Enhancing Listening Skills by Using Scaffolding Techniques in TBLT

by: K.V.B. Ravindra Babu

Associate Professor

Department of EoL

VFSTR (Deemed to be University)

Vadlamudi, Guntur.

Mail: kvbravindra@gmail.com

Abstract:

Listening is an essential skill required for information reception and conversational participation. Though it is a primary skill acquired by all of us at the early stages of life, it is not often verified to enhance its effectiveness in the learners. Effective listening involves a complex mental process which is not trainable easily.  Task-based Language Teaching (TBLT) provides an opportunity to learners for real life language use. In the acquisition of second language learning, scaffolding techniques help the learners to accomplish the tasks with the help of ‘More Knowledgeable Others’(MKO) and thus extend their ‘Zone of Proximal Development’(ZPD). The present paper shares a part of doctoral research on ‘Using Scaffolding as a Technique to Enhance ESL Learners Language Proficiency at Tertiary Level: A Task-based Approach.  This paper presents the effectiveness of using scaffolding techniques to enhance the listening skills of the learners at graduate level in a private deemed to be university in the state of Andhra Pradesh.  The performance of the learners in this study is assessed as per the scales of Cambridge Assessment English and Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR). 

INTRODUCTION

The language skills are broadly categorised into receptive and productive skills.  Reading and Listening are considered receptive skills as the learners receive information by reading a printed text or listening to sounds.  Some people consider that the receptive skills are passive as the learners are not engaged actively in any action and they read or listen to something silently.  But it is not true.  When the learners engage in reading or listening to a text, they immediately activate their previous knowledge to understand the meaning of the text effectively. Their cognitive processing would be busy in relating the new information to the existing knowledge and try to assimilate both to draw conclusions.  Hence, it is wrong to say that receptive skills are passive.  The learners are to be given training in using effective reading and listening strategies to comprehend the messages.  As the comprehension in receptive skills is a complex mental process and the teacher cannot monitor how it happens or where it has gone wrong, it is difficult for the teachers to correct the errors and give feedback to the learners so precisely and instantly.  As there are no structured attempts at various levels of education to know how effectively the learners listen to or read in a given context, the learning gaps are created in their knowledge acquisition and it is also resulted in their poor communication skills.  The present research focuses on enhancing the listening skills of the ESL learners at tertiary level by using scaffolding techniques in the Task-based Language Teaching. 

THEORITIAL BACKGROUND

In the socio-cultural theory, the development of a new skill is handled through the notion of ‘scaffolding’.  In the usual sense, scaffolding is a temporary structure that is often put up in the process of constructing a building.  When each new bit is constructed, the scaffolding is removed or taken down.  The use of scaffolding is temporary but it is essential for the construction of a building successfully.  

The term ‘scaffolding’ was first used in the educational sense by Wood, Bruner, and Ross in their examination of parent-child talk.  They defined scaffolding as a “process that enables a child or novice to solve a problem, carry out a task or achieve a goal which would be beyond his unassisted efforts” (1976: 90).  Bruner described scaffolding in its metaphorical sense as “the steps taken to reduce the degree of freedom in carrying out some tasks so that the child can concentrate on the difficult skill in the process of acquiring” (1978: 19).  Scaffolding is not another word for help, it is a special kind of help that assists learners to move towards learning new concepts, new skills and new levels of understanding.  Pauline Gibbons defined scaffolding as “temporary assistance by which a teacher helps a learner know how to do something, so that the learner will later be able to complete a similar task alone” (2002: 10).  

Rod Ellis presented his views on scaffolding in the context of social interaction as “scaffolding is the dialogic process by which one speaker assists another in performing a function that he or she cannot perform alone” (2003: 182).  He elaborated that when the students have the opportunity to perform tasks with skilled teachers, their opportunities for learning are maximized.  In the opinion of Jim Scrivener, “scaffolding refers to the way a competent language speaker helps a less competent one to communicate by both encouraging and providing possible elements of conversation” (2011: 227). Jeremy Harmer (2015) suggested scaffolding as one of the best ways for the teachers dealing with learners of mixed abilities.  He says,

Scaffolding is the name given to a particular concept of learners’ support which involves breaking tasks down into their component parts.  For students who have difficulty in understanding that they are supposed to do or find it difficult to ‘stay on task’ – we can try to identify a number of ‘do-able’ chunks so that they move from one ‘successes to another.  When they are involved in each of these mini-tasks, we can support them and help them move on to the next stage.  The best approach, therefore is go from stages that the students can do fairly easily to the next, slightly more difficult stage, and then from there to another more difficult stage etc. (2015: 151). 

