ONLINE LISTENING: AN EFFECTIVE WAY TO IMPROVE LISTENING COMPREHENSION AMONG SECOND-YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS AT HANOI UNIVERSITY

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI UNIVERSITY ENGLISH DEPARTMENT GRADUATION THESIS ONLINE LISTENING: AN EFFECTIVE WAY TO IMPROVE LISTENING COMPREHENSION AMONG SECOND-YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS AT HANOI UNIVERSITY Student: Nguyen Thi Phuong Thu Class: 6A-10 Supervisor: Tran Thi Trinh Hue, M.A Hanoi, May 2014 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to express my sincere gratefulness to my supervisor, Ms Tran Thi Trinh Hue, lecturer of the English Department, Hanoi University, for her thorough guidance and support My deepest gratitude also goes to all the teachers of the English Department, Hanoi University for their precious remarks on choosing topic and orientation of the thesis My special thank to my beloved family, whose love, care and support have substantially encouraged me to fulfill this study I also want to express my tremendous appreciation to my classmates in 6A10 for their wholehearted participation in the pilot survey and constructive feedback Finally, I would like to extend my special thanks to all English majors at Hanoi University, especially those in the second year, for their enthusiastic cooperation in taking part in the survey ABSTRACT This study investigates the effectiveness of online listening on improving listening comprehension for the second- year English majors at Hanoi University Specifically, the study attempts to figure out the students’ perception and attitude towards online listening, some advantages brought by online listening, the methods used by the students to practice online listening as well as problems facing them when using the Internet for their practice The results show a positive attitude and perception of the second year English majors towards the effectiveness of online listening on their listening comprehension competence Further investigation also reveals three different methods that the second-year students of the English Department have employed on their listening practice In addition to certain benefits, the Internet nevertheless causes some difficulties disturbing the users TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii ABSTRACT .iii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY 1.2 AIMS OF THE STUDY AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS 1.3 SCOPE OF THE STUDY 1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY 1.5 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 INTRODUCTION 2.2 LISTENING COMPREHENSION 2.2.1 The importance of listening 2.2.2 What makes listening difficult 2.2.2.1 Sounds, intonation, stress and accents in English 2.2.2.2 Colloquial vocabulary 2.2.2.3 Speed 2.2.2.4 Redundancy 2.2.2.5 Noise .9 2.2.2.6 Fatigue 10 2.2.2.7 Background knowledge 10 2.2.3 Listening strategies 10 2.2.3.1 Making use of clues strategies 11 2.2.3.2 Cognitive strategies .11 2.2.3.3 Metacognitive strategies .12 2.2.3.4 Socio-affective strategies 12 2.3 ONLINE LISTENING 13 2.3.1 Advantages of online listening 13 2.3.2 Disadvantages of online listening .14 2.4 SUMMARY 15 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 16 3.1 INTRODUCTION 16 3.2 RESEARCH QUESTIONS RESTATED 16 3.3 SUBJECTS OF THE STUDY 16 3.4 INSTRUMENTATION 17 3.5 PROCEDURES 18 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 19 4.1 INTRODUCTION 19 4.2 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 19 4.2.1 Comparison of self-assessed listening proficiency between students who use online listening and who not 19 4.2.2 Students’ perception and attitude towards online listening .20 4.2.3 The advantages of online listening from the students’ perspective 23 4.2.4 Online listening strategies practiced by the students 25 4.2.5 Problems facing students when practicing online listening 27 CHAPTER 5: SUGGESTIONS AND CONCLUSION 29 5.1 SUGGESTIONS .29 5.2 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY 30 5.3 CONCLUSION .30 REFERENCES 32 APPENDIX 35 APPENDIX 41 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY Language is a tool of communication for people all over the world As a matter of fact, English is now considered the most common language as well as the official one in almost every area in the world In their co-authored book, Broughton, Brumfit, Flavell, Hill and Pincas (n.d) all agreed that none of the race, complexion and creed could halt the ongoing spread of English usage This explains why English has become a compulsory subject in the educational systems in many countries and a need of almost everyone Musumeci (1997) affirmed that: “Because language is fundamentally a means of communication rather than an academic discipline, it follows that there is no reason to learn any language in which one does not need to communicate” In order to master a foreign language or at least to acquire communicative competence, learners are supposed to focus on the four main skills, namely listening, speaking, reading and writing Among these four skills, listening is often regarded as the foundation in learning a language since “listening comprehension plays a key role in facilitating in language learning" (Vandergrift, 1999, p.168) Also, it is the most frequently used skill as according to Gilman and Moody (1984), as cited in Vandergrift (1999), listening accounts for about 40-50% of our daily communication while speaking, reading and writing represent only 25-30%, 11-16% and 9% respectively Yet, the actual situation is beyond satisfaction Students, who are from non-English speaking countries, have very few opportunities to hear real English, and therefore, are frustrated and struggling against English listening Over the past several decades, listening comprehension has attracted a great deal of attention from many linguistic researchers and teachers However, they focused