Second Language Listening Instruction: Comparing a Strategies-Based Approach With an

Interactive, Strategies/Bottom-Up Skills Approach

Author(s): MICHAEL YELDHAM
Source: TESOL Quarterly , JUNE 2016, Vol. 50, No. 2 (JUNE 2016), pp. 394-420
Published by: Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc. (TESOL)

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 Second Language Listening Instruction:
Comparing a Strategies-Based Approach
With an Interactive , Strategies /
Bottom-Up Skills Approach
MICHAEL YELDHAM

The University of Hong Kong

Hong Kong

This quasi-experimental study compared a strategies approach t

ond language listening instruction with an interactive approach
combining a roughly equal balance of strategies and bottom-up ski
The participants were lower-intermediate-level Taiwanese unive
EFL learners, who were taught for 22 hours over one and a h
semesters. Their progress through the respective courses was char
via multiple instruments designed to assess growth in their listen
proficiency, strategy use, bottom-up skills, and affect-related lear
characteristics. Pretest and posttest one-way ANOVAs showe
significant differences between the two groups on any of the dim
sions tested. However, a repeated-measures ANOVA showed sig
cant gains by the strategies group in listening comprehension
not by the interactive group. On this longitudinal within-gr
comparison, the strategies group also demonstrated larger effect s
than the interactive group for listening instruction, one measu
strategies growth, and the learner characteristics of confidenc
motivation, whereas the interactive group showed larger effect si
than the strategies group for all measures of bottom-up skil
involved. The outcome between the groups in terms of listening p
ficiency suggests that for lower-intermediate-level listeners, it is b
to focus more on developing their listening strategies than to pro
them with a balanced interactive approach.
doi: 10.1 002/tesq. 233

Fluenttion
tionofoftop-down
listening and
top-down
bottom-up
is characterized
processes (Vandergrift,
and bottom-up2004).
by the processes efficient and (Vandergrift, balanced 2004). opera-
However, chiefly because of their linguistic deficiencies, lower-
proficiency second language (L2) listeners commonly lack such har-
monious processing, and over the years instructors have become aware

394 TESOL QUARTERLY Vol. 50, No. 2, June 2016

© 2015 TESOL International Association

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of a multitude of difficulties experienced by L2 listeners in their
attempts to comprehend texts degraded by connected speech and in
which the message is heard only fleetingly. Such difficulties have
included cognitive problems (inability to recognize the words, keep up
with the speaker, concentrate, and build and retain meaning; Goh,
2000) and affective problems (anxiety, lack of control over one's lis-
tening). Common listener responses to these problems have been to
over-rely on top-down or bottom-up processing (Vandergrift, 1998), or
in some cases simply give up listening or avoid it altogether. To
address difficulties such as these, instructional approaches have varied
over the years. In the 1960s and 1970s, emphasis was on developing
the learners' bottom-up skills, chiefly to enhance their automatic
decoding of the linguistic signal (Brown, 1977). In the 1980s, instruc-
tion switched to fostering listening strategies, urging learners to use
mainly knowledge-based processes to compensate for their deficient
linguistic abilities (Richards, 2008). More recently, a number of theo-
rists have suggested combining strategies and bottom-up skills to help
learners benefit from developing both these sets of processes (Field,
2008b; Lynch, 2006; Yeldham & Gruba, 2014b). In this article this
combined approach is referred to as an interactive approach to instruc-
tion. To date, however, no studies have examined how legitimate a
switch to such interactive instruction may be. In particular, no studies
have compared the effectiveness of this approach with a strategies-
based one. Consequently, this study fills this void by comparing these
two forms of instruction.

REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

Comprehension strategies are widely recognized as consciou

erate, goal-directed procedures that are used to compensate f
or anticipated comprehension breakdowns and that are tran
across tasks or situations; comprehension skills are consider
automatic abilities, ones which are possessed by native speak
required by L2 learners (Afflerbach, Pearson, & Paris, 2008;
2008b; Macaro, 2006).
To help listeners compensate for their deficiencies in the L2 and
reduce their problems, strategies instruction aims at helping them
develop a range of cognitive and metacognitive strategies (Vandergrift,
2003). Bottom-up cognitive strategies involve utilizing prominent
textual cues, notably stressed words, and discourse markers, to help
construct meaning, whereas top-down cognitive strategies involve
the listeners using their existing knowledge structures to help frame,
infer, and embellish meaning. Metacognitive strategies help to

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coordinate the listeners' strategy use and manage their listening
before (planning), during (monitoring), and after (evaluating) listen-
ing, especially when comprehension breaks down (Goh, 2005; Vander-
grift, 2003).
Alongside the improved processing and autonomy that the strate-
gies instruction strives to instill in learners, the approach also aims to
improve various learner characteristics associated with their affective
state. Indeed, accounting for listener development from such instruc-
tion, Rost (2006) describes how learners' improved strategic abilities,
and associated feelings of increased autonomy, can give rise to greater
levels of intrinsic, self-guided motivation. Graham (2011) also high-
lights how learners' enhanced strategy use improves their self-efficacy
in terms of instilling a feeling of control over their listening and the
knowledge they can accomplish a given task, thus boosting their confi-
dence. Graham (2011) adds that research regularly shows that a stron-
ger feeling of self-efficacy can lead to "a greater willingness to face
challenges and to exert effort" (p. 114) as learners come to attribute
success largely to their own toil; listeners tend to panic less and persist
in listening when faced with difficulties, and their motivation increases
(Graham, 2011). Rost also explains how the various developments in
learner characteristics outlined above can lead "to increased time on
task and concomitant success, which in turn strengthens motivation"
(p. 63), feeding further into a positive cycle of learner development.
Studies have demonstrated how strategies instruction can develop
learners' listening comprehension, strategy use, and learner character-
istics. Experimental studies by Thompson and Rubin (1996) and Van-
dergrift and Tafaghodtari (2010), in which strategies practice was
embedded in regular class texts to help learners regulate their strate-
gies at the metacognitive level, demonstrated significant listening com-
prehension gains for the experimental group over a control group of
learners who were not taught to develop their strategies. Those in Van-
dergrift and Tafaghodtari 's experimental group also showed significant
gains in their metacognitive knowledge, and the strategies training in
Thompson and Rubin's study motivated learners to more greatly chal-
lenge their extracurricular listening by choosing to listen to more diffi-
cult texts in their leisure time.
Similar gains from strategies instruction have been shown in qualita-
tive longitudinal research by Chen (2009) and Yeldham and Gruba
(2014a). Both these studies, in which learners were explicitly taught
the strategies, and practiced using and coordinating them in regular
class texts, showed how the learners' listening became more effective,
particularly through employing a more balanced use of top-down and
bottom-up strategies, and they developed in various learner areas,
notably their confidence, and feeling in control of their listening.