In addition to breaking things into do-able parts, Harmer advised to support the learners to understand things through all possible means. In the recent publications, the term scaffolding has lost its flavour and the new terms ‘collaborative dialogue’ and ‘instructional conversation’ are used instead.  Wood, Bruner, and Ross (1976) identified the following features of scaffolding.

• Recruiting interest in the task
• Simplifying the task
• Maintaining pursuit of the goal
• Marking critical features and discrepancies between what has been produced and the ideal situation
• Controlling frustration during problem solving
• Demonstrating an idealized version of the act to be performed

These features characterise the effect of scaffolding on both cognitive demands of the task and the affective states of the person attempting the task. According to Wood, Bruner & Ross (1976), teachers share the perspective of the learners in Scaffolded teaching and it serves as a means for the teachers to make a high-level involvement of the learners in the process of learning and also make them feel responsible for their learning.  The teacher is a ‘scaffold’ or ‘more knowledgeable other’ who helps and engages the learner in the tasks that they are unable to accomplish on their own.  The teacher provides an initial support to the learners and enables them understand the procedure of accomplishing the task. When the learners have become capable of accomplishing the task on their own, the teacher gradually withdraws the support and assigns the responsibilities to the learners.  Scaffolding does not mean that the teacher provides everything the learner needs.  It is a systematic support given to the learner in the beginning of a task to enable him/her responsible for their learning.  Gallimore and Tharp (1990) have referred to the term ‘scaffolding’ as ‘assisted learning’ and suggested six ways of supporting the learners.  They are 

1. Modelling: The teacher may show a reading strategy to the learners by performing it in front of them.
2. Instructing: It does not mean just the teacher assigning the task.  It is directing the learners’ focus on to fulfilling a particular sub-task to begin a difficult task involving various level of accomplishment.  
3. Questioning: The teacher invokes mental operations of the learners by asking some questions to draw their attention towards the key elements of the text to understand it better. 
4. Cognitive Structuring: The teacher enables the learners to think and act in an organised way by making use of their background knowledge and relate it to the new conditions.  This helps them in giving explanations or making predictions.
5. Contingency Management: The teacher has to sustain the enthusiasm, involvement and interest of the learners in the tasks by encouraging them with praise and rewards. 
6. Feedback: The teacher gives feedback report by comparing the learners’ performance to certain standard norms. The feedback may also include suggestions on the areas of improvement. 

METHODOLOGY

The present study focuses largely on enhancing language proficiency of ESL Learners at Tertiary Level by using Scaffolding Techniques in TBLT.  This paper reports the performance of learners in listening skill, one of the four skills dealt in the main study.  The researcher has chosen an experimental study to find out the effectiveness of scaffolded instruction in enhancing the learners’ language skills. The study is conducted in a private deemed to be university in Andhra Pradesh.  A sample group of 120 learners are chosen for this study.  They are pursuing their first-year graduation in Computer Science Engineering.  These learners are offered an English Proficiency Course in the university and at the end of the course they appear for Cambridge Preliminary English Test, a B1 Level Language proficiency test as per Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR).  Cambridge Preliminary English Test materials are used for both pre-test and post-test of this study. The learners are divided into experimental and control groups as per their performance in pre-test.  A twelve- week intervention with scaffolded instruction in TBLT is offered to the experimental group by the researcher and the control group is taught by using Presentation-Practice-Production (PPP) method. A Post-test is conducted after the intervention for both the groups and their performance is analysed by using Software Programme for Social Sciences (SPSS).  Conclusions are drawn based on the finding of this study. 

            In the present study, the researcher has used several ways of scaffolding, called them techniques, to make the learning implicit and effective. Some of them are mentioned below. 

• Tasks are analysed on the basis of their linguistic complexity, cognitive complexity and communicative pressure.   Some of the tasks are broken down into smaller parts and presented to the learners in an increasing complexity.  The teacher ensured that the task presented are within the learners’ Zone of Proximal Development’ as suggested by Vygotsky (1935). 
• The teacher-researcher has used the task-based framework advocated by Willis (1996) in administering the tasks in the classroom.  Several Lead-in activities are conducted to revive the previous knowledge of the learners and some new linguistic information is provided in the priming stage to prepare the learners for doing the tasks. 
• The teacher-researcher has ensured at each stage of the task whether the students have understood the procedure of doing it and the goals to be reached at the end of it or not by using Instruction Check Questions (ICQs) and Comprehension Check Questions (CCQs).  
• The teacher provides enough time for the learners to complete the task and creates a collaborative learning environment by assigning pair and group work in tasks.
• The teacher explains the concepts with more examples and illustrations.  He uses multiple ways to make sure that the learners understand the process of approaching and solving problems. 
• The teacher gives a clear description about purpose, goals and sub-goals of learning activity that the learners are expected to reach.  
• Providing evaluation rubrics has also helped the learner to understand the key elements to be covered in the process of accomplishing a task. 