mostly on the theoretical methods which are largely task-oriented and supposedly conducted only within the classrooms; rather than exploring new sources for students to make use of It can be easily seen that the impressive and ongoing development computer science and technology has changed our life dramatically Indeed, almost all areas of our life, say, economy, politics, culture, health and especially education, have benefited from the internet Given that the internet is highly accessible to almost everybody, particularly the youth; it can become the future of teaching and learning In terms of language learning, the internet is exceptionally useful since there are many activities for students to practice English on the internet such as listening to news on bbc.co.uk or cnn.com, watching movies, reading e-books or chatting with foreigners on the internet For the time being, it seems that most English majors at Hanoi University are spending a significant amount of time on the internet for practicing their language skills Thus, a study on whether online listening is a way to improve English listening comprehension among the students would be of value 1.2 AIMS OF THE STUDY AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS This study aims at:  Providing a literature review on listening comprehension and online listening  Investigating students’ views about the advantages of the use of internet sources to practice English listening  Identifying their problems when using websites for practicing listening  Exploring their strategies of listening through online sources The investigations attempt to answer these questions:  What are the students’ points of views about the effectiveness of online listening to their listening comprehension?  What are some advantages brought by the Internet in terms of listening?  How particularly they practice listening through the internet sources?  What are the problems they have with online listening? 1.3 SCOPE OF THE STUDY It should be clearly stated that this study aims at neither a discovery of the whole process of teaching listening skill nor developing thorough strategies for effective listening It focuses on the potential effectiveness of online listening for listening comprehension among the second year English majors The targeted subjects of the study are second year students of English Department at Hanoi University who are in the 4th semester of the language skills training Hopefully, this thesis will be a helpful reference for them to look at so that they can make use of online listening to improve their listening comprehension 1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY This study is expected to benefit: English Department: It is supposed to suggest the department to apply online sources to teaching English listening in particular and other skills in general Further programs and activities can be developed as well Teachers: It helps teachers establish pedagogical beliefs related to the effectiveness of employing the internet in the teaching materials through which teaching will be an intrusive linguistic part of the students’ study Students: It exerts a pull on the students to join a new way of learning Their motivation and readiness will be increased by making use of online sources 1.5 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY The study is composed of main chapters, each of which focuses on one particular issue:  Chapter is the introduction to the study  Chapter deals with theoretical background concerning the importance of listening, listening comprehension difficulties, listening strategies and the pros and cons of online listening  Chapter describes methods and procedures consisting of research questions restated subjects, instrumentation and process data collection and analysis  Chapter addresses readers interested in findings of the survey as well as discussions around these findings The four discussed sections include: Comparison of self-assessed listening proficiency between students who use online listening and who not; positive attitude of the students towards the effectiveness of online listening; benefits of online listening; their ways of listening through online sources and their problems when using websites for practicing listening  Chapter points out the limitation of the thesis and provides suggestions along with conclusion CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 INTRODUCTION This chapter will review the literature on general listening and online listening theories The first section provides basic theories about listening comprehension in which the first part gives the definition and the importance of listening in foreign language acquisition and in real life The second part discusses some causes that make listening difficult Next, several factors affecting listening comprehension is revised The final part of the beginning section is about strategies for successful listening comprehension After that, in another section, some basic ideas in terms of online listening will be mentioned Finally, the closing section will summarize all points discussed in the Literature review 2.2 LISTENING COMPREHENSION 2.2.1 The importance of listening Listening comprehension was defined as “a complex, active process in which the listener must discriminate between sounds, understand vocabulary and grammatical structures, interpret stress and intonation, retain what was gathered in all of the above, and interpret it within the immediate as well as the larger sociocultural context of the utterance” (Vandergrift, 1999, p.168) Simply speaking, listening is more than just hearing or realizing speech sounds The importance of listening skill in foreign language acquisition has been verified in a number of studies and researches First of all, according to Anderson and Lynch (1988), people usually underestimate listening and not realize what amazing accomplishment of listening