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Note that by contrast to these two studies, qualitative longitudinal
research by Graham, Santos, and Vanderplank (2008, 2011) has shown
that, in a comprehension-based course where learners simply listen to
texts and answer comprehension questions, learners' strategic
approaches tend to remain stable and many learners continue to feel
a lack of control over their listening and powerless over how to
address their problems.
Although strategies instruction involves teaching learners to utilize
bottom-up and top-down information, Vandergrift (2004) points out
that it favors top-down processes because it helps listeners "become
more aware of how they can use what they already know to fill gaps in
their understanding" (pp. 10-11). Regarding bottom-up processing,
strategies instructors have commonly taken the pragmatic view that L2
listeners' capacity to recognize the words in a text is limited. Thus learn-
ers have usually been discouraged from listening out for every word.
Vandergrift (1998, p. 391), for example, has recommended that listeners
"focus on semantic cues" (usually carried by the content words, which
are commonly stressed) "to avoid overloading short-term memory."
Consequently, little is said of how learners' bottom-up skills develop
over time from strategies instruction. Presumably this development
stems from the learners' greater opportunities for language input facil-
itated by their improved strategic abilities (Ellis, 1994). Such input
may then become intake as the learners' improved proficiency frees
working memory (WM) to allow their focus on understanding the text
to extend to also acquiring its phonological forms (O'Malley &
Chamot, 1990; VanPatten, 2012). Alternatively, Vandergrift and Tafa-
ghodtari (2010) suggest these skills may develop more implicitly
through an increase in "cognitive fluency as listeners associate con-
nected words and expressions with meaning" (p. 491).
Other commentators, however, argue the need to teach these bot-
tom-up skills to better facilitate their development in learners (Field,
2008b; Gilbert, 2005; Hulstijn, 2003; Lynch, 2006). 1 Here, the empha-
sis is on systematically raising awareness of how words, commonly
understood by the learners when individually articulated, are modified
and sometimes rendered obscure in running speech (Field, 2003,
2008b). Such word modifications include reductions (mainly of func-
tion words, but also of unstressed syllables in content words) and alter-
ations stemming from phenomena like liaison, assimilation, and
elision (Field, 2003, 2008b). Of particular relevance here to English

1 Note that listening instruction theorists rarely advocate teaching top-down skills. This
seems to be because top-down skills and top-down strategies involve similar processes (pre-
dicting, using context to assist understanding, inferring meaning) , but their automatic use
makes them skills, and their conscious use makes them strategies; because their conscious
application is of most concern to L2 instructors, their strategic use is emphasized.

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language instructors who urge learners to listen for the content words
is that although these words' initial syllables are usually reliable to the
listener, their endings are sometimes modified by assimilation or their
boundaries blurred by liaison, resyllabification, and cliticization (Field,
2008b; Roach, 2000). Other bottom-up skills considered important are
the various aspects of intonation involved in conveying grammatical,
accentual, and attitudinal information to the listener (Gilbert, 2005;
Roach, 2000). Effective bottom-up skills are important to listening for
various reasons. Crucially, they provide the raw material to help listen-
ers build accurate meaning (Field, 2003, 2008b). Sound bottom-up
skills are also needed by listeners to constrain top-down processing by
limiting the possible interpretations of an utterance (Wu, 1998), and
they can additionally assist listeners in monitoring their mental model
of a text (Tsui & Fullilove, 1998).
A point of contention here for lower level listeners, especially in
terms of extracting the raw material from the text, is how much under-
standing of the textual content is required for adequate comprehen-
sion. This would vary somewhat between passages and tasks (Graham
& Santos, 2013), but, in contrast to the common view by strategies the-
orists outlined above, Field contends that L2 listeners need to under-
stand information beyond simply the content words, arguing that
misperceptions of even minor sounds or words (often function words
which carry mainly syntactic information) can lead the listener astray.
To illustrate his view, Field points out how mishearing I won't go to
London as / want to go to London (Field, 2003, p. 325), confusing the
prepositions in I'm looking at the photos with I'm looking for the photos
(Field, 2008a, p. 429), or mishearing the segmental cue in I've lived
in. . . as / lived in. . . (Field, 2003, p. 330), can lead the listener to mis-
interpret the utterance, sometimes with serious knock-on effects
through the text (Field, 2003, 2011).
Little research has been done to substantiate either of these con-
flicting positions. Field (2008a) found that intermediate-level learn
of English as a second language (ESL) recognized content words a
greater rate than function words, but these findings were not tie
the listeners' comprehension of the text. Studies that have exami
the link between L2 listeners' word coverage and comprehension
text have focused on the listeners' content word recognition (Bo
2000; van Zeeland & Schmitt, 2013), providing little insight into
comparative effects on comprehension of content word and func
word identification. In addition, no one seems to have examined the
developmental effects on listeners of instruction that favors either of
these two word classes.
In accounting for the development of other abilities that result
from improving listeners' bottom-up skills, Hulstijn (2003) explains

