira found that the study of reduced forms significantly improved students’ listening ability to recognize words, but not improve the scores of TOEIC listening sections As Matsuzawa, Carreira’s study did not have a control group in order to compare to the experimental group Finally, Romanko (2008) reported significant improvements in Japanese freshman’s ability to recognize reduced forms of English on a post-course test of listening ability In addition, Romanko found that two months after the end of the course, with no controlled exposure to reduced forms occurring in the meantime, the participants were able to demonstrate retention of most of their previously acquired knowledge
As summarized above, taken together, the findings presented here suggest that the presence of reduced forms was really obstacles for listening comprehension, and instruction in reduced forms leads to their improved the recognition more than overall listening comprehension ability
Conclusion made from the related empirical studies is that some of their studies did not have a control group, had a small number of participants, and spent limited time on their instruction which included various reduced forms In order to increase students’ awareness of reduced forms, practice with reduced forms is valued over study of
Trang 32luced forms, “letting foreign language students listen frequently to the spoken guage with all the characteristics of connected speech is no doubt more important familiarizing them with the theoretical aspects of, for instance, similation practice is much more important than theory” (Koster, 1987, p 143) as ited in Rosa (2002) Yet, most of the researchers used dictation to test their students’ listening ability This may lack contexts for students to practice their listening comprehension ability because dictation may not be a valid measure for listening [comprehension given that meaning may have a very small role in dictation (Ito, 2006) ‘Finally, all of the researchers of these studies focused on many types of reduced forms ‘in their listening teaching
Among them, Matsuzawa suggests that from a teaching viewpoint, contractions and weak forms of function words may deserve special attention because after his treatment, he found that it was hard for students to listen and identify contractions and weak forms of function words In addition, in Carreira’s study, he also taught reduced forms explicitly, but the results of his study were not significant in improving students’ TOEIC listening score He suggested that it is better for teachers to teach listening skill, especially TOEIC listening sections by applying either linguistic knowledge (bottom- up processing) or background knowledge (top-down processing) to improve students’ TOEIC listening comprehension ability
Trang 33related to TOEIC listening sections Finally, the researcher would use not only dictation but also different types of tasks based on the format of TOEIC listening tasks for students to practice their listening comprehension
Summary
This chapter has shaped a conceptual framework for the study with six main themes First, an overview of listening comprehension has been reviewed Second, to be more effective in teaching listening, especially in the TOEIC listening context, the process of listening comprehension has also been discussed Third, this chapter has clarified the role of reduced forms in spoken English in which the definition of reduced forms, purposes of teaching reduced forms, and aspects of reduced forms have been presented respectively Fourth, a brief summary of contraction instruction has been characterized Fifth, the categories of contractions have been identified and distinguished: positive
contractions, negative contractions, and other contractions Finally, prior studies have
been classified, compared, and contrasted involving their methodology, theoretical grounds, and effects These studies have demonstrated that teaching reduced forms can overall improve students’ listening comprehension significantly The literature reviewed in this chapter supports the theoretical framework for the present study The research methodology will be clarified in the next chapter
Trang 34CHAPTER 3
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
In chapter 2, a theory-oriented background for the present research has been articulated Considering this theoretical foundation, this chapter provides a description of the experiment to study the differential effects of the newly implemented instruction and the traditional instruction on the development of the English contractions by EFL students The instructor has hypothesized that the contraction instruction has an outstanding effect on the TOEIC students’ listening comprehension when compared to the normal listening instruction To do this, the following sections are addressed: the basis research design, instrumentation used, the participants selected and the research site used, the preparations for the experimental stage, an elaboration of the instructional treatment, and the analytical framework chosen to review the outcomes Each of these sections will be discussed respectively
3.1 Research Design
Research design is a very important part of an investigation According to McMillan and Schumacher (2001), “Research design refers to the plan and structure of the investigation used to obtain evidence to answer research question”: Thus, this chapter describes the procedures for conducting the study, including when, from whom, and under what conditions the data will be obtained