we obtain until they are in an unfamiliar listening environment like listening to a new, different language Second, naturally listening is the initially developed language skill because it comes before speaking, reading and writing (Coakley, 1988 as cited in Hatab, 2010) As a matter of fact, a kid starts speaking the very first words by listening to the adults and imitating the sounds they heard Similarly, as Broughton et al, a student cannot be able to utter a foreign sound or a natural sentence without letting him hear it in the first place Third, listening comprehension is believed to be a crucial pre-reading skill since to be an effective reader, a student needs to be able to understand and recall information which was orally delivered (Hatab, 2010) Likewise, Neville (1985), as cited in Hatab (2010), conducted a survey and revealed a strong correlation between listening and reading that good listeners were usually good readers Furthermore, as claimed by Hatab (2010), good listeners are more likely to become good speakers in general A good listener is more informed about the subject for he had listened to many different people and learned accordingly, so he would be in a much better position to speak and could communicate effectively In the same way, Maley (1998) agreed that listening plays a key role in keeping conversations going as good listeners know how to show interest, attention and consideration encouraging speakers to continue Additionally, Hatab (2010) also asserted that good listening comprehension can help enhancing critical thinking and problem-solving skills He stated: “When listening to a story, the students begin to develop their own thoughts and ideas about the situations presented in the story” (Helmen, 1997, as cited in Hatab, 2010, p.2) Moreover, listening is deemed to be a supplementary to accelerate grammar learning In short, listening comprehension is a “highly integrative skill which plays an important role in the process of language acquisition, facilitating the emergence of other language skills” (Vandergrift, 1999) 2.2.2 What makes listening difficult It is the fact that many students are afraid of listening and having trouble improving listening skills In listening, there are a variety of factors that highly affect the process of speech and that can obstruct comprehension The followings are the overview of some main factors which are what makes listening difficult and challenging 2.2.2.1 Sounds, intonation, stress and accents in English It cannot be denied that in language learning, there are various differences between the mother tongue and the targeted language Firstly, as pointed out by Penny Ur (1984), students fail to perceive certain English sounds because these not exist in their own language For instance, the sound /dʒ/ as in ‘major’ does not exist in Vietnamese, therefore, a native Vietnamese may not notice the sound at first and just assimilate it to the familiarly sounded one to him like /d/ of Vietnamese Moreover, English sound SELF-ASSESSMENT OF LISTENING PROFICIENCY Archived from http://www.govtilr.org/Skills/listeningassessment.pdf To estimate your level of proficiency, start at the lowest level and respond to each statement For each statement, respond “yes” or “no.” If a statement describes your ability only some of the time, or only in some contexts, you should answer “no.” If you answer “yes” to every statement in the level, your ability is probably at least at that level Move on to the descriptions at the next level If you answer “no” to one or more statements, then you are likely not at that level If you answer “yes” to all the statements at one level, and have a majority of “yes” answers at the next higher level, then you may be at a “plus” level For example, if you answer “yes” to all the statements at Level 1, but have a mixture of responses at Level (almost all “yes” answers), your self-assessed ability may be at Level 1+ Level L1 Yes In everyday conversation with people speaking the standard dialect, I can understand speech that is slow and clear I can understand basic directions and instructions, such as how to get to a local store I can understand questions and answers about basic survival needs, such as meals, lodging, transportation and time I can understand questions and answers about basic survival needs, such as meals, lodging, transportation and time I can understand questions and answers about basic survival needs, such as meals, lodging, transportation and time.I can understand simple statements about a person’s background and occupation If I cannot understand what a speaker tells me, I can understand the statement after it has been repeated or No rephrased slowly and clearly L2 When people are speaking the standard dialect at a normal rate, I can understand their speech when it is spoken with some repetition and rephrasing, can understand speech about everyday topics, for example common personal and family news, well-known current events, and routine situations at work I can understand spoken descriptions of different places, for instance the geography of a country or location that is familiar I can understand uncomplicated stories about current, past and future events I can understand at least some details from announcements made over a loudspeaker I can usually understand the main idea and basic facts L3 from a short news report on the radio or television I can accurately follow all conversations among native speakers who are speaking at a normal rate of speech I rarely, if ever, have to ask speakers to paraphrase or explain what they have said I can correctly infer meanings that are not directly stated I can understand discussions of ideas and concepts, including proposals and speculation I can understand someone’s opinion and the points used to support the opinion I can often, if not always, detect the attitudes and feelings of a speaker I can understand speech in a