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how the gradual automatization of these skills, especially word decod-
ing abilities, can free WM space for more effective functioning of
higher level listening processes, including those involved in actively
constructing meaning and ongoing mental model building. A recent
study by Yeldham and Gruba (2014b), however, did not find much evi-
dence of such development. In qualitative longitudinal research of six
learners taught bottom-up skills 1 hour weekly for 22 weeks, the study
found, in particular, that this instruction did not adequately develop
the interactive listening abilities of some of the learners, others
became bored with learning the skills, and one learner had continued
difficulties developing text mental models. A key recommendation
from the research was a need for the addition of strategies training to
augment this training in bottom-up skills.
It seems only two studies have examined such an interactive
approach, but in both, the instructional emphasis was more on strate-
gies than on bottom-up skills. The studies found similar outcomes to
those of the strategies studies outlined earlier in this article, with
learners improving their listening, strategy use, and various learner
characteristics. Graham and Macaro (2008) directly taught an experi-
mental group the strategies of predicting, inferencing, and monitor-
ing, and the bottom-up skills of understanding phoneme sounds and
using intonation patterns to segment words, finding the experimental
group significantly outperformed a control group in listening compre-
hension and also in self-efficacy. In the second study, Mareschal
(2007) examined listener development in an embedded instructional
approach, where training in metacognitive strategies was supple-
mented by the learners having problematic aspects of connected
speech pointed out to them on their final listening of a text. The
learners improved in their listening and in their balance of top-down
and bottom-up strategies, as well as developing their confidence and
their feeling of control over their listening. Of additional interest was
that verbal report analyses indicated improvements in learners' sound
discrimination abilities and ability to identify key words.
Surprisingly, given the recent promotion by theorists of an interac-
tive approach over instruction that focuses on strategies, no research
has compared the two methods. Consequently, this study addresses
this deficiency by comparing the effectiveness of these two forms of
instruction. In doing so, three hypotheses are proposed:
1. Listening comprehension will develop more in the interactive
course than in the strategies course.
2. Listening strategies and affect-related learner characteristics will
improve more in the strategies course than in the interactive
course.

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 3. Bottom-up skills will develop more in the interactive course
than in the strategies course.

The reasoning behind Hypothesis 2 was simply a function of more

time being spent on developing learner strategies in the strategies
course, with a theorized flow-on effect to learner characteristics; like-
wise, Hypothesis 3 was a function of greater time spent on developing
bottom-up skills in the interactive course. However, as to Hypothesis 1,
I felt that listening would develop more when attention was given to
developing both the key sets of learner abilities of strategies and bot-
tom-up skills, rather than when emphasis was placed on strategies
alone.

METHOD

The quasi-experimental study involved two intact classes

ese freshman non-English majors at a university in Taipe
class taught strategies and the other taught strategies and
skills. Note that at the design stage of the study the addition
prehension-based control group was considered unnecessar
because the focus was on comparing the strategies approac
interactive approach and because mounting evidence, some
lined above, already suggested that strategies instruction outs
a comprehension-based approach.
The listening courses each lasted for 22 hours, with both
average for 1 hour per week as part of the learners' week
General English class. Strategies were taught and practiced
22 hours in the strategies course, while the time was eve
between strategies and skills in the interactive course. I ta
classes to control the instruction, and learner development
pared in listening proficiency, strategies, learner characte
bottom-up skills.

Participants

Both treatment groups were composite classes from various subject

areas. The students in the strategies course were from the Depart-
ments of Library Science and Textile Management, and those in the
interactive course were studying the health sciences of respiratory ther-
apy, public health, and occupational health. English classes composed
of learners from these subject areas had a reputation at the university
for being highly motivated.

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 The university stratifies freshman English classes based on the learn-
ers' university entrance English exam results. These two classes were at
the 50%-59% band level. Because the exam mainly assesses language
knowledge rather than use, this common band score indicates that the
classes were roughly equivalent in their general linguistic proficiency.
The classes were also found to be equivalent in their listening profi-
ciency, because their mean pre-instruction listening scores on the stan-
dardized test used in the research, the General English Proficiency
Test, did not significantly differ between the groups (as outlined later
in the article). Their mean listening scores on this test meant they
were approximately lower-intermediate-level to intermediate-level
listeners.
Both classes each initially comprised 38 nineteen-year-old learners.
However, learner attrition, from students either dropping out of their
class or choosing not to make their data available for the study, left 33
participants in the strategies group and 34 in the interactive group.
Both groups were primarily female, with only one male in the strate-
gies group and three in the interactive group.

The Listening Courses

The strategies course, and the strategies component of the interac-

tive course, closely followed a syllabus used by Yeldham and Gruba
(2014a). It favored a direct approach to instruction, with the learners
explicitly taught many of the strategies, highlighting strategies advo-
cated by Mendelsohn (1994, 2006) and Graham and Macaro (2008). A
pedagogical cycle (outlined shortly) based on the main aspects of a
cycle by Vandergrift (2007) was also used when learners listened to
regular class texts for them to practice coordinating their strategies.
The bottom-up skills in the interactive course, following a syllabus
used by Yeldham and Gruba (2014b), were also explicitly taught, focus-
ing on skills advocated mainly by Field (2003, 2008b) and Gilbert
(2005).
Over a typical 2-week period, the strategies group spent 2 hours
practicing various strategies, while the interactive group spent 1 hour
practicing strategies - the same ones as the strategies group, only for
half the time - and 1 hour practicing bottom-up skills. Table 1 shows
the strategies content of the two courses, where the strategies are listed
in approximate descending order of emphasis in each category shown
(for example, in the top-down strategies category, most time was spent
practicing guessing, followed by predicting, and so on). Also, most time
was spent explicitly learning top-down strategies, followed by bottom-up
strategies, then metacognitive strategies - although the learners also

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TABLE 1

Strategies Content in Both Courses, and How Usually Taught

Strategy/ process Activity/ exercise

Top-down strategies
1. Guess meaning of unknown (T)a Guess meaning of wor
vocabulary/content (E) Guess information obscured by white noise
(Mendelsohn, 1994)
2. Predict/anticipate text (T) Predict words/ information in passage, then
content and vocabulary check predictions (Vandergrift, 2007)
(T/E) Anticipate how utterances end (Mendelsohn,
1994)
3. Infer various unstated (E) Infer topic, setting, etc. in short texts
aspects of text; use context (T/E) Use contextual cues (e.g., topic, setting,
to facilitate speakers' relationships) to assist comprehension
comprehension (Mendelsohn, 2006)
4. Use discourse markers to (T/E) Use discourse markers to guess in
guess, anticipate and anticipate ensuing content
Bottom-up strategies
1. Use stressed words (T) Use stressed words to guide comprehension
(Mendelsohn, 2006)
(T) Note down key words to assist comprehension
(Field, 2008b)
2. Identify stressed content (E) Identify and mark stressed words on text
words transcript, with focus on using stressed syllables to
identify word onset
3. Use discourse markers (T) Use discourse markers to guide comprehension
(E) Reorder jumbled sentences based on discourse
marker cues
Metacognitive/general strategies
1. Develop, monitor text (T/E) Listen to a text, section by section, forming,
mental model and verifying or changing, one's mental model
(Mendelsohn, 1994)
(E) Monitor texts containing anomalous sentences,
and texts containing initial misleading schema
2. Practice metacognitive Use of a pedagogical cycle based on Vandergrift
control of strategies (2007)
3. Learn listening strategies Various strategies outlined to learners and

