improving listening comprehension via Internet

[morteza_barin]

Hi my dear friends,
I'm an English teacher-student in Iran working on "the effect of internet-based listening tasks on listening comprehension of Iranian EFL high school students.I'll be very happy if you send me much info and comments on this topic or if somebody is working on such topic please inform me.Best wishes Morteza Barin

[Lorikeet]

I'm just curious. How are you going to test your hypothesis? (And what is your hypothesis?) Will you give some sort of listening test before, and have half the students study on the Internet and half not, and then test again? Would the other half of the students do other kinds of listening exercises?

[kathyfelts]

I think that "Research Questions" would make a great forum topic Researchers at any level - HS, undergrad, grad, post-grad, professional - could have a place to discuss research.

Hi,

This sounds like an interesting topic. I have a few questions that might help you clarify your thinking about how to approach your task.

1. What do you see as the difference between Internet-based listening material and material available off-line such as CD's, audiotapes and MP3 files? What is your reason for inquiring about "Internet-based" listening comprehension effects? How do you see Internet-based material or availability as being different from tradition delivery?

2. If you plan to present a hypothesis, what is it? Have you identified specific websites and material? If so, what were your reasons for choosing the content you chose? Have you established a group to test? Have you established an instructional plan detailing how often students would listen to the material and for how long? Have you written a pre-test and post-test based on specific material?

If this is not the approach you plan to use - testing a hypothesis - maybe you could research the topic of "Material available on the Internet for increasing listening comprehension" - a good topic for all of us to know more about. Another idea would be to survey student attitudes toward increasing listening comprehension by using Internet-based resources. Surveys are valuable and easy to do. You make up the questions, create a scale, hand out the surveys, collect and analyze the date, and draw conclusions based on the data. Some professors want quanitative data, but that doesn't mean you cannot have a qualitative research model.

Another idea is to gather a group of students or teachers to help you locate and evaluate Internet-based material. That kind of research can be very valuable to everyone since web content changes by the minute.

You could do comprehensive research on what is available for teachers and students to use. You could talk about the suitability of specific content to learning goals, or student attitudes toward specific topics or genres.The benefit of this approach is that you do not have to pre-test and post-test a particular group of students - students who would have to have good, prolonged access to the Internet. If you are sure that you want to use the pre-test/post-test model, perhaps you could consider locating material that is available for download. You could transfer it to whatever storage device you have - including CD or audiotape - but MP3 players as well.

I wish you success in your project!

Kathy