enhancing listening skill by using online listening homework

ENHANCING LISTENING SKILL BY USING ONLINE LISTENINGTo meet this demand, a lot of EFL instructors have designed listening onlinehomework for their students to practice outside of class si

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Năm học: 2019 - 2020

Năm học: 2019 - 2020

1. Tên sáng kiến: Cải thiện kĩ năng nghe bằng bài tập online ở nhà

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- Họ và tên: Thái Thị Quỳnh Trang Nam (nữ): Nữ

- Trình độ chuyên môn: Thạc sĩ

- Chức vụ, đơn vị công tác: Giáo viên trường THPT Trấn Biên

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ENHANCING LISTENING SKILL BY USING ONLINE LISTENING

To meet this demand, a lot of EFL instructors have designed listening onlinehomework for their students to practice outside of class since they realize that thisuseful way supports them to give feedback immediately, send the authentic materials

to the learners, give students their own space to practice and help them find the mostsuitable way to learn language which can enhance their language acquisition (Sagarra

& Zapata, 2008)

Sharing the same idea with the EFL teachers, the researcher also wanted to createher own online listening system as homework for their high school students to helpthem get more time to listen to authentic materials through podcasts or videos Hence

it was expected that learners’ listening skill would be improved and they would havepositive attitudes when accessing the online listening system

2 Problem statements

There has been various research carried out to examine the effectiveness of onlinehomework and students’ perception toward this method and the interpretation is still

considered under debate Having conducted the research, several researchers claimedthat there were developments in students’ performance after doing online homeworkand online listening exercises (Tian & Suppasetseree, 2013; Liu, 2014) Meanwhile,others stated that there were no significant effects on students’ performance whenusing online homework (Bonham, Beichner, & Deardorff, 2001; Dillard-Eggers,Wooten, Childs, & Coker, 2008) Although the answer of students’ attitudes about thistechnological method is almost positive, some cases still found out that students stillprefer paper-based homework than web-based homework (Dillard-Eggers, Wooten,Childs, & Coker, 2008).

3 Significance and purpose of the study

As a result, the researcher needed to review the research conducted to investigatethe effectiveness of online listening homework and students’ perception toward thistrend to examine the results to see whether it can help the learners enhance listeningskill and whether the students’ perspective is positive or not As far as the researcher’sacknowledges, the research that she has accessed so far just implemented onlinehomework at universities (Dillard-Eggers, Wooten, Childs, & Coker, 2008; Zerrr,2007; Alshaikhi & Madini, 2016; Liu, 2014; Sagarra & Zapata, 2008) Hence, theresearcher realized that it is necessary to design an online listening homework systemand conduct a study to examine students’ attitude towards this method in whichparticipants are students from high school or lower school because they may facemore difficulties in dealing with technological problems which they are less familiarwith Moreover, listening tests need to be designed to measure the effectiveness ofonline listening homework To be more important, there has not been any researchabout this aspect carried out in Tran Bien high school Therefore, the study isconducted to find out the perception of 40 grade 10 students in Tran Bien high schooltowards online listening homework From the results, the researcher can know exactlyher students’ feelings about online listening homework and the validity of the method

to decide to continue and apply this system to other classes to help students get better listening performance and encourage them to learn language.

4 Research questions:

To reach the aim of the study, there are two questions need answering:

 What are students’ perceptions towards online listening homework?

 Do they want to continue this method to improve their listening skill?

 Is the listening online homework effective?

1 Homework

For a long time, homework has been considered as a feature in most schools allover the world and it is an assigned task given to students to complete at home by theinstructor (Gu, 2015; Albelbisi, 2008; Leong & Alexander, 2014) It is also viewed as

a necessary part of the teaching-learning process and this activity will help studentslearn better, improve the language learning’s quality, therefore, they will reach theeducational aims faster (Xu & Wu, 2013; Hong, Wan & Peng, 2011; Amiryousefi,2016)

It is believed that homework can bring to instructors and learners numerousadvantages According to Amiryousefi (2016), homework expands the time thatstudents engage in learning, strengthens their learning, helps learners have betterscores, become more self-regulated and have a better study habit Increasing learners’creativity is another benefit that Ilgar and Ilgar (2012) found out when they conductedtheir research According to Cox (2011), when the homework is graded, it enhancesand motivates students to get higher grades as well (as cited in Nour, 2018) Cooper,Robinson and Patall (2006) said that the more homework students did, the moresuccessful they would get Palocsay and Stevens (2008) also claimed that problem

solving and critical thinking are skills that can be improved and developed in theprocess of doing homework (as cited in Albelbisi, 2018).

