Thailand TESOL Journal Volume 26 Number 1

ISBN2286-8909
Volume26Number1June2013

Thailand TESOL Organization
under the Patronage of Her Royal Highness Princess Galyani
Vadhana Krom Luang Naradhiwas Rajanagarindra
THAILAND TESOL ORGANIZATION is a professional non-profit and non-
political organization under the patronage of H.R.H. Princess Galyani Vadhana
Krom Luang Naradhiwas Rajanagarindra. Its purposes are to strengthen English
Language education at all levels, to undertake research in the teaching of English
to speakers of other languages, to offer scholarships, to disseminate information,
and to cooperate in appropriate ways with other groups having similar concerns.
THAILAND TESOL ORGANIZATION is an affiliate of TESOL, Inc. located
in the United States of America; the International Association of Teachers of
English as a Foreign Language (IATEFL), located in Great Britain; JALT, located
in Japan; Korea TESOL; STETS, located in Singapore; ETAROC, located in
Taiwan; and TESL Canada.
THAITESOL JOURNAL (ISSN 2286-8909) is published 2 times a year, in
January and May by Thailand TESOL Organization under the Patronage of H.R.H.
Princess Galyani Vadhana Krom Luang Naradhiwas Rajanagarindra. It is intended
to provide a forum for research and the exchange of information including opinion
on theory and practice in the teaching of English to speakers of other languages.
PHOTOCOPYING Material in THAITESOL JOURNAL may be photocopied for
educational purposes. Under no circumstances may any part of this bulletin be
photocopied for commercial purposes.
Printed in Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand

THAILAND TESOL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
March 2011 – May 2013
Advisory Board Arunee Wiriyachitra Independent Consultant
Suntana Sutadarat Ramkhamhaeng University
Naraporn Chan-Ocha Distance Learning Foundation
Sonthida Keyuravong King Mongkut University
Thonburi
Suchada Nimmannit Chulalongkorn University
Chaleosri Pibulchol Distance Learning Foundation
Maneepen Apibalsri Rungsit University
Damon Anderson RELO, US Embassy
Samatha Grainger British Council
Scott Evans Australian Embassy
Paul Humphries AUA Language Center
Wattanaporn Rangabtook Ministry of Education
Past President Akara Akaranithi Chulalongkorn University
Immediate Past President Ubon Sanpatchayapong Rangsit University
President Nopporn Sarobol Thammasat University
First Vice President Unchalee Sermsongswad Chiang Mai University
Second Vice President Anamai Damnet Kasetsart University
Secretary Edward B. Geerson Thammasat University
Assistant secretary Nipaporn Chalermnirundorn Rangsit University
Treasurer Kittitouch Soontornwipast Thammasat University
Webmaster Sarapol Chirasawadi Suan Dusit Rajabhat
University
Public Relations Monthon Kanokpermpoon Thammasat University
Wacharapong Kributr Thai Airways International
Publication Andrew Lian Suranaree University of
Technology
Pannathon Sangarun Suranaree University of
Technology
Membership Coordinator Jiraporn Kakaew Kasetsart University
Member-at-large Chantharat Hongboontri Mahidol University
Chirasiri Kasemsin Mahidol University
Paneeta Nitayaphorn Thai Airways International

SIG Chairs
ESP Panna Chaturongakul Thammasat University
Research Kanjana Chattrakul Suan Dusit Rajabhat
University
CALL Supanit Kulsiri Srinakarinwirot University
STED Chanarong Rachbuanoy Udon Thani Educational
Service Area Office 4
Literature Rajeev Ramnath Assumption University
IELLT Anamai Damnet Kasetsart University
ICT Sarapol Chirasawadi Suan Dusit Rajabhat
University
SAL Nopporn Sarobol Thammasat University
Regional Affiliates
Northern Affiliate Wichian Sunitham Chiang Mai University
Northeastern Affiliate Uthaivan Danvivath Khon Kaen University
Krauwan Thongwundee Roi-Et Wittayalai School
Southern Affiliate Pragasit Sitthitikul Thammasat University
Pareedar Pakawan Naradhiwas University
Western Affiliate Singhanat Nomnian Mahidol University

THAITESOL
JOURNAL
Volume 26 Number 1
Published by Thailand TESOL Organization under the Patronage of Her Royal Highness
Princess Galyani Vadhana Krom Luang Naradhiwas Rajanagarindra
EDITORS
Editor
Pannathon Saengarun
Suranaree University of Technology
Thailand
Managing Editor
Maneepen Apibalsri
Rungsit University
Thailand
CONTENTS
ARTICLES
An Analysis of Reading Materials Using Coh-Metrix in Conjunction with
Students’ Reading Comprehension Scores
MARY SARAWIT
Effects of Online Task-Based Interactive Listening Instruction for EFL
Learners
XINGBIN TIAN
SUKSAN SUPPASETSEREE
Exploring Beliefs of Pre-Service Teachers toward English as an International
Language
FLORA DEBORA FLORIS
1
25
46

EDITORS
Editor
Pannathon Saengarun
Thailand
Managing Editor
Maneepen Apibalsri
Thailand
EDITORIAL REVIEW BOARD
Akara Akaranithi
Chulalongkorn University
Thailand
Anamai Damnat
Kasetsart University
Thailand
Andrew Lian
Thailand
Apisak Pupipat
Thammasart University
Thailand
Arunee Wiriyachitra
Independent Consultant
Thailand
Chaleosri Pibulchol
Distance Learning Foundation
Thailand
Chantharat Hongboontri
Mahidol University
Thailand
Chirasiri Kasemsin
Mahidol University
Thailand
Debra Hoven
Athabasca University
Canada
Harald Kraus
Dhurakitbandit University
Thailand
Kanjana Chattrakul
Suan Dusit Rajabhat University
Thailand
Kittitouch Soontornwipast
Thammasat University
Thailand
Leslie Burke Barratt
Indiana State University
U.S.A
Maneepen Apibalsri
Rungsit University
Thailand

Nattaya Puekpong
Thailand
Nopporn Sarobol
Thailand
Panna Chaturongakul
Thammasat University
Thailand
Pannathon Sangarun
Thailand
Pragasit Sitthitikul
Thailand
Rajeev Ramnah
Assumption University
Thailand
Ruja Polsawad
Rangsit University
Thailand
Singhanat Nomnian
Mahidol University
Thailand
Somsak Boonsathorn
Maeh Fah Luang University
Thailand
Sonthida Keyurawong
King Mongkut University
Thailand
Suchada Nimmannit
Chulalongkorn University
Thailand
Supanit Kulsiri
Srinakarinwirot University
Thailand
Supatra Thongkalaya
Srinakarinwirot University
Thailand
Unchalee Sermsongswad
Chiang Mai University
Thailand
Ubon Sanpatchayapong
Rangsit University
Thailand
Uthaivan Danvivath
Khon Kaen University
Thailand
Wichian Sunitham
Chiang Mai University
Thailand
Assistant Editor
Rajeev Ramnah
Assumption University
Thailand

Editorial
Welcome to the first issue of the Thai TESOL Journal.
Until now, this journal was known as the Thai TESOL
Bulletin. However, we felt it was important to rename it
so as to avoid confusion with other forms of publication
and to reflect clearly its status as a peer-reviewed,
refereed, journal of international standing.
The learning (and therefore teaching) of English is at a
critically important point in its history, especially in
Asian contexts. In particular, the inauguration of the AEC (ASEAN Economic
Community) in 2015 as part of ASEAN’s development plans will require the use
of English as the common language and will place increasing pressure on
English language learning resources (as well as on resources for the learning and
teaching of other languages). This is especially true in light of the possible
development of a Regional Economic Partnership which would include Australia
and New Zealand. These developments, which is are approximately two years
away, will significantly strain the already overloaded language-learning and
teaching systems in the region. As a result, it is almost inevitable that the
demand for English language-learning support, in both formal and informal
settings, will outstrip the resources currently available. Dealing with this
situation will require substantial increases in the efficiency and effectiveness of
English language learning and teaching in order to meet regional needs.
Thailand, as a member nation of the AEC and as an Asian country where English
is not an official language, has a critically important role to play both within its
borders and beyond. It is therefore very pleasing to be able to report that the
Thai TESOL Journal extends the tradition of quality established by the Thai
TESOL Bulletin and continues to receive a flow of high quality submissions
from both Thai and International scholars. These contributions will help refine
our theoretical and practical understandings of the language learning process thus
helping to alleviate some of the problems which lie ahead. We hope that you will
both enjoy and benefit professionally from the new and relevant contributions to

knowledge to be found both in the pages that follow and in subsequent issues of
the journal. We are grateful for these contributions and very much look forward
to receiving yours in the near future.
Pannathon Sangarun
Editor

Join us at
34th
Annual Thailand TESOL
International Conference
January 17-18, 2014
The Empress Hotel, Chiang Mai, Thailand
www.thaitesol.org

THE AUTHORS
Mary Sarawit has been involved in English language teaching in Thailand since
her role as a US Peace Corps Volunteer in Thailand from 1967 to 1969. After
completing her studies for a Ph.D. in Linguistics at the University of Michigan,
she returned to teach in Phitsanulok, Thailand. She was Assistant to the Dean of
the Humanities Faculty, Deputy Director of the Naresuan University
International College, and is presently Distinguished Specialist in Language and
Advisor for International Student Activities in the Office of the President at
Naresuan University.
Xingbin Tian received his Bachelor’s Degree in English from Guizhou
University, China in 1982, and Master’s Degree in history from Shandong
University, China in 2008. He has been teaching English at Tongren University,
China since 1982. His research interests include technology enhanced language
learning, instructional systems design and language learning strategies.
Suksan Suppasetseree is currently a lecturer in English and the supervisor of the
Foreign Languages Resource Unit (FLRU), the self-access language learning
center, at Suranaree University of Technology, Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand.
He is now a MA and PhD supervisor in his institute. His research interests
include technology enhanced language learning, e-learning and instructional
systems design.
Flora Debora Floris completed her Master’s Degree in English Language
Teaching at the Institute for English Language Education, Assumption
University Thailand as a scholar of the United Board for Christian Higher
Education in Asia (UBCHEA). She is currently a teacher in the English
Department of Petra Christian University, Surabaya where she teaches English
for Education Business subjects. Her areas of interest include issues of English
as an International Language and teachers' professional development.

