Using authentic materials to develop listening comprehension in the

Table 1 Sources of Data

Time Periods Data Types

Pre-Observation Interview

Demographic Questionnaire Self-Evaluation Questionnaire

Observation Notes of Class Observation Videotape of Class

Post-Observation Interview

Learning Strategy Questionnaire Self-Evaluation Questionnaire Teacher Interview



Student Selection
Selection
The criteria that were set in selecting students for the present study were the following:

1. 
   Geographically, the students must be from countries where English is not the native language.
   
2. 
   Linguistically, the students must be who resided in the United States at the time of the study and whose mother tongue was not the English language.
   
3. 
   Academically, the students must be enrolled in a program in English as a second language.
   

In addition to the above criteria, the students should have stayed in the United States for less than one year; this is to assure the researcher that the students had received minimal experiences with aural authentic materials in classrooms.

Recruitment
The site for the recruitment of the students was set at a major research institution in the southeast of the United States. To recruit students, the researcher contacted the director of the ESL training program at the university. After that, the researcher informed the teacher who taught the High Intermediate Academic Listening and Vocabulary Development class of the objectives and the procedures of the present study.
When the researcher was introduced to the students who were attending the High Intermediate Academic Listening and Vocabulary Development class, the researcher informed the students about the basic procedures of the research study. The students were notified that participation in this research would consist of their regular attendance in the language class, two face-to-face interviews, each lasting about one hour, and completion of some questionnaires. Students signed and returned the consent form in Appendix A to the researcher if they were willing to participate in the research study. In order to ensure that student performance was not influenced by the goals of the study, the researcher did not explain the purpose of the study to the students. Student recruitment was completed when the students agreed to take part in the current study. Demographic data of the students participated in the study is described in the following section.


Demographic Data of the Students
Seven students, two males and five females, who enrolled in a seven-week- session High Intermediate Academic Listening and Vocabulary Development class at an English language center, participated in the study. The average age of the students was 26 (SD = 6.57) years, with the maximum of 38, the minimum of 16, and the median of 25 years. The average length of students' residence in the United States was 4 (SD = 2.64)

months, with the maximum of 9, the minimum of 2, and the median of 5 months. The students had been learning English for an average of 9 (SD = 3.34) years, with the maximum of 15, the minimum of 6, and the median of 7 years. The students came from five different national and first-language backgrounds--Japan, Korea, China, Brazil, and Puerto Rico; they were speakers of Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Portuguese, and Spanish respectively.

The students' demographic data obtained from the background questionnaire (Appendix B) is presented in Table 2. Names of the students were changed in order to protect their identities. Each student was assigned a name that was easily related to his/her home country. The data showed that while all seven students used their native language at home, two students, one from Brazil and the other from Puerto Rico, also used the target language, English, in communicating with the family members.
The background questionnaire revealed the reasons that students learned English. Six out of seven students in this study took an English-language class because of the need for future career. Five out of seven students learned English because they were interested in the language. Three out of seven students took the ESL class in order to prepare themselves for higher education in the United States. The background questionnaire also revealed that six out of seven students in the study enjoyed learning the language.