Perceptual and Motor Skills, 2010, 110, 2, 355-365. © Perceptual and Motor Skills 2010

DOI 10.2466/PMS.110.2.355-365 ISSN 0031-5125

1Address correspondence to Anna Ching-Shyang Chang, #28 Hsing-Wu New Village, Link-ou, Taipei, Taiwan, R. O. C. or e-mail (annachang@livemail.tw).2Chang, C-S., & Read, J. (2008) Reducing listening test anxiety through the provision of lis-tening support. TESL-e-journal, 12.1. http://tesl-ej.org/ej45/a1.pdf.

SECOND-LANGUAGE LISTENING ANXIETY BEFORE AND AFTER A 1-YR. INTERVENTION IN EXTENSIVE LISTENING COMPARED

WITH STANDARD FOREIGN LANGUAGE INSTRUCTION1

ANNA CHING-SHYANG CHANG

Hsing-Wu College

Summary.—Many studies have shown that language anxiety is correlated neg-atively with language competence. This study tests the hypothesis that second lan-guage learners’ listening anxiety might be reduced when listening skills improve. Building on previous research showing that extensive reading is as effective and efficient as formal instruction in acquiring English as a foreign language and is even more effective with longer treatment duration, changes in listening anxiety were explored under two different instructional approaches—extensive listening and formal instruction—over a 1-yr. period in a sample of 92 Chinese college stu-dents. Listening anxiety and listening comprehension tests were administered to the participants before and after the experiment. Analysis showed that the Exten-sive Listening group improved more compared to the Formal Instruction group in listening competence, but their mean anxiety score also rose significantly. Factors contributing to the unexpected outcome indicate that the increase in anxiety should be considered facilitative to learning.

Research into anxiety associated with learning a foreign language has commonly identified four main areas: language competence (Steinberg & Horwitz, 1986; In’nami, 2006; Liu, 2006; Chang, 2008), learner beliefs (Horwitz, 1988; Cheng, 1997; Mills, Pajares, & Herron, 2006), teacher-re-lated factors (Tsui, 1996; Vogely, 1998), and classroom activities (Bailey, 1983; Horwitz, Horwitz, & Cope, 1986; Young, 1990; Cheng, 2004). How-ever, many of these studies examined anxiety in terms of general foreign language learning rather than focusing on specific language skills-related anxiety. Scholars such as Young (1990) have argued that anxiety related to specific language skills should be separated from general foreign lan-guage anxiety. Her claim was later supported by research on specific-lan-guage skill anxiety, such as writing (Cheng, Horwitz, & Schallert, 1999; Cheng, 2004), speaking (Young, 1990), reading (Saito, Garza, & Horwitz, 1999), and listening (Arnold, 2000; Elkhafaifi, 2005; In’nami, 20062). Over-all, most of these studies reported anxiety negatively correlated with lan-guage proficiency, suggesting that language anxiety should be reduced when language competence improves.

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To provide more specific research, the present study focused on lis-tening anxiety only and explored whether listeners’ anxiety among sec-ond language (L2) learners of English would be reduced with improve-ment in listening competence over time. Two studies have examined the sources of listening anxiety. Aneiro (1989) investigated Puerto Rican col-lege students’ listening apprehension and found that receiver apprehen-sion was most affected by listening competence, followed by exposure and other language skills. The characteristics of language input were found to be another major source of listening anxiety, e.g., fast speech, difficulty of speech, and lack of clarity, visual support or repetition. Other variables, such as instructional methods or teachers’ and learners’ beliefs, contribut-ed more or less to the sources of listener anxiety (Vogely, 1998).

By contrast, a study conducted by Arnold (2000) focused on creating a new way to reduce anxiety. Based on neuroscientific theory that emotions play an essential role in one’s mental life and also affect how one’s brain functions, Arnold used a “visualization” technique to change the learn-ers’ mental image of listening. The technique involves two stages: breath-ing and visualization. The study revealed that students in the experimen-tal group comprehended better, with a lower mean error score (M = 2.72, SD = 1.19), than the control group, which had no visualization practice and a higher mean error mean score (M = 4.09, SD = 1.30). Students who expe-rienced the visualization practice expressed a positive attitude toward the technique. For example, a student reported, “I used to get very nervous even thinking about the exam, but now I feel much calmer and don’t worry as much as before” (p. 783). Another study by Chang and Read2 examined reducing listening test anxiety through various forms of listening support, such as previewing questions, repeated listening, and preteaching back-ground knowledge and vocabulary before a test. The study showed that before the test, the test-takers were uniformly anxious, but after the test, there were significant differences between groups: the group receiving vo-cabulary instruction was more anxious than the group given repeated in-put and preteaching background knowledge.