Homework also a connector between school and family, between the teacher andparents The events in the classroom will be informed to the parents and it encouragesthem to stay next to their kids to support and monitor their work (Amiryousefi, 2016).Moreover, through doing homework, teachers will realize their learners’ strengths andweaknesses Hence, it will help them to choose suitable materials and arrangehomework activities properly (Amiryousefi, 2016)

However, homework still has some demerits that the instructor needs to considercarefully before applying in the teaching curriculum It can create stress for thestudents and reduce their leisure time for outside activities According to Loveless(2014), homework is viewed as a punishment given by the teacher and it makesstudents bored and tired and students believe that homework is wasting learners’ timeand energy There are also some results that prove that homework did not improvestudy skills as well as students’ academic achievement (Kohn, 2007; Kralovec &Buell, 2005) Therefore, the effectiveness of homework has been a controversial topicuntil now

2 Online homework

Traditionally, homework is designed on paper with some kinds of exercises such aschoosing the best answer, answering questions, matching, filling in the blank orwriting the essay which can make students feel tired and waste time To deal with thisproblem, the teacher can use the technology and internet to create online homeworkwhich may have more interesting activities, colorful images and authentic materialsfor students to practice learning language

To understand the phrase “Online homework systems”, Leong and Alexander(2014) define that they are systems that contain computerized homework problems

designed to help the teacher give grade and feedback automatically and immediately.This definition is consonant with the meaning that Lunford and Pendergrass (2015)share in their article Jacobson (2006) and Kinney (2001) add that online homeworkalso may create plentiful diagnostic instructional hints or tutorial assistance whendefining this term.

3 Advantages of Online homework

There are numerous merits that make the teacher choose online homework instead

of paper-based homework The first benefit people can obviously see that onlineassignment can reduce the tree used to make paper It also cuts down the cost andenergy producing this material Hence, the nature of environment can be maintainedand preserved They are not afraid of losing the paper work when transiting fromclassroom to home as well (Dodson, 2014)

Another benefit that Dodson (2014) also found out when conducting his research isonline homework helps the teacher save time because they do not need to collecthomework and grading for them is more quickly and easily Dillard-Eggers, Wooten,Childs and Coker (2008) say that as instant feedback and assistance of onlinehomework help the teacher has more time for other classroom activities and dutiesinstead of meeting each student to give small details about homework

Giving immediate feedback seem to be the utmost beneficial thing for bothteachers and learners Students and instructors always report that the thing they areinterested in online homework than conventional homework is the availability ofdirect feedback (Dillard-Eggers, Wooten, Childs, & Coker, 2008; Zerr, 2007; Sagarra

& Zapata, 2008; Tian & Suppasetseree, 2013; Paker & Loudon, 2013; Doorn, Janssen,

& O’Brien, 2010; Leong & Alexander, 2014) Learners can receive feedback at anytime which is suitable for their schedules From then, they can understand andcomprehend immediately the knowledge and know their mistakes to fix it for the next

exercise In terms of the teacher, feedback allows them to supervise students’ progressand change their strategies accordingly (Lunford & Pendergrass, 2015) In the onlinesystem, gone are the wasted moments of providing detailed feedback to a large group

of students, which almost teachers are scared of

The fourth strong point of online homework is the various materials that theinternet provides for both instructors and learners According to Kilimci (2010),students can gather information, exposure to various topics and subjects, eliminate thecomprehension barriers thanks to the internet (as cited in Alshehri, 2017) Zerr (2007)also has the same viewpoint when this researcher shares that the internet has become

a crucial means for publicizing numerous educational materials to learners Moreover,these materials are authentic, practical and up-to-date as well Dodson (2014) claimsthat “Having digital homework can also be one way to keep curriculum fresh withinthe classroom”, which means this kind of homework can help teachers update theirwebsite, so reduce the time they spend on keeping the materials contemporary andadvanced

