Learning/Acquiring English Phrasal Verbs

Introduction
The dichotomy learning/acquisition has raised debates and controversies as to the nature and the development of the processes which contribute to their realisation. For a long time, it has been established that we acquire one’s first language and we learn any other language which is not our first language. Nowadays, this distinction no longer satisfies our understanding derived both from day to day observation and more organised research.
In this paper, we will refer to the foundations of Second Language Acquisition and will analyse the case of phrasal verbs, an area of grammar not always focused on and not always understood because of its complexity. We will report on the results of an investigation of the degree of acquisition of phrasal verbs by advanced learners of English as a foreign language at University level.
1. Foundations of Second Language Acquisition
Foreign language acquisition research took place around the 1960s where empirical research was directed at describing the characteristics of the learner’s language and how these change as acquisition takes place.
The starting point of foreign language acquisition investigation is the identification of the universal characteristics of foreign language acquisition. The description of the language learner provides an account of the learner’s competence in terms of grammatical competence, discourse competence (the ability to use grammatical competence to make cohesive and coherent texts), sociolinguistic competence (the ability to use language appropriately in different contexts) and strategic competence (the ability to compensate for difficulties and make the use of language effective)(Canale and Swain, 1980,cited in Ellis and Roberts, 1987:19).
The next step is an explanation of how learners develop knowledge of the foreign language and how they use this knowledge in communication. Both external and internal factors play a role in foreign language acquisition. External factors relate to the role played by the social situation in which learning takes place and how the input accounts for acquisition through observation of the output. The choice of the language used is seen to be affected by whom the learner is speaking to (the interlocutor), where, when, why (the purpose of communication) and what is to be communicated. Internal factors relate to the mental processes that the learners use to convert input into knowledge, to internalise knowledge of the foreign language.
Krashen (1981, 1982, 1985) puts forward a theory of second language acquisition that consists of five hypotheses. First, the Acquisition / Learning Hypothsis states that there are two ways of developing ability in the foreign language: acquisition – an unconscious process that involves the natural development of language proficiency through understanding language and using language for meaningful communication that results in “knowing how” the language functions – and learning – a conscious process that results in “knowing about” the language, learning the rules that make up the language. The acquisition process results in an implicit store of knowledge and the learning process in an explicit store of knowledge viewed as a facilitator of implicit knowledge, as it enables learners to notice features in the input and compare them with their interlanguage – the internal system that a learner has constructed over time, the mental grammar that a learner has constructed in the process of acquiring a foreign language. Second, according to the Natural Order Hypothesis, we acquire the rules of a language in a predictable order, some rules tending to come early and others late. Third, the Monitor Hypothesis considers that our ability to produce language comes from our acquired comprehension; learning serves only as a monitor. We resort to learning – our conscious knowledge of the language – to make corrections in the output of the acquired system. Fourth, according to the Input Hypothesis, acquisition takes place through receiving and understanding “Comprehensible Input”. If there is enough comprehensible input, the necessary grammar is automatically provided. Fifth, the Affective Filter Hypothesis is based on the idea that when the affective filter – this mental block preventing learners from fully assimilating the comprehensible input they receive – is up as when they are unmotivated, lacking in self-confidence or anxious, the input may be understood, but it will not reach the acquisition process.
Empirical evidence has shown that certain language items are learnt, others acquired. In some cases, acquisition has taken place, but the rules are not used. This corresponds to the process of “fossilisation”, the process by which non-target forms become fixed in the interlanguage. This takes place when there is insufficiant quantity of input, inappropriate quality of input, acquisition of deviant forms and when the affective filter and the output filter which prevent acquired rules from being used are up.
2. Place of Phrasal Verbs in Grammar Books
We will now look at one case of learning / acquiring a foreign language – phrasal verbs. We believe that in order to develop a rapid acquisition, the teaching methodology has to be appropriate to the type of element to be acquired. We do not teach all the elements of the language the same way, with the same amount of time. Besides, teaching overtly certain language elements does not always produce a rapid acquisition of these elements; they have to go through their natural route of development. For example, the “s” third person singular rule is a very easy rule to teach, to apply in exercises, but it takes years for the Algerian learners to acquire it. Why is such a simple rule to learn difficult to acquire? The likely reasons are lack of reciprocity in the first language and incoherence of the rule – “s” is a mark for plural nouns and a mark of singular for verbs. Lack of systematicity of the rule makes it a very late acquired rule.
What is the case of phrasal verbs? Before we investigated the degree of acquisition of phrasal verbs of advanced learners of English as a foreign language at university level, we looked at the place and methodology of teaching phrasal verbs in a certain number of Grammar books (See References for 2. : The Place of Phrasal Verbs in Grammar Books).
Allsop (1983) uses the expression “phrasal verbs” to refer to three patterns:
• V + Adv. : Give up.
• V + Prep. : Look after.
• V + Adv. + Prep. : Get down to.
and the term “particle” to refer to the adverb or preposition which follow the verb. He gives a list of particles which function :
• only as prepositions :
- after : Look after your sister.
- against : Don’t go against the rules.
- at : Get at the meaning.
- For : Stand for what you believe in.
- from : She comes from the South.
- into : Go into the question.
- like : It looks like it.
- to : Get down to work.
- With : Put up with your sister.
- Without : Go without food.
• only as adverbs :
- away : Don’t run away.
- Back : Take it back.
- Forward : Bring the date forward.
- Out : Put the lights out.
• as prepositions or adverbs : most particles may function as a preposition or an adverb. The most common ones are about, across, along, around, before, up, under, through, round, behind, by, down, in, off, on, over.
What distinguishes the prepositional verb (V+Prep.) and the phrasal verb (V+ Adv.) is :
1. the place of the object : when the object can be inserted between the verb and the particle, the latter is an adverb ; when it cannot, it is a preposition.
Eg : Look it up .
Adv.
Eg : Look up the street .
Prep.
In the first case, “up” is part of the meaning of the verb (what must I look?) .
In the second one, it relates to the object (Where must I look?).
2. The stress pattern: in a V + Prep., stress is on the verb ;
in a V + Adverb.,stress is on the particle or equally on the verb and the
particle.
In relation to the word order in phrasal verbs, in other words, should the object be between the verb and the particle or at the end, the choice may depend on a slight change of meaning, on the rythm of the sentence or on personal preference of the speaker.
Eg : - Put away your toys.
- Put your toys away.
- Put them away.
(a personal pronoun object is always between the verb and particle).
- Put away all what you have bought today.
(a long object is always at the end).
Phrasal verbs are very common and widely used by native speakers of English, both in everyday speech and in writing. They form a great part of the language and are constantly being created or other meanings of the already existing ones are added.
A certain number of phrasal verbs have a corresponding one word verb, usually of classical (Latin or Greek) origin (to give up: to abondon), but the single word can often sound odd or too formal in everyday speech where the phrasal verb is expected.
On the whole, the meaning of phrasal verbs can be derived from the verb, from the particle or from the two if the parts of the phrasal verb have their literal meaning or only a slightly transferred meaning (not literal, metaphorical).
Eg : He sat down. (Literal meaning).
Eg : He tore the notice do. (Slightly transferred meaning).
We can guess the meaning of many phrasal verbs like to get up, to go up / down, to send away, to take away, to bring back. However, many phrasal verbs have a meaning which cannot easily be deduced from the meaning of the parts of the verb, a transferred or metaphorical meaning.
Eg : He gave up smoking. (stopped).
These kind of phrasal verbs can only be learned by experience and with the help of a dictionary. What also creates difficulty in understanding phrasal verbs is that sometimes a phrasal verb has several meanings.
Eg : Take your glasses off. (remove).
Eg : The plane took off. (left the ground).
Eg : He is a wonderful mimic, he can take off most people. (impersonate).
Eg : Do you think this book will take off? (be a success): this is a metaphorical use
of “take off” associated to the planes and is typical of the way in which the
meaning and use of phrasal verbs grows.
Chalker (1984) draws the attention to the fact that what distinguishes the prepositional and the phrasal verb is the place of an adverb: in a prepositional verb, it can be between the stem and the preposition, not in the case of a phrasal verb.
Eg : He looked (briefly) at the timetable.
Adv.
Eg : He (eagerly) looked up the word in the dictionary.
Adv.
Eastwood (2006) gives a list of the phrasal verbs which have as equivalent a one word verb usually from Latin origin and considered formal.
- to find out : to discover.
- to go back : to return.
- to go on : to continue.
- to leave out : to omit.
- to make up (a story) : to invent.
- to put off : to postpone.
- to hand (send) out : to distribute.
- to throw away : to discard.
- to turn up : to arrive.
We note that these one-word verbs are easier for us to remember .
Fucks & al (2003) and Maurer (2004) explain the difference between phrasal verbs in terms of separable phrasal verbs where the object can be inserted between the stem and the particle, and inseparable phrasal verbs where the stem and the particle cannot be separated by the object.
Inseparable :Eg : She ran into the man in front of her .
Eg: She ran into her friend in the market .
Separable : Eg: She looked up the information in the dictionary.
She looked the information up. She looked it up.
Leech and Svartvick (1975) clearly distinguish between prepositional verbs and phrasal verbs. They mention the three reasons we have already mentioned :
1. the difference of stress,
2. the difference in the place of the object,
3. the difference in the place of the adverb,
and add a fourth reason:
4. the difference in the use of a relative pronoun: prepositional verbs accept a relative pronoun after the preposition, not phrasal verbs.
Eg: The men (whom) they called up.
but not The men (whom) they called on.
In Lekeu (1997), each unit has a section about phrasal verbs. The directions are “add an ‘adverbial particle’ to the verbs”. For example, “Our summer dresses were cheap and sold ........ fast (were all quickly sold)”. The expected ‘adverbial particle’ is “out”.
Lott (2005) has an extensive list of phrasal verbs per category with examples (V+Adv. (Transi.), V+Adv.+ing. Form, V+O+Adv. and V+Adv.+Prep.+O) followed by exercises including these phrasal verbs.
In Loughed (2006), the mystery of prepositions (as the title of the book says) is tackled throughout the book in chapters labelled in types of prepositions: time, place, cause ... . The methodology used is to:
1.choose the appropriate preposition in context : a guided activity,
2.select an appropriate preposition in a narrowly defined situation:a guided activity,
3.use prepositions in sentences, which is a free production.
Murphy (2004) deals with phrasal verbs through a series of exercises and some reference to general rules about the place of the preposition. The units about phrasal verbs are divided in terms of the nature of the preposition: in, out, ... .
Shrampfer Azar (2002) devotes eight appendixes to phrasal verbs with the directions: “Supply appropriate prepositions for these two and three-word verbs”.
The following table sums up the major terms used in relation to phrasal verbs.
Term Definition and / or Example
1. One word verb Eg: to look. He looks ill.
2. A two-word verb Eg: to look up. Look up the street
3. A three-word verb Eg: to look up to. He looks up to his father.
4. Prepositional verb V+Prep. Eg: He looks at her.
5. Phrasal verb V+Adv. + Prep. Eg: He looks forward to meeting.
6.Particle/Adverbial An adverb or preposition used in a multi-word verb.
7. Preposition A word that precedes a word which it governs, usually a Nor a N phrase.
8. Adverb A word that modifies or qualifies a verb, an adjective or another adverb.
9. Adverbial Any word, phrase or clause used like an Adverb.
10.Separable Phrasal Verb A multi-word V which can be separated by an O. Eg: Look it up.
11.Inseparable Phrasal Verb Amulti-word Vwhich cannot be separated by an O.Eg:Look up the street.