The above two studies show that listening anxiety can be temporarily reduced through different activities, but no study has attempted to reduce students’ listening anxiety by enhancing listening competence specifical-ly, although it is a main source of anxiety (Aneiro, 1989; Vogely, 1998). Listening skills did not play a major role in language learning until the 1980s, and listening anxiety has received even less attention. Many relat-ed theoretical concepts are derived from data on reading skills. The cur-rent study, therefore, builds on previous research into the effectiveness of extensive reading, whereby learners acquire their linguistic knowledge through reading abundantly (see Day & Bamford, 1998, for a comprehen-

FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING AND LISTENING ANXIETY 357

3This study was a subproject of the Enhancing Foreign Language Competence Project spon-sored by the Ministry of Education, Taiwan, and Hsing-Wu College, Taipei.

sive review of the effectiveness of extensive reading). In a recent study by Lee (2007), it was found that extensive reading is at least as effective and efficient as formal instruction in acquiring English as a foreign lan-guage and is even more effective when the treatment duration is longer. If reading abundantly is beneficial to L2 learners’ reading skills, then by the same token, listening extensively can be assumed to have the same effect on L2 listening skills. Extensive listening can be achieved by aural input by means of television, radio, video and internet sources, or audio books and magazines, to increase automaticity in recognizing spoken text and enjoying listening.

Two hypotheses were tested. That the group receiving listening treat-ment would (1) make more advancement in listening skills than the group receiving formal instruction, and (2) also have lower listening anxiety af-ter one year of training.

MethodResearch Design3

Two groups were studied, an Extensive Listening group and a Formal Instruction group. The Extensive Listening group received no formal in-struction but listened to and read 25 audio books during two semesters. The students had to manage part of their learning, and the teacher led the discussions, monitored students’ progress, and answered questions. A low-stakes comprehension assessment was given to examine comprehen-sion each time students finished a book. The goal of this group was to de-velop their listening interest in the hope that they would enjoy the stories and gradually improve their automaticity in recognizing spoken text and build up their confidence in comprehending spoken English.

The Formal Instruction group was given traditionally structured teaching, i.e., standard classroom listening and reading textbooks, with listening and reading as two distinct courses. The learning goal of the Formal Instruction group was to explicitly develop listening and read-ing skills by teaching high-frequency vocabulary and grammatical spo-ken structures and offering opportunities to practice spoken English. The teachers taught the courses according to a syllabus, and the whole class studied at the same learning pace. Regular quizzes, midterms, and final examinations were involved in this teaching. See the Appendix, p. 365, for more details on other distinctive features of these two interventions.Participants

The participants of this study were 92 vocational college students in Taipei, Taiwan, aged 18 to 19 years, majoring in Applied English. The par-

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ticipants were all admitted to the college with comparable entrance scores and were randomly formed into two classes by the college. In the past, all participants took exactly the same courses and used the same textbooks. The only difference between the two groups at the time this research was undertaken was in their learning materials for the listening and reading courses. Under such circumstances, it is reasonable to assume that any dif-ferences in learning gain between the two groups would be mainly due to the different teaching methods. It is possible that acquisition might come from outside or extra study but this would not make a substantial dif-ference between the two groups as Chang and Hsieh (2007) found that Applied English majors usually have many English courses and that few study beyond their required courses.