professional setting concerning my field of expertise or some technical L4 subjects, such as a lecture or a panel discussion I can understand almost all forms and styles of speech pertinent to professional needs I can fully understand all speech that involves the use of extensive and precise vocabulary, including subtle distinctions between word choices I can follow arguments with unpredictable presentation, for example, in informal and formal speeches covering editorial and literary material I can understand language adjusted for different audiences and for different purposes I can readily and accurately infer meanings and implications I am able to understand the main ideas of speech in some non-standard dialects I can fully understand spoken interactions among native speakers at public gatherings, such as meetings, seminars, task groups or conferences I can fully understand a speech, oral report or briefing given to a group of native speakers concerning any topic L5 directed to a general audience My comprehension is fully equivalent to that of a welleducated native listener I can fully understand all forms and styles of speech This includes slang, jokes and puns I can understand speech even when it is distorted by other noise I can fully understand regional dialects, highly colloquial and idiomatic language APPENDIX RECOMMENDATORY WEBSITES FOR ENGLISH ONLINE LISTENING BBC English learning This website encompasses a range of listening-based language learning activities designed for intermediate level learners Most of the content is derived from BBC news, educational programs and other areas of interest covered including sports, music and current affairs BBC radio reports online and transcripts of the audio are provided on screen In addition, the site contains a section designed as a resource for language teachers http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/index.shtml BBC iPlayer Radio Entering this website, you can listen to live BBC Radio or catch up on the latest BBC programs from across the UK and World Service The listening categories are very diverse ranging from news, documentaries to drama, comedies and entertainment Students can have fun using this website for practicing English listening http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/ VOA learning English This web page offers users a considerable space for English study, especially listening skills with a wide variety of audios and videos which include different themes namely: education, health, economics, technology, agriculture, culture, etc Moreover, text is provided for each audio or video which helps listeners fully understand the content conveyed Particularly, there are two levels available in the page concerning the increase in difficulty of the listening so listeners can choose the one that fit their ability the best to practice http://learningenglish.voanews.com/ VOA Special English This is a page for practicing English everyday with video lessons produced by VOA, which are spoken more slowly and with a smaller vocabulary than regular programming, so it is easier for elementary and intermediate learners to understand Each video takes about minutes which conveys an appropriate amount of content so that listeners will not find it too overwhelming or boring to catch up with http://voaspecialenglish.blogspot.com/ CNN Radio CNN Radio's Soundwaves blog is the online home for original audio content produced by the staff of CNN Radio This page offers a rich source of listening material covering a large number of areas from all over the world If you like to listen to news and stories, this is a right place for you to explore http://cnnradio.cnn.com/ CNN podcasting CNN Podcasting is a way to receive audio and video files over the Internet These feeds deliver audio and video broadcasts to your desktop You can listen to plenty of speeches, talks or conversations concerning various issues in which you are interested http://www.cnn.com/services/podcasting/ Discovery This is the Discovery Channel's official website, which primarily provides videos on the channel's programming and additional content tied to those shows; it also features several exclusive browser-based games, with various science-based or sociological challenges If you are interested in science, technology or history, come to Discovery and its videos take you inside the wildest, most amazing and craziest phenomena and facts from all over the world http://www.discovery.com/videos Effortless English This is a very interesting and helpful page for English listening practice Many videos are uploaded in this website for users to reach to Besides, by registering with your email address, you will get free audio and video lessons and newsletters on weekly and monthly basis The special thing about Effortless English is that it is all about real conversational English rather than academic and formal speeches You can learn English in a relaxing way by listening to real English articles about interesting topics By listening to these materials, your English will become closer to the English used by the natives in daily life, which helps your speaking become more natural as well http://effortlessenglishclub.com/ Randals’ ESL Cyber listening lab This comprehensive website contains a large number of audio-based and videobased listening comprehension exercises All the listening activities are graded and are thus suitable for language learners of all levels The listening tasks focus on everyday activities, while the video-based content focuses on the topics for students at the higher level http://www.esl-lab.com 10 Eviews library This website offers more than 40 interviews with a wide range of accents and subject matters It has been designed for sts of English as Second Language at intermediate to advanced level to hear authentic English speakers in normal conversations The audio material is in MP3 format and the printed