3.Acquisition of Phrasal Verbs by Advanced Learners of English as a Foreign Language at University Level
As further back as my early years of learning my first and second language (French and Strandard Arabic), I have always expressed the need to understand why such a language element is formed and functions in such a way . When I studied English, my urge to understand why has not stopped. I remember asking my English teacher “Why can’t we say I can to work”? and I distinctly remember her shocked face and her “arrogant” answer: “you ask too many questions, it’s just like that.” I knew “it was like that”, but I wanted to understand WHY it was like that. Can grammar tell us why it is like that?!It tells us how it is more than why. It is clearly the case of phrasal verbs.
Teaching phrasal verbs is one of the most difficult area in grammar because of the lack of systematicity of the rule – if there is one , and as we have just said , not all grammar books deal with this aspect, and when they do, they do it in a variety of ways. We undertook to find out how much of this teaching background has produced acquisition in advanced learners of English as a foreign language at university level, how much knowledge of this thorny area learners who have gone through four years of English at university level, who are presently teaching at the university has been acquired. We invited all the teachers in our Department, holding a B.A or a Master and having graduated in the last ten years to take part in the study (75) and 57 came to take part in this investigation. The informants were formally invited to take part in this study but were not told the object of the investigation so that they would answer the test spontaneously – without any special preparation. The informants are classified into three categories: holders of a B.A; not registered in a Master (20), holders of a B.A, registered in a Master (26: this year : 15, in the past three years : 11) and holders of a Master (11: registered in a Ph.D :05, not registered in a Ph.D : 06).
Before the test the informants answered, we wanted to find out whether they knew the expression “Phrasal Verbs” , and if “yes”, what they thought it meant. Only four informants from Category I said that they did not know the expression; the others gave a satisfactory definition.
The test is made up of four parts – Definitions, Matching, Multiple-Choice and Cloze Procedure – each part involving ten phrasal verbs. The choice of these activities is related to the nature of the task required to be performed. As to Definitions, if an informant can define a word, an expression, it shows understanding. Matching offers the possibility to identify the phrasal verbs, think about their meaning, definition, use before inserting them in the blanks. Multiple Choice offers the same type of activity as Matching, except that for each blank, three possibilities are provided – one distractor is made up of the right base verb plus another particle, and the other distractor is made up of another verb plus the right particle. The Cloze Procedure is made up of a text with blanks to be freely filled in. This activity is the one which tells us most about whether the informants know a phrasal verb – whether the one we have omitted or another one which fits the context. These four activities, requiring different performances, different strategies will enable us to see to what extent they can put words on a phrasal verb (Definition), identify the right phrasal verb (Matching), choose (and use) the right phrasal verb (Multiple Choice) ,and use phrasal verbs (Cloze Procedure).We had thought about the highest level – free production, but we decided against it because it requires a large scale operation, and there is no guarantee that the informants would use phrasal verbs (avoidance phenomenon).
The fourty phrasal verbs included in the four activities (ten per activity) have been selected according to three criteria.
• I know the phrasal verb .
• The likelihood that the majority of the informants can at least understand the phrasal verbs .
• An advanced learner of Category III of the informants knows the majority of the phrasal verbs.
The phrasal verbs combine a variety of particles and relate more to a formal use (academic use).
The texts used for Matching, Multiple Choice and Cloze Procedure were selected according to the nature of:
• the topic: topics specific to women or men or requiring a specific knowledge were discarded,
• the discourse, style, vocabulary, structure: the combination of these elements had to be at the informants’ level.

Table 1: List of Phrasal Verbs per Activity
Definition Matching Multiple Choice Cloze Procedure
1. to call in to go through to go through to open up
2. to catch up to mark down to put away to break into
3. to hand over to check against to look for to switch off
4. to identify with to lie down to ask for to cut off
5. to knock out to drift off to hand in to send for
6. to keep at to give out to put off to arrive at
7. to narrow down to come up with to call off to write down
8. to pass out to tear up to talk over with to sweep up
9. to sleep on to believe in to come across to carry out
10. to show off to say about to leave behind to beat up

Looking at the phrasal verbs which had the highest scores in Category I, we see that these phrasal verbs had higher scores in Category II and Category III, except for “to knock out” which had slightly lower scores in Category II and for “to identify with” which had lower scores in Category III; 45.46% of Category III of the informants, the most advanced learners , said they were not sure about “to identify with”. This seems strange, but in fact it shows that when they were sure, they gave the right definitions. “To show off” is less known by Category I, but on the whole, it is an acquired phrasal verb which must have been come across in different texts and focused on in teaching.
The phrasal verbs known by the majority of Category II and Category III are the same, except for “to pass out” (to become unconscious or to give something to somebody), which is not known by the majority of Category II. As we will see later, this phrasal verb is easily confused with “to pass away” (to die).
Our next analysis focuses on the definitions provided by the informants when they said they knew the phrasal verb and gave the right or wrong definition, and when they said they were not sure and gave the right or wrong definition.


If it is rather expected to give a wrong definition when we are not sure about a definition, it is less expected to get a wrong definition when we say we know the definition.

talk about Christmas – an EFL lesson plan

Introduction

In 1983, Howard Gardner, the creator of the Multiple Intelligences (MI) Theory, suggested that all individuals have personal intelligence profiles that consist of combinations of seven different intelligence types. These intelligences were verbal-linguistic, logical-mathematical, visual-spatial, bodily-kinaesthetic, musical-rhythmic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal (Gardner 1983, 1993). Gardner later added an eighth intelligence type to the list, that of naturalist intelligence, and at the same time suggested that there might also exist a ninth intelligence type, that of existentialist intelligence (Gardner 1999).

The purpose of this paper is to outline a lesson plan that caters for these intelligence types and at the same time optimises learners’ talking time. The lesson is aimed at secondary school-level learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) and focuses on a recurring festival: Christmas. Its main goal is to enable learners to discuss this religious event with English-speaking friends. In order to maintain maximal learner activity and interest throughout the lesson, it comprises a variety of language activities and teaching techniques. Special attention has been paid to co-operative learning and peer teaching because, as pointed out by e.g. Anita Woolfolk, the best teacher for a student is another student (Woolfolk 2001).


The sample lesson:

Phase One

The teacher introduces the teaching goals of the lesson.

Phase Two

The teacher hands out a worksheet containing two columns of Christmas-related vocabulary items (homework from the previous lesson). One column lists English words and the second words in the learners’ mother tongue. The learners’ task is to match the English words with their mother-tongue equivalents.

Phase Three

The teacher displays the correct answers on an OH transparency and divides the class into five groups. S/he next provides each learner with an individual worksheet and invites the groups to work at five independent learning stations (one group per station), i.e. pre-designated places in the classroom where each place has been allocated to a specific type of language task. The learners are told that although they have to work as a group, each learner is responsible for filling in all answers in his or her worksheet. They are also told that they have no correct answers at their disposal. At five-minute intervals (timed and announced by the teacher) the groups move on to the next learning station.

