Pre-test performance of the learners in listening comprehension

Pre - test performance of the learners in listening comprehension:

The main aim of conducting listening test is to make pupils understand the language when spoken, acquires knowledge of the elements of English make pupils express their interests, feelings, ideas, and needs of English language and to give practice in using English language. The pre-test is conducted on 14^th April, 2015 at Geris English school, Bihar at 9^th standard level in order to improve pupils listening skill by using (Multimedia) LCD Projector. This test is purely conducted without any foreknowledge about the listening comprehension that is how to write and what are the methods have to be followed. These are 22 pupils by LCD projector, they are asked to choose and write the correct answers what they have heard. Second, they are listening to the conversation, they are asked to write answers for the question which is based on the conversation. If is played twice in the LCD projector. They have been given twenty minutes to complete their listening comprehension.

There are six pupils have scored above 7 out of ten and rest of them have scored between four to six out of ten. Pupils have committed few spelling mistakes and grammatical blunders. Their answers are not satisfactory. Some of the students don’t know even the sentence pattern. Though they know the answers they are unable to bring out the best in them. There are some common impediments for their mistakes.

v  Though they study in English medium, the tools and equipment’s are not used properly for learning.

v  Unable to get the meaning of vocabularies.

v  Unable to write the spellings of vocabularies.

v  Lock of communication skills in English.

v  Pupils have been training for written comprehension but not for listening comprehension.

v  The teachers teaching English are not basically English teacher.

v  They are not qualified teachers

v  Teachers them sewer are not familiar with the modern techniques of teaching.

Pupils get 58% in the pre-test and it is clearly viewed in the statistical

Students should be encouraged in listening comprehension and given opportunities to go beyond in this area. So that they can shine in spoken English.

Defects faced by the learners in the pre-test:

v  Pupils unable to recall what they heard.

v  Pupils don’t understand the passage

v  Pupils failed to guess the meaning of unknown words.

v  Inability to maintain attention.

v  Inability to follow the fast speech

v  Lock of keen observation

In the following statistical graph the vertical dimension indicates the numbers of students scoring within a particular range of scores, the horizontal dimension shows what these range are If will also make clear what will be the outcome of the study.

table. They get average marks in this test. Their performance is neither high nor low. Only limited number of pupils get 7 and 8 marks. They always think in examination point of view. In the listening comprehension there is no possibility to look at the conversations, pictures and not even to clarity their double because there are some essential skills involved in listening comprehension.

There are,

v  Perception of sounds.

v  Recalling word meaning

v  Guessing the meaning of unknown words

v  Assessing the speaker’s point of view and comparing with one’s own (Nandha 27)

The following table shows the marks scored by the learners in the pre-test.

Serial No	Marks	No. of Students
1	4	4
2	5	3
3	6	9
4	8	4
5	9	2

This table shows the performance of the learners in the pre-test.

X=marks scored by the learners

Y=Number of candidates.

Methods followed in teaching listening comprehension:

The learners of the listening skill get 58% and they average marks in the pre-test since the pupils get average marks there are certain methods and procedures followed in order  to develop the learners skills in language learning.

They are,

1.      Direct method

2.      Conversational practice

3.      Note – making

4.      Dictation or oral test

1.     Direct method:

The direct method of teaching English came as a reaction to the translation method. Its main aim is to make pupils think directly in the foreign language and to learn the language through use. It tries to create the feeling of Englishness in the learner. The learner is made to think in English and speak in language with good pronunciation. This method seeks to establish a direct bond between English words or sentences and their meaning.

The learners are asked to listen to the story which is taken from their own texts and they are asked to sum up what they have heard. Then they have been taught English grammar and sentence pattern through the inductive method. Instructions are given to the learners what they have to follow in order to develop their performance. They are,

1.      Keen observation

2.      Guessing the meanings of unknown words

3.      Guessing the speakers point of view and comparing the situation with one’s own

4.      Evaluating the passage (Nandha 27)

The learners are strictly advised or instructed to follow the listening process. Receiving, Understanding, Remembering, Evaluating and Responding. The teacher displayed various pictures and made a statement about one of them. The pupils were asked to make a statement about those picture displayed in the LCD projector.

These kinds of activities enrich their communication in English. The learners are provoked to speak in English whether if may be correct or wrong and are encouraged to ask their doubts in English not by their mother – tongue. Through this kind of practice they are provoked and encouraged to learn English as a second language.

By this method,

1.      Students think in English

2.      This method enables the students to express their feelings and thoughts directly by means of English without the intervention of the mother tongue.

3.      Students bring the words of passive vocabulary to active vocabulary.

Pattern – Practice Drill:

This types of drills is used to tree in the students speech habits.

i)Imitation Drills:

The teacher read out shore paragraphs and simple poems by using LCD projector and then asked the students to imitate her This imitation is done first individuality and lates in chorus in chorus. Imitation drills can also be used to memorize certain basic constructions and to improve pronunciation. Students are made to imitate structures, phonemic contrasts and rhythmic sentences.

ii)Substitution Drills:

            The teacher substitution tables on LCD projector and made the pupils read out the sentences from them. In the beginning, it is better to draw simple tables and later we can go for complex ones.

EX:

Milkman	Cultivates	a lesson
Teacher	carries	the house
watchman	teacher	vegetables
Farmar	guards	milk

iii)Addition Drills:

            Students are asked to complete or expand a given pattern.

            T. Babu sits

            P. Babu sits

            T. On a bench

            P. Babu sits on a bench

iv)Concord Drills:

            In these Drills, the students substitute cue words in a sentence. In the sentence they speak out, they may make necessary changes to meet the grammatical requirements as given below.