AN ANALYSIS OF READING MATERIALS USING COH-METRIX
IN CONJUNCTION WITH STUDENTS’ READING
COMPREHENSION SCORES
Mary Sarawit
Naresuan University, Phitsanulok, Thailand
marys@nu.ac.th
Abstract
The purposes of the study were (1) to analyze the SRA Lab 3B Rose Level using
Coh-Metrix indices at a lexical level (reading ease, reading grade level,
frequency of content words, concreteness of words, and lexical diversity),
syntactic level (words before the main verb, pronoun ratio to noun phrases,
personal pronoun incidence, number of modifiers before the noun phrase, and
words in a sentence), and semantic level (additive, temporal, causal, logical
connectives, and latent semantic analysis) and (2) to identify relationships
between the students‟ comprehension scores on the 11 Rose readings and the 15
characteristics of the readings. The subjects were Naresuan University International
College students. They read all 11 Rose readings and completed the questions
that follow the readings. This study reconfirms the relationship between
connectives and reading ease. The higher incidence of causal and logical
connectives related to a higher Flesch ease score. Also, a higher Flesch grade
correlated with a lower word frequency level. The Flesch grade level correlated
with the number of modifiers before the noun phrases for which the number of
words before the verb also correlated. Correlations between the students‟
comprehension scores and the 15 text indices showed correlations with temporal
and causal connectives. This study also found relationships between student

THAITESOL JOURNAL Vol.26, No.1 June 20132
reading comprehension scores and lexical diversity of content words in the
passages.
Keywords: SRA Reading Lab 3B, Coh-Metrix, reading comprehension,
reluctant reader
Introduction
In a previous study on students‟ attitudes towards reading (Sarawit, 2009),
I found that my students fit the definition of the reluctant reader: reading when
necessary but not as a hobby or leisure time activity even though they consider
reading in English enjoyable and useful. Teachers of English take great efforts to
get their students to read more efficiently by building their students‟ vocabulary
and reading skills, such as having students identify main ideas and details,
identify the tone of a passage and the author‟s opinions, and make inferences.
We use scaffolding, such as graded readers to build student confidence in
reading.
While graded readers do seem to offer a bridge to full texts, they often
miss their mark. A lower level reading is found to be more difficult than a
higher graded reading. In part, the background knowledge of the reader comes
into play. Recent research has also shown that traditional readability scales that
use number of syllables, words, and sentences only reveal surface components of
language and that a better measure of readability needs to include semantic and
syntactic features of a text. Researchers at the University of Memphis have over
the past decade developed new tools to better assess readability that go beyond
the surface structure of a text to include deeper language structures (McNamara
et al., 2010).

An Analysis of Reading Materials Using Coh-Metrix in Conjunction
with Students’ Reading Comprehension Scores
MARY SARAWIT
3
Comatrix as a Reading Analysis Program
Coh-Metrix is an online computerized analysis program that produces 60
indices which describe not only the traditional syllable, word, and sentence count
readability scales but also give deeper linguistic and discourse representations of
the text (Schmitt, 2010, 215). Coh-Metrix was developed and is maintained by
the Department of Psychology at the University of Memphis (McNamara et al.,
2002). The program has been used extensively over the years to validate the use
of syntactic and semantic components to analyze readability and text
comprehension. A study by McNamara et al. (2011) found that five components
related well with text difficulty: narrativity, syntactic simplicity, word
concreteness, referential cohesion, and deep cohesion.
I have for many years used the Science Research Associates, otherwise
known as the SRA Reading Lab as a supplement to the two required freshman
English courses. Students expand their vocabulary and develop their reading
skills. They are required to read one story a week. This is only about two A4
pages and accompanied by 7 to 10 reading comprehension questions and
vocabulary development exercises. At the end of the freshman year, I encourage
students to continue the reading program. However, after freshman year few
students come to me to continue the program. The students who do continue are
the best students in the group. I have noticed that their progression from one
level (each of which is color coded) to another is often not linear. That is, they
move from one color to another, but often some of the readings in the new color
are extremely difficult for them while others at the same color level are quite
easy for them. Having become familiar with Coh-Metrix and its capacity to
analyze not only surface level features of a text but deeper semantic and
syntactic features, I decided to conduct an analysis of the SRA readings at the

Rose level and study which of the features I used related to the student‟s reading
comprehension scores. Identifying what makes a passage more difficult can help
the teacher to help the student develop the skills the student needs to be a
successful reader, on the assumption that a successful reader will read more
which ultimately may lead to him/her becoming a lifelong reader who will
constantly expand his/her vocabulary and viewpoint. With this in mind, I
decided to use Coh-Metrix as follows:
Research objectives
The purposes of the study were
1. To conduct a text analysis of Reading Level 5, or „Rose‟ level,
Science Research Associates (SRA) reading materials using Coh-Metrix.
2. To study the relationship between the features of the texts and the
students‟ reading comprehension scores for the SRA reading materials.
Research Questions
Two questions were addressed in the study.
1. What does a text analysis of SRA reading materials reveal as regards
reading ease, frequency of content words, concreteness of words, words before
the main verb, pronoun ratio to noun phrases, personal pronoun incidence,
number of modifiers before the noun phrase, words in a sentence, connectives,
and LSA (Latent Semantic Analysis) cohesion?
2. Which factors in the text analysis are significantly related to the
students‟ reading comprehension scores?
Importance of the Study
Teachers are constantly trying to get their students to read more. The
more students read, the better readers they will become. By identifying textual

MARY SARAWIT
5
features which students find difficult, and subsequently aiming to improve
comprehension skills by focusing on these difficulties, it is hoped that students
will improve their vocabulary and reading skills. As such, this study aims to
identify a number of text features, from overall basic ease of reading to deeper
characteristics of the text. More importantly, the study aims to identify which
features of the text are related to the students‟ comprehension scores.
Definition of Terms
Text. The texts were readings from the SRA Reading Laboratory 3B.
There were 11 readings at the Rose level.
Coh-Metrix. This is an on-line program created and maintained by the
University of Memphis that calculates the readability and coherence of a text
using a wide range of measures.
Reading ease. Reading ease refers to the difficulty of a text. In this
study two measures were used to determine level of difficulty: Flesch Reading
Ease and Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level. Both these measures rely on the number
of syllables per word and the number of words per sentence.
Flesch Reading Ease formula. The Flesch Reading Ease formula is
presented as a number from 0-100 with a higher score indicating an easier
reading. The Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level is represented as a grade level from 0-
12.
Word frequency. Word frequency is the mean raw frequency of Nouns,
Verbs, Adjectives, and Adverbs in the text based on the COBUILD word corpus.
Concreteness of words. This is a measure of how concrete the words in
the passage are. Values vary from 100-700 with a higher score indicating a more
concrete word.

Lexical diversity. This is the diversity of words in the passage as
measured by type-token ratio (TTR). A higher score reflects a greater diversity
of words (content words) in a passage.
Words before the main verb. This is a measure of the mean score of the
number of words before the main verb in the main clause.
Pronoun ratio. This is the proportion of pronouns to noun phrases.
Personal pronoun incidence. This is the number of personal pronouns in
the reading.
Modifiers before the noun phrase. This is the mean number of modifiers
per noun phrase.
Number of words per sentence. This is the average number of words per
sentence in the passage.
Connectives. These are words that signal specific relationships. Four
types of connectives will be analyzed: Additive (e.g., also, moreover, but,
however), Causal (e.g., because, so, consequently, although, nevertheless),
Logical (e.g., or, actually, if), and Temporal (e.g., after, before, when, until).
The incidence of the four types of connectives in the texts is presented.
Latent Semantic Analysis of all sentence combinations. LSA is a
statistical technique “for representing world knowledge” (Coh-Metrix, 2005,
p.16). The mean LSA cosines are presented for all sentence combinations in the
text. This measures “how conceptually similar each sentence is to every other
sentence in the text” (Coh-Metrix, 2005, p.16).
Students. The students were students at the Naresuan University
International College.
Comprehension scores. These were the scores in terms of percentage
correct on the comprehension tests at the end of the SRA readings.

