The Effects of pred listening classes on the frequency of listening comprehension strategy use

THESIS OF MASTERS OF ARTS ABSTARACT THE EFFECT OF PREP LISTENING CLASSES ON THE FREQUENCY OF LISTENING COMPREHENSION STRATEGY USE Funda Gerçek English Language Education Department Anadolu University Social Sciences Institute, March 2000 Advisor: Asst. Prof. Handan Kopkallı-Yavuz The mental processes that take place during an aural input are known as listening comprehension strategies. This study investigated the effect of prep listening classes on the frequency of listening comprehension strategy use. This study attempted to determine whether prep listening classes had positive effect on the frequency of using listening comprehension strategies. Therefore, the listening comprehension strategies used by students who went through a year long English preparatory program were compared with the frequency of listening comprehension strategies used by students who did not attend the English preparatory program. 139 first year students at Anadolu University Education Faculty English Language Teaching Department participated to this study. They were classified as the Prep Group and the Non-Prep Group. The Prep Group included 59 students who attended prep classes and the Non-Prep Group included 80 students who did not. Data gathered from the two groups. Two groups of students responded to a Listening Comprehension Strategy Inventory (LCSI) which enquired about 13 listening comprehension strategies efficient listeners use in the literature. Listening comprehension courses at Preparatory School at Anadolu University have been conducted as a separate language learning skill. Listening comprehension courses aim to help students develop their listening ability from hearing to comprehending. This aim has been proceed as in implicit strategy training. When the two groups of students were compared in terms of the mean frequency of overall listening comprehension strategy use, the Prep Group students' mean frequency of overall listening comprehension strategy use was expected to be higher than the Non-Prep Group students', because the Prep Group students had implicit listening comprehension strategy training. But the results of this study revealed that the mean frequency of overall strategy use is similar between the two groups. Both of the two groups of students use listening comprehension strategies moderately and there was no significant difference statistically in frequency of listening comprehension strategies between the two groups. To determine whether the two groups differed in terms of individual strategy use, the mean frequencies for each strategy was compared between the two groups. Results showed that both groups used the listening strategies equally frequently.