Before the experiment began, a survey was conducted into partici-pants’ backgrounds and it was found that none had ever listened to Eng-lish stories and only two had ever read English stories. They learned Eng-lish mainly through formal instruction in the classroom. Also, none of the students had the experience of taking (partial or full) control of their learn-ing, which meant that they relied totally on teachers’ instruction. Under such circumstances, their informal exposure to both reading and listening was very limited.Measures

Listening comprehension tests.—The listening comprehension test in-volved two types of English comprehension, Conversational and Narra-tive. The former test included 35 multiple-choice questions selected by the researcher from a test bank provided by a publisher. The topics for the Conversational test were related to daily life, required no specific knowl-edge, and were the kind of listening tests participants were used to do-ing in their listening classes. The Narrative test was constructed based on a 793-word short story, previously used by Chang (2007) to test a group of college students studying in a similar context. It involved 28 questions with both multiple-choice and open-ended formats. The reason for choos-ing this story was because it was not popular and thus it was very unlike-ly that the participants would know the story, so background knowledge would not be a factor affecting listening test results.

English listening anxiety.—The Listening Anxiety Questionnaire was developed by Chang (2008) who explored Chinese students’ feelings about comprehending aural input in both general and test situations. The ques-tionnaire contained 33 items in two categories: General (21 items) and Lis-tening Test Anxiety (12 items). The internal consistency reliability (Cron-bach α) was high at .89 (Chang, 2008). An example of a General Listening Anxiety item is, “I feel upset when other students laugh at something the teacher says in English that is incomprehensible to me.” An example of an

FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING AND LISTENING ANXIETY 359

English Listening Test Anxiety item is, “I feel nervous during the tests in my listening class.” Items were rated on a 5-point Likert-type scale with anchors 5: Strongly agree and 1: Strongly disagree. Possible scores ranged from 33 (low anxiety) to 165 (high anxiety). The mean score in a student group similar to the one in this study (Chang, 2008) was 3.68.Procedure

Before the experiment started, the Extensive Listening group was giv-en a 1-hr. orientation about extensive listening. They were told how and why the approach would be implemented, and the results of past studies in extensive reading were presented as encouragement. A consent form was then signed, followed by a pretest of listening comprehension and ad-ministration of the Listening Anxiety Questionnaire.

The researcher met with the students three times each week, 100 min. each time. During the period, students finished the reading and listen-ing tasks for the book assigned for the week, recording what they learned from the book in a journal, and assessing their comprehension. The time allotted for the Formal Instruction group was the same as for the Exten-sive Listening group. All the measurements were repeated at the end of the second semester.Data Analysis

SPSS, Version 15.0 for Windows, was employed for the quantitative statistical analysis. Due to the pretest scores on Listening Anxiety not be-ing comparable (t85 = –13.51, p < .001; Cohen’s d = 2.92), a preliminary check found that the data met the assumptions for analysis of covariance. AN-COVA was therefore performed to compare the differences in students’ posttest scores on Listening Anxiety between groups. The independent variable was Group (extensive listening, formal instruction), and the post-test score on Listening Anxiety was the dependent variable. The pretest score of Listening Anxiety was used as the covariate. Reliabilities for the pre- and posttest scores on listening comprehension were reported and magnitudes of effect sizes for the two independent variables were also calculated.

Results and DiscussionListening Achievement

Test results are presented in Table 1. The internal consistency reliabil-ity coefficients (Cronbach α) for each pre- and posttest were .76 versus .81 for comprehending narrative spoken English and .80 versus .78 for con-versational listening. Overall, while both groups made some progress af-ter 1 yr. of study, the Extensive Listening group made much more prog-ress than the Formal Instruction group in comprehending narrative input texts. In comprehension of narrative spoken English, the Extensive Listen-

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ing group advanced 7.87 points, from 10.88 to 18.75 out of 28, compared to only 2.66 points (from 10.77 to 13.43 out of 28) for the Formal Instruc-tion group. The effect size calculated by Cohen’s d was 1.37 for the posttest results for Extensive Listening and Formal Instruction groups (t90 = 6.68; 95%CI = 3.80–7.02). Regarding listening to conversational English, the For-mal Instruction group progressed 5.79 points (from 19.48 to 25.27 out of 35) while the Extensive Listening group gained 4.21 points (from 18.49 to 22.70 out of 30), but the effect size was small (Cohen’s d = .74).Listening Anxiety

The means and standard deviations before and after the experiment for both research groups are presented in Table 2. The Formal Instruction group had a higher mean score on Listening Anxiety than the Extensive Listening group at Time 1, despite their pretest comprehension scores be-ing comparable. Given that trait and anxiety are individual differences, the pretest scores on Listening Anxiety were controlled when comparing posttest results. The results show that listening anxiety in the Formal In-struction group decreased, whereas the listening anxiety of the Extensive Listening group increased.

