Listening Skill Project

Language is the soul of any society. We can not imagine the world without language. Language contains four basic skills. To learn any new language, acquire these four skills are necessary. These skills are listening, speaking, reading and writing. I am the student of M.A  English department, Bhavnagar University. I am in the last semester of my Masters. Me and my classmate Mahir has decided to analyse the listening skills of our juniors, who are in second semester.

Process

We have decided to do one survey to analyse their listening skills. We have done this by using WhatsApp and google form. In WhatsApp we have created the temporary group for this survey. We have added 13 students from which we have received 12 responses. One was having some medical issues and that is why, that person was not able to give responses. So in that WhatsApp group we have given them two audios of two English short films. We have trimmed it in to 2 or 3 minutes audios. One audio was having Indian accents and second audio was having Foreign/Native accents. We have asked participants to listen the audios one by one and write down what they listen. But the condition was they were allowed only once to listen the audios. So in first try whatever they understand they have to write and then give it to us. After their submission of this task we have created a google form and gave it to all participants. There were some questions related to the activity which they have done and they have to respond.

After submission of their first writing, we have analysed what they have written. In the first audio which was having Indian accents, we have expected that all will be able to get everything, but we were wrong. They were making some mistakes in listening. Like in first audio with Indian accents they have made mistakes like...

Narrate – Read, Tell
Lived in – living, live in, living in
At all – at tone, at home
Deer - near
Play by your self – play over your self
With an eye – within eye

These words from audio they have got wrong for example “lived in” becomes “living, live in, living in”. Except for two or three students all others were making these mistakes. Most of the sentences were rightly written. The second audio was with foreign accents. In this audio participants have made mistakes like...

Your not sitting down – you know
I don’t mind standing – I know my standing, stand in
Post Its – postcards, posters
Box – parks, parts
Plenty of room – its your room, painting in your room
Insurance company – trends company
Elroy – All right, all way
It could be – good/glad/nice to meet you

These are the words from audio which they have got wrong. Most of the sentences were half written and the write up which participants have sent was not making any sense.

If we look comparatively then participants are more comfortable with Indian accents. In foreign accents all have made mistakes. In google form we have asked than in which accents they are more comfortable and majority of them have selected Indian accents.

After this in google form we have also asked to give appropriate title to the audio according to their understanding. All of them have given title to both the audios but only few of titles were appropriate.

We have asked then which audio they find hard to understand in just first try and everybody has selected audio with foreign accents. We have not given “both” as option otherwise we are expecting most of them to select “both” option. Here we wanted to create binary to see which is more hard for them.

When we asked them, do they think listening can help in speaking then everybody has selected yes, but when we asked them if they are practicing listening outside classroom then there are few who said no, they are not. So we can say that some of them are still not serious about the necessity of listening skill. Or may be they don’t care to develop their listening skill.

As we have done this survey by using WhatsApp, we asked them, do they think WhatsApp can be helpful in listening skill. Then most of them said yes but some of them said may be. So they are not clear if this social media app can help in listening or not. As per my point of view it does help. Because it has audio recorder, people can talk in audio messages. It has video call also and it supports every type of media to transfer so it does help in listening.

Outcome

After analysis, if we evaluate participants with BULATS parameters then overall we can say that they are at A1 or A2 level. Some have quality of B1 or B2 but large number of students are having A1 and A2 level listening skill. Here they are not quite able to follow the conversation and also facing problem in having meaning from conversation. They are not able to understand some words which are spoken at speed or have similar pronunciations for example, “dear” and “deer”.  So at the end we can say that participants are very poor when it comes to listening. May be they have never focused on this skill. They all are studying English Literature but then even they are lacking listening skill. We can give reason that why this is happening. Because participants have written exams and no oral exams. They are more focused on their writing and reading skills rather then listening or speaking. So the half part of a language is not focused and that is why the language it self is not acquired or learned properly. There is only one solution for this and that is practice it. These are the skills and they should acquire and for that it should be practiced on daily basis. Listening more in target language will give people the basic structure of the language which will help them in speaking also.

My experience

The experience of doing this survey was quite good. It was planned in hurry. It was not pre – planned and that is why we have to face problems. When we have created group we asked participants to listen then write and send it in the group, but we have not thought that other participants in the group can read it and they will read others response and than they will listen than it will not serve our purpose fully. It has happened also. Some have read others response and then they have listen the same thing as others, so they are making same mistakes. Other thing which we have faced is some of them are very lazy in giving responses. We have to ask several times for their response which will hardly take their 8 to 10 minutes. Our google form was also not well thought. We have prepared questions in hurry. For example there was one question that, with which accents they are more comfortable and first we have only put two option either Regional or Foreign. After some responses I have realized that there are some who may be comfortable with both and then I add another option of “both”. One question in google form which askes, whether they have done this activity honestly, is now seems useless and foolish question to me.

So after experiencing all these things I can say that surveys and researches needs planning. Without proper planning you will face problems. It also requires patience. Overall it was good experience and now it will help me to do more effective survey or research next time.

Thank you.