MARY SARAWIT
7
Method
Participants
Naresuan University International College freshman students who had
received an A or B+ in Foundations of English and second year English for
Business majors were asked to read the SRA readings and complete the
comprehension questions at the end of the readings. The researcher chose these
students because the students at the International College use English as the
medium of instruction for all their courses, and thus it was hoped that they would
be motivated to improve their reading abilities. In addition, the researcher
teaches at the college and was able to easily follow-up on the students‟ progress.
Task
From previous research (Sarawit, 2009), the researcher knew that
students enjoyed the SRA readings. The SRA Reading Laboratory 3B was used
and the students were asked to read one reading a week from the Rose level.
There are 11 readings. The researcher corrected the comprehension questions
and kept a reading chart for each student. For the purposes of this research,
students were asked to complete all 11 readings in Rose.
Material
Eleven readings from the SRA Reading Laboratory 3B , the Rose level,
were used. The SRA reading labs are an integral part of remedial and self-access
programs worldwide. The iconic color coded reading labs first appeared in
schools in the United States in the late 1950s. Today, as part of McGraw-Hill
publishing, they are used worldwide in reading development programs. The 3B
SRA Reading Lab has readings that cover general topics in the sciences and
social sciences covering 9 levels from Rose (grade 5) to Purple (grade 12). The

readings are appropriate for adults and culturally diverse. “SRA has not
confined itself to an exclusively Western view of culture. SRA has ranged more
widely over non-Western sources, drawing on the traditions of Asia, Eastern
Europe, Africa, and Central America” (Parker, 2000, p.6).
Data Analysis
In using Coh-Metrix, “a minimum of 10 cases of data for each predictor
is considered to be accurate” (Crossley et al., 2008, p.482). The researcher typed
one A4 page from each reading and entered it into the Coh-Metrix program
which analyzed the text. To successfully calculate the Flesch Reading Ease and
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level scores a passage should have more than 200 words
(Coh-Metrix). The 11 readings for the Rose level which were entered into the
Coh-Metrix program ranged from 442-655 words with a mean of 530 words per
passage. Indicators for reading ease included both the Flesch Reading Ease and
the Felsch-Kincaid Grade Level. In addition, the other following Coh-Metrix
indicators were used for text analysis: frequency of content words, concreteness
of words, lexical diversity using type-token ratio, words before the main verb,
ratio of pronouns to noun phrases, incidence of personal pronouns, number of
modifiers per noun phrase, number of words per sentence, connectives, i.e.,
additive connectors, causal connectors, logical connectors, and temporal
connectors as well as conceptual similarity of sentences in the passage.
Frequency, concreteness of words, and lexical diversity focus on the integral part
played by vocabulary in reading; words before the main verb, pronoun ratio,
incidence of personal pronouns, number of modifiers before the noun phrase, and
number of words per sentence relate to syntactic properties of the sentence while
connectives and conceptual similarity of all the sentences in the text focus on the

MARY SARAWIT
9
semantic relationships relating to cohesion in the readings. These 15 indicators
were chosen from the 62 indicators calculated by the on-line Coh-Metrix
program for this study.
The data for the various indicators were recorded for all eleven Rose
level SRA readings and then tallied. Mean, standard deviation, coefficient of
variability, and analysis of correlations were calculated for each of the 15
characteristics of the 11 texts under study. The descriptive data can be seen in
Appendix A. An analysis of correlations was also conducted to find out which, if
any, of the indicators related to the students‟ comprehension scores.
Results
Part 1
An analysis of the SRA 3B Laboratory (Rose) was conducted using Coh-
Metrix, a computational on-line program for analyzing text. Fifteen indices were
used in this study: 5 for studying lexical characteristics of the texts, 5 for
studying syntactic characteristics, and 5 for studying semantic characteristics.
The lexical characteristics involved the Flesch Reading Ease and the
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level both of which use the number of syllables in a word
and the number of words in a sentence for calculations. Word frequency, word
concreteness, and lexical diversity were also investigated.
Coh-Metrix uses frequencies taken from the 1991 version of the
COBUILD 17.9 million-word corpus. Word concreteness is measured using the
MRC Psycholinguistics Database (Coh-Metrix citing Coltheart, 1981). Lexical
diversity was calculated using the type (word) divided by token (instances).
Since the passages were of the same approximate length, TTR was considered an
appropriate measure of lexical diversity.

Table 1 displays the findings for the 5 lexical characteristics of the 11
Rose SRA readings. Details for the 11 readings can be found in the Appendix A.
Table 1
Lexical indices
Flesch Reading
Ease
Flesch-Kincaid
Grade Level
Word
Frequency
Word
Concreteness
Lexical
Diversity
x
SD
CV
78.334
5.554
7.090
5.480
0.712
12.993
2517.574
862.207
34.248
407.099
26.122
6.417
0.705
0.050
7.092
The Flesch Reading Ease mean score was 78.334 on a scale of 0-100
with the coefficient of variance only 7.090%; however, the Flesch-Kincaid Grade
Level of a 5.48 mean for the 11 readings while close to the SRA Rose grade of 5
showed a coefficient of variance of 12.003% with a Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level
of 6.503 for Rose reading 7 and 4.148 for Rose reading 11.
The frequency of the content words showed a mean of 2,517.574 where
the word with the lowest frequency would have a value of 0 and the word with
highest frequency would have a value of 1,000,000. The mean word frequency
for the 11 Rose readings had a coefficient of variance of 34.248%. The mean
value for concreteness of the words in the readings was 407.099 with a rather
low coefficient of variance of 6.417%. The higher the value the more concrete
the word tends to be on a scale of 100 to 700. The average lexical diversity
score was 0.705 with a range of 0.638 to 0.775 where the coefficient of variance
was only 7.092 %. The closer the score gets to 1, the more unique the words in
the passage are, and hence the more difficult for the reader to process.

MARY SARAWIT
11
The indices used to analyze the syntactic characteristics of the 11 Rose
SRA readings included the number of words before the verb. The greater the
distance from the subject to the main verb, the more difficult the sentence is to
comprehend. Pronoun ratio to noun phrases and the number of personal
pronouns were also considered since pronouns require the reader to identify the
noun referred to. The number of modifiers per noun phrase was also studied
along with the number of words per sentence which tend to indicate more
complex sentences or as Crossley et al. (2007, p.199) state: “longer sentences are
a rough estimate of the number of propositions contained.”
Table 2 displays the findings for the 5 syntactic characteristics of the 11
Rose SRA readings. Details for the 11 readings can be found in the Appendix B.
Table 2
Syntactic indices
Words
before
Verb
Pronoun
Ratio
to Noun
Phrases
No. of
Personal
Pronouns
No. of
Modifiers
per Noun
Phrase
No. of
Words
per Sentence
x
SD
CV
3.599
1.063
29.536
0.301
0.113
37.541
87.723
34.959
39.852
0.819
0.154
18.803
12.515
1.785
14.263
The mean for words before the main verb was 3.599 words with a
coefficient of variance of 29.536%. The mean ratio of pronouns to noun phrases
was 0.301 with a coefficient of variance of 37.541%. The mean number of
personal pronouns in the selection was 87.723 with a coefficient of variance of

39.852%. The mean number of modifiers per noun phrase was only 0.819 with a
coefficient of variance of 18.803 %; and the mean number of words per sentence
was 12.515 with a coefficient of variance of 13.263%.
The indices used to analyze the semantic characteristics of the 11 Rose
SRA readings included the incidence of four types of connectives: additive,
causal, logical, and temporal. The use of connectives is related to cohesion of the
text as they indicate the semantic relationships in the sentences and paragraphs.
The fifth semantic characteristic of the text used was the value for the conceptual
similarity among the sentences in the passage using Latent Semantic Analysis
presented as cosine scores where the higher the score the more similar the
meanings (Dumais, 2005, p.188). Here again, conceptual similarity adds to the
cohesion of the passage.
Table 3 displays the findings for the 5 semantic characteristics of the 11
Rose SRA readings. Details for the 11 readings can be found in the Appendix C.
Table 3
Semantic indices
Additive
Connectives
Causal
Connectives
Logical
Connectives
Temporal
Connectives
LSA Sentence
Combinations
x
SD
CV
36.429
9.435
25.900
21.512
7.551
35.101
29.640
8.902
30.034
13.726
4.253
30.985
0.184
0.066
35.870
The mean incidence of connectors in the 11 Rose SRA readings from
highest to lowest incidence is as follows: Additive ( x 36.429), Logical
( x 29.640), Causal ( x 21.512), and Temporal ( x 13.726). The coefficient of