material is in Word The audios can be downloaded and transferred to a cassette or played directly from the website http://eviews.net/ 11 The English listening Lounge This website contains over 30 graded listening quizzes on authentic native speaker dialogues The topics covered include family, travel, foreign customs and sports Learners may gain access to a transcript of all dialogues and answers to all the questions that are also available Online help page and search engines are also provided http://www.englishlistening.com/ 12 Youtube This is a very popular website which displays a wide variety of usergenerated and corporate media video content, including video clips, TV clips, and music videos, and amateur content such as video blogging, short original videos, and educational and professional videos https://www.youtube.com/ 13 The Bob and Rob show These are podcasts that cover a wide range of content types, such as traditional listening comprehension activities, interviews, and vocabulary This is a wellknown “comprehensive” podcast, created by Bob and Rob, teachers of English at Japanese universities It is said to help improve your English with entertaining and effective lessons http://www.thebobandrobshow.com/website/index.php 14 The Breaking News English These are whole lessons based on a podcast The podcasts makes use of a news story in each episode The text of the news story is provided, and is accompanied by the audio file There is then a lesson plan accompanied with worksheet materials This is a free page with interactive and printable English lessons in levels http://breakingnewsenglish.com/ 15 English conversations This web page provides podcasts containing conversations between native speakers To help less proficient learners, each episode is accompanied by the script, for learners to refer to while listening to the conversation http://englishconversations.org/ 16 Jokes in English These are podcasts containing jokes Because they usually play on language, they encourage careful listening by the learners You will be more motivated using this websites because they are all jokes and funny stories Still, you can learn a lot from those jokes and enrich your vocabulary more easily http://www.manythings.org/jokes/ 17 Celtic Myth Podshow This page gives free audio of ancient tales and legends of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Brittany, Cornwall and the Isle of Man These are usually story read aloud and may or may not be followed by listening comprehension questions http://celticmythpodshow.com/ 18 Classic Poetry Aloud These are podcast containing the great poems of the past Over 300 poems by 80 poets are delivered One can listen to the declamation and read the poem Many non-native students of English find that listening to poetry gives an added dimension to their understanding and appreciation of the language http://classicpoetryaloud.wordpress.com/ 19 Educational podcasts This is the first and best UK directory to locate quality podcasts from over 250 carefully selected podcast channels for educational use - ideal for teaching and learning activities with children, young people and educational professionals Through this site, you can freely access a variety of educational content from over 5000 podcasts from different podcast channels, including a range of audio, enhanced and video channels to illustrate examples of "educational podcasting" to support effective teaching and learning in schools, colleges and universities http://recap.ltd.uk/podcasting/ 20 Podcast directories These are podcast finding tools which offers you various categories of podcast to choose from These categories are ranging from art, through business, comedy, education to science, TV and film You can download from over 10 million podcast episodes and choose from more than 150 thousand podcast in one of the largest podcast directories world wide On the web page, you can not only find neatly arranged podcasts but also learn most of information you need: the name of the podcast, titles of recent shows, the RSS feed, links to the site It also allows you to listen to the whole podcast straight from the directory, which is an ideal way to get to know the content and the quality of the sound http://www.podcastdirectory.com/ http://podcastalley.com http://podcastpickle.com http://podcastcentral.com 21 Listen to English The podcasts on this site will help you to improve your English vocabulary and pronunciation and your listening skills They are quite short (5 or minutes) and delivered in clearly spoken English Many of them are linked to grammar and vocabulary notes, or to exercises or quizzes You can download the podcasts to your computer, or subscribe using iTunes or Yahoo, or listen to them by clicking the Flash player on the web page at the top of each episode The full text of each podcast is on this site, so you can look up the meanings of words that you not understand in a dictionary http://listen-to-english.com/ 22 National Public Radio This website provides up-to-date news audios in terms of business, science, technology, health, politics, race and culture You can either listen online or download the audios you want for free http://www.npr.org/ 23 TED This is a website belongs to TED Conferences, LLC where talks have been offered for free viewing online They address a wide range of topics within the research and practice of science and culture, often through storytelling The speakers are given a maximum of 18 minutes to present their ideas in the most innovative and engaging ways they can By 2012, TED Talks had been watched one billion times worldwide http://www.ted.com/ 24 Mysterious Universe This website provides the latest news and podcasts covering the strange, extraordinary, weird, wonderful and everything in between The Mysterious Universe podcast debuted in 2006 and has since grown to a huge following with millions of downloads from around