A one-way between-groups analysis of covariance was conducted to explore changes in student listening anxiety. The independent variable

TABLE 1Means and Standard Deviations of Pre- and Postintervention

Scores on Listening Comprehension

Comprehension of English

Group Time 1 Time 2M SD M SD

Narrative Extensive Listening 10.88 3.23 18.75 4.00Formal Instruction 10.77 2.86 13.43 3.75

Conversational Extensive Listening 19.48 3.64 25.27 3.71Formal Instruction 18.49 2.75 22.70 3.24

Note.—Narrative and Conversational Listening Comprehension tests scored on scales of 1– 28 and 1–35, respectively.

TABLE 2Means, Standard Deviations, Range, and Reliability For Total Listening Anxiety For

Extensive Listening and Formal Instruction Groups Before and After Year of Schooling

Time 1 Time 2

Extensive Listening

(n = 43)

Formal Instruction

(n = 46)

Extensive Listening

(n = 44)

Formal Instruction

(n = 42)M 2.58 3.60 3.46 3.50SD 0.32 0.37 0.39 0.38Range 2.00–3.48 2.73–4.36 2.55–4.61 2.61–4.39Reliability* .93 .84*For the whole group

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was the type of intervention (Group: Extensive Listening, Formal Instruc-tion) and the dependent variable consisted of scores on Listening Anxiety administered after the intervention was completed. Participants’ scores on the pre-intervention (Time 1) scores on Listening Anxiety were used as the covariate in this analysis (Time 1 Anxiety). Table 3 shows that there was significant difference on post-intervention scores of Listening Anxi-ety between the two interventions as a statistically significant main effect was found for the Group variable and that the effect size was medium (η2 = .07). There was a relationship between pre-intervention and post-intervention scores on Listening Anxiety, as indicated by the effect size η2 = .11.

TABLE 3Summary of Analysis of Covariance For Pre-intervention Listening Anxiety by Group

Source SS df MS F η2

Time 1 Anxiety 1.34 1 1.34 10.03† .11Group .75 1 .75 5.64* .07Error 10.44 78 .13 Total 993.80 81 Corrected Total 11.81 80

Note.—α set at .05. *p < .01. †p < .001.

Paired-samples t tests were also conducted to evaluate the change of each group’s listening anxiety scores from Time 1 to Time 2. Table 4 shows that for the Formal Instruction group, there was a statistically significant decrease in mean Listening Anxiety scores from Time 1 to Time 2; howev-er, the effect size was small. For the Extensive Listening group, there was a statistically significant increase in mean Listening Anxiety scores from Time 1 to Time 2, for which the effect size (Cohen’s d) was very large. The overall analysis shows that the Extensive Listening group had a statisti-cally significantly lower mean Listening Anxiety score than the Formal In-struction group before the experiment; however, after the experiment, the difference between the two groups’ Listening Anxiety scores appeared to be no longer significant. The result did not confirm Hypothesis 2 that the listening anxiety of the Extensive Listening group would decrease after their listening competence was enhanced.

TABLE 4Means, Standard Deviations, SEMs, and Paired-sample t Tests

at Times 1 and 2 For Listening Anxiety in Two Groups

Group Paired Differences t df p* Cohen’s dM SD SEM 95%CI

Extensive Listening −.88 50 .08 −1.03– −0.72 −11.56 42 .001 2.47Formal Instruction .12 32 .05 0.02–0.23 2.36 37 .02 −0.27*two-tailed.

