Investigating mediation styles of second language listener verbal reports

Michael Yeldham; Rainbow Tsai-Hung Chen

doi:10.1515/applirev-2016-0006

Article

Investigating mediation styles of second language listener verbal reports

Michael Yeldham and Rainbow Tsai-Hung Chen

Published/Copyright: May 31, 2016

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From the journal Applied Linguistics Review Volume 7 Issue 2

Abstract

This study investigated verbal report styles for eliciting strategies data from second language listeners. It examined outcomes from three different mediation (prompting) styles, one style unprompted and the two others prompted, after the learners were first provided with low-prescriptive instructions on how to complete the report. Also, the unprompted style was additionally examined after the provision of more-prescriptive instructions to observe the effect of this greater learner guidance. Theoretically, the core of the study examined two competing cognitive perspectives on verbal reporting. One, from an information processing perspective, is that verbal reports elicit the best insight into individuals’ strategic processes when prompts are kept to a minimum. The other perspective, a constructivist one, advocates the use of prompts in the form of researcher questions, mainly to help guide the report. Seventeen Taiwanese EFL learners participated in the study, with data gathered from each through a verbal report followed by a semi-structured interview. It was found that researcher prompting was both strongly favored by the learners and clearly elicited the best data for second language listener strategies research. The results also indicated that unprompted reports were little more effective when preceded by more-prescriptive instructions.

Keywords: second language listening; verbal report; verbal report mediation; listening strategies

Acknowledgement

This research was funded by a grant from the Taiwan National Science Council.

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Appendix A. VR task directions, and sample VR questions

VR warm-up task directives:

Soon we are going to get you to tell us your thoughts while you listen. But first, to get you used to verbalizing your thoughts, please tell us out loud how you work out the math problem, 32 multiplied by 12.

Now imagine you are walking through your house, starting from the front door, and tell us what you ‘see’ as you do this.

Pre-VR Directive:

Now we’re going to play some listening passages to you. We will regularly stop each passage after every sentence or two, and each time we stop it, we’d like you to tell us what you heard, and also what you were thinking while you were listening. Please tell us everything that was in your mind; please give us as full and as accurate an account of your thoughts as you can.

(Note: prior to using style 4, the section, what you were thinking while you were listening, was replaced with, how you tried to understand while you were listening.)

VR questions used to probe learner thoughts:
- VR style 1 (typical questions): Why did you say ___?; Why did you think ____?; How did you know ___?
- VR style 2: (Similar questions to style 1 were used, followed by): Was there anything else you were thinking that you forgot to tell me?
- VR style3: (No questions were asked. However, when this style was used following styles 1 and 2, this directive was given immediately before use of this style 3: “With the next passage(s), we won’t ask you any questions. Please just tell us what you heard, and what you were thinking while you were listening.”)

Appendix B. Sample interview questions

Questions asked to investigate the learners’ views of mediation styles 1–3

(First we described each style to the learner, then asked him/her):

Please compare these three styles: how did you feel about each one?
Which style did you like the most, and why?
Which style did you like the least, and why?

Questions asked to investigate the learners’ comparison of the two pre-VR instruction styles:

Did you notice a difference between the two styles? (If so,) What was the difference?
Did you feel that the styles had different effects on your VR?

Published Online: 2016-5-31

Published in Print: 2016-6-1

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Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/applirev-2016-0006

Keywords for this article

second language listening; verbal report; verbal report mediation; listening strategies