3.1.1 Pretest — Posttest Quasi-Experimental Design
Trang 35patrol group Next, both groups were given a pretest measuring their level on the tification and understanding the meanings of contractions in listening mprehension Moreover, this stage was to apply the treatment to the experimental up while the control group continued to receive the usual instruction that consisted the three stages of listening teaching Finally, after the treatment, each group was iven two posttests which were a contraction listening test and a TOEIC listening test, id a delayed posttest which was a TOEIC listening test was administered a month
later
3.1.2 Internal Validity
In order to do nonequivalent pretest- posttest quasi-experimental, there are some eats to internal validity the researcher needs to pay attention to, McMillan and iSchumacher (2001, p.347) Among these threats, selection and maturation are the two definite weaknesses First, selection refers to a “systematic difference” in subjects’ ‘abilities or characteristics between the two groups which were compared Although the subjects were not randomly chosen, they had some common characteristics such as level, age, and years spent on learning English as those of the population In fact, this was the threat that could be controlled Second, McMillan and Schumacher (2001, p-190) points out that maturational threats “refer to the changes in the subjects of a study over time that influence the dependent variable” Some of the changes are “growing older and getting tired and bored.” The total amount of instruction was five weeks and the duration treatment was two periods per week, each lasted sixty minutes Due to time distributed, it was not long enough for the subjects in both groups to have been matured The maturation might not have threatened the results of this study because such length of time might not make the students tired or bored
3.2 Participants and Research Site 3.2.1 Research Site
The research was conducted at Vietnamese American Vocational Training College (VATC), located at 21 Le Quy Don street, District 3, Ho Chi Minh City for a six-week period from 27" September to 3'° November in 2011 However, the present
Trang 36study was carried out at one of the largest branches of VATC — Quang Trung branch The students range in age from 18-23 At the time of data collection, VATC at Quang Trung had only one training program: Hospitality Management VATC students had to study 6 English levels, 120 periods for each, from the first to the last year At that time there were 19 classes being offered across 3 levels: 5 first — year classes at English level 1, 8 second- year classes at English level 3, and 6 last-year classes at level 5 The first year classes consisted of 119 students, the second classes and the last classes consisted of 172 and 129 students respectively
3.2.2 Participants
Trang 37istudents getting the under average scores, and the other students, achieving fair, good, ‘and excellent grades were nearly the same After that she flipped a coin to decide which lới be the experimental or control class The class, which consisted of 25 members, ‘was the experimental group; the other was treated as a control group which had 22 ‘students The subjects of the present research are described in terms of group, number,
and scores achieved in table 3.2.2
Table 3.2.2 Description of the Participants Class Total Scores achieved in the English exam | 2 | <3.0 3.5-4.5 | 5.0-6.5 7.0-8.5 | 9.0-10.0 Experimental | 25 0 2 (8%) 17 (68%) | 6(24%) |0 Control 22 0 2 (4.6%) | 17 3 0 (81.8%) | (13.6%) 3.3 Syllabus for Teaching English
The main material for hospitality management students is the International Express book (Taylor, 2004) It has four levels: elementary, pre-intermediate, intermediate, and upper-intermediate The first year students work with the elementary student’s book and “Learn and Practice English Grammar 1, 2” book (Stephens, 2005) ‘The levell students must cover six units (unit 1 to unit 6) of the International Express Book and the English Grammar 1 The level2 students must finish the last six units and the English Grammar 2 The second year students work with the pre-intermediate student’s book and Starter TOEIC book (Taylor, 2006) Students who are at level 3 must finish the first six units of the International Express book and the Starter TOEIC book The last six units of the two books are covered by the level 4 students The materials of the last year students include International Express book- intermediate, Developing Skills for The TOEIC Test book (Taylor, 2006), and Longman Preparation Series for The New TOEIC Test- introductory course (Lougheed, 2006) The first half of the intermediate student’ book and the Developing Skills for the TOEIC Test are
Trang 38covered by the fifth level The last level must finish the rest of the International Express and the Longman Preparation Series for The New TOEIC Test book
I
'3.4 Data Types
In order to assess the effectiveness of instruction, the present study used a quantitative method with different sources of data related to the objectives and research questions Thus, three versions of the assessment tasks as the pretest, the posttest and the delayed posttest, and a survey questionnaire were developed These versions differed in terms of the order of questions but the content stayed the same The pretest was administered a week before the treatment The posttest was conducted one day after the instructional methods implemented The questionnaires were distributed to the experimental group after finishing the treatment to find out students’ attitudes towards contraction forms instruction Finally, the delayed posttest was given a month after the posttest given