MARY SARAWIT
13
variance was at least 25% for all 4 connectors: 25.900%, 30.034%, 35.101%, and
30.985%, respectively.
The mean cosine for the LSA of conceptual similarity for all sentence
combinations in the passages was 0.184 for which the coefficient of variance was
35.870%. Values close to 1 indicate very similar words in the sentences while
values close to 0 indicate very dissimilar words which should hinder the reader.
An analysis of correlations between the 15 indices showed 12 significant
correlations. There were significant negative correlations between the Flesch
Reading Ease level and the Flesch-Kincaid Grade level (-.805 at the 0.01 level of
significance). This is in line with the fact that the Flesch Reading Ease level
means the higher the score the easier the reading while the Flesch-Kincaid Grade
Level relates to school grade 0 through 12. Both formulas are based on the
average sentence length and the average number of syllables per word. The
Flesch Reading Ease level also related positively with the causal and logical
connectors (.822 and .848 respectively at the 0.01 level of significance). The
higher occurrence of the causal connectors (because, so, although) and logical
connectives (and, or, if) should make reading easier since the semantic relations
in the sentence are explicitly presented. As McNamara et al. (2011, p.8) note in
their discussion of deep cohesion: “…connectives help the reader to form a more
coherent and deeper understanding of the causal events, processes, and actions in
the text.”
The Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level was correlated with the word frequency
level (-.709 at the 0.05 level of significance). The higher the grade level, the
lower the word frequency. The Rose level is set at grade 5; however, as
analyzed by the Flesch-Kincaid formula used by Coh-Metrix the 11 readings
varied from a high of 6.503 to a low of 4.158 with a mean of 5.4804. The all

over frequency level itself was 2,517.574 for all 11 readings from a high of
3,696.116 to a low of 1,316.016. It is generally agreed that automatic decoding
of words is a strong predictor of reading performance, and as Crossley et al.
(2008, 483) note “Texts which assist such decoding (e.g., by containing a greater
proportion of high frequency words) can thus be regarded as easier to process.”
The Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level also correlated with the number of modifiers
before the noun phrases (.646 at the 0.05 level of significance). The more
modifiers before the noun phrases makes it more difficult for students to parse
the sentence often moving the main verb farther away from the beginning of the
sentence. For example, instead of Birds flew overhead we might have Three
large black and white elegant duck-billed birds flew overhead.
Word frequency was negatively related to word concreteness (-.881 at the
0.01 level of significance). This is unexpected. The more concrete words would
tend to be of higher frequency. The small pool of 11 readings may askew the
results here. For example, one story was about cowboys and included many
words related to the equipment they used. Another story was about the Venus
fly trap and included specific words for parts of the flower. While these words
were concrete, they would not be extremely high in frequency.
Words before the verb correlated with both the number of modifiers
before the noun phrases and the number of words in the sentence (.689 and .729
respectively at the 0.05 level of significance). More elaboration of the noun
phrase in the subject position would result in more words before the verb which
also means longer sentences or a greater number of words per sentence.
The pronoun ratio to nouns was, as expected, related to the number of
personal pronouns (.989 at the 0.01 level of significance) and negatively related
to the number of modifiers before the noun phrases (-.653 at the 0.05 level of

MARY SARAWIT
15
significance). Sentences with long modifiers before the noun phrases might tend
to exclude pronoun usage in favor of the nouns. Likewise, the total number of
personal pronouns was negatively related to the number of modifiers before the
noun phrases (.-698 at the 0.05 level of significance).
Lastly, there was a significant correlation between the incidence of causal
and logical connectives (.780 at the 0.01 level of significance). Both types of
connectors often occur in the same types of discourse; such as cause and result,
reasons, and other opinion paragraphs.
Part 2
The second objective of this research was to examine any relationships
between the 15 features of the eleven Rose level texts and the students‟ reading
comprehension scores. The twenty one students read all eleven Rose SRA
readings and completed the comprehension questions that followed.
The average comprehension score on the 11 readings was a low of 49.660
percent (median of 42.857) for reading 3 and a high of 77.550 percent (median of
71.429) on reading 7. With regard to the students, the highest mean score for all
eleven readings was 81.818 percent (median of 85.714) and the lowest mean
score was 48.052 percent (median of 42.857). The minimum individual score
was 0 for readings 3 and 9, and the maximum individual score was 100 percent
for all but readings 3 and 5.
Correlation coefficient analysis between reading indicators and reading
comprehension scores using median, mean, standard deviation, minimum, and
maximum as representative of the reading score revealed four significant
correlations. The median reading score correlated significantly but negatively
with the incidence of temporal connectives (-.710 at the 0.05 level of
significance). This is unexpected. While lack of connectives should have made

the readings more difficult because the connective supplies the temporal meaning,
for these reluctant readers the additional clauses may have made the sentences
longer and hence more difficult.
The standard deviation in the students‟ comprehension scores was also
significantly related to temporal connectives (-.611 at the 0.05 level of
significance). The incidence of temporal connectives resulted in a narrowing of
the deviation in the students‟ comprehension scores because the addition of the
temporal clauses might confuse the better readers, thereby lowering their scores.
This may be related to results found in a study by O‟Reilly and McNamara
where they investigated text cohesion and students with high-knowledge and
students with low-knowledge. They found that less skilled high-knowledge
readers benefited from low-cohesion texts while skilled high-knowledge readers
benefited from high cohesion texts. They concluded that there is “..a more
complex view of when and for whom textual cohesion affects comprehension”
(O‟Reilly et al., 2002, p.121).
The standard deviation of the students‟ comprehension scores was related
(.623 at the 0.05 level of significance) to lexical diversity. The increased lexical
diversity of the passages resulted in further separating the high and low scores on
the comprehension tests. This is in line with the importance of vocabulary
recognition as a factor in the successful reader.
Finally, the maximum students‟ comprehension scores was negatively
related to the incidence of causal connectives (-.710 at the 0.05 level of
significance). While the presence of the causal connectives (because, so,
consequently, nevertheless, although) should help the reader with the intended
relationships in the sentence, these connectives are difficult for intermediate
level Thai learners of English. The causal connectives like although and

MARY SARAWIT
17
nevertheless which have a contrastive meaning are especially difficult for Thai
learners of English. So, although the students overall had the highest comprehension
scores, the presence of the causal connectives may not have aided their reading
comprehension as much as they should have. Hence, the scores were not as high
as they should have been.
Discussion
This study using Coh-Metrix showed that even for readings at the same
graded level there can be large variations for the lexical, structural, and semantic
content of the texts. The SRA Rose Level or grade 5 showed variations of more
than 15% for word frequency, number of words before the verb, pronoun ratio to
noun phrases, number of personal pronouns, number of modifiers per noun
phrase, connectors, and (LSA) conceptual similarity of sentences.
An analysis of the eleven Rose readings found that Rose 7 was the most
difficult with a Flesch Reading Ease score of 67.586 (the closer to 100 the easier
the reading) and a Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level 6.503 (the closer to grade 12 the
more difficult the reading). However, for the students in this study it was the
reading for which they had the highest score x 77.550% (median of 71.429%).
The students‟ lowest comprehension score was for reading 3 ( x 49.660%, median
42.857%) for which the Flesch Reading Ease score was 83.678 with a Flesch-
Kincaid Reading Grade of 5.372. There are obviously factors other than number
of syllables and words in the sentences that are affecting the students‟ reading
ability on these readings.
While the small sample, both in terms of student population and readings,
did not allow for higher level statistical analysis; a simple correlation study
revealed a number of interesting relationships between the 15 indices used to

analyze the texts. This study reconfirms the relationship between connectives, a
measure of semantic cohesion, and reading ease. The higher incidence of causal
and logical connectives related significantly with a higher Flesch Reading Ease
score. With regard to the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level, the higher the grade level
was the lower the frequency of the words in the passage.
This study also offers support for looking beyond lexical factors to
syntactic factors when determining grade level. The Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level
correlated significantly with the number of modifiers before the noun phrases for
which the number of words before the verb also correlated significantly. This is
despite the fact that the number of words per sentence did not correlate
significantly for this set of 11 Rose readings.
In addition, correlations between the students‟ comprehension scores and
the 15 text indices showed significant correlations between temporal and causal
connectives and student comprehension scores. These are both semantic
cohesion features and should be looked at when considering reading difficulty
levels. This study also found relationships between student reading comprehension
scores and lexical diversity of content words in the passages.
Conclusion
This study reconfirms the relationship between connectives and reading
ease. It also found relationships between student reading comprehension
scores and lexical diversity of content words in the passages. Hence, it is
recommended that a larger number of reading passages at a similar grade be
studied with a larger number of students to test for the role of lexical diversity
and connectives on student reading comprehension. It might be useful to separate

MARY SARAWIT
19
the causal connectives into the positive connectives (so, because, consequently)
and negative connectives (although, nevertheless).
Specifically for these reluctant readers, the results of this study point to a
need to help the students better understand the temporal and causal connectives
in reading passages. The incidence of both these connectives tended to make the
passages more difficult for these readers.
Coh-Metrix is a tool that can help us better understand students‟
problems in reading. A larger group of subjects and more readings at more
levels of difficulty may help to better identify factors that affect the reading
comprehension of Thai university students. Teachers need tools to help support
and encourage the reluctant reader. It is hoped that this small exploratory study
will encourage other researchers to use Coh-Metrix to study the deeper aspects of
reading and their effects on the reader.

References
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Louwerse, M. M., McCarthy, P. M., McNamara, D. S. & Graesser, A. C.
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10.1.1.123.1183& rep=rep1&tupe=pdf
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AERA 2011. Coh-Metrix easability components: Aligning text
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McNamara, D. S., Louwerse, M. M., McCarthy, P. M. & Graesser, A. C.
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Coh-Metrix: Automated cohesion and coherence scores to predict text
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Good texts can be better for strategic high-knowledge readers.
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Palgrave Macmillan.