a(T): mainly taught embedded in regular class texts; (E): mainly taught through
bCould be considered a strategy or a skill. Considered more a strategy here than
stressed content words exercise shown in Table 2, because the focus here was on
using stressed syllables to identify word onset (Field, 2003) across a range of text

spent substantial time developing their metacognitive strate

listening to the class texts. Table 2 lists the bottom-up skills
the interactive course, also in approximate descending order of
sis. Column 2 in each table summarizes how the strategies
were commonly taught. T indicates they were taught embedd
class texts, and E indicates they were taught through standa
exercises (guessing information obscured by white noise, etc.).
In both courses, the regular class listening passages were
three to four times to help the learners progressively understa
of the texts with each listening. To scaffold the learning, the t

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TABLE 2

Bottom-Up Skills Content in Interactive Course and How Usually Taught

Skill Activity/ exercise

1. Identify various aspects of (T/E)a
connected speech function words, assimilation, elision, reduced verbal
phrases, or connected speech in general (Field,
2003, 2008b)
(E) Mark the characteristic on a transcript (liaison)
(E) Choose the correct option (resyllabification)
(T) Examine text transcript for connected speech
cues

2. Identify stressed content words (E) Identify words in texts and

text transcripts
3. Identify/ use accentual (E) Identify how tonic stress indica
intonation emphasis, and new/old information (Gilbert, 2005)
(E) Practice dialogues, and ask and answer questions,
using these cues
4. Identify attitudinal intonation (E) Use intonation cues to identify speaker's
emotion/attitude
5. Identify grammatical (E) Use tone unit cues to distinguish sentences with
intonation same wording but different meanings (Gilbert,
2005)
6. Distinguish segments (E) Distinguish minimal pair sounds and verb suffixes
in short utterances

a(T): mainly taught embedded in regular class texts; (E): mainly taught through exercises.

also stopped at various junctures: first early in the text for learners to
collectively determine its topic (no advance organizers were given)
and later through the text, commonly for them to discuss in pairs
what they had understood. For the strategies course and strategies
component of the interactive course, aspects of Vandergrifťs (2007)
pedagogical cycle were often added to help learners further develop
their metacognitive control. At the planning stage, the learners pre-
dicted the text's content after first determining its topic then checked
the accuracy of their predictions on their first listening of the passage.
During the second listening, they selectively attended to aspects of
their interpretation that remained unresolved then discussed afterward
how they arrived at their interpretations, including the strategies they
used to do so. After the third listening, they were sometimes given
time to reflect on their performance in order to enhance the transfer
of any lessons learned to other listening situations. Usually on this lis-
tening they also followed the text script as a final comprehension
check.

In addition, strategies and skills practice was embedded in the pas-

sages during the stoppages in the texts. In the strategies course and
strategies component of the interactive course, students (1) antici-
pated what the speaker would say next, (2) guessed difficult words and

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information, and (3) inferred unstated information in the text. To
practice bottom-up skills in the interactive course, learners transcribed
clozed segments of the text script that targeted various aspects of con-
nected speech, and during the final playing of the text they sometimes
closely followed the script to examine the various script-sound corre-
spondences.
The same passages were used in both courses for class listening
practice (and the remaining content taught in both courses - reading,
speaking tasks, and so forth - was also the same). However, some of
the short texts used for standalone bottom-up skills exercises (to iden-
tify reduced function words, for example) differed from those used
for standalone strategies exercises, but these short texts constituted
only a very small portion of the textual content used in the classes. In
both classes, most listening tasks focused chiefly on extracting main
ideas from the texts, although some tasks, such as listening for flight
arrival times, required close listening for details (constituting about
1.5 hours of class time in each course).

Data Collection Techniques

The learners' development in listening comprehension was assessed

through pre- to post-instruction change in their scores on the listening
component of the General English Proficiency Test (GEPT), a stan-
dardized test used widely in Taiwan. Development in bottom-up listen-
ing skills was assessed three ways: (1) through pre- and post-instruction
use of Gilbert's (1993) Clear Listening Test (CST), (2) through pre-
and post-instruction use of a partial dictation task, and (3) through
insights from a post-instruction paused transcription task (Field,
2008a).
Determining learner development in strategy use and learner char-
acteristics was more challenging. Verbal reports are most suitable for
examining strategy use, but the technique is very labor-intensive and
thus impractical with large numbers of learners. Consequently, three
other techniques were used. The first looked at change in the learn-
ers' inferencing ability, based on questions in the GEPT listening test
assessing the ability to infer unstated meaning in a text. The second
used a post-instruction guessing task. The third involved using ques-
tionnaire answers to ascertain the learners' strategy development and
development in learner characteristics.
Also, the Vocabulary Levels Test (5,000-word level), and the Group
Embedded Figures Test (GEFT) were used to ascertain whether
parity existed between the two groups prior to the instruction in
the attribute variables of vocabulary knowledge and cognitive style,

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respectively. These two variables were examined mainly because supe-
rior vocabulary knowledge and/or a detail-oriented cognitive style by
one of the groups may have favored their development in bottom-up
skills.

Measure of listening proficiency

The GEPT. The 45-item listening subtest of the upper-intermedi-

ate-level GEPT was chosen to assess listening proficiency, because its
content is tailored for Taiwanese learners, its questions are based on a
good mix of shorter and longer texts, and the overall test has high
reliability, in "the high .8 range" (Roever & Pan, 2008, p. 404). This
listening test contains three 15-item sections. In Section 1, the listener
hears a sentence and has to match it with a suitable interlocutor
response. The comprehension questions in Section 2 are ba
short, four- to five-sentence conversational exchanges, and
Section 3 are based on longer, 10- to 15-sentence monologues.
standing of both main ideas and details is assessed.

