The Effectiveness of Flipped Classroom in Improving Learners' Listening and Speaking Proficiency Based on Attention Mechanism

TIAN Ying LI Na

Northeast Electric Power University,Jilin,132012,China

[Abstract] Modern information technology and new educational ideology together produces the flipped classroom teaching approach,which greatly challenged the traditional teacher-centered approach in China.However,it is still unclear about the effects of applying flipped classroom approach to university English education.This study designed a flipped classroom model based on the attention mechanism that focused on learning activities before and after class to improve Chinese EFL learners’ listening and speaking proficiency.

[Keywords] Attention mechanism;flipped classroom;EFL learners;listening and speaking skill

INTRODUCTION

In psychology,Attention Mechanism is defined as a psychological process for learners to filtrate information.It shows the learners’ concentration state for the filtrating information and proves that noticing is prerequisite for learning.According to Schmidt,conscious noticing is crucial for language learning,while not all the input can be taken in by learners.The input learners noticed can be further processed by their brain and output by learners through repeated practice.In this information era,learners cannot be passive information receivers,but active interpreters and constructors of new knowledge instead(Jia,Zhang &Shi,2016).This requires language practitioners and scholars to shift their focus on the learners themselves.

Flipped classroom approach was firstly introduced into China in 2011,and most of the literature on flipped classroom have focused on its application to teaching various subjects in secondary schools,Hence,the present study attempted to flip English listening and speaking classroom for a semester at a university in Jilin province,China.To arrive at this aim,two research questions were formulated to examine the applicability of flipped classroom approach in Chinese EFL context:

1)Can flipped classroom significantly develop Chinese EFL learners’ English listening and speaking skills?

2)What are students’ perceptions of applying flipped classroom approach to university English listening and speaking course?

The findings of this study may offer some suggestions to English teachers for helping them flip their classrooms with regards to the improvement of students’ language proficiency.

RESEARCH METHOD

Participants

The teaching experiment was carried out at a university in Jilin province,China.In this university,students can get access to Internet wherever they go.Moreover,a Self-access Center(SAC)was established in 2016 for students’ autonomous English language learning.Learners can practice their listening,speaking,writing,reading and translating,and can also receive their lecturers’ support in this center.Thus,it is feasible to conduct the experiment in this university.Purposive sampling method was used to select 98 yearone non-English major students as participants.The experimental group was consisted of 48 students(21 males,27 females),while the control group included 49 students(23 males,26 females).The results of Using Independent Samples T-test in Table 1 indicated that the average pretest listening and speaking score of the experimental group was 73.79,while that of the control group was 71.67.Thus,the results showed that there was no significant difference between the experimental group and control group with regards to their English listening and speaking proficiency(T=.83,P=.406>.05).The experiment was conducted in the second semester of 2020-2021 academic year,lasting for 16 weeks.The flipped classroom approach was adopted in the experimental group,while the traditional teaching approach was employed in the control group.

Research Instruments

Research instruments in this study included pretest,posttest,and questionnaires.First of all,the pretest and posttest of participants’ English listening and speaking proficiency was determined by Public English Test System 3(PETS-3)and PETS-4 respectively.Results showed that this value of pretest of the experimental group and the control group was 0.756(p<0.05)and 0.641(p<0.01)respectively,and its corresponding posttest value was 0.712(p<0.01)and 0.733(p<0.01)respectively,indicating that the scores given by the two examiners were well consistent.

Procedures

This study developed a flipped classroom model based on models in the previous studies(Ye et al.2017,Jia et al.2016,Liu 2016).In this model,the researchers took into the features of English listening and speaking course and divided the learning time into before class,in class and after class.

Pre-class Activity

The teacher in the experimental class uploaded a fifteen-minute teaching video on the unit topic,relevant materials,and assignments to autonomous learning platform in the Self-access Center(SAC)one week before the class.The fifteen-minute teaching video included four minutes for introducing background knowledge,three minutes for topic-related materials,and eight minutes for illustrating key words,phrases,and sample sentences.The relevant materials were chosen from CCTV News,China Daily,and BBC.The assignments included reading relevant materials,practicing the pattern drills and role play,and fulfilling the project-based learning activity.when students had problems in completing their teacher’s assignments,they could discuss and communicate with the teacher or their peers through the autonomous learning platform in Self-access Center,Fetion,QQ,or Wechat.

In-class Activity

In class,the English teacher stimulated participants’ schemata or acquired concepts and spent some time solving the problems that emerged in students’ previous online video watching or material learning,which lasted for about 15 minutes.After students’ acknowledgement of understanding the contents of videos and materials,the teacher instructed them to practice their oral skills.

Firstly,10 minutes were given to students for discussing with their peers on some related questions of the unit topic.Then,students did the task-based learning activities through group work to internalize their acquired knowledge,taking about 15 minutes.In this process,the teacher clearly explained the objectives and scenarios of the task,and offered an example to do this task.After that,students worked in groups and rehearsed their task-based activities through peer support and collaboration.Meanwhile,the teacher walked around the classroom to offer some help to those who were in need.After the group work,all the students needed to report their results by the way of short plays with their peers.At the same time,the teacher evaluated the performance of students,and offered more listening and speaking opportunities to those who were timid and silent.Though the ongoing discussion was time-consuming,the effects were very good,for students could open their mind step by step through the multiple angle analysis.At last,the teacher spent 10 minutes commenting on students’ performance.Thus,through interacting with their peers,task-based learning activities,and the teacher’s feedback,students could improve their listening and speaking skills to a great extent.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The Improvement of Students’ English Listening and speaking Proficiency

Students’ scores can directly reflect whether they had made improvements in their English language proficiency or not.The posttest of participants’ English listening and speaking proficiency was conducted in the 15th week and 16th week.The total time of listening and speaking test was about four hours.