At Station A learners have to study a detailed picture of a living-room decorated for Christmas (suitable pictures can be found in course books and on the internet or they can be created or modified by the teacher for the present purposes). There are various kinds of mistakes in the picture, both misspellings (e.g. in Christmas greetings) and logical inconsistencies (e.g. a wall calendar displaying July the 31st or an object placed upside down). The learners’ task is to spot as many mistakes as possible.

At Station B learners have to categorise given objects (e.g. a reindeer, a sleigh, and a snowman) according to what one can do with them. Which of the objects can be found in a forest, bought in a department store, eaten, wrapped up in a parcel, or put into somebody’s pocket?

At Station C there is a computer preset to show a video clip selected from the Video Nation website. In the video clip, entitled “Christmas List”, a little girl called Sheri is writing her Christmas list to Father Christmas. The learners’ task is to watch the video clip and answer the following questions: What presents does Sheri want? Where does she send the letter? How will she get her presents? What will she do when she wakes up at Christmas?

At Station D learners have to match the halves of about twenty words that have been chopped in half. One of the words, however, is not a Christmas word. Which word is it?

At Station E there is a computer preset to play “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”, selected from the Christmas carol collection presented on the Twelve Days of Christmas website. The learners’ task is to listen to the song while reading the song text displayed on the computer screen. When the learners have listened to the song they have to turn away from the screen and fill in the missing words in their individual worksheets (indicated by gaps in the song text).

Phase Four

When all learning stations have been visited by all groups, the teacher divides the learners into new groups. In groups of three or four, the learners compare the notes in their worksheets and agree upon the correct answer for each task.

Phase Five

The teacher introduces a communicative task requesting learners to move around in the classroom and interview their classmates about their Christmas habits (this is a modified version of a task entitled “On Christmas Eve”; Christison 2005). More specifically, the learners have to find out at what time their friends normally get up, go to bed, have breakfast, have lunch, have dinner, exchange presents, and watch television. They also have to make notes in the individual worksheets provided by the teacher.

Phase Six

After ten minutes the teacher invites the learners to compare their notes in order to specify the range of times that people prefer to perform the various activities. What is the biggest time difference between the earliest time and the latest time at which someone prefers to perform a certain activity?

Phase Seven

Next, the teacher organises the learners into new groups consisting of four to six people. The task is to decide which activity has the biggest time difference (it will most probably be either exchanging presents or watching television) and to discuss the possible reason/s for this.

Phase Eight

The teacher asks the learners to start working on individual essays entitled “What Christmas means to me” based on the group discussions and to finish them at home for the next EFL lesson. He or she also challenges the learners to incorporate as many different Christmas words as possible into their essays.


Characteristics of learners representing different intelligence types

According to Gardner (1983, 1993, 1999), Berman (2002) and Christison (2005), verbal-linguistic learners enjoy expressing themselves orally and in writing and love wordplay, riddles and listening to stories. Logical-mathematical learners display an aptitude for numbers, reasoning and problem solving, whereas visual-spatial learners tend to think in pictures and mental images and enjoy illustrations, charts, tables and maps. Bodily-kinaesthetic learners experience learning best through various kinds of movement, while musical-rhythmic learners learn best through songs, patterns, rhythms and musical expression. Intrapersonal learners are reflective and intuitive about how and what they learn, whereas interpersonal learners like to interact with others and learn best in groups or with a partner. Naturalist learners love the outdoors and enjoy classifying and categorising activities. Existentialist learners, finally, are concerned with philosophical issues such as the status of mankind in relation to universal existence.


Catering for the various intelligence types

The various intelligence types are catered for (especially) during the following phases of the EFL lesson outlined above:

verbal-linguistic learners: all phases;
logical-mathematical learners: phase 3 (stations A & D) & phase 6;
visual-spatial learners: phase 3 (stations A, C & E);
bodily-kinaesthetic learners: phase 3 (moving between stations) & phase 5;
musical-rhythmic learners: phase 3 (station E);
interpersonal learners: phases 3, 4, 5, 6 & 7;
intrapersonal learners: phases 1, 2 & 8;
naturalist learners: phase 3 (station B);
existentialist learners: phases 1 & 8.


Conclusion

As early as 1976, Earl Stevick pointed out that memory works at its best when the new subject matter appeals to the learners and they can organise what they are learning into familiar patterns (Stevick 1976). The ability to remember new vocabulary items is further increased when learners are allowed to use their imagination during the learning process. Conscious effort (referred to by Stevick as ‘depth’) is required from learners in order to enable the target vocabulary to be properly processed and transferred from the short-term memory into the long-term memory.

From a teaching point of view, therefore, the important thing is not whether teachers elect to base their teaching on specific course books or whether they reserve the right to interpret, select and use the types of classroom activities that can cater for the intelligence profiles of their particular learner group. It is far more important for teachers to realise that learners are in fact different and therefore require different types of classroom activities and techniques in order to code the new information successfully and store it in their long-term memory. Only in doing so can teachers fully encourage their learners to try harder and at the same time make the learning environment as meaningful and enjoyable as possible for the parties involved.


References

Berman, Michael (2002). A Multiple Intelligences Road to an ELT Classroom. Carmarthen: Crown House Publishing. Second edition.
Christison, Mary Ann (2005). Multiple Intelligences and Language Learning. San Francisco: Alta Books.
Gardner, Howard (1983). Frames of mind. The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. New York: Basic Books.
Gardner, Howard (1993). Multiple Intelligences. The Theory in Practice. New York: Basic Books.
Gardner, Howard (1999). Intelligence Reframed. Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century. New York: Basic Books.
Stevick, Earl (1976). Memory, Meaning and Method. Rowley: Newbury House.
The Twelve Days of Christmas.
Video Nation. .
Woolfolk, Anita (2001). Educational Psychology. Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Eighth edition.

Effects of the Competency-based Integrated Training (CBIT) on the Secondary School English Teachers’

Issues in teacher self-efficacy beliefs have received significant attention for the last three decades. Although there are still differences in terms of the constructs, researchers seem to suggest that teacher efficacy is an important aspect of teachers’ professional life. This paper discusses findings of a survey about the effect of Competency-based Integrated training (CBIT) initiated by the Indonesian MoNE on the secondary school English teachers’ self efficacy beliefs for curriculum implementation in Yogyakarta Province, Indonesia.
The findings discussed in this paper are based on two types of data collected in January – February 2007. The first type of data was collected from 152 English teachers in the province using a five subscale questionnaire in a two-time frame and was analysed using the Repeated Measures MANOVA. The second type of data was collected using an interview protocol and was analysed using the QSR NVivo 7 packages.
Although findings from quantitative data suggest that there are significant differences in the teachers’ efficacy beliefs before and after the CBIT, interviews with some of the teacher sample, however, reveal different aspirations when asked about the contribution of such trainings on their confidence in implementing teaching in the classroom. The findings provide an important implication on the efforts of improving the teaching quality in Indonesian context.
Key words: Competency-based integrated training, teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs

A. Introduction
Teaching English in Indonesia
English has become an important foreign language in Indonesia. This perceived importance is recognized by the Indonesian government in the Law No. 20, 2003 concerning the National Education System. Item 36.1.3 of Chapter Explanation of the law, states that foreign languages, in this case English, is an important international language in establishing global relationships. Another part of the law emphasizes the government’s awareness of the need of good education system in global life (Department of Justice, 2003). The importance of the teaching of English is also signalled by the government program that includes English language teaching in the elementary school curriculum. Furthermore, since 2004 the government has established a pilot program to include English in grades four, five and six of elementary school curriculum, especially for schools in cities.
In addition, issues in English teaching in Indonesia have been interesting, especially when concerned with the teaching philosophy, methods, curriculum, assessment and more importantly the students’ achievement. In terms of the philosophy of learning English, Dardjowidjojo (2000 in Lee, 2004) has stated that there have been changes in the philosophy of teaching English in Indonesia. These changes have affected the approaches and methods in the English teaching. Lee (2004) has noted several approaches of English teaching implemented in Indonesia, such as the Grammar Translation Methods (GTM) in 1940s to the beginning of 1960s, the Oral-Aural Methods from 1968 to early 1970s, the Audio-lingual in 1975, the Communicative approach in 1984, the Meaningfulness approach in 1994, and the Literacy approach, which is the latest approach recommended in the teaching of English in Indonesia (Lee, 2004). These changes in the approaches do not end the long debate among experts in English teaching in Indonesia concerning the best suited teaching methods for the subjects.
Debates are also common in terms of the curriculum and the assessment implemented in the teaching of English in the country. Curriculum which normally changes every ten years in the Indonesian context seems to stimulate a never ending discussion among experts. Among the issues, one concerned with students’ achievement seems to be very crucial. This is perhaps because students’ achievement is not only the concern of schools, but also the parents, and even the society and the government. The issue of students’ achievement seems to be ever present whenever forums of English teachers are held. Although English has been a compulsory subject at junior secondary school early from the first year or Year Seven, it does not bring about satisfactory result in both their communication skills and their English National Exam score at the end of the Junior secondary school period. As reported by the Ministry of National education, the National Examination national average score of English is 6.61 for Junior high school students, which was only 0.60 above the national passing grade standard for year 2005-2006. Abas Ali even says that the teaching of English in Indonesia is of total failure because the ability of the students in all four language skills is not operational (Media Indonesia, 2000). The issue of low achievement is very often said as due to the changing of curriculum, low relevance in education program and low quality of teachers.
Increased perceived importance of teachers’ roles
The significant roles of teachers have also been increasing since the implementation of the competency-based education, which was marked by the launch of the draft of the Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan (KTSP) which was initially called the Competency-based Curriculum (MoNE, 2003). Since the preparation of this curriculum, the roles of teachers have been considered vital not only in conducting teaching in the classroom but also in preparing the lessons. Teachers are considered know best about the appropriate classroom activities and interaction for the students, more specifically concerning the levels and the needs of the students. This is because teachers are assumed to better understand the special characteristics of their students, the availability of the teaching equipment in the school, and even the support of the society around the school. Therefore, based on this assumption teachers have been assigned new tasks related to the development of materials to be presented in the classroom. This is new because they used to implement materials prescribed by the curriculum (MoNE, 2003)
Through the assignment of these new tasks, teachers are expected to be ready not only to decide whatever materials to bring into the classroom but also to take the responsibility for what they have chosen. In doing so, teachers are expected to have access to the power of decision making. More importantly, teachers are supposedly ready to act autonomously given access is available for them.
The significant increase in the perceived importance of teachers’ roles and function in education was further emphasized through the issue of Law No. 14, 2005 concerning the work of teachers and lecturers. In this regulation, the government acknowledges the importance of teachers in shaping and supporting the development of future generations. With this law the government emphasizes the importance of both empowering teachers and at the same time improving the quality of teachers. This law is designed to support the improvement of access to education, educational quality, relevance and accountability in the face of local, national and global demand (MoNE, 2006).
B. Review of the Literatures
Teacher self-efficacy beliefs
Teacher self-efficacy beliefs have received significant and increasing attention over the last three decades. At an early stage, Bandura (1977) defined perceived self-efficacy as people’s beliefs about their capabilities to produce designated levels of performance that exercises influence over events that affect their lives (Friedman, 1998). In its development, however, the concept was extended to embrace people’s beliefs about their ability to exercise control over events that affect their lives (Bandura, 1989), and extended even further to encompass beliefs in peoples’ capabilities to mobilize the motivation, cognitive resources and course of action needed to exercise control over task demands (Bandura, 1990).
Based on this general definition of efficacy beliefs, teacher self-efficacy has been defined as teachers’ judgment about their capability to bring about desired outcome of students’ engagement and learning, even among those students who may be difficult and unmotivated (Bandura, 1977b; Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, 2001). In terms of teachers’ efficacy beliefs, researchers have come to suggest that teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs are held to be instrumental in affecting the effort teachers put into teaching, in setting goals, and in the aspiration teachers have for themselves and their students.
However, over the course of the development of research in the field of efficacy beliefs, researchers have arrived at somewhat different constructs of these beliefs. Although there are definitional differences, researchers insist that teacher efficacy is an important dimension of teachers. For example, a high sense of efficacy is considered influential in the teachers’ level of enthusiasm for teaching (Alinder, 1994; Guskey, 1984), commitment to teaching (Coladarci, 1992), with highly efficacious teachers tending to exercising higher levels of planning and organization (Alinder, 1994). As well as being willing to persist in dealing with problems and being more resilient in the face of setbacks (Ashton & Webb, 1986), highly efficacious teachers are more open to new ideas and are willing to experiment with new methods (Guskey, 1988; Stein & Wang, 1988). Even though teacher efficacy remains an elusive constructs (Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, 2002), it nonetheless appears to be important in the working life of teachers suggesting that it needs to be explored and examined in varying social and cultural contexts.
Sources of teacher self-efficacy beliefs
Although there are differences in the terms for the concept of teacher self-efficacy beliefs used by researchers, there seems to be a shared idea concerning the source of the beliefs. A common understanding comes to suggest that self-efficacy beliefs develop from four principal sources of information: enactive mastery of experiences that serve as indicators of capability; vicarious experiences that alter efficacy beliefs through transmission of competencies and comparison with attainments of others, verbal persuasion and allied types of social influences that one possesses certain capabilities; and physiological and affective states from which people partly judge their capableness, strength and vulnerability to dysfunctions (Bandura, 1997).
Enactive mastery experience according to Bandura (1997) derives from experiences of success, while failures, on the other hand, undermine sense of efficacy beliefs. Experience of success does not necessarily mean without difficulties. Bandura further states that when people experience easy successes all the time, they will be easily discouraged when facing problems because they expect quick results. Strong resilient efficacy beliefs require the ability to solve problems through perseverant efforts. That is why easy successes do not support the development of one’s efficacy beliefs. Difficulties, on the other hand, do. This is because difficulties provide people with experiences to learn how to turn failure into success by exercising better control over the events.
The second source of efficacy beliefs is vicarious experience which is mediated by modeled attainment (Bandura, 1997). Individual beliefs in his or her ability can be promoted by an existing successful model. The more aspects individual have in common with the referral model, the more vicarious effect the model has on the individual. Although vicarious experiences are said to be not as strong as mastery information, it indeed contributes to boost one’s confidence in the ability of doing something, more particularly when there is a doubt with respect to the amount of success one might get. When one doubts his ability of achieving success in a certain activity, successes of a referral model will lessen the doubt, thus increase the efficacy beliefs. That is to say that vicarious experience will have its highest effect when the amount of uncertainty of the individual is most. When an individual has no prior success on certain ability, s/he will tend to look at relevant model to base on his/her efficacy judgment. Mixed experiences of success and failure are also conditions of vicarious experience effects. In this case continuous appraisals from the environment might be needed to boost the efficacy beliefs.
The third source of self-efficacy beliefs is verbal or social persuasion (Bandura, 1997). Although the power to strengthen efficacy sense is not as strong as enactive experiences or the vicarious experience, one’s sense of efficacy is indeed strengthened when there are others who persuade verbally that one has the ability to do a certain task. Verbal persuasion usually takes the form of evaluation feedback. When people are told that they have the capability of doing some task regardless of the problems, they usually build the sense that they are capable of doing it based on the feedback. Feedback is usually given in indirect and subtle ways so that it lifts the sense of confidence.
The last source of efficacy according to Bandura (1997) is the physiological and emotional states which convey the somatic information. In terms of physiological states, people tend to consider their fatigue, windedness, aches and pains as indicators of inefficacy, especially in health functioning and activities involving strength and stamina. Furthermore, people often perceive low sense of efficacy when they have to do physiological activities in stressful and taxing situation. And they, therefore, consider the stressful and taxing situation as signs of vulnerability or dysfunctions (Bandura, 1997) p.106).
Teacher professional development
Gordon (Gordon, 2004) has proposed three elements to be covered in a successful professional development program. Those aspects include the capacity building, the core element and the purpose of professional development. Those three aspects can further be explained into seven elements that should be combined to optimize the effect of a professional development. He further said that,
“… a successful professional development includes a combination of experiences that empower 1) individual educators, 2) educational teams, and 3) the educational organization to improve 4) curriculum, 5) instruction, and 6) student assessment in order to 7) facilitate student growth and development” (Gordon, 2004: p. 5).


According to Gordon, the first three elements belong to the capacity building, which have no direct effect on student learning but increase the ability of individuals, groups, and schools to affect student learning. The next three elements belong to the core element of a professional development program and have direct effect on student learning. The last element, to facilitate student growth and development, is the ultimate purpose of professional development (Gordon, 2004).
In terms of the models of teacher professional development, many have often proposed categories like (skill) trainings, workshops, seminars, action research, and some other models. Recently, however, there seem to be more simple classification of professional development. Little (Little, 1993), for example, uses the term alternative models of professional development to refer to what she assumes to be ‘more reformed’ models that trainings. Although she seems to be unsupportive to teacher training as a model of professional development, she suggests that the present practices of teacher trainings have demonstrated greater sophistication.
Although training has been one of the most widely used models of professional development research has suggested that it is the least favor professional empowerment and often been discussed with a negative connotation and portrayed as antithetical to authentic professional development (Gordon, 2004: p. 33). Such negative responses are mainly based on the common practices conducted in the training in which there are no adequate opportunities for the participants to implement the newly trained skills with good supervision. This is also caused by the lack of consultation participants might have when they try to implement the new skills. This is in line with what Little’s idea about what an effective training should provide (Little, 1993; p. 132) In discussion the professional development that supports education reform, she has recommended that the level of effectiveness of training is related to the ability of the training to provide teachers with opportunity for practice, consultation, and coaching (Little, 1993).
In terms of the effects of trainings on teachers’ sense of efficacy beliefs, a number of research has suggested that there is effect of training as professional development on teachers’ sense of efficacy. Ross and Bruce (2007) for example stipulate the possibility of professional development on the level of efficacy beliefs. They theorize that professional development contributes in multiple ways to the four sources of efficacy information (Ross & Bruce, 2007). By attending a training, there is a possibility for teacher to feel that there is an increase in their level of mastery on the field transferred through the training. The increase of perceived mastery will potentially elevate the level of efficacy. Communicating with colleagues and seeing other teachers’ success while in the training can also provide vicarious experience, which in turn will also increase the teachers’ sense of efficacy.
Further, using the Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale (Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, 2001), Ross and Bruce find that there is positive contribution of professional development in all three dimensions measured, especially on teachers’ expectation about their ability to manage students in the classroom.
“Although there were slight increases in the other dimensions of teacher efficacy measured by the Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale, only changes in classroom management were statistically significant. We suspect that teachers’ confidence in their ability to engage student interest and to use new instructional strategies follow confidence in classroom management” (Ross & Bruce, 2007)

