A handbook for Exploratory Action Research

1. In which listening activities do my students
listen better? 
2. How is listening presented during the lesson? 
3. What kind of information are my students able
to identify from the listening material? 
4. How does the length of the listening material
affect students’ performance?
In order to collect information, I conducted a survey and 
discovered that they found the topics interesting, which 
was surprising for me; songs were the activities they liked 
the most. They were able to listen and understand the 
teacher’s instructions. Then I carried out a focus group 
discussion to find out what they found difficult or easy 
when listening. They told me that they found the 
recordings too long and could not complete the activity. 
That is why they got frustrated and became distracted. 
They also said songs were easier because they were 
shorter and they could complete the tasks. I also 
organised a session of formal peer observation where a 
student-teacher observed pupils’ behavior during listening 
and the instructions given by the teacher. He confirmed 
the findings and also noted that students listened to the 
instructions and demonstrated that they knew what to do.
I decided to start working with the audios as if they were 
songs. I divided them into sections and created activities 
such as order the information, filling in the gaps, etc.
By the end of two weeks I observed several changes.
The first one was that they actually did the activities, 
handouts were completed with the correct answers and I 
could observe many hands up to participate in the lesson. 
I conducted another survey in which students answered 
that working with the listening materials as if they were 
songs allowed them to work better. They also said that 
they were able to identify information from the text and 
that the activities they liked the most were underlining the 
correct word, filling in the gaps and crossing out the odd 
one out. They still found it difficult to order the information 
because sometimes the material was too fast. The focus 
group participants mentioned that they now felt motivated 
and more successful because they were able to do the 
tasks, and do them well. This was confirmed by another 
peer observation, where the student-teacher told me that 
students were able to focus on the activities and they did 
not get distracted by anything else.
As a reflection I learned that conducting action research 
can be helpful to improve my teaching practice and my 
students’ listening skills. Students are able to improve 
listening skills if we, as teachers, implement strategies 
according to their needs. I was able to see a change which 
motivates me to continue working like this. From now on, 
the way I teach listening will be different according to what 
the group requires. Finally, I realised that with a simple 
action I can change and improve what I am doing in the 
classroom.”