The teacher creates classroom conditions suitable for collaborative work and peer feedback.  The learners get the remarks and suggestions from the peers instantly on their writing and speaking performance. This also helps them learn from their peers’ performance.

Scaffolding for Listening Tasks

Teaching listening skills is considered to be one of the difficult areas in language skills development.  As both the teacher and the learner do not know how much language is acquired, it is difficult to fill the gap.  And listening to a foreign accent and comprehending it, is all new to many of the learners in the present study.   Most of the learners need strategy training in listening skills from the basics.  Scaffolding has begun with showing the distinction between hearing and listening. 

i)   Listening Task 1: The learners have to understand the key information from the short dialogues or monologues and identify the correct picture from three options. 

Scaffolding: T introduces a set of three pictures and elicit the learners’ explanation and guess about the situation of those pictures.  Ls are encouraged to predict in the pre-listening.  Ls are advised to be keen on the context and key words of the task to arrive at the correct answer.  T cautions about the distractors in all the options.  T encourages for peer check and repeated listening for accent practice with the support of audio script in the later stages.

ii)   Listening Task 2: The learners are expected to listen to a longer informative monologue or interview.  The learners have to listen for detailed understanding and should identify specific details about the listening text. 

Scaffolding: T introduces the task format.  It is choosing one from three option multiple choice questions.  T asks Ls some questions about the context of the task and directs them to see the instructions in the task sheet.  T points out certain strategies to be followed before starting the listening.  Ls are directed towards reading the task quickly before listening and predict what they are going to listen.  Ls are advised to follow the paraphrased options in the questions and to be careful about negatives, word spotting and distractors. This is a complex task involving the learners processing both receptive skills – listening and reading – simultaneously. 

iii)   Listening Task 3: The learners have to fill the gaps in the notes by following a longer monologue or speech.  They should listen to identity, understand and interpret the message. 

Scaffolding: T elicits important pieces of information about an event to explain what information is generally crucial.  T explains the structure of the task and genre of the audio.  Ls are asked to look at each gap and listen to the audio to find the information related to the given gap.  Ls are advised not to try for understanding the whole listening.  Ls focus is drawn towards the key information by predicting the listening text with the help of gaps in the task.  T reminds them of spelling and legibility of the answers. 

iv)   Listening Task 4: The task expects the learners to listen to and understand the opinions, attitudes, likes and dislikes of the speakers in a dialogue.  The learners have to decide whether the given statements are right or wrong. 

Scaffolding: T brainstorms Ls by encouraging the argument on any controversial statement.  This helps the learners to be familiar with the supporting and opposing reasons of arguments. T asks Ls to question about the context of the dialogue after playing the instructions part.  T reminds the Ls that the statements of the task are in the sequence of the listening text.  Ls are advised not to look for the exact language of the statement in the listening text.  Ls are trained to infer the meaning of paraphrased statements and compare them with the listening text.

RESULT ANALYSIS

In the collection of the demographic details and learning backgrounds of the sample group learners, a few interesting details are found in this study.  The learners have expressed their level of difficulty in dealing with various language skills and elements. 

Figure-1: Easy and difficult about English

Figure 1 shows the learners’ responses about what they feel difficult or easy about English.  The highest number of students (36%) have felt that reading is easy for them and 26 percent students express the same with writing.  The primary skills of the language, listening and speaking are considered easy by 14 percent and 19 percent students respectively and grammar and vocabulary are also not felt easier.  Only 4 percent say that grammar is easy for them and 1 percent have felt that vocabulary is easy.  A reversal of opinion is observed in what the students expressed very difficult for them about English.  31 percent have felt that vocabulary is a very difficult area for them to cope with the second language and it is followed by grammar which is felt difficult by 26 percent students. Listening and speaking skills are considered to be of moderate difficulty and 19 percent and 15 percent students have expressed their concern about them.   The academic skills reading and writing are not felt so difficult by majority of the students.  Seven percent students say that writing is difficult for them and 2 percent students say the same about reading.  They have felt that reading skill is the easiest for them and learning and using new vocabulary is the most difficult for them about English.

