Using authentic materials to develop listening comprehension in the

Table 8 Interview with Teacher on Language Learning Strategies

Interview Questions Key Words

Please describe some of the listening strategies you tell your students.

Please describe some of the learning strategies you tell your students.

• 
  The need to listen globally
  
• 
  The purpose to get general ideas, not the specifics
  
• 
  Prediction
  
• 
  The ability to answer a general question
  

Results from the class observation. The purpose of the class observation was to obtain information on the learning strategies used by ESL students listening to aural authentic materials in the classroom. Frequency counts of leading learning strategies were totalled, using the transcripts of the class observation. The findings, presented in Table 9, indicated that the students normally paid attention when someone was speaking, either by reading a written text along or looking at the speaker. The students sometimes took notes or wrote down something as they listened to the teacher. However, what the students had on their notes was basically a copy of what the teacher wrote on the board. Periodically, the students consulted the meaning of unfamiliar words in a dictionary.
Occasionally, the students asked questions when they were not certain about the material. Additional learning strategies used by the students were underlining the printed material as listening to the mini-lectures and repeating words that the teacher just said.

Table 9 Class Observation on Learning Strategy Use

Categories N Percentages

Paid attention as listening to speaker	753	72
Took notes or wrote down answers	103	10
Used dictionary to check meanings	97	9
Asked questions about material	47	5
Underlined materials	18	2
Repeated words after teacher	17	2

Total 1,035 100



Results from the learning strategy questionnaire. The purpose of the learning strategy questionnaire in Appendix J was to obtain information on the frequency that the students used different techniques for English listening and language learning. Table 10 presents the overall findings of the students’ responses to the learning strategy questionnaire. The analysis of the questionnaire revealed that the students in this study always paid attention when someone was speaking the target language. Other learning strategies that the students frequently used were: guessing the meaning of unfamiliar words, watching television programs spoken in the target language, and asking the other person to repeat or slow down if they did not understand something. The results from the learning strategy questionnaire also revealed the strategies that were rarely used by the students. One learning strategy that was infrequently used by the students in this study was listening to the radio, even though they watched television on a regular basis. The other learning strategy that the students infrequently used in their language learning was trying not to translate word-for-word. A one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) on the mean strategy use across the students is presented in Appendix K.


Summary of Findings Related to the Learning Strategy Use
From the outcomes of the class observation, it can be summarized that the ESL students used several learning strategies when they listened to aural authentic language in the classroom. The learning strategy most frequently used was paying attention when someone was speaking. Other learning strategies that the students used in listening to the English language were taking notes, asking questions about the material, and using a dictionary to look up the meanings of unfamiliar words.
The findings from the interviews with students and learning strategy questionnaire revealed that, in addition to paying attention when someone was speaking, the students normally asked the other person to either say again or slow down when they did not understand something. Watching television was the most popular strategy for the students to practice the second-language listening skills. On the contrary, listening to radio was the strategy infrequently used by these ESL students.