3.4.1 Tests
For testing listening ability, the most dominant forms that were proposed and used in research were different variations of dictation or cloze style tasks that require students to listen to sentences articulated with connected speech forms and fill in the blanks with their citation forms (Bowen, 1976; Brown & Hilferty, 2006; Henrichsen, 1984; Ito, 2006a; Matsuzawa, 2006) Another form useful for assessing listening comprehension is a test where the examinees would have to answer comprehension questions after listening to a passage or dialogue filled with connected speech features (Brown & Kondo-Brown, 2006b) Additionally, two TOEIC listening practice tests were also administered as a posttest2 and a delayed test
3.4.1.1 Pretest, Posttest and Delayed Posttest
Trang 39ntractions from the final data pool The posttest2 was a TOEIC listening practice The purpose of the posttest2 was to measure whether the ability of TOEIC listening comprehension of the experimental group outperformed the control group after the treatment The delayed test was another TOEIC listening practice test The aim of giving the delayed posttest was to evaluate how much the participants retained the
ained knowledge Following the pretest, the administration of the instructional treatment for each type of contractions spanned ten to fifteen-minute class periods [All instruction took place during five weeks, and no homework was given during the treatment; during the intervals between the posttest and the delayed posttest, no review lof English contractions was provided
At the beginning of the course, the pretest of listening contraction forms was carried ‘out in both classes at the same time with the same test to see if they had equal awareness ‘of contraction forms The test was a listening test, which established the students’ aural ability to recognize and understand meaning comprehension of contraction sounds The test comprised a total of 40 test items (20 of identification and the other 20 of meaning comprehension) At that time, no group had been given treatment lessons yet When the test was taken, the CD would be played only one time At the end of each part, the teacher had to stop playing the CD to give the students ample time to complete the answers After the pretest, the researcher analyzed the participants’ result and compared two means in order to determine whether the comprehension levels of students about contraction forms of the experimental group and the control group were significantly different before the experiment
Immediately after the treatment, students sat the two post-course listening tests Considering the length of time between the pre-test and post-test1, the teacher decided that internal reliability could be more easily established by administering the same questions for both tests Accordingly, students were unaware that they would sit the same test for the posttestl Especially, after the pretest, the teacher did not give any correction and feedback With these recommendations, it can be assumed that there was no effect of memory on the posttest The results of posttest] from two groups were analyzed to find out whether there was a significant difference between them The posttest2 was administered on the following day Four weeks after the posttest2, the
Trang 40layed posttest was administered
3.4.1.2 Structures and Content of the Test
As mentioned in the above section, the content of the pretest and the posttest1 as the same The number of items was also the same, but different in the order so that
dents could not remember the content and the answers of the test Each class lasted fieen minutes The posttest2 and the delayed test were the TOEIC listening tests, which lasted forty-five minutes for each The TOEIC listening practice tests consisted of four parts with the total number of 100 statements and questions
: The content of the pretest and posttest! included seven tasks and a total of forty “items (see Appendix 1A) The range of the items and task types reflected the variety of ‘listening situations which subjects at the level 3 could be expected to deal with The aim of the first four tasks of the test was to assess students’ ability to recognize the contraction sounds they heard The rest were to test students’ meaning comprehension As Brown and Kondo Brown (2006b), using alternative types of contraction assessments could be especially useful for raising self-awareness of the prevalence and importance of contraction forms
In the first task, students had to listen to five couples of statements in which each couple included a contracted form and a full form, so they had to listen and circle which statement they heard Next, task two consisted of another five short conyersations There were both contracted and full form in each short conversation, and then participants had to listen and underline which form they heard Filling in the blank with the missing word was the third task The missing words in this task focused on contraction forms with wh-question words The subjects had to listen to seven questions respectively and write the missing word in each blank with a contracted form Finally, task four comprised a conversation in which students had to fill in the blank by using an uncontracted form of word for each blank with the total of three blanks