the world Many learners may find it interesting and it can help to improve listening comprehension as well http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ 25 Ello This is an English listening lessons library online which provides students with free listening, reading and vocabulary practice The audio clips are one to two minutes in length, use natural and informal English, and come with quizzes and dictionary links.The lessons are classified into categories which are Beginning, Intermediate Low, Intermediate Mid, Intermediate High and Advanced It is very easy for students to choose the lesson that fit them the best to start http://www.elllo.org/english/home.htm 26 Cambridge English This source provides more than 4000 audios for students to listen to Language is divided into levels Especially, there are English types namely American English, British English and International English so that learners can choose their favorite one to study In addition to listening, there are many other kinds of material available for English learners to discover http://www.cambridge.org/us/cambridgeenglish/resources? content=student&site_locale=en_US 27 British Council With this website, you can listen or watch on your computer, or download audio and video files to your mp3 player All of the audio and video materials are accompanied by language practice activities that you can on your computer while you listen or watch, or print out and when you want There are different topics, each of which contains various series and episodes giving deeper learning http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/ 28 EngVid This web page brings you free English videos lessons, quizzes and practice which are highly instructional The videos are organized in topics so users will find it easy to learn http://www.engvid.com/ 29 Rachel’s English Over 300 free videos on American English Pronunciation and spoken English are available in this page This is a very popular and helpful listening and pronunciation site for English learners with great tips and information Those who want to get the American accent will find the page worth trying http://www.rachelsenglish.com/ 30 PBS videos This site offers excellent listening practice to learn how Americans (and some British) speak for both teachers and students Many videos have teaching lessons associated with them and transcripts (written words) for the videos http://video.pbs.org/ 31 English listening By using this website, you can listen to speakers of English and read transcripts at the same time There are hundreds of listening lessons for students to choose regarding several topics such as family, food, business, lifestyle, education, religion, etc Each passage is labeled by a certain level so that students can test their English listening ability https://www.englishlistening.com/ 32 Talk English The website has a great collection of English listening lessons categorized in levels: basic, intermediate and advanced You have to answer questions after listening Transcripts are also provided It is fairly easy to use with many different topics http://www.talkenglish.com/default.aspx 33 ESL podcast This website contains a huge collection of podcasts which you can listen to online or download to a portable device Every podcast is titled so that learners can choose what they are interested in easily http://www.eslpod.com/website/index_new.html 34 Audio English This is a really interesting site with dialogue, narration, phrases, and role playing There are over 2500 audio files given by British and American speakers from Oxford, London, Scotland, New York, California, Massachusetts and Canada, so learners can get familiar with different accents and dialects, which is good for listening comprehension http://www.audioenglish.org/ 35 Rong-Chang Leaners entering this page can listen to and read conversations held by Americans It includes audio in Quicktime player, so you will have to keep two windows open at the same time http://www.rong-chang.com/book/ 36 English Online France There is a really great collection here of videos and listening and speaking exercises Audio and video exercises are based on fairy stories, TV commercials, interviews, documentaries, film trailers… http://eolf.univ-fcomte.fr/ 37 China 232 Here's a great collection of podcasts put together by a couple of North Americans There are two sections including VIP English lessons and Fun English lessons Each audio lasts 10-15 minutes provided with text With this website, you will certainly having fun while studying English http://www.china232.com/lessons 38 Listen and Write This is a free listening practice which helps improve listening skills The audio files offered are grouped into 23 levels with diverse topics http://www.listen-and-write.com/ 39 Podcasts in English All of the podcasts displayed in this website are natural conversations, real English There are levels for listening together with business English podcasts Additionally, extra vocabulary and pronunciation worksheets are provided for learners http://www.podcastsinenglish.com/index.shtml 40 Pulse of the planet This site has short audio recordings which are accompanied by the complete text with pictures on one page The audios include customs and traditions from around the world http://www.pulseplanet.com/ ... self-assessed listening proficiency between students who use online listening and who not 19 4.2.2 Students’ perception and attitude towards online listening .20 4.2.3 The advantages of online listening. .. self-assessed listening proficiency between students who use online listening and who not; positive attitude of the students towards the effectiveness of online listening; benefits of online listening; ... self-assessed listening proficiency between students who use online listening and who not The number of respondents who The number of students who use not use online listening online listening L1