Appendix A
Data from the Coh-Metrix Analysis of the 11 Rose Level of the SRA 3B Lab:
Lexical Indices
Rose
#
Flesch
Reading
Ease
Flesch-
Kincaid
Grade Level
Word
Frequency
Word
Concreteness
Lexical
Diversity
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
x
SD
CV
78.935
79.321
83.678
75.387
85.561
77.907
67.586
76.974
79.500
71.386
85.437
78.334
5.554
7.090
4.813
5.141
5.372
6.135
4.932
5.850
6.503
6.271
5.238
5.871
4.158
5.480
0.712
12.993
3003.453
4213.075
2425.300
1962.864
1994.321
2055.969
2216.330
1316.016
2740.976
1968.889
3796.116
2517.574
862.207
34.248
369.857
360.067
408.505
431.698
433.719
421.894
403.382
433.287
421.072
414.669
379.939
407.099
26.122
6.417
0.775
0.734
0.638
0.647
0.664
0.658
0.743
0.742
0.732
0.757
0.664
0.705
0.050
7.092

MARY SARAWIT
23
Appendix B
Syntactic Indices
Rose
#
Words
before
Verb
Pronoun
Ratio
to Noun
Phrases
No. of
Personal
Pronouns
No. of
Modifiers
per Noun
Phrase
No. of
Words
per
Sentence
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
x
SD
CV
2.720
3.190
4.326
3.243
3.521
3.472
3.458
6.486
3.587
2.915
2.667
3.599
1.063
29.536
0.475
0.326
0.495
0.313
0.221
0.342
0.157
0.157
0.216
0.342
0.270
0.301
0.113
37.541
145.349
86.345
141.985
91.089
65.253
99.800
48.450
37.879
58.099
106.996
83.710
87.723
34.959
39.852
0.734
0.780
0.729
0.918
0.844
0.678
0.987
1.118
0.922
0.704
0.599
0.819
0.154
18.803
10.320
11.857
15.233
13.649
12.833
13.917
10.750
15.086
12.348
10.340
11.333
12.515
1.785
14.263

Appendix C
Semantic Indices
Rose
#
Additive
Connectives
Causal
Connectives
Logical
Connectives
Temporal
Connectives
LSA
Sentence
Combinations
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
x
SD
CV
27.132
54.217
36.341
39.277
27.597
51.896
27.132
34.091
40.493
30.864
31.674
36.429
9.435
25.900
21.318
26.104
29.008
23.762
35.714
21.956
7.752
18.939
19.366
12.346
20.362
21.512
7.551
35.101
27.132
32.092
38.167
25.743
40.584
25.948
13.566
35.985
38.732
16.461
31.629
29.640
8.902
30.985
7.752
20.080
18.381
11.881
9.740
15.968
15.504
17.045
10.563
8.230
15.837
13.726
4.253
30.985
0.102
0.125
0.210
0.125
0.189
0.339
0.218
0.215
0.192
0.130
0.173
0.184
0.066
35.870

EFFECTS OF ONLINE TASK-BASED INTERACTIVE LISTENING
INSTRUCTION FOR EFL LEARNERS
Xingbin Tian
Suranaree University of Technology, Thailand
xingbintian@yahoo.com
Suksan Suppasetseree
Suranaree University of TechnologyThailand.
suksan@sut.ac.th
Abstract
In order to meet the current trends in English listening teaching in China, the
researcher constructed online task-based interactive listening (OTIL) lessons to
enhance non-English major undergraduate students‟ English listening ability.
The study aims at investigating the effects of using OTIL and students‟ attitudes
toward OTIL. Two intact classes, 92 students in total, were selected as the
sample for the study. The research instruments consisted of OTIL lessons, tests,
a questionnaire and interview. The results showed that a significant difference
was found in the post-test score between the experimental and control classes
(P=0.000, P≤0.05). Meanwhile, the students had positive attitudes toward OTIL
because the system was convenient, flexible, interactive and well-designed. The
findings seem to indicate that OTIL might serve to develop English listening
teaching and to improve students‟ listening ability for EFL learners.
Keywords: online task-based interactive listening, English listening
teaching, EFL learners, China

Introduction
The importance of listening for language acquisition has been
emphasized by a number of researchers (Brown, 2006; Feyten, 1991; Krashen,
1982; Rost, 2002).From this point of view, listening teaching is the core of
ESL/EFL study. Rost(2002) defined listening teaching as “approaches to
curriculum design and methods of instruction that aim to assist learners in
improving their listening”(p. 103). In China, English listening teaching is also an
important part of college English teaching. However, the listening ability of most
undergraduate students‟ of English has been unsatisfactory(Cheng, 2009b; Gan,
Humphreys, & Hamp-Lyons, 2004; Tan, 2003; Yan, 2006). For instance, Lin
(2002) pointed out after ten years‟ English learning, students were still “deaf and
dumb” (when students can read, but cannot speak English fluently, or understand
what people say) (p. 8). The problem above occurs at Tongren University (TU),
China as well. After two years of learning English listening in the university, the
listening competence of the most students remains weak (Tian, 2010; Wei, 2006).
According to Wei‟s study (2006), there was lack of interaction between students
in college English listening teaching at TU. In other words, classroom instruction
was still teacher-centered, and the active role of students could not be exerted
completely. Furthermore, the teaching process of college English listening
teaching via multimedia at TU was very unitary: applying the CD-ROM attached
to the listening textbook and then doing the exercises associated with the
listening textbook (Tian, 2010). In class, teachers stood by the computer and
operated the mouse. They did not pay much attention to the communication with
the students. Students fixed their attention only on the screen and played a quite
passive role in such a learning environment. Although language labs at TU were

Effects of Online Task-Based Interactive Listening Instruction for EFL Learners
XINGBIN TIAN, SUKSAN SUPPASETSEREE
27
built to enable teachers and students to teach and learn English with an E-
learning environment, no teacher created his/her websites for listening instruction.
Nowadays, the importance of English listening in tertiary education has
been realized. In 2007, the Ministry of Education of China(MOE) issued a new
English curriculum for non-English majors, namely the College English
Curriculum Requirements (CECR), which emphasized “developing students‟
ability to use English in an all-round way, especially in listening and speaking”
(MOE, 2007, p. 18).For this reason, the CECR (MOE, 2007) claimed that
universities across China should satisfy 3 requirements as follows: 1) exploring
and establishing a web-based listening teaching model; 2) delivering listening
courses via the Internet or Intranet; 3) shifting teacher-centered pattern to
learner-centered teaching.
In order to meet the requirement of the CECR, a great number of studies
on EFL listening instruction in China (Cai & Li, 2008; Cheng, 2009b; Wei,
2012; Yao, 2010) have been performed on how to promote learners‟ listening
ability. For example, Cai and Li (2008) studied asynchronous listening
instruction in the EFL context with pedagogical tasks, showing that the average
listening comprehension score of the experimental group was much higher than
the score of the control group. Meanwhile, Cheng (2009a) conducted an
experiment to introduce learner-centered teaching theory into the listening class,
and investigated its effectiveness in improving learners‟ listening skills. The
results showed that the achievement of the experimental group was higher than
that of the control group. After the experiment, the subjects stated that ILT
aroused their learning interest and motivation. Yao (2010) carried out research
on a task-based approach to College English listening teaching via the Internet.
The results showed the achievements of the students in the experimental

groupwere higher than those of the control classes. The students‟ attitude toward
the task-based approach in college English listening teaching via the Internet was
positive. More recently, Wei (2012) conducted research on college English
listening teaching via Moodle. After the experiment, the experimental class had
made more progress than the control class. The research found that English
listening teaching via Moodle provided students with more interaction. The
feedback from the Moodle platform was very useful to motivate students to learn
more. All in all, the findings of previous studies indicated that listening
instruction via a network with interactive tasks and activities could enhance
learners‟ listening ability. In other words, the teaching of listening skills through
a technology-supported task-based approach was beneficial to the integration of
language skills. This was because students were able to make comprehensive use
of their language ability and communicative competence. However, for the most
part, tasks used in the previous research above were pedagogical tasks. Little
research used real-world tasks in English listening teaching. According to
Nunan(2004), “the point of departure for task-based language teaching is real-
world or target tasks” (p. 19). Under real-world tasks, learners can also undertake
many pedagogical tasks which represent a bridge to real world tasks. Real-world
tasks do not have a single correct answer. They can often be solved in several
ways and allow learners to perform the task in its natural setting (see Figure 1).

29
Figure 1. A Framework for TBA
(Nunan, 2004, p. 25)
The present study aimed at 1) investigating the effects of using online
task-based interactive listening (OTIL) with real-world tasks for EFL learners,
and 2) determining students‟ attitudes toward OTIL. Online task-based
interactive listening (OTIL) is defined as English listening lessons used to
deliver learning online through real-world tasks. The term “online” in the present
study refers to Moodle, short for Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning
Environment, which is used as the online learning platform for English listening
at TU. OTIL aims to create a highly interactive E-learning environment for
English listening, during which listeners have maximum interaction with peers,
contents and teachers. The term “EFL learners” in the study refers to the non-
English major undergraduate students at TU who have registered to study college
English.
The study was carried out on the basis of two research questions as
follows.
Real-world/Target
Tasks
Pedagogical Tasks Enabling Skills
Rehearsal
Tasks
Activation
Tasks
Language
Exercises
Communication
Activities

1) Are there any significant differences in listening comprehension
between the experimental and control classes?
2) What are the students‟ attitudes toward online task-based
interactive listening (OTIL) instruction?
Methodology
Population and Samples
The population for the study consisted of1075 second-year non-English
major undergraduate students at TU. There were 26 intact classes within 20
majors. Purposive sampling was adopted in the present study. The college
English final examination in the second semester of academic year 2012 was
used to determine the sample. According to the results, two intact classes, 92
students in total, were selected as the sample for the study because 1) the number
of students in each class was similar and 2) the students‟ English proficiency
level was similar. The two intact classes were a Politics Class (N=46, =64.78,
SD=11.105) and a Chinese Class (N=46, =64.72, SD=8.471). The Chinese
Class was chosen as the experimental class and the Politics Class as the control
class.
Research Instruments
Four research instruments were employed in the present study, including
OTIL, tests, a questionnaire and an interview.
Online task-based interactive listening (OTIL). The term “online task-
based interactive listening” (OTIL)refers to the English listening lessons
constructed by the researcher after a needs analysis. Real-world tasks were
designed for OTIL to provide an environment to promote students‟ English
listening ability.