Figure-2: Difficulty in Listening

In finding the problems of listening comprehension in second language as shown in figure-2, 59 percent learners felt that the pace of the speakers is very difficult to follow.  Different accents used by the speakers (29%) and the speed of the speakers are the two major factors that influence the level of listening comprehension of the learners.  9 percent learners have felt that the unfamiliarity of the context which the speakers are talking about is hard to understand.  3% learners find some other problems in listening like the use of unfamiliar words, expressions and idioms by the speakers.

Listening Skills Data Analysis

Listening is one of the primary skills of a language.  Though no one denies its significance as a source of pronunciation, intonation, style etc. in the acquisition of second language, the learners are not provided any guided listening practice or the use of any strategies in listening.  When the researcher conducted the listening test as a part of pre-test, more than 90 percent students expressed that they have taken listening test for the first time in their 12 years of language learning process.  

The researcher adopted Cambridge Preliminary English Test Listening component for this study. This is a B1 level language test as per Common European Framework of Reference. There are four tasks in the listening test which focus on assessing the learners’ ability to listen and identify the key information from short conversations, monologues, interviews or longer informal dialogues.  There are different kinds of listening tasks used in pre- and post-tests.  Some of them are identifying the differences in the pictures by following the descriptions or short exchanges, understanding and interpreting the information to fill the gaps in the texts for note-taking, drawing the conclusions by identifying the opinions and attitudes of the people. 

There are multiple choice questions, gap-fills and true or false type of 25 objective questions in the listening test.  The test is conducted for 35 minutes after reading and writing components.  After the question papers are distributed to the learners, audio is played from the speakers to the whole group at once.  All possible precautions are taken to avoid any noise or disturbance from outside.  Each recording is played twice. The learners mark the answers in their question papers and transfer them later into the answer sheet.  The responses of the learners to the listening tasks are evaluated by using the answer key and the marks are normalised to the score of 170.  The results are mapped to CEFR levels of language proficiency. 

Listening Skills: Pre-test

The performance of the experimental and control group learners in the listening skills pre-test is given in Table-1.

Table-1: Students’ Performance in Listening Skills Pre-test

Listening: Pre-test	Experimental Group		Control Group
Scores (CEFR Levels)	No. of Learners	%	No. of Learners	%
80-99 (Pre-A1)	15	25	10	17
100-119 (A1)	19	32	34	57
120-139 (A2)	18	30	15	25
140-159 (B1)	7	12	1	2
160-170 (B2)	1	2	–	–

The performance of experimental group learners in listening skills is found more in the first three levels of language proficiency.  There are 15 learners who scored between 80 and 99, 19 learners scored between 100 and 119, while 18 learners scored between 120 and 139, 7 learners scored between 140 and 159 and only one learner scored above 160. The performance of control group learners is the highest in the score of 100 and 119 range as there are 34 learners who showed their proficiency at this level.  10 learners are at Pre-A1 level with the score between 80 and 99.  Another 15 students have scored between 120 and 139.  There is only one learner at the score range of 140 and 159.  

Figure-3: Listening Skills Performance in Pre-test

The performance of learners in both the groups in listening skills is shown lucidly with percentages in Figure-3. The lines in the figure show that one fourth (25%) of experimental group learners are at pre-A1 level in the listening skills pre-test while 17 percent of control group learners are at this level.  32 percent of experimental group learners score at A1 level, where as 57 percent of control group learners performed at this level.  There are 30 and 25 percent learners at A2 level from experimental and control groups respectively.  There are 12 percent learners from the experimental group at B1 level but only two percent control group learners have performed at this level. Only 2 percent of experimental group learners have shown their listening skills performance at B2 level where there is no performance from control group.

Listening Skills: Post-test

During the intervention, the researcher has paid more attention to alleviating the fears of learners about listening skills. The production of English sounds is explained to the learners with pictures and videos.  The learners are engaged in a lot of pair and group activities to practice the accent and to find the specific and detailed meaning of the speakers in monologues and dialogues.  The listening tasks have been done repeatedly with and without relying on audio scripts.  The following Table-2 illustrates the performance of the learners from both the groups in the post-test of listening skills.  

Table-2: Students’ Performance in Listening Skills Post-test

Listening: Post-test	Experimental Group		Control Group
Scores (CEFR Levels)	No. of Learners	%	No. of Learners	%
80-99 (Pre-A1)	–	–	–	–
100-119 (A1)	5	8	7	12
120-139 (A2)	37	62	49	82
140-159 (B1)	13	22	4	7
160-170 (B2)	5	8	–	–

It is good to observe that there are no learners at Pre-A1 level language proficiency in listening skills post-test.  There are only 5 learners from experimental group and 7 learners from control group who have scored between 100 and 119.  There are 37 learners from experimental group who have scored between 120 and 139, where as 49 learners of control group scored at this range.   Another 13 learners of experimental group have scored between 140 and 159 but only 4 learners of control group reached to this score.  There is no learner from the control group who scored above 160 but 5 learners from experimental group have performed at B2 level with the scores between 160 and 170.  The detailed graphical view of this performance is presented in Figure-4.

