The article is dedicated to the issue of teaching EFL listening in Kurdistan region of Iraq. The important role of listening skills in a FL learning is presented, and the difficulties of listening are analyzed, including language (vocabulary, grammar) and psychological (low motivation and self-confidence as well as a high level of listening anxiety) factors. The article involves a questionnaire survey with participation of 98 students from 8 universities in Kurdistan Region of Iraq and 28 teachers from 7 universities in the same region (universities mostly overlap, so totally 9 universities are involved). The survey shows that the level of listening anxiety among the students is quite high.
Anxiety in listening and learning a foreign language is bound to be present when one has one has, on the onehand, insufficient knowledge of the target language, and, on the other hand, does not have a relevantenvironment to master it. Teachers have a great role to help students overcome language anxiety. Teachersprovide efficient learning and help the learning outcomes boost, they contribute to creating the target languageenvironment, friendly to the student. If a teacher believes (and reveals that belief to students) that students canlearn a foreign language successfully, this triggers students’ increased self-confidence and decreased debilitatinganxiety (the so-called Pygmalion effect). In this research, two hypotheses were suggested, based on literaturereview: 1. The suggested teacher’s beliefs (student-centered, participatory, communicative, etc.) and behavior(creating a positive learning environment, establishing authoritative relations, application of pair and group work,etc.) would decrease students’ listening anxiety levels. 2. The drop in the listening anxiety would help increasestudents’ academic achievement in listening. An experiment to test these two hypotheses was held with 50 Iraqiuniversity students (25 in the experimental group and 25 in the control group). The experimental group wastaught emphasizing Pygmalion effect, while the control group – without this purposeful intervention. A pre- andpost-experimental questionnaire was held to find out whether the experimental group would demonstrate loweranxiety and higher listening skill level than the control group. The results showed that the experimental groupperformed better than the control in listening comprehension and reported lower levels of anxiety compared tothe control group. Thus, the application of Pygmalion effect can be recommended to teachers.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.