Measures of bottom-up listening skills

Clear Speech Test . The CST (Gilbert, 1993) was chosen for
study because it assesses a variety of bottom-up skills. Five
from the test were used, measuring four types of skills: (1) se
(distinguishing minimal pairs in sentences), (2) reduced speech
scribing the full forms of reduced and contracted words in se
(3) accentual intonation (underlining words with sentence str
accentual intonation (distinguishing the meaning of sentence
based on their accentual intonation), and (5) grammatical int
(distinguishing the meaning of sentence pairs based on their t
patterns). Based on the pre-instruction item responses of lea
from the strategies course (N= 33), removal of the 10 worst-p
ing items through item-total correlation analysis resulted in a
low, but acceptable (P. Kline, 1999) Cronbach's alpha reliability
for the resulting 30-item test.

The partial dictation test task . Buck (2001) advocates partia

tion to assess listeners' word recognition skills. In this partial dic
the learners listened to a 107-word text and filled out missing
of the text script. These missing sections contained frequen
content words ( N = 14) and clusters of function words (N= 49), f
ing on segments of the text containing connected speech (ch
comprising reduced words and word liaisons). The text wa
three times for the learners: first without stopping, second with

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pages for them to write the missing words, and third without stoppages
for them to check their transcriptions.
In marking the dictation, points were deducted for each error made
(Buck, 2001), including incorrect, missing, and added words and
incorrect word order. In Yeldham and Gruba (2014b), interrater reli-
ability for this objective, low-inference marking scheme was established
at .97. In this current study, intrarater reliability was also found to be
.97, after I marked the data then remarked 10% of it 3 months later.

The paused transcription task. I also used paused transcription to

sample the learners' word recognition skills (Field, 2008a). Here, a text
was stopped at irregular intervals (with more than 10 seconds of record-
ing time separating each stoppage, designed to tap into the learners'
normal comprehension processes), with the listeners instructed to write
down the last four or five words they heard before each stoppage.
To provide added insight into the learners' word recognition abili-
ties, the words targeted for transcription were categorized as content
words and function words. In marking the transcriptions, I disregarded
spelling errors and marked words correct if they were segmented cor-
rectly and approximated phonetically to the targeted item.

Measures of strategy use and learner characteristics

GEPT inference questions . To gain insight into the learners' infer-

encing ability, a top-down strategy taught in both courses, 12 questions
from the GEPT listening test were identified as mainly assessing this
ability. Item-total analysis (N= 33) led to exclusion of six of the items,
leaving six items, with Cronbach's alpha reliability of .75.

Guesńng task . In the guessing task, learners guessed sentences in

a text, masked by white noise (12 items). Other tasks in the activity
included inferring the topics of short passages (3 items) and anticipat-
ing how sentences would end (2 items); however, item-total analysis
(N= 56) led to 9 items being excluded, leaving 8 items, all from the
white noise guessing task (Cronbach's alpha reliability .75).

The questionnaires. I administered two questionnaires, one pre-

instruction (Ql) and one post-instruction (Q2). Their main compo-
nents are outlined below.

Task-directed strategy-related questions. The first component of both

questionnaires was a series of task-directed questions completed imm
diately after the learners had listened to five short passages (each 10
120 words long) on various topics. The questions and passages ha
been used in Yeldham (2009), where the passages had challenged th

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listening of learners at the current participants' proficiency level, but
not overly so. The questions targeted key stages of the listening pro-
cess (Vandergrift, 2003): (1) before listening, (2) after deciphering
the topic, (3) while listening, (4) when encountering general compre-
hension problems, and (5) when encountering problems understand-
ing a particular word.
To simplify analysis and to quantify the results, each learner's
reported strategy use in Q2 was simply rated better, similar, or worse
than his or her strategy use reported earlier in Ql. These holistic judg-
ments, encompassing all five of the task-directed questions, were
guided by research associating various strategic behaviors with effective
or less-effective listening (e.g., Goh, 2000; Graham & Macaro, 2008;
Mareschal, 2007; Vandergrift, 1998, 2003). Although many would
argue the most important factor in judging the effectiveness of strate-
gies is how they are used and in what combination (Graham & Mac-
aro, 2008), there were some strategies that seemed unequivocally poor
no matter how they were employed. These included trying to under-
stand every word, translating word by word into the first language
(LI),2 and repeating or fixating on unknown words or information; all
of these have been found to make listener processing more cumber-
some (Goh, 2000; Vandergrift, 1998; Vandergrift & Tafaghodtari,
2010; Yeldham & Gruba, 2014a, 2014b). Other responses from the cur-
rent data also indicating poor behaviors (specifically inability to deal
with comprehension breakdowns) were giving up listening and simply
not knowing how to remedy a comprehension problem.
In analyzing the data, learner progress was indicated, for example,
by a tendency to translate word by word, or fixate on unknown words
in Ql, replaced by a focus on using keywords and guessing unknown
information in Q2. A rating of similar was given for virtually identical
approaches in Ql and Q2, and also for different strategy approaches
considered equally as effective as each other.
Of course, listening and strategy use are dynamic processes
(Graham & Macaro, 2008; Vandergrift, 1998), but given the practical
constraints of investigating 67 learners, the questionnaire aimed at tap-
ping into the learners' general approach to their listening. Note that
the instrument was preferred over self-report instruments that list strat-
egies and other aspects of metacognition for the learners to indicate
their use of these processes (e.g., Vandergrift & Goh, 2012); this was
because I wanted the students to report their behaviors without being
influenced or pigeonholed by options presented to them. To examine
for inter-rater reliability of the instrument, a colleague independently

2 As opposed to translating at the end of a clause or sentence to store the information in

the LI, which Yeldham (2009) found to be a fruitful strategy by some of his participants.

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coded the pre- and post-instruction questionnaires of 10 of the learn-
ers, agreeing with my assessment for 9 of these learners.
Questions about learner progress. In Q2, two further questions were
added to elicit learners' views about (1) the changes in their listening
ability and their strategies and skills through the course and (2) which
processes from the course had helped them improve most. The learn-
ers' answers to these questions, especially question 1, were then used
to triangulate their answers from the earlier task-directed questions.
Questions about learner characteństics. To examine for learner growth
in confidence and motivation, questions at the end of Q2 asked the
learners to rate (1) how confident they felt while listening to English
and (2) how motivated they were to learn English listening. Below
each of these two questions, on 5-point (0-4) bipolar rating scales,
they were asked to provide ratings for before the instruction on one
scale and after the instruction on another scale.3 Additionally, at the
end of both Q1 and Q2, a question was added asking the learners
whether they did any extracurricular listening, and if so how many
hours on average per week; an increase in listening time here may
have been further evidence of enhanced learner motivation.