31
Tests. Two English listening tests were employed for the pre-test and
post-test. The tests were adapted from the listening sub-tests of the standardized
CET 4 (College English Test, Band 4). These were designed to evaluate the
overall English proficiency of undergraduates in Chinese universities. The total
score of pre-test and post-test was 100 points.
A questionnaire. A questionnaire designed by the researcher was used to
determine the students‟ attitudes toward OTIL. It consisted of two parts,
including students‟ general information and the students‟ opinions toward OTIL.
The format of the second part was a five-point Likert scale. That is, values on the
scale were labeled from 1 to 5, namely strongly agree, agree, uncertain, disagree,
and strongly disagree.
Interview. Data from one source only is sometimes not sufficient to draw
good conclusions from findings. A triangulation process should be applied by
using more instruments, such as interviews, to collect more data. Thus, a semi-
structured interview was employed in the study. The interview, designed by the
researcher, consisted of six guided questions.
Data Collection and Analysis
The data collection consisted of two phases: 1) collecting the scores of
the pre-test and post-test which were given to the experimental and control
classes before and after the experiment, and 2) obtaining information from
questionnaires(for the experimental class only). After the students had responded
to the questionnaire, fifteen interviewees were selected from the experimental
class. They came from three different English proficiency levels: high, medium
and low. Stratified sampling was used to select samples. Discrimination between
levels was performed on the basis of z-scores from the post-test (-1.00≤Z≤1.00).
Five interviewees were selected from each level for a small-group interview. All

interviews were recorded and transcribed for data analysis. Chinese language, the
respondents‟ native language, was employed for both questionnaire and interview
for better understanding and convenience.
Quantitative and qualitative analyses were conducted in the study. The
software Statistical Product and Service Solutions (SPSS) package was used to
conduct descriptive and statistical analyses. Descriptive analysis involved the
mean score and standard deviation, while statistical analysis included t-test and
analysis of covariance (ANCOVA). Records of the interviews were transcribed
verbatim. To interpret the data, content analyses were conducted using open and
axial coding.
Results and Discussion
Students’ English Listening Achievement for the Experimental and Control
Groups
Tests were used to evaluate students‟ English listening ability and to
compare students‟ English listening ability before and after the treatment as
shown in Table 1.
Table 1
Results of Students’ English Listening Achievement
Tests N
Experimental Group Control Group
SD SD
Pre-test 46 57.30 8.897 57.17 8.160
Post-test 46 75.57 8.702 66.35 9.374

33
As can be seen, no significant differences were found between the two
classes‟ pre-test (P=0.942, P≤0.05). However, after the intervention, students of
both classes improved their listening ability as shown in Table 2. The results
showed that a significant difference between the pair scores (pre-test and post-
test scores) of each class was found(P=0.000, P≤0.05) by using a paired-samples
T-test.
Table 2
Results of Paired Samples T-test for Experimental and Control Class
Classes Tests
Paired Differences
T
Sig. (2-
tailed)SD
95% Confidence
Interval of the
Difference
Lower Upper
Experimental
Class
Pretest -
Posttest
-18.261 4.855 -19.703 -16.819 -25.508 .000
Control Class Pretest -
Posttest
-9.174 4.312 -10.454 -7.893 -14.430 .000
In order to evaluate the effects of using OTIL, analysis of covariance was
used to increase statistical power (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2007), namely by
removing extraneous variability (students‟ prior English listening ability) that
derived from pre-existing individual differences. The findings revealed that a
significant difference was found in the post-test score between the experimental
and control classes (P=0.000, P≤0.05) as shown in Table 3. This indicated that

the students in the experimental class, instructed with OTIL, had made more
demonstrable progress than those of the control class. Therefore, the OTIL
approach delivered via Moodle appeared to help EFL learners develop English
listening more effectively.
Table 3
Comparison of Post-test Scores for the Experimental and Control Classes
Source
Type III Sum
of Squares
df Mean Square F Sig.
Corrected Model 7463.978a
2 3731.989 179.360 .000
Intercept 669.914 1 669.914 32.196 .000
pretest 5509.891 1 5509.891 264.806 .000
Classes 1903.611 1 1903.611 91.488 .000
Error 1851.848 89 20.807
Total 472520.000 92
Corrected Total 9315.826 91
Students’ Attitudes to Online Task-based Interactive Listening (OTIL)
Results of the Questionnaires
To determine students‟ attitudes toward OTIL, a frequency analysis was
applied to analyze the questionnaires. The results of the analysis were presented
in Table 4.

35
Table 4
Students’ Attitudes toward OTIL
Statements N SD
1. Online task-based interactive listening can make
English learning enjoyable.
46 4.07 .574
2. Online task-based interactive listening can meet my
learning objectives.
46 3.93 .490
3. Online task-based interactive listening can enhance
my listening comprehension.
46 4.09 .626
4. Online task-based interactive listening provides me
opportunities to practice listening skills.
46 4.37 .610
5. Online task-based interactive listening can enhance
student-student interaction.
46 4.07 .533
6. Online task-based interactive listening can facilitate
student-teacher interaction.
46 3.96 .631
7. Online task-based interactive listening is convenient
for reviewing the lessons.
46 4.15 .666
8. Online task-based interactive listening can promote
learning.
46 3.96 .729
9. Online task-based interactive listening provides
abundant materials to learn.
46 4.37 .645

Statements N SD
10. Online task-based interactive listening can provide
easy access to useful feedback from the teacher.
46 4.09 .725
11. Materials in online task-based interactive listening are
interesting.
46 4.15 .595
12. Materials in online task-based interactive listening are
suitable for my English proficiency level.
46 3.76 .524
13. The activities in online task-based interactive listening
are interactive.
46 3.91 .626
14. The activities in online task-based interactive listening
can help me improve listening ability effectively.
46 4.24 .603
15. The interactive modules, such as forum, chat room
and wiki in online task-based interactive listening are
very useful for group discussion.
46 4.11 .605
Total 46 4.08 .166
It should be noted that the highest mean score was 4.37, while the lowest
was 3.76. The first three highest frequency statements were: 1) OTIL provides
students opportunities to practice listening skills ( =4.37, SD=0.610); 2) OTIL
provides abundant materials to learn ( =4.37, SD=0.645); and 3) The activities
in OTIL can help students improve listening ability effectively ( =4.24,
SD=0.603). The total mean score of the questionnaire was 4.08 (SD=0.166),
indicating that the students had positive attitudes toward OTIL.

37
Result of Semi-structured Interview
All interviewees had positive attitudes toward OTIL. They claimed that
they preferred learning English listening through OTIL for two reasons. First, the
tasks in OTIL met learning objectives of the course. Second, OTIL could help
them improve their listening comprehension. After reading through the whole
transcripts, two major categories were identified from the reported statements.
Each major category covered several sub-categories as shown in Table 5.
Table 5
Categories of the Semi-structured Interview
Categories Sub-categories
Satisfaction with OTIL
Abundant materials with different media
Real-world tasks
Well-designed listening stages
Learning styles
Convenience
Flexibility
Interactivity
Favorite items in OTIL
Videos
Audios
Self-test
Comprehension exercises

The present study was conducted to meet the current trends in the
teaching of English listening skills in China for EFL learners, by investigating
the effects of using OTIL and students‟ attitudes toward OTIL.The results
showed that the post-test scores of the experimental class were significantly
higher than those of the control class (P=0.000, P≤0.05). Meanwhile the students
had positive attitudes toward OTIL. The results in response to the research
questions are discussed below.
Listening Achievement
Although the students of both the experimental and control classes made
great progress after the intervention, a significant differences between the post-
test scores of the two classes (P=0.000, P≤0.05) wasfound. Five main reasons
may account for the experimental class‟ listening improvement. First, OTIL was
more learner-centered than teacher-centered. The goal of OTIL was for students
to take on more of the responsibility of learning English listening and become
more actively involved in the learning process. Students learned English
listening though OTIL by doing things for themselves. They became active
participants not just receivers of knowledge. Second, the tasks in OTIL provided
meaning and motivation for learning. Ur (1984) argued that listening activities
are most effective if they are constructed around a task. Some types of tasks in
OTIL might be found in real life or approached real life tasks. This raised
students‟ interest. Third, OTIL via Moodle offered a lot of useful and interactive
modules such as Wikis, Forums, Workshops, Chats and Glossaries to enhance
interactivity. Lee (2001) pointed out that the Internet has tremendous potential as
a tool for teaching EFL. Based on a constructivist approach to learning, OTIL
emphasized learning through a group‟s collaborative construction of knowledge.
Students could interact with each other synchronously and asynchronously.

