The effect of different spaces on listening understanding

Listening is the first skill acquired by the individual among the four basic language skills and this skill, which the individual starts to acquire from the day he/she is born, develops in the social environment. In mother tongue education carried out in formal education institutions, importance should be given to the development of listening skills. Doing listening education only with activities based on sound in the classroom environment is to ignore the environments and situations that students may encounter in daily life. The aim of this study is to examine the effect of different listening spaces on listening comprehension. The method of the study is a one-group pretest-posttest weak experimental design. The study was conducted with 10 8th grade students studying in a public school in Uşak city center in the 2021-2022 academic year. Before the study process started, six different themes were determined as "Atatürk, theater, horse, museum, library and weaving". In the study, the narrative texts related to the determined themes, namely " Mürefteli Kadınlar ve Emin Astsubay, Canım Kitaplığım, Kilim, Yılkı Atı, Miras Keçe, Rodin'den Aldığım Ders, Belkıs Tiyatrosu, Sığırtmaç Mustafa'nın Öyküsü, Ben Küçük Bir Kilimim, Eğin'de Cirit Oyunu, Eşekli Kütüphaneci Mustafa Güzelgöz, Ben Kanatlı Denizatı Broşu", the sub-text questions of the listening texts and focus interview questions were determined as data collection tools. With the determined listening texts, listening activities were carried out in the classroom in a two-week period, one class hour a day. Listening activities were carried out in 6 different places related to the themes, including "Atatürk Cultural Center, Uşak Equestrian Rehabilitation Center, Uşak Archeology Museum, Uşak İskender Pala Provincial Public Library, Atatürk House and Dokur House" in a twoweek period. The study process was completed in 6 weeks. The scores obtained from the listening activities in the classroom were compared with the scores obtained from the listening activities in different places and the percentage difference was examined. For the significance value of the data, Wilcoxon signed-rank test, one of the non-parametric tests, was used with the help of SPSS 28.0 program. Based on the findings obtained from the studies, students' pretest averages in the theater theme were 40,8889 and posttest averages were 56,0556; pretest averages in the javelin theme were 77,1667 and posttest averages were 85,1111; pretest averages in the museum theme were 61,5556 and posttest averages were 73,6667; library theme pretest averages 65,0500 posttest averages 80,2000; Atatürk theme pretest averages 48,5000 posttest averages 82,0000; weaving theme pretest averages 67,9000 posttest averages 79,3000. It was observed that the mean posttest scores of the students in the listening activities conducted in the designated places were higher than the mean pretest scores in the listening activities conducted in the classroom. The data obtained from 5 themes were significant (p<0.05). No significant data was obtained from the theater theme (p>0.05). In 5 of the listening studies conducted in environments where 6 different themes were determined, a significant difference was obtained, while in 1 study it was determined that there was no significant difference. According to the data obtained; it was seen that the environment that affected the students in the study group the most was Atatürk House, and the environment that affected the least was theater. Looking at the whole study, it was seen that listening activities in environments related to the listening text positively affected comprehension compared to traditional listening activities in the classroom. Suggestions related to the study are given in the conclusion section. Keywords: Listening, listening education, listening in the Turkish Curriculum