چکیده:
شنیدن، یکی از چهار مهارت اصلی زبانآموزی است که درعینحال کمتر از دیگر مهارتها به آن پرداخته شده است. در این پژوهش تلاش شده تا با بررسی تحقیقات در مورد مهارت شنیدن، راهکارهایی برای تسهیل درک شنیداری به مدرسان زبان پیشنهاد شود؛ از جمله این راهکارها، استفاده از فعالیتهای پیش از شنیدن است که ضمن تقویت مهارت شنیدن، مهارتهای دیگر از جمله مهارت خواندن و صحبتکردن را نیز تقویت کرده و محیط کلاس را برای زبانآموز جذاب میکنند. هدف این پژوهش آن بود که میزان تأثیرگذاری سه مورد از فعالیتهای پیش از شنیدن، یعنی «مشاهده سؤالات آزمون پیش از شنیدن»، «فعالسازی دانش پیشین درباره موضوع» و «آموزش واژه»، را بررسی و ترتیب تأثیرگذاری آنها را مشخص کند. در این پژوهش، 8 نفر از فارسیآموزان سطح میانی، که در مرکز آموزش زبان فارسی به غیرفارسیزبانان دانشگاه علامه طباطبائی مشغول به تحصیل بودند، شرکت کردند. زبانآموزان در بازه سنی 20 تا 25 سال و از دو ملیت روس و ترک بودند. با استفاده از شاخصهای آماری از جمله میانگین و انحراف معیار، دادههای سه آزمون با یکدیگر مقایسه و روشن شد که اختلاف میان میانگین نمرات زبانآموزان معنادار است. همچنین، این نتیجه به دست آمد که میزان تأثیرگذاری هر یک از این سه فعالیت بر درک شنیداری فارسیآموزان متفاوت است، به طوری که مشخص شد ترتیب تأثیرگذاری سه نوع از فعالیتهای پیش از شنیدن بر درک شنیداری فارسیآموزان به صورت «آموزش واژه»، «فعالسازی دانش پیشین درباره موضوع» و «مشاهده سؤالات آزمون پیش از شنیدن» است.
Listening is one of the four main skills of language learning and yet it is a skill less investigated than other skills. In this research, an attempt was made to provide language teachers with some strategies for facilitating listening comprehension: as for the strategies, we can touch on the use of some activities before listening, whose effectiveness have been acknowledged in many studies. The present study investigated the effect of pre-listening activities on foreign learners of Persian language. The objective of the research was to evaluate the effectiveness of three pre-listening activities and order of their effectiveness— previewing questions, providing background knowledge about the topic, and vocabulary instruction. In this research, eight intermediate Persian learners who were studying in the Persian language teaching center for non-Persian speakers of Allamah Tabatabai University, participated. The age of the learners ranged from 20 to 25 and they were Russian and Turkish. This research was conducted in three sessions, that each dealt with one of the pre-listening activities. The learners were asked to answer the text-related questions after listening. Using statistical indicators including mean and standard deviation, the data of the three tests were compared, indicating that the difference between the mean scores of the language learners was significant. Besides, the result was obtained tha the order of the effectiveness of the three types of pre-listening activities on the Persian learners’ listening comprehension is “vocabulary instruction”, “providing background knowledge about the topic”, and “previewing questions”.Extended Abstract:1. IntroductionListening is one of the four main skills of language learning, which is less studied than other skills. Learning a second language is not possible without receiving comprehensible input in the form of writing or listening. Among the four skills of listening, reading, writing and speaking, listening skill is the most fundamental. Listening is even more important than reading. Although listening and reading both deal with input, they are fundamentally different. In listening, it is not possible to stop and listen again, while in reading it is possible to pause or reread. Another reason for the importance of listening skills is that in the early stages of education, when the learner does not have the ability to read, he can only strengthen his learning through listening skills.Due to the high importance of listening skills in language teaching, this research tries to take a step towards developing listening skills and further facilitating language learning by examining things that can improve the listening comprehension of language learners, one of which is the use of pre-listening activities. The purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of three pre-listening activities on listening comprehension. These three activities including previewing questions, providing background knowledge about the topic, and vocabulary instruction. Specifically, the aim of this research is to determine which of these activities can help Persian learners more than others in listening comprehension. According to these goals, the following question is raised:Which of the different types of pre-listening activities including previewing questions, providing background knowledge about the topic, and vocabulary instruction has a greater effect on the listening performance of foreign Persian learners?According to the research question, the following hypothesis can be proposed:The pre-listening activity of providing background knowledge about the topic has a greater effect on the listening performance of foreign Persian learners. 2. Reviwe of litrutureAmong the researches conducted in the field of the pre-listening activities is the research of Berne (1995), which examines the effect of pre-listening activities of Spanish. Research by Chang and Reed (2006) also examines the effect of pre-listening activities on listening performance. In this research, four activities previewing questions, providing background knowledge about the topic, and vocabulary instruction and repetition of input have been investigated. 3. Theorical frameworkIn the 1960s, a hypothesis was proposed in which language learning begins with comprehension and then leads to production. Speaking will emerge automatically after the learner understands the function of the target language. At first, the language learners' speech is not perfect, but it will gradually become similar to the target language. The comprehension approach, which emerged from this research and refers to language learning methods that focus on understanding language rather than speaking it. It is named for the importance it places on listening comprehension ability. In the framework of the comprehension approach, the idea that listening comprehension can be taught was spread among language teachers, and as a result, ways to facilitate the learning of this skill were suggested for more effective teaching of listening comprehension. One of the ways to teach listening comprehension is to use pre-listening activities that can help listeners understand better. The purpose of this research is to investigate three types of pre-listening activities in the framework of comprehension approach. 4. About Pre-Listening ActivitiesIt is said that the importance of pre-listening activities is that they activate the learners' existing knowledge about the topic so that the learners can use it for their hypothetical information, speculations and interpretations.previewing questions before listening, is a type of activity can help better understanding, highlight key phrases in the listener's mind and influence his listening strategies, and can also lead to more and easier understanding. In addition to these comments, it can be said that reading questions before listening can influence the choice of strategy by language learners but also There have been many studies on the effect of "viewing test questions before listening" thet believe this activity changes the nature of listening and may distract learners from paying attention to the main input.Regarding vocabulary instruction, it is said that from the perspective of language learners, segmenting words or identifying separate words in speech is one of the main difficulties in listening comprehension. Also, language learners who recognize less than 80% of the different words of a listening text while listening will have less success in listening comprehension. Listeners are active participants in the meaning of words, whether they are listening to a speaker or listening to an audio file. The listener must actively contribute linguistic knowledge such as phonology and non-linguistic knowledge such as experience or previous knowledge in the construction of meaning. Current views on listening comprehension confirm the importance of prior knowledge or background knowledge in listening comprehension. 5. Data analysis resultsIn this research, eight intermediate Persian learners who were studying in the Persian language teaching center for non-Persian speakers of Allamah Tabatabai University, participated. The age of the learners ranged from 20 to 25 and they were Russian and Turkish. This research was conducted in three sessions, that each dealt with one of the pre-listening activities. The learners were asked to answer the text-related questions after listening and that listening content was played for them two times. Using statistical indicators including mean and standard deviation, the data of the three tests were compared, indicating that the difference between the mean scores of the language learners was significant. Besides, the result was obtained that the effectiveness of each of the three activities on the Persian learners’ listening comprehension was different, such that it became apparent that the order of the effectiveness of the three types of pre-listening activities on the Persian learners’ listening comprehension is “vocabulary instruction”, “providing background knowledge about the topic”, and “previewing questions”.