C. Methods
Participants
Data were collected during the period of December 2006 – February 2007 in four districts and one municipality of the province with the target population of Junior Secondary School English teachers in the province. Criteria of sampling picked only teachers that had already attended the Competency-based Integrated Trainings (CBIT) conducted by the Ministry of National Education (MONE) as the appropriate sample of the research. Data collection was done while teachers were attending the teacher forum meetings in their respective districts and municipality.
There were two groups of participants in this research. The first group was one hundred and fifty two English teachers and the second group was four teachers who were members of the first group. Teachers in the first group were those who had been selected on the basis that they had attended the CBIT in 2004 to 2006 and had agreed to participate in this research by returning the questionnaire. Teachers in the second group were selected based on the teacher instructors’ nomination. This nomination was based on the grouping of high, medium and low performance teachers. The decision of asking the nomination from the teacher instructors was based on the assumption that they knew the teacher participants better due to their duties, especially because they were the people who had access to the performance records of the teachers.
Criteria and the recruitment of research sample
The sample of the survey in the present study was determined using two main criteria for selection. First, they were junior secondary school English teachers who taught in the four districts and one municipality in Yogyakarta province. Second, those English teachers had to have attended the Pelatihan Terpadu Berbasis Kompetensi (PTBK) or the Competency-based Integrated Training (CBIT). It was a training designed by the Indonesia Ministry of National Education (MoNE) to prepare the teachers to implement the newly issued curriculum, Kurikulum Berbasis Kompetensi (KBK) or Competency-based Curriculum (CBC).
The second criterion of the selection of the sample was accessed directly when the survey was conducted in the district teaching forum meetings. By only asking participation from those teachers who had attended the CBIT, it was expected that the survey data collection would disqualify those who had not. The recruitment, therefore, was done with no special invitation. Instead, the researcher went to the monthly English Teacher Forum meetings in all the districts and municipality. To maximize the number of responses, the researcher came to all teacher forums within the periods of December 2006 to February 2007. This was done in case there were teachers that could not attend the meeting in one of the meetings.
The second group of sample was selected based on the nomination of teacher instructors in the province. There were four teachers resulted from the second recruitment process. These four teachers were nominated by the teacher instructors from the members of the first group. The nomination was based on the participants’ English proficiency. The participants, therefore, represented teachers from high, middle and low English proficiency.
At the nomination stage, there were actually nine nominated teachers representing high, middle, and low proficiency respectively. Upon responding to the further research invitation, however, only four of the nominated teachers expressed their participation. Among these four teachers, one teacher was identified as having low English proficiency, two teachers were in the middle, and the other one was the high English proficiency. These four teachers participated in the follow-up study focusing on their teaching practices in the classroom. Participants were asked to complete a consent form and their participation was also voluntary. Data collected from this group of participants were gained through semi-structured interview and classroom observations.
D. Measures
There were two types of instrument used to collect the data. The first instrument, the teacher efficacy scale, was used to collect the quantitative. The second was in the form of interview protocol.
Teachers’ self-efficacy scale
The teachers’ self-efficacy scale used in this study consisted of two parts. The first part was a three-subscale questionnaire drawn from the long version of the Ohio State Teacher Self-efficacy scales (OS-TES) developed by Tschannen-Moran and Hoy (Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, 2001). They consisted of eight items in every subscale. The first eight-item sub-scale, the efficacy for instructional strategy scale, tried to measure the beliefs of the teachers in their ability in planning, executing and evaluating their classroom English instruction. The second sub-scale, the efficacy for classroom management scale, dealt with measuring teachers’ efficacy beliefs in managing the classroom. The third sub-scale, the efficacy for student engagement scale, was aimed to measure teachers’ efficacy beliefs in engaging students in the classroom activities.
There were some considerations of using the survey. The first reason was related to the fact it was developed through a thorough review and analysis on the existing teacher self-efficacy measures. It was, therefore, reasonably valid, given the positive correlation with the existing measures (Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, 2001). The second reason was related to the evidence that the survey had high reliability coefficient when used in different context of participant. For example, when applied in the United States context, it had the overall alpha coefficients of .94 and the sub-scale alphas of .91, .90 and .87 for the efficacy for instructional strategy, classroom management and student engagement subscales (Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, 2002). Similarly in the Malaysian context, Murshidi et.al, (2006) found that the overall alpha coefficient were .80 with alphas of .77, .93 and .94 for the three subscales (Murshidi, Konting, Elias, & Fooi, 2006). Although the OS-TES had proven to be highly reliable for both the USA and Malaysia participants, there was no guarantee that the same findings would be found when it was applied to an even more specific context of Indonesia with teachers teaching English as a foreign language. Cultural and social aspects of Indonesian teachers might give a rise to issues related to the findings. This research, therefore, was expected to provide cross-cultural validation on the existing teacher efficacy scales.
The second part of the teachers’ efficacy survey consisted of two subscales developed by the researcher. They were designed to address the specific context of this study, the junior secondary English as Foreign Language (EFL) teachers in the context of curriculum changes in Indonesia. The first subscale, the teachers’ efficacy for English, consisted of seven items addressing the English-related skills needed by teachers in doing their daily teaching duties. The items covered both productive and perceptive skills as well as both English for communication and instruction purposes. The second subscale, the efficacy for curriculum implementation sub-scale, was developed to investigate teachers’ self- efficacy beliefs in the implementation of Curriculum 2004 in Indonesian Secondary School English teaching. This eight-item sub-scale was designed to address the contextual issues regarding the teaching of English in Indonesian secondary schools as a result of the changing in curriculum from the Curriculum 1994 to the Curriculum 2004 and then to the School Level Curriculum 2006. Aspects measured in this sub-scale concerned mostly with the concepts and practices in the competency-based language teaching and the contextual teaching and learning. These two aspects of the measure were relevant with the materials given to teachers through the CBIT.
E. Procedure of data collection and analyses
Collection of quantitative data was done in four districts and one municipality in Yogyakarta province and was facilitated by the teacher forums in each area for the survey. All participants were directly contacted by the researcher at the teacher forum meetings in every district and municipality between January – February 2007. In the meetings, teachers who fit the sample criteria were invited to participate in the research and were asked to fill in the teacher efficacy questionnaire. Participation of the teachers was voluntarily.
Prior to the data collection, the researcher explained the research project and asked the teachers to participate in the research by completing a survey. Upon requesting the participation, the researcher explained the purposes of the research, the information required in the research, and the significance of their participation. Issues on confidentiality were also discussed in the preliminary explanation. Participation, however, was voluntary, which was signaled with the voluntarily returning the completed questionnaire by the participants together with the participants’ consent forms. This first group was required to complete a questionnaire consisting of seven sub-scales that took approximately 30 minutes of their time. The questionnaire focused on the teachers’ self efficacy beliefs in English and English teaching in general and in relation to the implementation of the new curriculum in particular. It was also aimed to investigate whether there were changes with respect to the teachers’ self efficacy beliefs before and after teachers’ attendance in the CBIT.
Data were in the form of teachers’ self-report concerning their level of efficacy before and after attending the CBIT. In collecting the data, the researcher asked teachers to respond to the efficacy questionnaire twice. In the first session teachers were asked to report their level of efficacy at the time the data were collected. These data showed the level of teachers’ self-efficacy after they attended the CBIT. In the second session, on the other hand, teachers were asked to reflect their level of efficacy before they attended the CBIT. All responses were anchored on a seven-point Likert-type scale ranging from Not at all to Great deal. The recorded data were then coded into the Efficacy_NOW and Efficacy_THEN formats. Efficacy_NOW referred to the level of the teachers’ efficacy at the time the data were collected or after attending the trainings, while Efficacy_THEN referred to the level of teachers’ efficacy beliefs before they attended the trainings.
Qualitative data were collected using an interview protocol. The collection of the data about contribution of CBIT on teachers’ self-efficacy was a part of a wider construct of teacher efficacy in general. There were only two items in the interview protocol that were used to assess the level of efficacy in relation to the training they had attended.
Quantitative data were analysed in two steps. First data were analysed descriptively to identify the groups created by the categorical independent variables. Second, the data were then analysed using the repeated measures MANOVA of the SPSS package. The Multivariate value of the analysis provides the basis to determine whether the effect of the training was significant. Qualitative data from the interview were analysed following the qualitative data analyses. First, the data were transcribed from the recorded interviews before they were coded. The coding process in the present study was conducted in two steps using the NVivo 7. First data were coded into themes. Then the connection among themes was used to formulate categories, and from these meaningful categories was an interpretation and explanations on the findings were built.
F. Findings
Descriptive analyses on the data resulted in the description and distribution of the sample. There were seven independent variables involved in the data collection. Such variables included the gender, age, educational background that covered whether the participants had English teaching background in their college or university, teaching experience, teacher status, schools, and the districts where the teachers taught. Table 1 showed the description and distribution of the sample based on the independent variables.
From the descriptive analysis, it was found that there were more female teachers in the sample, with most participants were between 31 to 50 years of age, and had more than five years of teaching experience. Very few teachers in the sample did not have English teaching background. Participants were from four districts and one municipality in Yogyakarta province teaching mostly in public schools.
Repeated measures MANOVA was used in this study to investigate the differences of the Secondary school English teachers’ efficacy beliefs in Yogyakarta province as a result of the teachers’ attendance in the Competency-based Integrated trainings (CBIT). In general, Multivariate tests in the Repeated Measures MANOVA suggested that there were significant differences between the level of teachers’ efficacy beliefs before and after their attendance in the Competency-based Integrated trainings, F (38, 114) = 3.511, p < .05. Differences in the means of the teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs can be seen in Figure 1, with time_1 (the lower line in the figure) representing the level of teachers’ efficacy before attending the CBIT and time_2 representing the levels of teachers’ efficacy after the trainings.