There has been some research that has stated that the grades and performance ofstudents who do online homework are better than the students doing paper-basedhomework or do nothing (Zerr, 2007; Tian & Suppasetseree, 2013; Brewer, 2009) Atleast homework does no harm for the students or maintains their performance(Dillard-Eggers, et al., 2008, Lunford & Pendergrass, 2015; Dodson, 2014)

Last but not least, online homework as well as paper-based homework encourages

a lot of important skills in real life for students The student’s autonomy will beimproved when they do homework by himself or herself Moreover, how to managethe time and schedule to do the task is also another skill that students can learnthrough doing homework According to Olin-Scheller and his coworkers (2010),students who always feel shy and uncomfortable to interact in class can also enhance

their communicative skill thanks to some useful internet services (as cited in Alshehri,2017) Research and analysis skills are also enhanced when doing online homework(Alshehri, 2017).

4 Disadvantages of online homework

On the other side, online homework also creates some demerits that the instructorneeds to consider carefully before applying this system

Students’ health is the first thing that can be affected by online system The longtime that students use and access to the internet could influence their eyesight andbackbone posture (Alshehri, 2017) Moreover, their mental health is also affected bycyberbullying activities on the internet If the instructor does not choose the materialscarefully, some videos, text or pictures will not appropriate for children, which mayresult in some violent actions or sexual behaviors

According to Johnson and Gotestam (2004), there are also some problems related

to technic that students may cope with when doing online homework such as they arenot familiar with the system or cannot connect to the website or lose their information

if it has not saved correctly (as cited in Alshehri, 2017)

Academic dishonesty is another disadvantage since students can still plagiarizeothers’ work or share their passwords to their classmates (Gu & Kristoffersson, 2015).Both paper-based homework and online homework are done outside the classroom sothey are out of teachers’ observation, which can lead to the cheating of the students.Online homework also increases the gap between learners because of theirbackgrounds and their levels of motivation (Gu & Kristoffersson, 2015) The studentwho studies in a large room with sufficient equipment, internet and support fromfamily will be better than the one who learns in a small room without essentialequipment

5. Students’ perception towards online homework

According to Tin (2006), the researchers and teachers need to listen to learners’voices to find out their feeling about homework assignment From then, they willknow exactly what needs to improve and develop and “this can help teachers standout of their practice and assess it from a wider perspective” (as cited in Amiryousefi,2016) Bulut and Uguten (2003) agree with this point because, in their opinion,learner’s perceptions are really important in the teaching and learning process Theyneed to consider about their learners’ preferences before planning and applying thelessons and materials widely and frequently (as cited in Sulaiman, Muhammad,Ganapathy, Khairuddin, & Othman, 2017) As a result, conducting research aboutstudents’ attitudes toward something new in their learning process is necessary andimportant

Almost the research that the researcher has accessed so far has positive attitudes ofstudents towards online homework Leong and Alexander (2014) realize thatimmediate feedback is the factor that makes students are keen on because it helpsthem enhance their understanding and learning 10.8% of participants in the research

of Sagrra and Zapata (2008) also agreed that they appreciate receiving immediatefeedback

With some students, online homework helps them understand more the materials,the topic, the lesson in class, then prepare for the exams (Doorn, Janssen, & O'Brien,2010) Dillard-Eggers, Wooten, Childs and Coker (2008) examined the research aboutthe effectiveness of online homework in accounting class and found out that morethan half of the students believed that online system supports them to understand thetopics and problems The findings of the research of Parker and Loudon (2013)suggest that learners’ learning, experiences and success in the courses are alsoimproved after doing online homework The findings of Tian and Suppasetseree

(2013) are in line with these above researches when they conclude that their onlinetask-based interactive listening encourages EFL students to enhance their listeningskills and learn more effectively.

53 percent of students from the research of Dillard-Eggers, Wooten, Childs andCoker (2008) said that the quality of the time they spent studying was increased.Students from the calculus class at the University of North Dakota also were inaccordance with this viewpoint when they said that their time spent outside of theclass was productive (Zerr, 2007)

As a result, a lot of students want to continue or have the same online homeworksystem for the other subjects and they will recommend it to their friends (Zerr, 2007;Richards-Babb, Drelick, Henry, & Robertson-Honecker, 2011)

6 Applying online homework in improving listening skills.

Thanks to the improvement and development of technology and internet, therehave been some researchers attempting to use online system to design homework withthe aim to extend practice time and enhance their students’ listening ability

