The effects of TED talks as extensive listening in Turkish EFL context

This mixed-method study investigated whether there is a relationship between students' listening achievements and the use of TED lectures as an extensive listening resource in the classroom. It also investigated if there is a difference between the improvements in terms of gender of the students. Moreover, this study explored the students' perceptions of the use of TED lectures as EL materials in the treatment period. To shed light on these issues, 86 private high school students (45 females, 41 males), who learned English as a foreign language and live in Turkey participated in this study. The quantitative data were collected through listening comprehension pre- and post-tests and the qualitative data were collected from journal forms. In order to analyse the quantitative data, the recommended methods were used in SPSS by considering the aim of the study. As for the qualitative data, a content analysis was employed. The results of the analysis indicated that the use of TED lectures as EL materials significantly improved students' listening comprehension, and students found such an approach to listening instruction useful. Based on the results, it was also assumed regarding listening that there is a correlation between the speech rate and affective filter, which affects listening comprehension. The results also indicated that students found extensive listening enjoyable and useful to learn new vocabulary. Moreover, they expressed that the subtitles make the speech more comprehensible for the parts that were challenging to comprehend.