Effects of Task Conditions on Use of Listening Strategies by Chinese

This paper reports an exploratory study on the effects of two task conditions (Zero-task and Task) on listening strategies used by Chinese EFL learners. The purpose of the study is to find out whether different task conditions affect strategy application, whether learners at different proficiency level use strategies differently on different task conditions, and whether strategy instructions have significant effects on learners’ strategy use. Fifty-two first-year university students participated in this study, with ages ranging from 18 to 20. A listening proficiency test (cronbach α = .832) differentiated them into two groups: Ghigh((N=29) and Glow(N=23). The instrument of the study is a questionnaire with 24 items of specific cognitive listening strategies. The participants were required to answer two questionnaires: one on Zero-task condition, the other on Task condition, with two months intervals in between. During the two months, the participants received some classroom strategy instructions. After the instructions, they replied to the questionnaire again. Data of both questionnaires were collected and analyzed. Results show that (1) from Zero-task to Task condition, the overall mean score of the reported frequency of strategy use increased slightly in Ghigh while decreased slightly in Glow; (2) Ghigh used strategies more frequently on Task condition than on Zero-task condition, while Glow didn’t show significant difference on both task conditions; (3) on the same task conditions, the two groups showed significant differences in their strategy application. Ghigh used strategies more frequently than Glow, especially on Task condition; (4) Ghigh responded more actively and effectively to strategy instructions than Glow.
1. Introduction
Learning strategies can be defined as conscious “steps taken by students to enhance their own learning”(Oxford 1990:1); more particularly, “specific actions taken by the learner to make learning easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self-directed, more effective, and more transferable to new situations”(Oxford 1990:8).
Since the 1990s, many studies with diverse focuses have been conducted to investigate effects of various factors on strategy use in language learning, such as language proficiency (Bedell & Oxford 1996; Dreyer & Oxford 1996; Green & Oxford 2003), gender（Ehrman & Oxford 1980; Green & Oxford 1995; Gu 2002）, etc. Task-based strategy studies aiming at assessing specific strategies applied on different task conditions during language learning have attracted more and more attentions.（Cohen,1998;Hsiao and Oxford 2002; Oxford et al 2004).
The present paper partially replicates Oxford et al.’s (2004) study about how task difficulty and proficiency affect the reported frequency of reading strategy used by language learners. The results indicated task-based strategy assessment provide a more detailed, more contextualized picture of strategy use (Hsiao & Oxford 2002) However, does this task-based strategy assessment apply to listening strategy used by Chinese EFL learners? Our study aims to investigate the effects of two task conditions (Zero-task and Task) on listening strategies use by Chinese EFL learners at different proficiency levels.
Firstly we generally review relevant theory and research. Then we explain the methodology of the present study, followed by presentation and discussion of the results. The paper concludes with the findings of our study and recommendation for further studies.
2. Review of research
In this chapter we generally review theory and research on the following two topics: listening learning strategies in L2 field, and task-based strategy assessment.
Listening comprehension and listening strategies
Listening comprehension
Researchers have pointed out that listening plays a key role in language learning because of its contribution to the development of the overall language proficiency (Wolvin & Coakley, 1996; Rost 2002). Listening comprehension is an active and complex process in which learners construct meanings from inputting information through a complex interaction between the characteristics of the input, the types of the declarative knowledge that are received, and the use of strategies to enhance understanding (Abd El Al, 2002: 42, Anderson: 1995). Cognitive theory holds that effective processing of information requires both top-down and bottom-up processing. The top-down processing is “a form of language processing that bases inferences on expectations and predictable generalisations cued by the incoming language’ (Rost, 2002: 96), while the bottom-up processing begins with analysing receiving messages from different levels of organisation of the utterance – from sound, to words, then to clauses, and then to sentences and finally get the intended meaning (Anderson and Lynch, 1988; Brown, 1990; Buck, 2001; Abd El Al, 2002). During this procedure, the learners (processors) use “various techniques to select information, organize it, relate it to what they have already known” (Abd El Al, 2002: 39).

Listening strategies
Learning strategies are conscious “steps taken by students to enhance their own learning”(Oxford 1990:1) and are “a sequence of steps taken by a learner, deliberately, in a specific order for a specific purpose that is to learn, recall or comprehend the target language”(Abd El Al, 2002: 50). Hedge (2000) proposed a four-broadly- categorised taxonomy about learning strategies: cognitive, Matacognitive, communicative and socio-affective strategies. In regard of the nature of listening comprehension, we focus on cognitive strategies which involve both top-down and bottom-up processing approaches.
Some descriptive studies use various methods to describe and identify listening strategies used by successful and less successful listeners. For example, O’Malley, Chamot & Küpper (1989) use think-aloud protocols with high school SEL students to examine what strategies are used in different phases and whether there are any differences of using strategies between effective and ineffective listeners. Their major strategy headings are self-monitoring, elaboration and inferencing. Results show significant differences of strategies used between effective and ineffective listeners. Vandergrift (1992) uses semi-structured interviews, stimulated recall and think-aloud protocols to investigate the strategies used by Core French high school students in transactional and interactional tasks. Findings indicate that there is an overall increase in the total amount of used strategies by the increase of proficiency level and the less successful listeners have to understand the texts by focusing on semantic cues, contextual clues etc. Goh (1998) uses retrospective verbal reports to investigate the cognitive and metacognitive strategies and tactics used by Chinese ESL learners in a university in Singapore to compare the way high- and low- ability listeners apply them. The study shows that the high-ability listeners use more strategies and tactics than the low ability ones.
Yu (2004) uses a written questionnaire with thirty-six specific listening strategies to investigate the effects of strategy use on learners’ autonomy of 160 Chinese EFL learners at two proficiency levels. These strategies fell into three major categories metacognitive, cognitive ones, socio-affective strategies. Results showed high-ability students used more metacognitive and cognitive strategies than low-ability students, while there is little difference in socio-affective strategy use. Another finding in Yu (2004)’s study indicated that students perceived high value of strategies and require strategy instructions to improve their listening abilities.
These studies on listening strategies mainly focus on probing, describing and identifying listening strategies used by successful and less successful listeners. Although they confirm the same finding that both good and poor listeners use strategies, the differences between the two groups of listeners have not been significantly revealed. Moreover, the total number of strategies used and the frequency of use of each strategy “are not necessarily indicators of how successful [students] will be on a [specific] language task” (Cohen, 1998:8-9). On a particular L2 task, the appropriateness of the strategies to the task is likely to be more important than the numbers and frequencies of strategies employed (Oxford et al., 2004).