In Table 1,results of Independent-Samples T-test showed that the average scores of the experimental group and the control group were not significantly differentiated(T=.83,p=.406>.05)before the experiment.Nevertheless,in the posttest,the average score of the experimental group(M=80.46,S.D.=11.31)was significantly higher than that of the control group(M=74.24,S.D.=10.48),for P=.006<05.This indicated that flipping English listening and speaking course could improve students’ English listening and speaking proficiency.Moreover,the Standard Deviation of the experimental group(S.D.=11.31)was bigger than that of the control group(S.D.=10.48),suggesting the more discrete scores in the former group.That is to say,there were more students with high English listening and speaking scores as well as more students with low English listening and speaking scores in the experimental group than that of the control group.

Table 1.Statistic results of independent samples T-test of students’ listening and speaking scores

Students’ Perceptions of Flipped Classroom

To offer more insight into the application of flipped classroom in English language education,the researchers surveyed the participants’ perceptions of flipped classroom at the end of the experiment.Results of questionnaire showed that only three-fifths of the participants(60.4%,M=3.5,S.D.=.99)could complete the assignments given by the teacher before class.Nearly seventy percent of the participants(68.8%,M=3.7,S.D.=.93)believed that the videos and relevant materials uploaded by the teacher stimulated their interests.Equal percentages of the participants(68.8%,M=3.9,S.D.=.84)reported that they had enhanced their English listening and speaking power by watching videos,reading materials and fulfilling listening and speaking tasks before class.Comparatively,only 62.5% of the participants(M=3.5,S.D.=1.0)discussed with the teacher or their peers online to solve problems that emerged in learning activities before class.Based on the results of Chinese university students’ pre-class learning activities,the item “Watching videos,reading materials and fulfilling listening and speaking tasks before class can enhance my English listening and speaking power” scored the highest mean(M=3.9,S.D.=.84).In comparison,the item with the lowest mean was “I complete the assignments given by the teacher before class”(M=3.5,S.D.=.99).This indicated that students’ learning activities before class like watching videos,reading materials and fulfilling listening and speaking tasks can improve their listening and speaking skills,but some students could not complete their homework before class.

For the learning effectiveness of flipped classroom,only 62.5% of the participants(M=3.6,S.D.=.81)reported that their ability to solve problems was developed in the flipped classroom.In comparison,the majority of the participants(81.2%,M=4.0,S.D.=.81)believed that their communicative skills were enhanced.Nearly seventy percent of the participants(68.8%,M=3.7,S.D.=.84)thought that their English language learning autonomy was promoted in the flipped classroom context.The majority of the participants(79.2%,M=3.9,S.D.=.86)reported that they had improved their English listening and speaking power in the flipped classroom.For the last item,72.9% of the participants(M=3.8,S.D.=.91)preferred the flipped classroom to the traditional teacher-centered learning.

The findings of students’ questionnaires and their evaluation to the teacher at the end of the semester indicated that they had obvious preference for the flipped classroom approach and its positive effects on their English listening and speaking proficiency.This matches with findings of some previous studies like Al-Ghamdi and Al-Bargi(2017),Wu et al.(2017),Jia et al.(2016),Liu(2016),and Yin(2016).Among the pre-class learning activities,the majority of participants believed that the videos,and relevant materials uploaded by the teacher could stimulate their interests.It is in consistent with Liu’s(2016)findings that videos and audios that scientifically designed could help Chinese EFL learners understand deeper and memorize better.

CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATION

This study was conducted with the purpose of investigating the effectiveness of applying flipped classroom approach to university English listening and speaking course in Chinese EFL context.Results of Independent-Samples T-test showed that there existed significant difference between the participants’ average English listening and speaking scores in the experimental group and the control group,suggesting that the flipped classroom can significantly enhance the participants’ English listening and speaking proficiency.However,it should be noted that the flipped classroom approach can not solve all teaching and learning problems once and for all.If there are some problems emerged in the implementation of it into EFL learning,teachers should try their best to find out the reasons and solve them as possible as they can.

Pedagogical suggestions are offered to English teachers to assist them in flipping English classrooms with regards to the improvement of language proficiency.First of all,the classification teaching needs to be conducted.After year-one students registered,English teachers can divide them into advanced,intermediate,and primary groups on the basis of their autonomy level and English scores in College Entrance Examination.For the advanced group,English teachers can adopt the flipped classroom approach,while the traditional teacher-centered approach can be employed to the intermediate and primary groups.This classification teaching can educate students in accordance with their aptitude.As a result,the autonomous students can actively participate into various learning activities,freely communicate with the teacher as well as their peers,and frequently cooperate with their partners in the flipped classroom context.Secondly,teachers who want to flip their classroom successfully need to change their teaching ideology first,for in this new teaching approach,teachers are no longer the dominant role in class,but the facilitator,organizer,information-supporter,and class manager instead.Finally,teachers should pay more attention to those less proficient students,because those students usually cannot finish the assignments given by the teachers before class due to their low level of autonomy and proficiency.As a consequence,teachers need to scrutinize the scenario of students’attitudes to flipped classroom,language proficiency,learning autonomy,learning style and interests,then offer some personalized instructions to them for improving their language proficiency.