Measures of attribute variables. The 30-item Vocabulary Levels Test

(Cronbach's alpha .93), used to examine the learners' vocabulary
knowledge, employs a word-definition matching format, requiring
learners to match three definitions with three matching words from a
list of six word candidates. One of these word-definition matching
sections constitutes three items.
The 18-item GEFT, used to examine learner cognitive style (specifi-
cally field dependence/independence), requires disambiguating sim-
ple figures from a larger, more complex background. It is contended
that those who do this well (field-independent individuals) favor
detail-oriented, bottom-up processing, whereas those who do it badly
(field-dependent individuals) favor holistic, top-down processing
(Messick, 1994).

Data Analysis

I analyzed the data through ANOVA, due to the need to compare

between-group and within-group outcomes over multiple variables.
This test was preferred over multiple ¿-tests mainly because the latter
brings with it a greater chance of Type 1 error. A review of the pretest

3 I preferred this approach over using more expansive questionnaires, both to address
these factors as direcdy as possible and because of data gathering time constraints.

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data indicated no serious violations of the assumptions of normality or
homogeneity variance, facilitating the use of ANOVA.
First, a one-way ANOVA was performed to test for any pre-instruc-
tion differences between the two instructional groups on the depen-
dent and attribute variables. In the absence of significant differences
on any of these variables, the pre-instruction scores from this ANOVA
could be ignored, and a one-way ANOVA then carried out to test for
post-instruction differences between the groups on the dependent vari-
ables. (Alternatively, if significant differences were found on the pre-
instruction ANOVA, an ANCOVA would be used post-instruction to
adjust for the pretest differences.)
A repeated measures (RM) ANOVA was also used to check for
within-group growth on all of the dependent variables that were tested,
both pre- and post-instruction. Additionally, effect sizes were consid-
ered for each variable on this RM test to indicate "the magnitude of
the impact of the independent variable on the dependent variable"
(R. B. Kline, 2004, p. 97). Cohen's d, a common effect size metric, was
used here, determined through a website calculator (www.cognitive-
flexibility.org/effectsize) recommended by Larson-Hall (2012), where
effect sizes were calculated for within-subject studies.4 Cohen's d= 1.0
indicates there is one standard deviation difference between the two
means being compared, and a rule of thumb for effect size magnit
is that d = .2 or lower is a small effect, d = .5 is a medium effect, and
d = .8 or greater is a large effect.

RESULTS

Results from the pre-instruction one-way ANOVA are sh

Tables 3 and 4. Raw mean scores rather than percentage sc
shown for the tests and tasks to give a clear picture of learner
ment, especially for the tests/tasks containing a small num
items.5 Included in the dependent variables tested were tw
tions of the CST to provide more fine-grained insight into the
ison of the two groups' bottom-up skills. The first subsection, a
segmental and reduced speech skills, consisted of Parts 1 an
test (17 items, with these two skills areas combined to incre

4 Cohen's d is usually reserved for /-tests. However, its use was defensible
ANOVA given that only two factors were involved (pretest and posttest values
Note also that for extracurricular listening, the mean number of hours both
ally listened to English was probably considerably lower than shown in Tabl
This is because on an additional question asking what they listened to, mo
wrote English movies and many wrote English songs. When watching the mov
it seems likely these lower level listeners would have relied largely on Chine
and when listening to the songs many may not have closely followed the lyrics.

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TABLE 3

Pre-instructíon Group Comparisons for Dependent and Attribute Variables

Trait/ ability measured Instrument used Group M (and SD) df F Sig.

Dependent variables
Listening proficiency GEPT3 Strat. 20.82 (5.03) 1,65 .96 .332
Int. 22.06 (5.35)
Bottom-up skills (general) CSTb Strat. 18.67 (3.52) 1,65 .15 .698
Int. 19.00 (3.48)
Bottom-up skills (segs/ CST Sec. Ie Strat. 11.36 (1.95) 1,65 .63 .429
reduced sp.) Int. 11.00 (1.79)
Bottom-up skills CST Sec. 2d Strat. 7.30 (2.58) 1,65 1.27 .263
(intonation) Int. 8.00 (2.47)
Bottom-up skills Dictation taske Strat. 49.79 (7.07) 1, 65 .15 .699
(word recog.) Int. 50.41 (6.06)
Inferencing ability GEPT Infer. Qsr Strat. 3.70 (1.47) 1,65 2.49 .120
Int. 4.24 (1.33)
Confidence Questionnaire Strat. 1.82 (0.88) 1, 65 1.15 .287
questions8 Int. 2.06 (0.95)
Motivation Questionnaire Strat. 2.15 (1.00) 1, 65 .27 .602
questions8 Int. 2.26 (0.75)
Extracurricular listening Questionnaire Strat. 1.05 (1.88) 1,61 1.98 .164
questions11 Int. 1.84 (2.54)
Attribute variables

Vocabulary knowledge Vocab. Levels tesť Strat. 13.26 (4.50) 1,61 1.44 .235
Int. 14.53 (3.91)
Field (in)dependence GEFTj Strat. 15.55 (2.67) 1, 65 2.89 .094
Int. 14.35 (3.05)

aMaximum score 45.

bMaximum score 30.
cMaximum score 17.
dMaximum score 13.
eMaximum score 63.
fMaximum score 6.
gA scale ranging from 0 (low) to 4 {high).
hHours per week.
'Maximum score 30.
JMaximum score 18.

sample size), and the second subsection assessed intonation skills

(accentual and grammatical), combining Parts 3, 4, and 5 of the test
(13 items).
The pre-instruction ANOVA indicated no significant differences
between the two groups on any of the variables at the p < .05 level.
Therefore, the pre-instruction scores were ignored, and a one-way
ANOVA was carried out to test for any posttest difference between the
groups on the dependent variables. As Table 4 shows, there were no
significant posttest differences on these variables between the groups,
including for the paused transcription and the guessing tasks, for
which there had been no pretest. Note that the paused transcription
was also broken down to examine for the learners' recognition of con-
tent words (n = 18) and function words (n = 29).

