Abstract:

During her years of teaching at universities, the author has always observed underdeveloped bottom-up listening skills with Japanese EFL learners. To help those weak listeners, phonological training with explicit instruction of connected speech features is a must (Greer & Yamauchi, 2008). Plenty of oral production activities should be given as well since oral practice is vital for FL learners to familiarize themselves with foreign sounds and to develop fluency/automaticity in the recognition and use of the target language. That had been the main framework when the author designed her typical EFL lessons around, before the pandemic. Since this approach was unavailable either for online classes (2020, 2021 Fall) or for on-campus classes with restrictions on spoken interaction (2021 Spring) during the pandemic, the author redesigned the course work step-by-step, and developed a new course design for the 2021 fall semester class (32 students were enrolled initially) with more focus on bottom-up improving listening skills, using self-access learning materials as a main component of the course work, which is reported and evaluated in the current study.

In the most recent course design, most of the listening to spoken English and self-paced oral practice were to be done individually, outside the classroom, while the class time was used for feedback, explanations, and additional exercise when needed, and the whole class activities for target language practice. Weekly assignments to be done before the class include:
(i) two self-grading quizzes based on a VOA video and
(ii) a song cloze activity (using a worksheet in PDF).

One of the VOA quizzes was for understanding the story and learning target vocabulary and structures in context; the other was for mastering connected speech features. Based on the quiz results, necessary feedback and additional exercises were given within the class time, which was recorded for review. The target language from the week’s VOA story was practiced for building automaticity (iii) via Kahoot! or Quizlet Live. The target language was (iv) further practiced after the class and recorded in FlipGrid (individual work) or Teams (pair work). The song cloze was not self-grading, and the answers and explicit instruction about connected speech features were given in the class time (which was also recorded for review), and the students were encouraged to do as much oral practice as they need. Finally, students were asked (v) to reflect on their learning from all these activities to report what they learned, what they were not sure about, what they planned to do to make improvements, etc., which were shared in the next class along with responses and advice from the teacher.

The new course design worked successfully. The pre-and post-tests show that the students could segment spoken English much better after the 13-week course (the mean correct answer rate increased to nearly 80% from about 60%). The post-semester survey shows that almost all the students enjoyed this course because they learned how to learn; their reactions were addressed; their bottom-up listening skills and reading speed improved; video-recorded explanations were　reviewable; the self-grading quizzes gave instant results with feedback, etc. Nearly 90% felt their English skills improved, and almost all the students found the activities in the course helped improve their English. More detailed analysis and discussion will be given in the presentation.

Keywords:

Bottom-up listening skills, Connected speech features, Japanese EFL students, Flexible course design, VOA-based self-grading quizzes, Song listening.