Figure 4: Listening Skills Performance in Post-test

The listening skills post-test performance of the learners is relatively better than the pre-test performance.  There are no learners from both the groups at Pre-A1 level.  There are 8 percent learners from experimental group and 12 percent learners from control group who have scored at A1 level.  Majority of the learners from both the groups – 62 percent from experimental and 82 percent from control groups – are at A2 level, just below the targeted B1 level.  22 percent learners from experimental group have performed at B1 level and another 8 percent at B2 level.  No control group learner could reach B2 level and there is only 7 percent of learners of that group reached to B1 level.   

Listening Skills: Mean Scores of Pre- and post-tests

The statistically important data form the pre- and post-tests of listening is presented in Table-3.  The mean scores and standard deviation of both experimental and control group learners are presented. 

Table-3: Statistics of Listening Skills Pre & Post-tests

Listening: Pre & Post-tests		Mean	N	Std. Deviation	Std. Error Mean
Pre-test	Exp.Listening	113.33	60	22.904	2.9568
	Con.Listening	111.29	60	13.77	1.7777
Post-test	Exp.Listening	137.07	60	13.726	1.772
	Con.Listening	128.83	60	9.037	1.167

The mean scores of both experimental and control groups in both pre- and post-tests of listening skills show that there is a progress in the learners of both the groups form pre-test to post-test.    The mean score of experimental group has progressed from 113 to 137.  The mean score of control group has also improved from 111 to 129.  It is important to note that the pre-test performance is at A1 level for both the groups and it has improved to only A2 level in posts-test.  The table also shows the Standard Deviation and the Standard Error Mean of the results test-wise and group-wise. The mean scores of experimental and control groups in pre- and post-tests of listening skills are illustrated clearly in Figure 5.

Figure-5: Mean scores of Listening skills Test-wise and Group-wise

Listening: Paired Samples two tailed t-Test

As mentioned in the earlier section of this chapter, the P value shows whether the difference between the mean scores of both groups in pre-test and post-test is significant or not. The test-wise analysis of the learners’ performance in listening skills is shown in Table-4. 

Table-4: Statistics of Paired Samples t-test on Listening Skills

Listening: Paired Samples t-Test		Paired Differences					t	df	Sig.      (2-tailed)
		Mean	Std. Deviation	Std. Error Mean	95% Confidence Interval of the Difference
					Lower	Upper			P
Pre-test	EG & CG	2.04	25.329	3.27	4.5032	8.5832	0.624	59	0.535
Post-test	EG &CG	8.233	17.786	2.296	3.639	12.828	3.586	59	0.001*
*  The Value of P is < 0.05.  Hence, the difference is significant.

The P value of paired groups in listening skills pre-test is 0.535.  This value is more than 0.05 (P > 0.05).  It means that there is no significant difference between the listening skills performance of control group learners and experimental group learners in the pre-test.  The P value of paired groups in listening skills post-test is 0.001.  This value is less than 0.05 (P < 0.05).  It means that there is a significant difference between the listening skills performance of experimental group learners and control group learners in the post-test.  It implies that the learners of experimental group have performed better in listening skills post-test than the learners of control group in the same test.

FINDINGS & CONCLUSION

Practising and testing of listening skill is an entirely new area for many learners.  The listening activity is scaffolded by making the learners expose the very small aspects of listening one after the other.  Showing the difference between hearing and listening, practice on minimal pairs to understand accent better, presenting the task before the audio, predicting or guessing the content before listening, guiding when to use and how to use audio scripts are some of the features of scaffolding used in listening.  The analysis of the data shows that the learners of experimental group performed better than the learners of control group in listening post-test.  

Learners could understand and respond positively to the strategies suggested for comprehending listening and reading texts.  Activating the learners’ previous knowledge and relating it to understand the new information, understanding the task before going to read or listen to it, predicting the context of the text with the help of task or pictures, focus on one thing at a time while using sub-skills etc., are a few strategies that the learners have used effectively in TBA. The study has revealed that ‘scaffolding’ techniques enable the learners to understand the process of learning a second language.  The learners are able to follow a systematic procedure for moving from simple to complex parts of the tasks.  The teacher’s support and guidance in the initial stages of accomplishing the tasks help the learners to expand their zones of proximal development. 

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