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TABLE 4

Post-instruction Group Comparisons for Dependent Variables

Instrument
Trait/ ability measured used Group M (and SD) df F Sig.
Listening proficiency GEPT* Strat. 22.85 (6.34) 1,65 .34 .561
Int. 23.71 (5.64)
Bottom-up skills (general) CSTb Strat. 20.82 (3.71) 1, 65 1.68 .200
Int. 21.82 (2.55)
Bottom-up skills (segs/ CST sec. Ie Strat. 11.88 (2.19) 1,65 .005 .943
reduced sp.) Int. 11.91(1.52)
Bottom-up skills (intonation) CST sec
Int. 9.91 (1.91)
Bottom-up skills (word recog.) Dictation taske Strat. 51.79 (6.02) 1,
Int. 52.68 (5.84)
Bottom-up skills (word recog.) * Paused trans/ Strat. 33.47 (5.97) 1, 61 .54
Int. 34.48 (4.97)
Bottom-up skills (cont. *Paused trans.8 Strat. 13.47 (2.58) 1, 61 .48 .494
word recog.) Int. 13.87 (2.01)
Bottom-up skills (fune. *Paused trans.h
word recog.) Int. 20.61 (3.45)
Inferencing ability GEPT Infer. Qs1 Strat. 4.15 (1.84) 1,65 .00 .991
Int. 4.15 (1.54)
Guessing ability *Guessing task* Strat. 6.21 (2.02) 1,54 1.71 .197
Int. 6.85 (1.63)
Confidence Questionnaire Strat. 3.03 (0.64) 1, 65 .03 .861
questionsk Int. 3.06 (0.69)
Motivation Questionnaire Strat. 3.09 (0.63) 1, 65 1.38 .244
questions1" Int. 2.88 (0.81)
Extracurricular listening Questionnaire Strat. 1.76 (2.73) 1, 61 .24 .623
questions1 Int. 1.41 (2.92)
*Conducted post-instruction only.
aMaximum score 45.
bMaximum score 30.
cMaximum score 17.
dMaximum score 13.
eMaximum score 63.
fMaximum score 47.
gMaximum score 18.
hMaximum score 29.
Maximum score 6.
J Maximum score 8.
kA scale ranging from 0 (low) to 4 {high).
'Hours per week.

There was also little difference between the groups in strategy devel-
opment, as determined through the task-directed questions on Q1 and
Q2. Of the 30 learners in the strategies group who completed both
questionnaires, the strategy use was judged to have remained the same
for 13 and to have improved for the other 17 learners (and 14 of these
17 verified their areas of improvement in their answers to the addi-
tional two questions asking about their progress during the course).
For the 34 learners in the interactive group, 15 were judged to have

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remained the same, with 19 judged to have improved (with 16 of these
19 verifying their areas of improvement through the two questions ask-
ing about their progress).
On the RM ANOVA (see Table 5), one key difference found
between the groups was that change over time in listening proficiency
reached significance for the strategies group but not for the interactive
group. There were also some noticeable differences in effect size
between the two groups on the dependent variables examined. These
findings are outlined in light of the three research hypotheses.

Hypothesis 1: Listening Comprehension Will Develop More in the

Interactive Course Than in the Strategies Course

The RM ANOVA and effect size calculations provided evidence to

reject this first hypothesis. The RM ANOVA showed that development
in listening proficiency reached significance for the strategies group,
7*1(1, 32) = 10.05, p = .003, but not for the interactive group, F(l, 32) =
4.0, p = .054. In addition, the strategies group demonstrated medium
effect size growth in listening proficiency ( d = .587), but there was rel-
atively small growth in this area for the interactive group (d = .344).
In terms of practical significance, the result here indicates that mean
listening score for the strategies group developed by almost .6 of a
standard deviation, a noticeable increase, but for the interactive group
this increase was only about one third of a standard deviation.

Hypothesis 2: Listening Strategies and Affect-Related Learner Charac-

teristics Will Improve More in the Strategies Course Than in the Inter-
active Course

The effect size calculations provided evidence to support this second

hypothesis. First of all, however, the significance tests showed that both
groups improved significantly for two of the learner characteristics
examined, confidence and motivation, but not for the third learner
characteristic, extracurricular listening, nor for the strategies-related var-
iable, inferencing. However, for all four of these variables there was a
marginally larger effect size for the strategies group than for the interac-
tive group. Larson-Hall (2010, p. 114) points out that a large effect size
indicates "the researcher has found something important to under-
stand," and such a large effect size was found, in particular, for the strat-
egies group for learner confidence (d= 1.831, indicating a very
noticeable mean growth rate by the learners of more than 1.8 standard
deviations) and also for motivation (d = .991; although confidence was
also greatly enhanced for the interactive group, with d = 1.348).

Hypothesis 3: Bottom-Up Skills Will Develop More in the Interactive

Course Than in the Strategies Course

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 The effect size calculations also provided evidence to support this
third hypothesis. First, the significance tests on all four bottom-up
skills variables examined (two of which, segments/ reduced speech and
intonation, were both subsets of the CST) showed both groups
improved significantly. However, for each of these four variables, there
was a marginally larger effect size for the interactive group than the
strategies group. In addition, two of these effect sizes for the interac-
tive group, for general bottom-up skills and understanding of intona-
tion signals, were substantial, at d = 1.131 and d= 1.028, respectively,
indicating mean growth of over one standard deviation.

