Academic Listening Comprehension

in English:
Phase 1(Developing an Academic
Listening Test)

Authors:
Remedios Miciano
Edwina Bensal
Junifer Abatayo
Gocheco, Paulina (Presenter)

Department of English and Applied Linguistics

 Impetus of the Study

• To develop an academic listening test in

English based on a lecture in each of the
following areas:
• Natural Science
• Math
• Social Science
• Humanities
• To explore the possible effect of discourse
markers on lecture comprehension
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 Definition

• Academic listening is the ability to concentrate

and focus on the oral input, as in lectures, for an
extended period in the academe (Eslami &
Eslami-Rasekh, 2007; Chaudron & Richards,
1986; Flowerdew & Tauroza 1995 in Smit, 2006)
and to take down notes (Jordan, 1997 in Smit,
2006).

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 Definition

• Discourse Markers are defined as:

“elements which bracket units of talk” by Shiffrin
(1988, in Smit, 2006, 40)
“organizational signal(s) that appear…at the
beginning and/or end of a unit of talk and (are)
used by the speaker to indicate how what is being
said is related to what has already been said” by
Hansen (1994:143, in Smit 2006, 16)

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 Methodology
Instruments: Class Lectures
1)The topic must be included in a basic or
introductory major course offered at DLSU.
2)The topics must not be too simple nor too difficult
in terms of content and language for
undergraduate and graduate students, both local
and international.
3)The material must contain some low-frequency
and/or technical vocabulary.
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 Methodology (cont)

4) The material of the lecture must lend itself to the

insertion of discourse markers.
5) Two versions of a lecture were prepared -- one
with discourse markers and conjunctions and
transitional devices (Lecture 1), and one without
(Lecture 2) -- for a total of eight lectures.

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 Topics

• Force (for the Natural Sciences)

• Sampling (for Mathematics)
• Gender (for Social Science)
• Image (for the Humanities)

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 Methodology
Participants
A. Two hundred and six (206) undergraduate and
graduate students, both local and international,
participated in the study.
B. These participants were randomly assigned to one
of two groups – one group listened to Lecture 1
(with discourse markers) and the other to Lecture
2 (no discourse markers).
C. The undergraduate students were mostly
freshmen and sophomores; the graduate students
were mostly in the first year of graduate studies.
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 Methodology
Procedure
A. Preparation of the lectures
B. Preparation of the test
C. Content validation of the lectures and tests
D. Language validation of the lectures and tests
E. Taping of the listening test
F. Administration of the listening test
G. Correction of the tests and data analysis
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 Methodology

Tests that focused on the following skills:

A. Macro-skills:
1. Identifying the thesis and important details
2. Inferring from the given information presented.
B. Micro-skills:
1. Vocabulary
2. Referents
3. Conjunctions
4. Transitional devices 

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 Data Analysis

• Independent t-test was used since

there were different participants in
the two conditions;
• alpha level was 0.05, hence values
below the alpha level are
statistically significant

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 Result

• Findings show no significant differences except in one

out of the four tests, the sampling test.

• Based on the other variables (schema, perception of

difficulty, etc.) that we investigated, the results show that
the respondents have high schema on the subjects.
Therefore, predicting may be one of the “enabling skills”
that was highly activated

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 Conclusion

• This could mean that the majority of the ALC tests did
not show that discourse markers had a significant impact
on lecture comprehension, contrary to the findings of
Chaudron & Richards (1986), Eslami & Eslami-Rasekh
(2007), and Smit (2006).

• Listeners probably focused strongly on content and not on

the discourse markers in order to understand the lecture,
relying more on their previous knowledge than discourse
markers to understand the lecture.

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 Conclusion

• In general, the respondents were rather weak at paying

attention to the sequence of the lecture because of their
neglect of the logical connectors of sequence and their lack
of recognition of transition from one main idea to another.
• The nature of the message could affect the learners listening
skill.
• According to Willis (1981, as cited by Yagang, 1993), the
ability to predict what the speaker is going to say is part of
a listener’s “enabling skills.”
• The listener himself is another factor in the listening
situation.

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 Conclusion

• The slower-than-normal rate of lecture delivery

adopted in the study is another probable explanatory
factor. A slow rate of delivery was adopted in view
of the EFL participants.

• Lastly, the present exploratory study is an initial step

towards a fuller study of academic listening which is
critical especially to tertiary level learning.

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 Implication

• There is much to be done in the area of

academic listening comprehension.

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 Recommendation
 The strength of this explanatory factor in this study
remains speculative because language proficiency was
only measured in terms of grammar score. Future
ALC studies should consider other, more realistic and
more accurate measures of language proficiency,
especially as they apply to academic listening.
 Replication of the study on a much bigger scale is also
recommended.
 Other prosodic aspects such as vocal quality, intonation,
accent and pitch, pauses and hesitations in the delivery
of the lecture are also worth examining in future studies.

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 References
Allison, D. and Tauroza, S. (1996). The effect of discourse organization on
lecture comprehension. English for Specific Purposes, 14, 2, pp. 157-173.
Bejar, I, Douglas, D., Jamieson, J., Nissan, S. & Turner, J. (2000). TOEFL
2000 Listening Framework: A Working Paper. TOEFL Monograph Series.
Educational Testing Service.
Boco, L. (1999). Competence in listening among speech and oral
communication students of Misamis University. Unpublished master’s
thesis, Ozamiz City.
Chaudron, C. and Richards, J. (1986). The effect of discourse markers on the
comprehension of lectures. Applied Linguistics, 7, 2, pp. 113-127.
Eslami, Z. and Eslami-Rasekh, A. (2007). Discourse markers in academic
lectures. Asian EFL Journal, 9, 1, Retrieved Sept. 3, 2007 from
http:www.asian-efl-journal.com/March-2007-EBook.pdf.
Flowerdew, J. (Ed.) (1994). Academic listening. Research perspectives. New
York: Cambridge University Press.

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 References
Goh, C. (2002). Teaching Listening in the Language Classroom. Relc Portfolio
Series 4. Singapore: SEAMEO Regional Language Centre.
Harper, A. (1985). Academic listening comprehension: Does the sum of the parts
make up the whole? TESOL Quarterly, 19, 3, pp. 609-612. Retrieved Sept. 8,
2007 from http://www.jstor.org/jstor/gifcvtdir/ap005054/00398322/ap060075
Richards, J. (1983). Listening comprehension: Approach, Design, Procedure.
TESOL Quarterly, 17, 2, 219-240. Downloaded from http://www.jstor.org on
Sept. 17, 2007.
Rolfe, E. (1977). Developing a listening comprehension test. English Teaching
Forum, 15, 3, pp. 7-10.
Smit, T. (2006). “Listening comprehension in academic lectures: A focus on the role of
discourse markers” (MA TESOL thesis, University of South Africa)
Vandergrift, L. (2006). Second language listening: Listening ability or language
proficiency? The Modern Language Journal, 90, p. 6-18.
Yagang, F. (1993). Listening. Problems and solutions. English Teaching Forum, 16-19.

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 Teaching minds
Touching hearts
Transforming lives
 Thank you!

Pauline Gocheco, PhD.

Department of English and Applied Linguistics
De La Salle University

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