Uses of Listening Strategies in Dictogloss Activities and Perception of Dictogloss Among Korean Middle School Students

Abstract

The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of strategy training during dictogloss on Korean middle school students’ English listening. The students were to listen to the passages and write down what they heard and share their thoughts using the listening strategies. The participants were 75 (51 girls, 24 boys) first graders of a middle school students in Seoul. No one had any experiences having lived abroad. They participated in the dictogloss activity once in two weeks for 10-15 minutes for a semester. The data were collected by means of pre-survey and post-survey on English listening abilities and semi-structured interviews with 20 students on English listening activities. The research findings are summarized as follows. Students’ dependency on the interpretation of English when using the strategies during dictogloss became low, and their listening activity became more active. By comparing the first and the last results of the activity, students had less difficulty on dictogloss and strategy use and they focused more on listening. The effect of the strategy training showed an improvement, especially on the dependency of the interpretation of English. Among the four different strategies, they used prediction the most. As a result, through strategy training and dictogloss, it can be said that students’ interest and participation on English listening has increased. This activity can be an effective method especially for middle school high and intermediate-level students to use. The findings in this study imply that when students not just listen to the passage, but write things down and share their thoughts with their classmates, it contributes to positive changes in their listening and English learning. The important thing here is that students do the activity not by themselves, but with the group members, so that it can be a more effective method for improving listening skills.