DISCUSSION

This research compared the effectiveness of strategies

with that of an interactive approach combining strategies
up skills. The strategies approach was theorized to impr
strategic ability and affect-related characteristics, with
combining to improve listening proficiency (Graham
2006). Similarly, the strategies component of the interac
was reasoned to garner such effects, albeit more modest
less time practicing the strategies. However, the addition
skills component for this group was designed to improve th
up processing abilities, to instill in them a more interact
to their listening (Field, 2008b). Given this focus on
wider range of abilities, Hypothesis 1 of the study was that
tive approach would lead to greater gains in listening com
than would the strategies approach. Contrary to this
though, the strategies group outperformed the interactive g
tening comprehension. However, results from the stud
Hypothesis 2, that the strategies group would outperform
tive group in strategic ability and learner characteristi
results also supported Hypothesis 3, that the interactive
outperform the strategies group in developing their bottom
Although the evidence was relatively weak, these vario
could still be considered meaningful for teaching practic
in light of the outcome for Hypothesis 1 in particular, give
of combining strategies with bottom-up skills in a c
lower-intermediate-level listeners, it would be better to focus more on
developing their strategies. In view of the difficulties for learners at this
proficiency level of dealing with the ephemeral nature of spoken lan-
guage, leading often to their piecemeal understanding of texts (Field,
2008b; Goh, 2000), it appears that the cognitive and metacognitive
strategies learned and practiced by this group over the duration of the

414 TESOL QUARTERLY

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research helped them address their listening problems more effectively,
as found also in previous research, for example, by Chen (2009) and
Yeldham and Gruba (2014a). In addition, learning these strategies sub-
stantially bolstered key affective learner characteristics, which would
have played a role as well in these learners' development as listeners
(Rost, 2006).
In the data gathered, there was only direct evidence of superior
strategies growth by this strategies group in their inferencing ability.
Lack of further evidence, however, was partly due to deficiencies in
the instruments used to examine these factors, as outlined shortly.
There was, however, evidence that this group developed more than
the interactive group in the learner characteristics examined, namely
their confidence when listening and their motivation to learn how to
listen, with this greater motivation probably also reflected in their
increase in out-of-class listening (Thompson & Rubin, 1996). This
superior development in learner characteristics fits with the theorized
outcomes for strategies instruction (Graham, 2011; Rost, 2006), with
these developments in learner characteristics likely being fueled by,
and in turn contributing to, the learners' improved strategy use and
listening comprehension. More specifically, it corresponds with Rost's
(2006) theorized view of the cycle of success resulting from strategies
instruction, as the learners' enhanced use of strategies feeds improve-
ments in characteristics such as self-efficacy, confidence, and motiva-
tion. Rost adds that these gains can then stimulate more listening and
improve proficiency, resulting in greater chances for listeners to refine
their strategies, and so the cycle goes on. Of these various factors,
improved confidence, with its large effect size in the study, seems
vitally important to progress in listening. Graham (2011), in particular,
has emphasized the important role of confidence and the associated
feeling of control over one's listening involved in improved self-effi-
cacy, adding that such psychological traits tend to develop "in learners
who respond positively to strategy instruction" (p. 115), and develop-
ment in these traits is reflected in listener responses such as not pan-
icking when difficulties arise, maintaining focus, and thus continuing
to listen with a clear head.
Another mayor result from the study was that despite the interactive
group improving more than the strategies group in their bottom-up
skills - specifically, in their ability to (1) recognize segments and
reduced speech, (2) identify the functions of grammatical and accen-
tual intonation, and (3) recognize words in a text (marginally) - they
were outperformed by the strategies group in their listening compre
hension. This suggests that to enhance listening comprehension,
increasing learners' ability to understand a wide range of bottom-up
textual aspects is of secondary importance to improving their ability to

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utilize strategies. Although this does not deny that such missteps as
slips of the ear can lead listeners to misinterpret utterances (Field,
2003, 2008a), it signals that developing precise word recognition abili-
ties to counter such problems is not so crucial to lower-intermediate-
level listeners' progress. Instead, what is likely more vital at this bot-
tom-up level, as a springboard for competent interactive processing
(Vandergrift, 2004), is having such learners practice picking out and
using the stressed words, which are chiefly the content words in an
utterance. This more strategic endeavor, which was practiced regularly
through the strategies course, directs the listeners to the key semantic
aspects of the text and helps them avoid the temptation of trying to
understand every word, which Vandergrift (1998) points out can result
in cognitive overload. As a logical consequence of this argument, the
concern outlined earlier in the literature review about how bottom-up
skills develop in a strategies course (O'Malley & Chamot, 1990;
Vandergrift & Tafaghodtari, 2010), at least for those skills beyond
recognizing stressed key words, does not appear to be a key issue for
strategies instruction theory.

LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH

The study had its limitations. One was the lack of a contro
This was considered unnecessary at the outset of the study,
analyzing the data it became apparent that comparing outco
a control group might have provided better insights into th
contribution of various factors to listener development from
methods, especially those of listening strategies, learner charact
and bottom-up skills.
Regarding limitations to the instruments used, one concern
used to examine change in learners' strategy use. This w
through inference questions, a post-instruction guessing ta
questionnaire instrument chosen mainly because it did not
learner response with a list of available strategies. In hin
though, the addition of another instrument, the Metacognitive
ness Listening Questionnaire (MALQ; Vandergrift & Goh, 20
which listeners rate their usage levels of various strategies and
metacognition, would have been useful because it would hav
duced more precise quantitative data than the task-directed
of Q1 and Q2, and would have added insight into the learner
opment of their metacognitive strategies to complement the
the study on cognitive strategy development. A second limi
the instruments was that, despite the claim made above that im
learners' ability to pick out and use stressed words appeared i

416 TESOL QUARTERLY

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to their development as listeners, the study lacked an effective means
to examine such change in the learners' use of stressed words. This
deficiency came about because the planned use of recall protocol data
for this purpose had to be jettisoned after a procedural mix-up
occurred when gathering this data.
In conclusion, clearly more research needs to be done to build on
the current comparison of the two instructional methods. Importantly,
such future research needs to investigate further how learner develop-
ment from the two approaches takes place. This could emerge in an
experimental study with an added control group, especially if the study
included instruments such as the MALQ and recall protocols. It could
also be gleaned through qualitative research, eliciting learners' insights
into their development through such means as interviews, question-
naires, and learner diaries (Chen, 2009), together with verbal report
data from selected participants to help substantiate such insights
(Yeldham & Gruba, 2014a).

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This research was funded by a grant from the Taiwan National Science
(No. NSC 99-24 10-H-030-088). Also, I would like to thank the two a
reviewers for their very helpful comments on earlier versions of this artic

THE AUTHOR

Michael Yeldham is an assistant professor in the Centre for Applied E

ies at the University of Hong Kong. He has been involved in second
cation for 25 years, and his research interests lie mainly in seco
listening.

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