The Use of Advance Organizers to Prepare College Students to Listen in the Foreign Language Classroom

This sequential mixed-methods study examined the effect of the use of advance organizers on a video-based listening comprehension task performed by 124 EFL college students in three experimental conditions. In the first phase, each participant completed an advance organizer activity, watched a video segment, took a listening comprehension test, and completed an attitude survey； the second phase consisted of a focus group discussion, which was used to assist in explaining and interpreting the findings of the quantitative data so as to arrive at a more comprehensive analysis. The results showed that students performed best when they had question preview (QP) as an advance organizer prior to viewing the target video, moderately well when they had summary of major scenes (SMS) with accompanying pictures, and poorest when they had cultural background cues (CBC). Statistical analyses indicated that the QP Group was significantly different from the other two groups； however, the SMS Group and the CBC Group did not differ significantly. The implications of this study and suggestions for future research on the use of advance organizers in the second/foreign language classroom are discussed. 此混合方式的研究探討124名EFL大專生，在三種研究情境下，使用導組織對於他們在練習聽力活動的影響，在第一階段，每個參與者完成一個前導活動、觀看一個影視片段、做聽力理解測驗、完成一份態度問卷；第二階段包括焦點小組討論，用來協助解釋量化資料分析的結果，以達到較完整的分析。研究結果顯示學生在看影視片段前，先看過問題當為前導時，表現的最好；而學生表現次之，是在他們有取得主要場景的大綱以及圖片時；而表現最差的狀況，是當他們有文化背景的相關線索。統計分析指出，以問題為前導的組別跟其他兩組有顯著上的差異；然而主要場景的大綱以及文化背景兩個組群並無顯著的差異。此研究建議在第二語言/外語課室前導組織架構使用的未來研究方向。