T. He

P. He is writing

T. They

P.  They are swimming

Conversation Practice:

The aim of this conversation practice is to well out the learner’s fears and hidden talents. In this session the learners are given to speak practice in English and they are asked to speak in English with each other. The conversation between two pupils brought out their standard in pronunciation. After listening the dialogue students are instructed, either immediately or at a given time, thereafter to write out the speech as fully as they could.

This kind of conversation practice helps them to communicate in a better way and helps them to listen the lesson when the teacher teaches. If gives them self confidence and it expels their fear and inferiority complex when they speak in English.

Note – Making:

For this practice pupils are asked to listen to the video of the passage from their text and also they are asked to take down notes. Finally each and every one of them encouraged to narrate the events with the help of hints, which they have taken earlier.

Dictation or Oral test:

            This is the simplest and more economical process in language learning. Through dictation pupils are forced to get power and knowledge in listening. By this test the learners cone to know the correct account of a particular work. They have been given this practice in order to sharp their memory and they are asked to write few vocabularies on the black board while dictating in the classroom.

            The learners have been given certain hints in order to grow up their listening skill.

They are:

            Oral teaching proceeds any form of reading or writing of course, the learners cant develop their listening skills immediately but they can develop it little by little hearing radio News, conversation between two pupils, watching English programmers in television, computer etc. Among other skills such as speaking, reading, writing, listening skill occupies first place in English language teaching.

Revision Test performance of the learners in Listening comprehension:\

Since the learners have scored average marks in the pre-test they have been given the responsibility to write the Revision test on 22/4/15. The test was contacted, in order to know their performance and ability after teaching methods and procedures of the listening comprehension.

Students showed a good improvement in the revision test. This Revision test result shows that learners interest and the ability to do the listening comprehension. The revision test performance is better than the pre-test because students have scored more marks and only few of them have committed grammatical blunders and spelling mistakes. The learners get 58% in the pre-test but in the revision test they get 71%. The variation of the percentage between pre-test and revision test shows that the development of the learners.

There is minimum number of students get below seven out of ten and eight students get between 6 to 8 and 3 of them get 9 in the revision test. Where as in the pre-test maximum number of pupils get below seven out of ten.

The revision test table shows that the performance of the learners is good. Students get the knowledge of the listening comprehension at the stage of the revision test because they have been taught how to develop their listening comprehension and what are the methods have to be followed after the pre-test. The learners did the same blunders what they did in the pre-test not too.

The revision test leads a clear path to develop their performance in the post-test in a better way and it provides enough equipments, tools, and self confidence in the listening comprehension.

The following table shows the marks scored by the learners in the revision test.

S.No	Marks	No.of students
1 2 3 4	6 7 8 9	3 9 7 3

Nearly half of the participants have got 8 and above. Where in the pre-test only 2 students have got 7 and above. Technologies have proved successful in replacing the traditional teaching. The tradition of English teaching has been drastically changed with the remarkable entry of technology. Technology provides so many options as making teaching interesting and also making teaching more productive in terms of improvements. If the learners get enough environment, equipments, and well equipped teachers in learning English definitely gives a good platform for the students to succeed in English language.

The revision test result indicates the awareness and self-explorations of the learners in the listening skills. If provokes them to learn the listening skills in a better way. The following statistical graph says that the standard of the learners in the revision test and the vertical dimension indicates the number of students scoring within particular range of scores and the horizontal dimension shows what these ranges are.

Post – Test performance of the learners in Listening comprehension:

After conducting the two tests the post – test is conducted on 29/4/15 on unknown passage. This post – test gives that the complete result of the learners in listening comprehension. Both the, Pre-test and the revision-test trained them to perform well in the post-test trained them to perform well in the post – test. In the pre – test and revision –test some of them get below 6 out of ten. But in the post – test none of them get below 7 and maximum number of students get 8 and above. These are 4 pupils get more than 7 in the pre – test, 9 students in the revision test and 5 students get 88% in the pre –test and post test shows not only students development but also their efforts, self – confidence, ability in the listening skill and also understanding English when spoken.

The learners of listening skill have committed minimum number of grammatical blunders and spelling mistakes as they did in the improved their listening skill. Students get average marks in the pre-test, where as in the post – test they score high marks

The statistical graph of the post – test indicates the good performance of the learners in the listening comprehension. If the students would be given this kind of listening practice definitely they will develop their language skills. The post-test performance is much more better than the pre-test and the revision test. Many of them proved that they have learnt listening skill in English.

The following table shows the marks scored by the students in the post – test

S.No	Marks	No.of Students
1 2 3 4	7 8 9 10	1 5 12 4

This table explains the performance of the learners, four of them get ten out of ten. The learners should be asked to point out their own mistakes and let the pupils correct them.

In this way the students will cultivate the habit of self-correction. This post – test performance extracts the hidden talents and expels the weak power of concentration, ego-centrism, or short auditory memory.

Defects faced by the learners in the post – test:

Ø  Inability to follow fast speech.

Ø  Inability to identify the meaning of vocabulary.

The infusion of technology inside the classroom becomes necessity for the second language learning. Because of technology being infused inside education the role of the teacher also are changed. A major feature of multimedia teaching is to train and improve students ability to listen and speak, and to develop their communication skill. Here the teachers role as a facilitator. Using multimedia in teaching, creates a good platform providing a language environment that improves on the classroom no longer blindly input information and force students to  receive it in a passive way. The infusion of technology creates an active way of learning in teaching, learning process.