39
Fourth, OTIL motivated students to learn English by providing immediate and
effective feedback. Siragusa (2000, cited in Herridge-Group, 2004) claimed that
students may be more motivated to succeed in a learning program if regular and
effective feedback is provided. Finally, students could use various authentic
listening resources of authentic listening drawn from different media in OTIL to
practice their listening in a cultural context.
Students’ Attitudes
The results of the questionnaire and interview revealed that the students
had positive attitudes toward OTIL. First, students strongly agreed that OTIL
provided them opportunities to practice listening skills ( =4.37, SD=0.610). This
might be due to the fact that OTIL was convenient, flexible, and interactive. This
finding agreed with He‟s (2002)observation. He pointed out that excellent online
learning provided the learners with services and opportunities, including
opportunities to learn some topics by different means through different media,
opportunities to experience their own knowledge, opportunities to receive
feedback according to the perceptions of the learners, opportunities to consult
specialists, opportunities to share and develop understanding with other learners,
and opportunities to participate equally during rich and colorful discussions and
collaborations. The findings of the interview also demonstrated this.
Second, the students strongly agreed that OTIL provided abundant
materials for learning ( =4.37, SD=0.645).The materials including images,
audios, videos and text files were rich, authentic and humorous. In each topic,
the lesson was broken up into five sections: warm-up, listening practice, real-
world task, self-test and further development. Listening material was supported
with glossaries, pictures, examples of listening skill training, audios, videos,
comprehension exercises, discussion questions, real-world tasks, self-tests, and

forum interactions. Except for the topics, a Moodle library was constructed to
provide different types of materials for students to train and practice in or out of
class.
Third, the students also strongly agreed that the activities in OTIL helped
students improve listening ability effectively ( =4.24, SD=0.603). The activities
in OTIL included pair work, group discussions, listening skill practice, glossary
brainstorm, vocabulary learning, prediction, forum, true or false, matching,
multiple-choice, gap-filling, reporting, interview and testing. Activities in pre-
listening served as preparation for listening, using prior knowledge to predict the
context. While-listening activities related directly to engagement with listening
materials. Students were required to complete them during or immediately after
listening or watching. In the post-listening phase, analysis and practice activities
were designed to shift students‟ attentions from meaning to forms contextualized
through the task (Willis, 1996). The findings met a „learner-centered‟ , „learning
by doing‟ and „learning in interaction‟ language teaching approach (Brown,
2001; Foster, 1999; Richards & Rodgers, 2001).
Finally, according to the results of the interview, students liked OTIL
because it provided abundant authentic, interesting and useful materials. The
materials not only raised their interest, but also helped them gain a great deal of
knowledge. Among the materials in OTIL, students preferred videos more than
other types. They enjoyed videos because the contents were rich, colorful,
humorous and authentic. The most important aspect of this was that the videos
helped them understand the contents and learn cultures of foreign countries. The
students also liked the online learning style which made them learn English
effectively, improve their English listening, and raised their interest. OTIL
provided several listening stages to promote their listening ability. Moreover, the

41
students liked OTIL due to convenience, flexibility and interactivity. Students
could visit OTIL anywhere, anytime, listen to audios or watch videos as much as
possible. They found it easy to assess their listening level by using OTIL and
find the meanings of new words through the Internet. When they met difficulties,
they could discuss and solve the problems by chatting directly with the teacher
and classmates via the Chat Room. They could also use the Forum to
communicate and share with others.
The findings of the study agree with the study of Fan, Wang, He and Hu
(2010) who developed Autonomous College English Listening Learning via
Moodle in China. The results showed that the post-test scores of the
experimental group who received tutoring via Moodle ( =82.30, SD=8.879)
were higher than those of the control group who were taught with traditional
college English listening teaching ( =76.86, SD=9.136). The students of the
experimental group had positive attitudes toward the Moodle platform.
Furthermore, Yang (2011) conducted a comparison between college English
listening teaching via Moodle and traditional English listening teaching in China.
The findings showed that the students of the experimental group ( =67.15) had a
higher average post-test score than those of the control group ( =57.26). A
significant difference was found between the experimental and control groups.
83.8% students reported that they were interested in learning English listening
through Moodle. In addition, Dennis (2012) constructed Blended Online
Learning Approach (BOLA) packages for teaching English for Careers in
Technology in Thailand. The results showed that the students of the
experimental group obtained higher mean scores ( =12.1) after the treatment.
According to the results of the questionnaires and interview, students were very

satisfied with the BOLA packages which could promote autonomous learning
effectively.
In short, OTIL was an effective and suitable English listening website for
promoting student listening ability. It provided students with many kinds of
materials which were authentic and interesting. Real-world tasks in OTIL were
designed to meet students‟ learning goals and help them improve listening
comprehension. Additionally, OTIL is convenient, flexible and interactive, thus
supporting and motivating students to learn English listening without the
restrictions of time and place.
Conclusion
The present study was conducted to meet the current trends in English
listening for EFL learners. From the results of the study, it can be found that
OTIL contributes significantly to the successful development of EFL listening
skills, and that real-world tasks are very important to engage students in the
whole learning process. The study provides some insights into how English
listening with network support might be effectively used to promote EFL
learners. Furthermore, the study might serve to contribute to finding solutions for
the development of college English listening teaching programs for improving
students‟ listening ability in China. However, because of the limitation of the
sample size, it is difficult to generalize the results of the study beyond the current
sample and more research is needed before the system can be implemented as a
part of China‟s reform in college English teaching.

43
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45
Yao, Y. (2010). An organic integration of multimedia network and task-based
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College, 32(10), 166-167.

EXPLORING BELIEFS OF PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS TOWARD
ENGLISH AS AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE
Flora Debora Floris
Petra Christian University
Jl. Siwalankerto 131-136 - Surabaya 60236, Indonesia
debora@petra.ac.id
Abstract
Research has repeatedly shown that pre-service teachers have well well-
established beliefs about teaching which have been formed on the basis of their
own learning experiences. These beliefs strongly influence their professional
development and how pre-service teachers interpret and acquire information
from their teacher education courses. This paper presents the results of a small
research conducted on 11 pre-service teachers‟ beliefs toward English as an
international language (EIL) before and after joining World Englishes class in
order to detect any changes in the nature of these beliefs. 4 major areas of EIL
namely (a) the role of English as an international language, (b) the best variety,
(c) the use of the students‟ mother tongue in English classrooms, and (d) the best
teacher of English were highlighted in this study.
Keywords: pre-service teacher, teacher education, beliefs, English as an
international language

Exploring Beliefs of Pre-Service Teachers toward English as an International Language
FLORA DEBORA FLORIS
47
Introduction
The fact that English is now the major international language in
intercultural communications, business, science, technology, and other areas is
indisputable. It is also the most widely learned second or foreign language in
many countries; and it makes the number of second and foreign language
speakers far exceed the number of the first language speakers of English. In 2003,
for example, the number of English speakers according to Crystal (2003) reached
approximately 1,500 million only 20% of which are the native speakers of the
language. In 2008, this number had been revised upwards again in the direction
of 2 billion. In fact, within 25 years, the number of speakers of English had
moved from a fifth to quarter to a third of the world‟s population (Crystal, 2008).
In 2070, Graddol (1999) claimed that the projected number of English speakers
would be nearly 10 billion.
This situation has resulted in remarkable demand in English language
teachers, which has also led to an increase in the number of non-native English
language teachers. In Indonesia, for example, approximately 3,047 non-native
English language teachers were employed at formal schools in 2011 and 3,442
teachers in 2012. The number keeps increasing due to the growing number of
Indonesian students who study English at formal schooling. In 2013, for example,
Indonesia needs approximately 3,733 new English teachers and 4,130 new
teachers in 2014 (Yahya, 2011).
Matsuda and Matsuda (2001) state the fact that the majority of English
teachers in the world are not native speakers of English. Some of these teachers
learned English as children; others learned it as adults. For some, English is their
third or fourth language; for others, it is the only language other than their

mother tongue that they have learned. As there is an increase in the number of
non-native English teachers, accordingly there is also an increase in the number
of non-native English language speakers as pre-service teachers joining
Department of English Language Teaching at universities all around the world.
This is because for non-native English teachers, pre-service education is often
seen as the start of teacher preparation program or in other words the first step in
the professional development of teachers. Wilke (2004) says that such education
often exposes pre-service teachers to new perspectives as well as prepares them
in knowledge and skills.
In many universities, programs for pre-service EFL teachers still tend to
focus on the inner circle. This might be because people had some long-
established assumptions such as (a) students need to learn the English of native
speakers, (b) the native speakers should serve as the model and standard, (c)
American or British culture should be taught, and (d) communicative language
teaching is the best way to teach the language (Brown, 2012). However
considering the fact that English now is considered as the international language
and that non-native speakers outnumber native speakers, work should be done to
create pre-service teacher programs that focus spirit of English as an
International Language (EIL). Pre-service teachers need to be informed that a
language program should incorporate the promotion of intercultural competence,
an awareness of other varieties of English, multilingualism in the classroom,
instructional materials that include both local and international cultures and the
adoption of socially and culturally sensitive teaching methodology (McKay,
2012).
The English Education Business Program of the English Department of
Petra Christian University Surabaya also updated its curriculum to incorporate