Alshaikhi and Madini are two researchers conducting the research “Attitudetoward enhancing extensive listening through podcasts supplementary pack” (2016),which aims to examine the perception of 120 Saudi elementary level students andtheir teachers towards the content and criteria of podcasts using for extensivesupplementary listening pack The findings of this research show that all studentsparticipating in this research had positive perspectives about using short authenticpodcasts as listening supplementary packs Nearly 60 percent of teachers and 40% ofstudents said that they liked the mobility feature of podcasts which encourages them

to listen anytime and anywhere They also prefer the transcription which helps themfollow the speed rate of the native speakers Nearly half of teachers and studentsjoining in the research have the same idea that the curriculum should contain various

podcasts topic since their listening level could be improved when coping with variousdifficult podcasts that are beyond their current level.

Another research using podcasts as online material for improving students’listening ability is the research “Podcasts for listening skills” conducted byKavaliauskiene and Anusiene (2009) The purpose of this research is to identify theperceptions of learners toward online listening to podcasts and evaluating theperformance of individual listening practice and find a way to enhance listening skill

In this research, the participants could select two podcasts online to listen at homefreely which could match their level The findings show that students believed “it hadbeen easier for them to follow American speakers than British Speakers” (p 32).Nearly 80 percent of students had positive attitudes toward the technique usingpodcasts as listening material In conclusion, the researchers suggest that usingpodcasts may enhance language awareness because they can be done at home withconvenient time and own pace and without threatening conditions

“Comparing the outcomes of online listening versus online text-based tasks inuniversity level Italian L2 study” of Absalom and Rizzi (2008) is another research thatthe researcher review As mentioned in the title, the objective of this research is tocompare the results of two kinds of online tasks occurring in the background of thestudy of Italian at The University of Melbourne After investigating the research, theresearchers conclude that thanks to “the complex nature of listening in L2, onlinelistening tasks in L2 require students to activate more learning resources than is thecase with text-based tasks and adopt a deep, integrative approach to learning” andonline listening tasks also result in “greater retention of information and vocabulary”(p.64)

Instead of using technology and internet for designing online listening homework,Smidt and Hegelheimer from University of Minnesota and Iowa State University

created online academic lectures to improve their students’ vocabulary and listeningcomprehension incidentally The participants of this research include 24 ESL adultstudents taking part in a listening comprehension class at Midwestern university Theresults of this research indicate that the instructors may use multiple media to designonline lectures “such as transparencies and other visual aids” to improve listeningcomprehension, especially for intermediate adult students (p 541) In addition, theysuggest that the teachers should have suitable strategies to teach and guide theirlearners to use online media and resources.

Tian and Suppasetseree (2013) are two authors of the research “Development of aninstructional model for online task-based interactive listening for EFL learners” Theirparticipants are quite difficult with other researches They are three experts who havegot Ph.D degree from two universities in Thailand and they work both in

“instructional system design and the English language teaching field” The researchinfers that three experts strongly agree that this new model is suitable for Englishlistening teaching for EFL students and it can improve “learner instructor, learner-learner and learner-content interaction with a task-based approach” Furthermore, italso provides immediate feedback and it has “sufficient flexibility to be effective inteaching and learning in current instructional context” Two classes are required totake part in the experiment to examine the effectiveness of online task-basedinteractive listening in the second semester as well The results indicate that the modelhelps EFL students “learn more effectively and develop their listening skills andability as expected”

It can be concluded that almost the researches that the research has accessed untilindicate positive attitudes toward online listening exercises However, they just applythese exercises as voluntary work so that the result of effectiveness might belong tothe learners’ autonomy and strategies to work at home Therefore, the attitudes about

using online listening tasks also are influenced Furthermore, the participants of theabove researches are almost students from universities who are nearly familiar withtechnology and internet As a result, the researcher needs to conduct research thatoccur in the context of high school since the students studying at school still cope withsome difficulties related to high-tech and under the observation of parents Their time

of using computers and internet might be still depended on their parents’ allowancewhich can affect students’ results and perceptions toward online listening homework

1.Participants:

There are several ways to choose samplings such as simple random sampling,stratified sampling, multistage cluster sampling or snowball sampling; however, theresearcher chooses convenience sampling approach in which she can selectparticipants who are willing and available to be studied Although these participantscannot be representative of the whole population, it can save time for the researcherwhile still being able to contribute helpful information for answering questions(Cresswell, 2012)