Listening Strategies training
Strategy training aids learners to become more consciously aware of what strategies might be useful in a given learning situation. Some studies have suggested the implications for L2 listening strategy training. For example, Vandergrift (1999) has explained how L2 listeners can use strategies to enhance their learning processes and how teachers can nurture the development of listening strategies. In her empirical study, Teng (2003) instructs her fifty college students in National Taiwan University of Science & Technology with thirty EFL listening strategies for fifteen weeks. Results show that systematic strategy instruction enhances the improvement of strategy use for EFL listener. Ma (2005) investigates the effects of listening strategy training on Chinese EFL learners. After fifteen-week’s instructions, the sixty-two EFL learners at three proficiency levels (high, intermediate and low) show significant difference in strategy use, especially to the intermediate students. .
Strategy training helps learners become more self-directed, autonomous via the improved use of strategies (Wenden, 1991, 1998; Granham, 1997; Cohen, 1998, 1999); become more aware of their learning processes and in turn increase the willingness and ability to manage their learning (Niyokos, 1996; Mendelsohn, 1995, 1998); enhance motivation (Wenden, 1991, 1998); remove anxiety, reduce uncertainty and foster self-confidence (Niyokos, 1996).
Task-based strategy assessment
As Cohen (1998) argued that when learners respond to a strategy questionnaire without actually doing a L2 task, they may become less accurate about their actual behavior. Learners’ different interpretations of their task experience may influence their reporting of the strategy use in terms of the comparability of responses to the same items.
Ikeda and Takeuchi (2000) empirically examined whether reported strategy use is affected by the presence of absence of an actual task and how types and frequencies of strategies varied according to task difficulty. Results show that having students complete a task significantly affected the reporting of reading strategies. The reported frequencies of strategy use in both the high and low proficiency learners declined in three task situations: no task, easy task and difficult task. Oxford et al. (2004) conducted a similar study to investigate effects of including or not including a language task as part of strategy assessment and how students’ reported strategies differ when the language task is easy versus difficult. Except for the similar findings of significant effects of task situations on reported strategy use, they found that low-proficiency students reported to employ more strategies than high-proficiency students in specific task situations, because they tend to use strategies to compensate the knowledge inadequacy. On the other hand, high-proficiency students, reported less strategy use though, more often tended to use “top-down” strategies like predicting, guessing, finding the main ideas, trying to understand without translating into the native language.
Similar task-based strategy assessment can be applied to listening strategy use by L2 learners. In regard of the nature of listening comprehension and listening strategies, different task conditions may influence learners of different listening ability in their listening strategy use.
3. Research questions in the present study
The present study aimed to examine the effects of the present (namely task hereinafter) or absence (namely Zero-task hereinafter) of a listening task on students’ reporting of their listening strategy use. Since strategy use is closely related to L2 proficiency, we took students’ listening comprehension ability into consideration. Furthermore, we investigate the impact of listening strategy instructions on the reported frequency of students’ strategy use under the two different task conditions.
Specifically, the research questions of the present study are:
1. considering the cognitive listening strategy as a whole, are there any main effects or interaction effects on listening strategy frequencies based on the two independent variables, namely task condition (Task or Zero-task) and listening proficiency level (high or low)?
2. considering each of the strategy item on cognitive listening strategy questionnaire, do high- and low-proficiency listeners report different frequencies of strategy use within each of the task conditions？
3. does classroom listening strategy instruction have any effects on students’ strategy use?
4. Methodology
4.1 Research Subjects
Altogether 83 first-year college students participated in the present study, of whom 47 were male students and 36 were female students, with ages ranging from 18 to 20. They majored in laws and computer science in a large university in southern China. They received College English instructions six hours a week as a compulsory course, which include Integrated Skills of English, Learning Strategy and Listening. They were required to take a nationwide English proficiency test (College English Test Band 4, CET-4) after two years’ study.
All the 83 students were supposed to reply the listening strategy questionnaire twice, respectively before and after the eight-week listening strategy training. However, some of the students failed to reply both questionnaires completely. Finally we got 52 questionnaires that were valid to our research.
After the eight-week listening strategy training, we conducted a listening comprehension test, which consisted of 50 multiple choice test items in three parts: short dialogues, long conversations and short passages. The total score was 50 points. A statistical validity analysis showed that the listening proficiency test was reasonably valid with α (Cronbach’s Alpha) value of .832. With the result of this test, we tangibly classified the 52 participants into two groups. Those whose scores were above the average 35 points were in the high-level group ( Ghigh, N=29), while those scored equal or below the average were in low-level group (Glow, N=23). A t-test in SPSS revealed that the two groups were significantly different in their listening comprehension ability (See Table 1).

Table 1 Descriptive data of participants’ proficiency difference
Group Number Mean SD SE t-test(sig.)
Ghigh N=29 39.48 2.29 .43

.016

Glow N=23 30.26 3.86 .81


4.2 Instrumentation
4.2.1 Listening comprehension assessment. As explained earlier, the listening comprehension test consisted 50 test items in three different parts: 15 short conversations (one-round dialogues between a man and a woman followed by comprehension questions), three long conversations (four to six-round dialogues between a man and a woman) followed by 5 comprehension questions for each one, and four short passages (about 150 words for each passage) followed by 5 questions for each one. All test items were multiple choices with one point for one item. The participants were required to finish the test in about thirty minutes. As stated previously, the listening comprehension proficiency test was reasonably reliable (α =.832)

4.2.1 Listening strategy questionnaire. We specified the cognitive listening strategy questionnaire (LSQ) developed by Yu (2004) into 24 strategies under the three major categories of before, while and after listening. The questionnaire consisted of 24 statements of listening strategies (See appendix A), and the students’ responses were recorded using Likert Scale of 0 (almost never) to 5 (almost always) to measure each strategy. The reliability of the questionnaire employed by the present study was .869 using Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient of internal consistency.
4.3 Data collection procedures
It was made clear to the students that this study would not affect their course grades. They responded to the questionnaires anonymously, but the listening comprehension test would be part of their course grades in order to ensure the validity of the group pattern. Data collection was conducted in the following steps:
Firstly, the students were asked to complete the listening strategy questionnaire (LSQ) without doing any listening task, called the “Zero-task condition” in the present study.
Then eight weeks later, during which listening strategy instructions were implemented once a week into their English course, the students were asked to take the listening comprehension test which involved conversations and passages. The amount of time allotted to the test was thirty minutes. The papers were collected for grouping.
Right after the thirty-minute listening test, the students were required to respond to LSQ again. We consider this as Task condition to differentiate the first stage “Zero-task condition” in the present study.
All the data were collected for analysis to investigate the research questions.
4.2 Data analysis procedures
To answer Research Question 1 in the present study, i.e. whether there are any main effects or interaction effects on listening strategy frequencies under the two task conditions (task or Zero-task) and listening proficiency level (high or low), we used repeated measures analysis of ANOVA to identify the significance. The results of ANOVA would tell us:
-- whether the reported mean frequency of strategy use was significantly different on the two task conditions (i.e. the main effect for task condition)
--- whether the reported mean frequency of strategy use was significantly different across the two proficiency levels(i.e. the main effect for proficiency levels)
-- and whether Ghigh and Glow reported different mean frequencies of strategy use across the two task conditions,
To answer Research Question 2 and 3, i.e. whether high- or low-level listeners report different frequencies of strategy use within each of the task condition in the present study, we employed multiple measures of Paired T-test and Independent T-test. We set the significance level at p<.05 for both T-tests, which would help us uncover the patterns of difference in listening strategy use and be useful for further study. The results of Paired T-test would tell us whether there would be significant difference in specific strategy use by the same level group on the two task conditions. Independent T-test would help us find out whether there would be any significant differences between the two proficiency groups in specific strategy use on either of the two task conditions. Results followed by discussions were presented in the next part of the paper.
5. Results and discussion
5.1 Answer to Research Question 1: Considering the cognitive listening strategy as a whole, are there any main effects or interaction effects on listening strategy frequencies based on the two independent variables, namely task condition (Task or Zero-task) and listening proficiency level (high or low)?
5.1.1 An overall pattern of reported listening strategy use by two proficiency groups across Zero-task and Task conditions
We compared the mean score of LSQ reported by the two proficiency groups on the two different task conditions. Table 2 presents the means and standard deviations of the two groups across Zero-task and Task conditions.

Table 2 Means and standard deviations of proficiency groups across Zero-task and Task conditions
Proficiency Zero-task Task
Ghigh Mean 2.97 3.09
N 29 29
SD 1.4 1.49
Glow Mean 2.82 2.76
N 23 23
SD 1.5 1.4

The mean LSQ scores in the two proficiency groups did not show the same directions on the two tasks. In Ghigh, the reported frequency of strategy use on the Zero-task condition (X = 2.97, SD=1.4) was lower than on the Task condition (X = 3.09, SD=1.49). Thus, high-level students’ overall strategy use tended to increase slightly from Zero-task condition to Task condition.
In contrast, learners in Glow did not show an increase but a slight decrease from Zero-task to Task condition. The reported frequency of strategy use on the Zero-task condition (X = 2.82, SD=1.5) was slightly higher than on the Task condition (X = 2.76, SD=1.4).
This overall pattern did not agree with the pattern of reading strategy use revealed by Ikeda and Takeuchi (2000) and Oxford et al. (2004), whose results showed slight increase from no task to difficult task for low proficiency group while slight decrease for the high-proficiency group. The difference may partly lie in the different nature of listening and reading and their different interaction between task presence and learners’ strategy use.
On the other hand, the mean LSQ scores in Ghigh, both on Zero-task and Task conditions, were higher than that in Glow. This result further supports the previous findings (e.g. Vandergrift,1992; Goh, 1998; Yu, 2004, etc.) that the high-ability listeners use more strategies and tactics than the low ability ones.
Studies (e.g. Vandergrift, 1999; Teng, 2003; Ma, 2005, etc.) showed that systematic strategy training enhances the improvement of strategy use for EFL learners. In the present study, the LSQ in task condition was conducted after an eight-week strategy instruction. From the mean LSQ scores in table 2, we found that Ghigh showed a positive effect of strategy instructions while Glow showed a negative one. In other words, strategy training is more effective for high level students, but less effective for low level students.
To find out the statistical significance of these differences, we used repeated ANOVA with SPSS 13.0

5.1.2 Main effects and interaction effects of task conditions and proficiency levels
Table 3 presents the results of the repeated ANOVA on mean frequency of strategy use on Zero-task and Task conditions. The results showed that there were no significant main effects for tasks and listening levels. In other words, the overall reported mean frequency of strategy use did not differ significantly on Zero-task conditions for the two proficiency group. Neither of the two groups differed significantly on the reported mean frequency of strategy use across the two different task conditions. However, the results revealed a significant finding: on the Task condition, the reported overall mean scores of LSQ were significantly different between the students of the two groups (F(1, 50)=7.485, p<.05). This finding supported the previous discussion that high level students used more listening strategy and were more sensitive to strategy training.