FLORA DEBORA FLORIS
49
the EIL principles by offering some new subjects such as World Englishes,
Education Policy, Current Issues in Global Education and Intercultural
Teaching & Learning and by “slipping-in” the EIL principles in other subjects
such as Spoken English in which pre-service students are introduced to varieties
of English or in Language Teaching & Learning in which they are asked to
critically evaluate various teaching approaches. New subjects such as World
Englishes whose scope is not limited to the inner circle are offered cause such
courses are likely to result in a “world view . . . [that is] more consistent with the
sociolinguistic realities of the spread of English as an international language”
(Brown and Peterson, 1997, p. 44). The principles of EIL are also integrated in
other courses so pre-service students will be aware of the current landscape of
English. By introducing the EIL issues as the content of the course or
peripherally, it is hoped that pre-service students will develop a favorable
attitude towards EIL.
The implementation of the revised curriculum started in the 2nd
semester
of 2011/2012 (February – August 2012). I was assigned to facilitate World
Englishes course which aimed to enable the students to consider past, present,
and future varieties of the English languages. Attention was given to the
historical, political, and sociocultural issues associated with the globalization of
Englishes and on the ideological underpinnings of debates about nativization,
standardization, identity, and ownership. Students were required to attend 14
consecutive meetings.
There were 11 pre-service students of Batch 2010 registered for this
course. As none of the topics discussed are covered in the first two years of their
university study, these students had never come across the relevant concepts
before. In addition, these 11 pre-service teachers had been immersed in the

traditional EFL classrooms since they were in elementary level. As the concept
of EIL was new for these students, I was interested to observe the prior beliefs of
these pre-service teachers and wished to ascertain to what extent the exposure to
the relevant concepts influenced their prior beliefs. Therefore the present study
was guided by the following research questions:
1. What sorts of beliefs do pre-service teachers have at the beginning of
the course about (1) the role of English as the international language,
(2) the best English variety, (3) the use of students‟ mother tongue in
the EFL classrooms, and (4) the best English language teacher.
2. Do these pre-service students‟ initial beliefs change at the end of
semester?
3. How do these pre-service students welcome the EIL principles in
their future pedagogical practices?
Attention was given to (1) the role of English as the international
language, (2) the best English variety, (3) the use of students‟ mother tongue in
the EFL classrooms, and (4) the best English language teacher because these
areas are closely related to the native-speaker paradigm (see Hassall, 1996 and
Matsuda, 2003) and are widely addressed in Indonesian context nowadays.
Another reason why I was interested to observe these students‟ beliefs
was because the literature portrays that beliefs play a central role on guiding
teachers‟ instructional behavior. Teachers‟ beliefs can powerfully shape what
teachers do (Pajares, 1992 and Borg, 2011). Beliefs form “the bedrock of
teachers' intentions, perceptions, and interpretations of a given classroom
situation and the range of actions the teacher considers in responding to it"
(Chapman, 2002, p. 180). Johnson (1994) also states that (1) teachers‟ beliefs
influence perception and judgment, (2) teachers‟ beliefs are reflected in classroom

FLORA DEBORA FLORIS
51
practices, and (3) teachers‟ beliefs should be understood with a view to improving
teaching practices and teacher education programs.
In the context of language teacher education, beliefs are seen to be a key
element. Borg (2011) states that teacher education is more likely to have an
impact when it is based on an understanding of the beliefs these pre-service
teachers hold. Kagan (1992, p. 85) has suggested that beliefs “may be the
clearest measure of a teacher‟s professional growth”. Therefore most of the
research available on the impact of teacher education on language teachers‟
beliefs has been conducted in pre-service contexts.
Studies highlight that pre-service students carry with them some strong
ideas and beliefs. These beliefs are formed during the “apprenticeship of
observation” which refers to the years these students have spent sitting in the
student desk prior to entering a teacher education program (Lortie, 2002). In
other words, pre-service teachers‟ beliefs are formed through many years of
exposure to educational practices and can be traced back to early experiences,
from primary education up to tertiary level.
Furthermore, pre-service teachers use their previous educational
experiences to interpret the input provided in their teacher education program
(Kagan, 1992). The majority of pre-service student-teachers who start their
education program, for example, view teaching as telling or lecturing-that is,
directly transmitting information to a passive learner (Torff, 2003).This is
because they are exposed to such lecturing style during their school years.
Scholars have found that pre-service teachers‟ prior beliefs brought to a
teacher education program significantly impact what and how pre-service
teachers learn. Prior beliefs can function as filters for processing experiences and
knowledge (Borko and Putnam, 1996). Prior beliefs are also related to

motivation constructs and to pre-service teachers‟ academic performances and
achievement (Pajares, 2003). Prior beliefs may hinder their ability to see the
relevance of their teacher education program as well because the existing beliefs
may be incompatible with their new learning in their teacher education program
(Borko and Putnam, 1996). However a strong sense of confidence built on
positive prior learning will expend a higher level of energy to work through the
difficulty (Pajares, 2003).
To change prior beliefs of pre-service teachers on language education
program is a challenge. Borg (2011) has in fact observed that some studies such
as Borg (2005), Peacock (2001), and Urmston (2003) report no changes in the
pre- and post-course beliefs of pre-service teachers. In contrast, other studies
such as Clarke (2008), Mattheoudakis (2007) and Busch (2010) provide evidence
of change in student teachers‟ beliefs during language teacher education (cited in
Borg, 2011). A research done by Minor et.al. (2001) also showed that at the end
of the semester of their observation, the beliefs of 84 pre-service teachers
observed had moved to be more in line with the instructor that is to have a more
progressive orientation.
Does instruction impact pre-service teachers‟ beliefs? A study by Liu and
Fisher (2006) reported that belief change could be promoted in variable ways (as
cited in Borg, 2011). Pre-service teachers involved in Minor et.al. (2001) „s
study, for example, were required to complete a variety of assignment including
a written critique of an article from a refereed education journal, an individual
presentation, a group presentation, reflections of reading assignments, active
participation in class activities, exams, and the development of a professional
portfolio. At the end of the semester, their prior beliefs changed.

FLORA DEBORA FLORIS
53
Having read all of the review of literature and considered the nature of
the World Englishes course taught at my university and 11 pre-service teachers
registered for this course, I became interested to observe the beliefs that these
pre-service teachers had at the beginning of the course, to see whether there were
any changes on their initial beliefs, and to find out how these 11 student teachers
perceive the EIL principles in their future pedagogical practices. The focus
would be on (1) the role of English as the international language, (2) the best
English variety, (3) the use of students‟ mother tongue in the EFL classrooms,
and (4) the best English language teacher.
Method
Participants
The participants of this study were 11 student teachers registered for the
World Englishes course of English Education Businness program of Petra
Christian University Surabaya. All of them were Indonesians in their early
twenties and in their 5th
semester. There were 10 female students and 1 male
student.
Procedure
This study was conducted in the 2nd
semester of 2011/2012 (February –
August 2012). The course itself was conducted for 14 meetings in which each
meeting lasted for 2 hours. Each meeting was conducted once per week. All the
names mentioned in this paper were pseudonyms. The research mainly adopted a
qualitative approach. Dörnyei (2007) addressed several reasons for choosing this
type of research namely: the research uses small sample size of participant, the
data analysis is done with words, and it is concerned with subjective opinions.

Classroom discussions and reflective papers of the students were used to collect
data.
In order to answer the first research question which aims to explore the
prior beliefs, at the beginning of the semester, the pre-service teachers were
required to write what they know about English as an international language, the
best English variety, the use of students‟ mother tongue in their language
classrooms, and the best English language teacher. They were asked to reflect
upon their personal teaching and learning experiences and beliefs and explicitly
provide examples. These reflective papers were not meant to be research papers
and the students were not expected to do any additional reading. The paper was
written in English and the participants submitted their reflective papers at the
beginning of the second meeting. For answering the other research questions, I
employed the online and offline classroom discussions and students‟ final
reflective papers.
For the purpose of online classroom discussions, I set up a closed
Facebook group. All students were members of this online group and some
participated in the thread of discussions quite actively. Ongoing throughout the
class meetings, the pre-service teachers and I always had (offline) classroom
discussions in which I asked my students some questions related to the issues of
EIL so that I knew what their before-course-perceptions were.
Then I asked each participant of this study to share their initial beliefs
with each other, and together overview and examine the present EIL situation.
During the discussions, I took notes on some interesting points of views that my
students expressed. I also asked the participants to note down if listening to the
classroom discussion had sparked some ideas and they felt their prior beliefs
needed revision. All online and offline discussions were mainly conducted in

FLORA DEBORA FLORIS
55
English though some Indonesians occurred occasionally. At the end of the
course, the students were once again asked to revisit their personal beliefs and
write their reflections towards the 4 major issues highlighted in their World
Englishes class. They also got an additional task, i.e. to think about how they
would apply their EIL beliefs in their future classrooms.
Data Collection and Analysis
Data gathered from the participants‟ reflective papers and classroom
discussions were then analyzed through content analysis as proposed by
Cresswell (2011). The first step that I took was to explore or to obtain a general
sense of the data. Then I started the process of coding the data according to the
categories relevant to the research questions. After that I tried to interconnect the
categories and report findings to the research questions. By doing these, I could
identify the teachers‟ beliefs related to (1) the role of English as the international
language, (2) the best English variety, (3) the use of students‟ mother tongue in
the EFL classrooms, and (4) the best English language teacher. I could also find
out the participants‟ opinions on how to implement EIL pedagogy in their
classrooms.
Findings and Discussion
The findings of this study would be presented in accordance with the
research questions. Thus I would start with the findings on pre-service teachers‟
initial beliefs related to the following areas: (1) the role of EIL, (2) the best
English variety, (3) the use of students‟ mother tongue in the EFL classrooms,
and (4) the best English language teacher. For each major area, there would also
be some discussions on the participants‟ (un)shifting beliefs and proposed
pedagogical implementations. All the names mentioned below were pseudonyms.

Thailand TESOL Journal Volume 26 Number 1

Thailand TESOL Journal Volume 26 Number 1

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Thailand TESOL Journal Volume 26 Number 1