As a result, 80 students from two classes 10A10 and 10A11 in Tran Bien highschool taking part in this project The class 10A10 is asked to do online listeninghomework through the system “Edmodo” by the researcher who is also their Englishteacher at school so it is more convenient for her Doing online listening homework iscompulsory for them because their exercises are graded and these scores occupy 10%

in their final result The class 10A11 is not required to do online listening homework.Because of the limited time, the researcher has just applied online listeninghomework for 12 weeks The students have to complete three listening exercises perweek They contain fill in the blank exercises, multiple choice questions, matching

activities, dictation, etc which are extracted from KET/ PET books, online postcardand videos from YouTube.

2 Method of data collection

Almost the research that the research has approach using a questionnaire toidentify students’ perceptions A questionnaire is defined as “a form used in surveydesign that participants in a study complete and return to the researcher Theparticipant chooses answers to questions and supplies basic personal or demographicinformation” (Cresswell, 2012, p 382)

According to Dőrnyei (2003), using a questionnaire has three benefits:

“Firstly, the attractive feature is exceptional efficiency in terms of a researcher’stime, effort and finance Secondly, much more information can be obtainedwithin a shorter time frame, in comparison with interviews with the samenumber of people Thirdly, a well-constructed questionnaire can process thedata quickly and relatively straightforwardly by using computer software.However, the primary disadvantage is that respondents usually give very simpleand superficial answers, mainly because they are unwilling to spend more timethan necessary in answering the questionnaires” (as cited in Liu, 2014, p 20).Because of these benefits, the researcher also applied a questionnaire to find outher students’ attitudes towards online listening homework She used a cross-sectionalsurvey, which can “examine current attitude, beliefs, opinions or practices”(Cresswell, 2012, p 377) However, the researcher wanted to know more detail aboutthe participant’s answer, she also designed open-ended questions This kind ofquestion might help the researcher has a deeper understanding, explore many

“possibilities that individuals might create for a question” and “allow participants tocreate responses within their cultural and social experiences instead of theresearcher’s experiences” (Cresswell, 2012, p 386, 387)

However, it is predicted that the participants do not want to be recognized so whendoing the questionnaire, background questions or demographic questions which assessthe personal characteristics of each participant in the research will not appeare in thequestionnaire Moreover, all of their information will be kept confidential to avoidethical research problems and make sure the participants will volunteer to do thesurvey.

During the thirteenth week, students from the experimental group were required tocomplete a survey which includes 16 statements arranged to form Likert-type scalewith five-point spread Participant scoring options are (1) strongly agree, (2) agree,

(3) no opinion, (4) disagree, and (5) strongly disagree They were also asked toanswer two open-ended questions to help researcher find out more possible responsesand ideas to improve the online listening homework system

To measure the effectiveness of the online listening homework, a experimental pretest/posttest is administrated to answer the question Before takingthis method, all 80 students will take a pretest to measure their English speakingcompetence and ensure there are no inequalities between two groups After that, class10A10 serves as the treatment group and take part in online listening homework.Class 10A11 serves as the control group and does not have to do these listeningexercises at home At the end of the research, post-test will be carried out to thestudents to see the differences in students’ performance in English listening skills oftwo groups

quasi-3 Method of data analysis

After being collected from the survey, the data is analyzed by using StatisticalPackage for the Social Sciences (SPSS) to see the percentages of each statementamong students From then, the researcher can determine the students’ perceptionstowards online listening homework

The scores of the tests will be put in Excel and use the formula to see the averagescores between two groups in both pretest and posttest.

The experimental group not only do the same thing as control group but they also

do the listening online homework at home three times a week At school, the teacherintroduces the method and explain the reason why she conducts this way for herstudents After that, the website “EDMODO” is shown for all the students on thescreen The teacher slowly instructs the steps to sign up on the website, join in onlineclass and do the exercises Then, students go home, sign up their own account and dothe online exercises three times a week During the research period, if students haveany difficulties in doing the online listening homework, they can ask the teacher forhelp The exercises are scored to ensure that all the students participate in doing thehomework This website also helps the teacher to give mark automatically, analyze theresult and check the frequency Therefore, the teacher can save a lot of time ratherthan using paper homework

After twelve weeks, a posttest is done by all the students in two groups to checkwhether the performance of the experimental group is better than the control group

IV Results

General perceptions towards online listening homework

When being asked the preference between online homework and paper-basedhomework, there were a lot of students choosing web-based style The table 1 belowwill present the percentage of students agreeing with the statement “I prefer onlinehomework than paper homework”

Table 1: I prefer online homework than paper homework

Valid strongly agree

addition, there were 7 students in total of 80 students having a neutral view which isequivalent to 8.8%.