Table 3 Interaction effects of task conditions and proficiency levels
Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.
Z-task
Ghigh *Glow Between Groups .371 1 .371 1.703 .198
Within Groups 10.891 50 .218
Total 11.262 51
Task
Ghigh *Glow Between Groups 1.318 1 1.318 7.485 .009
Within Groups 8.801 50 .176
Total 10.118 51
Ghigh
Z-task* task Between Groups .136 1 .136 .828 .367
Within Groups 9.221 56 .165
Total 9.357 57
Glow
Z-task* task Between Groups .033 1 .033 .138 .712
Within Groups 10.472 44 .238
Total 10.505 45


5.2 Answer to Research Question 2: Considering each of the strategy item on cognitive listening strategy questionnaire, do high- and low-proficiency listeners report different frequencies of strategy use within each of the task conditions？
5.2.1 Main effects of the two task conditions on strategy-by-strategy use by either of the two proficiency levels.
To find out the different effects of task conditions on listening proficiency in terms of each specific listening strategy use, we used paired T-test. Table 4 presents the results.

Table 4 Significance of strategy use on two task conditions by Ghigh or Glow
Proficiency Strategy Zero-task
Mean Task
Mean Sig.
p<.05 Difference
Z-t>T T>Z-t
Ghigh No.3 2.62 2.03 .041 ×
No.4 3.31 4.03 .006 ×
No.7 2.62 3.24 .036 ×
No.9 1.62 1.03 .035 ×
No.10 1.69 2.31 .039 ×
No.18 2.76 3.55 .015 ×
No.24 1.52 2.45 .001 ×

Glow —— —— —— —— —— ——

Within the same proficiency level, the students in Glow did not report to use more strategies either on Zero-task or on Task condition, but the students in Ghigh employed two more strategies on Zero-task condition while they employed five more strategies on Task condition. The two strategies the students in Ghigh reported use more on Zero-task conditions were No.3 (I try to understand the meaning of every word) and No. 9 (I try to give a word-for-word translation from English to Chinese). This indicates that high levels students had better awareness of listening strategies and would try such strategies as detail associations and translation to help them better understand listening materials. This can be proved on the Task condition where high level students employed five more specific strategies including No.4 (I try to think ahead and anticipate what comes next), No.7 (I try to connect what I hear with information I have gained form experience in the world), No.10 (I group information into different meaningful groups), No.18 (I try to take notes about important information) and No.24 ( I make a summary of the information I heard).
The results showed that high level students were good at listening strategy use. They were more sensitive to listening strategy training. After the eight-week training, they had better understanding and awareness of listening strategies. For specific Task condition, they tended to employ more such cognitive strategies as inferring, associating, grouping, note-taking and summarizing skills to help them gain more information from listening tasks. They tended to use strategies to anticipate before listening and effectively process information by the means of note-taking and grouping, and after the listening they would summarize the information to have a good understanding. On the contrary, low level students didn’t show any significant effects on strategy use on Task condition. This may suggest that low level students were not familiar about specific listening strategies, especially on Task condition, where their reported frequency declined slightly.

5.2.2 Main effects of either of the two task conditions on strategy-by-strategy use by the two proficiency levels.
To compare the difference of strategy use by the two groups in a given task condition, i.e. either on Zero-task or Task condition, we used repeated independent T-test to find out the significance.
Table 5 Significance of strategy use by the two groups on given task conditions
Task condition Strategy Ghigh
Mean Glow
Mean Sig.
p<.05 Difference
Ghigh> Glow Glow > Ghigh
Zero-task No.9 1.62 1.83 .038 ×
No.17 3.93 3.60 .049 ×
Task No.4 4.03 3.39 .029 ×
No.5 3.86 3.00 .022 ×
No.6 3.52 2.73 .036 ×
No.7 3.24 2.30 .025 ×
No.18 3.55 2.30 .010 ×
No.21 3.34 2.26 .007 ×
From table 5, we found that on Zero-task condition, students in Ghigh employed strategy No.17 (If I do not understand some information such as a word or a phrase, I try to guess its meaning basing on relevant information about the topic.) more frequently than students in Glow, while students in Glow used strategy No. 9 (I try to give a word-for-word translation from English to Chinese) more often than students in Ghigh. This indicated that high level students generally would employ their world knowledge to process the incoming information, i.e. the top-down processing, while low level students would employ bottom-up processing method by translating into their mother language in order to help them get the intended meaning of incoming information.
When the two groups were given a specific task, their reported strategy use frequencies varied significantly in six specific strategies. The students in Ghigh reported to employ all of these strategies more frequently than the students in Glow. The six strategies included referencing (No.6 I try to relate what I hear to information I have already studied), making personal association (No.5 I try to make personal association with what I hear and No.7 I try to connect what I hear with information I have gained from experience in the world ), resourcing (No.6 I try to relate what I hear to information I have already studied), and note-taking skills (No.18 I try to take notes about important information and No.21 I try to understand the meaning of the key words). This result supported our findings that high level students use more listening strategies than low level students. In order to achieve a good understanding of listening tasks, high level students tended to use referencing technique more often to anticipate what they would listen. They would also make personal associations and use resourcing skills much more often than low levels students to help them process information more effectively. Moreover, high level students would usually take notes about important information more often than low level students. In a word, when processing information in listening tasks, high level students would employ more cognitive listening strategies and more effectively combine these strategies to achieve good comprehension than low level students do.
5.3 Answer to Research Question 3: Does classroom listening strategy instruction have any effects on students’ strategy use?
Researchers hold that strategy training enhances learners’ motivation (Wenden, 1991, 1998), remove anxiety, reduce uncertainty and foster self-confidence (Niyokos, 1996), thus help improve their language proficiency. Some empirical studies (e.g. Vandergrift, 1999; Teng, 2003; Ma, 2005, etc) revealed that implementing strategy training into classroom instruction could enhance students learning process and improvement of strategy use.
In the present study, before the LSQ on Task condition, the students in both groups received about sixteen hours’ (two hours a week for eight weeks) classroom listening strategy training, including such strategies as how to anticipate, how to infer, how to associate listening information with world knowledge, how to make good use of various resources while listening and how to take notes, etc. One of the present researchers gave them the training. After the training procedures, the students took the listening comprehension test. As soon as they finished the thirty-minute test, the students were asked to do the same LSQ as the one they replied on Zero-task condition.
From the results presented in Table 4, we found out that students in Ghigh did demonstrate significant more strategy use (five specific strategies) on Task condition than they did on Zero-task condition. However, students in Glow did not show any significant difference in the strategy use on the two task conditions. On the other hand, results from Table 5 showed that on the Task condition (after the strategy instructions), students in Ghigh employed more listening strategies (six strategies with significant difference) than students in Glow.
Thus, we drew a tentative conclusion that listening strategy training had significant effects on high level students but had no effects on low level students in their strategy use.
6. Conclusion
The present study investigated the effects of two task conditions (Zero-task and Task) on cognitive listening strategies used by different levels of Chinese EFL learners. Results revealed the following findings:
Firstly, taking cognitive listening strategy as a whole, there were no significant interactive effects between the two variables of tasks and listening proficiency. Even though there was a slight increase for high-level learners and slight decline for low level learners in reported strategy use frequencies from Zero-task to Task condition, the differences were not statistically significant. However, the two groups demonstrated a significant difference in overall strategy use frequency when they had a task. High level learners reported to use strategies much more often then their low level peers.
Secondly, for the specific strategy-by-strategy use, high level learners proved to be better strategy users. On one hand, high level students tend to employ some top-down strategies as inferring, resoucing, making personal association to help them process information. They used these strategies more often when they did a Task than when they had no task. On the other hand, low level learners did not show any significant difference on the two task conditions for their specific strategy use.
Thirdly, strategy training was more effective to high level learners than to low level ones. It enhanced high level students’ improvement of strategy awareness and strategy utilization. However, strategy training was less likely to work well with low level students.

Nevertheless, the current study had its limitations, and further studies need to be conducted to prove the findings.
First, the sample was not large enough to generalize the pattern of learners’ reported strategy use. It would be plausible to use a larger population sample to investigate a more generalized pattern in listening strategy use.
Second, the subjects were grouped by the result of one listening test. It would be more convincing to group subjects with a valid and reliable proficiency test.
Third, the task conditions in the present study were not very clearly defined. We took the listening test including conversations and passages as Task condition. It would be advisable to clearly define tasks, for example, conversation or lectures. What’s more, strategy use frequencies may differ dramatically according to the difficulty of tasks.
Fourth, the listening training duration was not long enough to form a pattern for learners at different proficiency levels. Results may be different if systematic listening strategy training could last for longer time, say several months or a year.
Finally, the current study focused only on cognitive listening strategies. What would be the pattern if more categories of listening strategies were involved?
All these limitations need to be taken into consideration for any further studies about interactive effects of task and proficiency.

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