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ConclusionThe intensity of listening anxiety of the Extensive Listening group

was lower before the experiment but significantly higher after the experi-ment despite their making salient progress with their listening compe-tence. This phenomenon means that listening anxiety does not decrease simply due to an improvement in listening competence. There are several possibilities that may account for this outcome. First, the Extensive Lis-tening group experienced a completely new learning approach, in which they did not receive formal instruction as before and had to manage part of their learning as well. It is very likely that they were not used to this style of learning, despite its effectiveness. Second, the majority of these students were test-oriented learners; they like to be tested regularly to confirm their learning. Without high-stakes tests, they may not consider that they had acquired any skills from the learning. Third, the quantity of materials the Extensive Listening group studied was much greater than they had experienced previously.

Although the students in the Extensive Listening group felt more anx-ious than before, their Listening Competence also improved much more than that of the Formal Instruction group. Some scholars attribute positive effects to anxiety, meaning that moderate tension is an incentive to learn-ing. Alpert and Haber (1960) argue that anxiety may have a debilitating or facilitating effect, and others (cf. Scovel, 1978, and Horwitz, 2001, for comprehensive reviews) have shown that highly competent learners may have high test anxiety. By the same token, some very low-level language learners may have low anxiety if learning a foreign language has little im-portance for them (Chang, 2008). However, Chang’s finding cannot be ap-plicable to the participants of this study because they were all language students and commanding good listening skills was of importance for them; therefore, the ranges of mean scores of Listening Anxiety before and after the treatment were 2.36 (2.00–4.36 out of 5) and 2.06 (2.56–4.61), not varying much. The majority of the students who performed better in both pre- and posttests of Listening Comprehension tended to have a moderate intensity of anxiety, not extreme. Despite the increased anxiety scores in this study, the progress in comprehension suggests this was a facilitative anxiety, meaning that it had a positive effect on student learning. In fact, some scholars do not call these kinds of tense feelings “anxiety” but “at-tention” (Young, 1992). Hadley (cited in Young, 1992) noted that learners have to have some tension to create the desire to learn, to motivate, to get them to realize that effort is needed. Therefore, language teachers do not have to worry about students being anxious so long as the anxiety is not debilitating, and a good measure of this is whether the students make ad-vancement in their learning.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING AND LISTENING ANXIETY 363

Finally, two limitations of the study should be mentioned. First, the study lasted a full year and it was likely that variables other than teaching approaches could possibly have affected the final outcome. Second, the two groups might have different experiences in the development of their English listening competence, e.g., strict versus lenient instructors, which might have caused differences in the intensity of their listening anxiety be-fore the experiment. While the Time 1 scores were controlled for in analy-ses, one cannot control the poor habits or reactions that might have been learned in previous classes. These two issues are beyond the scope of the current research as this study was limited to looking at listening anxiety through enhancing listening skills by means of extensively listening to au-dio books. Researchers may look at other approaches to explore how anxi-ety changes with the development of other language skills.

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Horwitz, E. K. (1988) The beliefs about language learning of beginning university foreign language students. Modern Language Journal, 72, 283-294.

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Accepted January 25, 2010.

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APPENDIX

Summary of Distinctive Features Between the Extensive Listening and the Formal Instruction Groups

Extensive Listening Group Formal Instruction Group

Approaches Extensive listening (integrating listening with reading) with no formal teaching

Traditionally formal instruction (separating listening and reading into two different courses)

Study materials

Audio graded readers Theme-based classroom listening and reading textbooks

Learning goal

To develop listening interestTo build listening confidenceTo implicitly develop overall

language competence

To explicitly develop listening skillsTo explicitly build language

knowledgeTo learn something about the topics

in the textClassroom

activitiesAssessment after each bookReading while listening to audio

readersClarifying comprehensionDiscussion or oral report based on

the stories(The above are listening activities)Rereading the readers and writing

learning journalsFilling out learning logsTaking notes of what is being learned

Quiz after each unitListening instructionRole play based on the themesInteractions between students and

teachers or between peers(The above are listening activities)Reading instruction

Teaching or learning speed

Students decide part of their learning pace

To meet the whole class learning pace

Learning amount, min./wk.

300 min. (100 min. for listening, 200 min. for other activities, e.g., class-room activities)

300 min. (100 min. for listening, 200 min. for reading)

Teacher’s role

No formal teachingLead the discussionMonitor students’ progressAnswer students’ questions

Teaching according to the syllabusFormal instruction