Table 2: I spend more time studying because of the online

The last statement that helps to realize general attitudes of students towards onlinelistening homework is “I want to continue doing this online listening homework”,which can be shown in the table 3

Table 3: I want to continue doing this online listening

of students agreed and strongly agreed with the idea to continue doing online listeninghomework

Perceptions towards the validity of the online listening exercises

From the statement 4 to 8 in the survey, they are about the validity of the onlinelistening exercises and they help the researcher find out the students’ attitude towardsthese exercises

Table 4: the validity of the online listening exercises Statement

4 Online listening exercises

relate to my interest and they

are up-to-date

5 Online listening exercises are

suitable with my level of

proficiency

6 Online listening exercises’

structure is the same as the

listening test

7 Online listening exercises

have various topics related to

real life situations

8 Exercises’ instruction and

questions are clear and easy to

understand

It is obviously seen that only 1.2% and 6.2% of students, which combine togetherless than 10% of students strongly disagreed and disagreed with the statement “Onlinelistening exercises relate to my interest and they are up-to-date” In contrast, nearly70% of participants agreed and strongly agreed that these exercises are interesting andcontemporary Neutral point makes up more than 20%

More than 70% of learners conceded that the online listening homework matchestheir level of proficiency, in which 41.2% of students agreed and 30% of studentsstrongly agreed Only 6 learners which constitute 7.5% in total disagreed with thisidea The others belong to a neutral viewpoint

Almost all of them also agreed that the structure of these exercises is the same asthe structures of listening tests in class It can be proved by 60% of students tickedagree column and 13.8% of students ticked strongly agree column in the survey Thenumber of students disagreed with this viewpoint is the same as the previous

statement No one chose strongly disagree column and 18.8% of learners had neutralpoint.

“Online listening exercises have various topics related to real life situations” is thenext statement that nearly 80% of participants acknowledged The proportion ofstudents strongly agreed is nearly the same as the proportion of students agreed, 37.5and 38.8 respectively Only one student disagrees with this idea and more than 20%belong to neutral column

Although 11.2% of participants disagreed and strongly disagreed with the idea thatthe instruction and questions are clear and easy to understand, there were more than65% of students accepted these instructions and questions The neutral point one moretime makes up more than 20% for this statement

Perceptions towards the valuable aspects that online listening homework can bring about.

There are various merits that online homework can overshadow the conventionalone such as immediate feedback or the mobility However, whether these advantagescan satisfy the learners and encourage them to study language The table 5 below willidentify the ratio of learners who agree or disagree with these merits

Table 5: Advantages of online listening homework Statement

9 I like the videos because they

are lively and I can guess the

content more easily

10 Online listening exercises

are useful because they are

graded which can show me my

ability and encourage me to

improve my listening skill

11 I like the immediate

feedback because it helps me

know my mistake on my own

12 I like doing online like this

because I can access to do the

task anytime and anywhere

13 I can do the test as many

times as possible so I can get the

score better

It is noticeable that with the statement from 9 to 11, no one disagreed or stronglydisagree with these views and the percentage of students approved these ideas is veryhigh To be more specific, immediate feedback is the advantage of online listeninghomework that learners prefer which accounts for the highest proportion (70%strongly agree) The second highest ratio belongs to the statement “Online listeningexercises are useful because they are graded which can show me my ability andencourage me to improve my listening skill” (58.8% strongly agree) The livelyvideos stand at the third place with 51.2% strongly agree Both the videos and thegrade have the same percentage of students agreed (32.5%) The immediate feedbackjust has under 30% of students agreed, but it has the least ratio of neutral point incomparison with 16.2% of the video and 8.8% of the grade

There are still some students who disagreed with the viewpoint that they canaccess the online homework anytime and anywhere although the number just 4%.However, nearly 90% of participants agreed and strongly agreed with this strong point

of online homework (43.8% agreed and 45.0% strongly agreed) 7.5% of the otherstudents had neutral point.

The last statement in the table 5 received the least approval from the studentsalthough the number of students agreed and disagreed with this idea still occupy morethan half of students (60%) Besides 22.5% of students had neutral viewpoint, thereare 16.2% of participants disagreed and 1.2% strongly disagree with this merit

Perceptions towards the weaknesses of online listening homework.

Everything has both sides and online listening homework is not the exception.Statement 14, 15 and 16 in the survey mention some demerits of this style ofhomework and they are presented in the table 6 below

Table 6: Disadvantages of online listening homework Statement

14 I have got some technical

problems while listening to the

tasks

15 I do not like when I have to

open another app on the mobile

or another tab on the computer to

access the listening link

16 I’m dissatisfied when my

answer is incorrect if I give the

number but not the word

Looking at the table, it seems that technical problems are not their preoccupation because nearly 45% of students disagreed and 2.5% of students strongly disagreed

with this point while only 3.8% strongly agreed and 23.8% agreed Neutral pointmakes up 26.2%.

The disadvantage that makes students disappointed most is the way the systemgives the right answer More than 80% of students who were dissatisfied when theygave the right answer but the system did not give them mark because they wrote thenumber instead of the words 15.0% of participants ticked the neural column and1.2% is the proportion for both disagree column and strongly disagree column

Another demerit that 52.5% of students agreed and 25% of students stronglyagreed with is the way they open the listening link to listen to They had to openanother app on the mobile or another tab on the computer to access the listening link,which annoyed them a lot Both neutral point and disagree point have the sameproportion which is 11.2% in total

Open-ended questions

There are two open-ended questions in the survey which can support the researcherunderstand deeper the students’ perception towards online listening homework Theparticipant gave various answers and below are the most frequent answers for twoopen-ended questions

Is there anything else that makes you like and dislike about online listening

homework? If Yes, write them down

Like:

- My listening skill is developed

- My parents can know my results

- The sound quality is better than listening at school because I can use my

headphone and listen in quiet area

- My vocabulary and grammar are

improved Dislike:

-I do not like the boring background of the website

Some listening exercises are too hard or the speed of the speaker is too fast, I cannot follow them

-I do not like the deadline because it makes me feel stressed

Sometimes, it’s hard and difficult to type answers

Give your ideas to improve the online listening homework.

- I want to do the exercise every day so that it can be a good habit and help me improve my English

- I do not want to open another link to access the listening link so the teacher should design the tasks that we can do and listen in one website

-I want to have more interactive activities

Teacher should design some games and have a prize for the students having the highest score

- After completing the exercise, I want to see the transcript of the audio so that I can have a deeper understanding of my mistakes

Average score

A pretest and posttest are conducted to check the effect of online listeninghomework This table above shows the results.

It can be clearly seen from the table that the average scores of pretests between10A10 and 10A11 are nearly the same (5.3125 and 5.35) Therefore, the performance

of both groups before applying listening online homework is equivalent However, theaverage scores of the posttest experience the difference While the average score in10A10 is 6.525, the average score in 10A11 is 5.325 It is obvious that the posttest’saverage score in the experimental group is higher than that in the control group.Another significant point that can be drawn from the table is the score of students inclass 10A10 has shifted in a positive way (from 5.3125 to 6.525) In contrast, thestudents in class 10A11 seem not to change much, even the average score in posttest

is a little worse than that in pretest (5.35 in pretest and 5.325 in posttest)

V Assessment

1 Innovative features

The most different and unique thing about this new method is that it uses theinternet and computer to do the homework at home instead of using paper in the usualway Hence, there is a lot of superiority that the new method can bring about

The immediate feedback is the best thing that students appreciate because they canknow their own mistakes and from then can fix their fault and improve the next time.This is also the finding of some researchers such as Leong and Alexander (2014),Dillard-Eggers, Wooten, Childs, & Coker (2008), Zerr (2007), Sagarra & Zapata(2008), Tian & Suppasetseree (2013), Parker & Loudon (2013), and Doorn, Janssen,

& O’Brien (2010)

Besides the immediate feedback, there are some considerable aspects that lead tothe preference for doing online listening homework Thanks to the internet, teacher