www.ijcer.net Improving Listening Skills with Extensive Listening Using Podcasts and Vodcasts

The present study investigated the potential of podcasting and vodcasting technology in promoting extensive listening and improving overall L2 listening skills. Forty-nine college-level EFL students took part in this yearlong study. Data, coming from listening log assignments, listening progress tests, proficiency tests and a listening log questionnaire, were both quantitatively and qualitatively analyzed and interpreted. Results show that students spent approximately one hour per week on extensive listening with podcasts or vodcasts outside the classroom. Vodcasts were found to be less commonly preferred than podcasts by students. Further, as measured by listening progress tests and proficiency tests, students were able to make significant progress in their overall listening skills by the end of the year. Additionally, students found extensive listening practice with podcasts and vodcasts highly effective not only in helping them improve as L2 listeners but also enhancing their pronunciation abilities and knowledge of words and phrases. Yet, students reported being occasionally frustrated with the pace of speech in podcasts and vodcasts. Overall, this study suggests that developing certain language skills can be boosted with digital technologies at our fingertips.


Introduction
Humans tend to listen more than they read, speak, or write, which arguably puts listening at the heart of the language learning process. Indeed, as Rost (2001) pointed out, the basic distinction between high-achieving and low-achieving language learners pertains to "their ability to use listening as a means of acquisition" (p. 94). Despite its salience, listening is often treated as the Cinderella skill in second language (L2) learning (Nunan, 2002) simply because much valuable class time is questionably devoted to reading, grammar, and vocabulary. Additionally, L2 learners are often not educated about the significance of listening as a language component and the development of listening skills (Berne, 2004;Vandergrift, 2007). Listening skills can be honed by extensive listening practices beyond the classroom. Thanks to the advancement in mobile technologies, the widespread availability of aural input on the Internet, and the easily-accessible online platforms, podcasts and vodcasts have emerged as a powerful tool for extensive listening practices to improve L2 listening skills. Given the role of extensive listening practice in the development of listening skills and the abundance of online audio and video materials, this study attempted to explore the potential of podcasts and vodcasts in developing L2 listening skills beyond the classroom in an EFL context.

Extensive Listening
Listening is undoubtedly best improved by simply listening. Increased exposure to a large amount of comprehensible aural input is called extensive listening (EL) (Rost, 2006;Vandergrift & Goh, 2012). The EL practices can be both teacher-and learner-initiated, and can be conducted outside the classroom. The fundamental step in EL is that learners do a variety of meaningful listening practices. As learners become exposed to ample aural input, they begin to automatically process the data and obtain a reasonable level of comprehension. Chang and Millet (2014) defined this as listening fluency. Developing listening fluency in an L2 context is a challenging process as it requires consistent practice with abundant exposure to spoken language (Rost, 2006). According to Vandergrift and Goh (2012), there are three important principles for effective EL practice: variety, frequency, and repetition. L2 learners need to listen to a variety of listening materials on various topics and themes so that they become familiar with the structures of different listening texts. Furthermore, EL practice should be done frequently and regularly. A sustained extensive listening practice can be between five minutes and one hour. Repetition is also another key to EL as it can increase the level of comprehension and help listeners focus more on details and features of the listening material. Podcasting and vodcasting technology can support these three principles of EL and provide the rich and sustained aural input much needed in EL (Vandergrift & Goh, 2012).

Podcasting and Vodcasting in L2 Contexts
Today, digital technology is preferred by many as the first go-to source of a dynamic hub of knowledge and learning (Merzifonluoğlu & Gonulal, 2018). In light of this trend, language learning has, to some extent, transmuted into a more flexible and cost-effective format without being limited to a physical space or time (Kukulska-Hulme, 2009). Indeed, recent mobile technologies (e.g., smartphones, tablets) and widespread availability of L2 materials on the Internet can greatly benefit L2 learners. From this perspective, one particular method that can both embrace mobile technology, and combine flexible and extensive learning is the implementation of podcasting and vodcasting technology (Abdous, Camarena & Facer, 2009).
Podcasts are the audio files that are distributed over the Internet through subscription. Podcasts are usually in the format of an MP3 and can be played on any digital device, such as laptops, tablets, and smartphones. Podcasts are automatically delivered to subscribed users and they can listen to them whenever and wherever they want (Shelly & Frydenberg, 2010). Vodcasts are the podcasts with video content instead of audio (Dupugne, Milette & Grinfeder, 2009). For this reason, vodcasts are also known as video podcasts. As of January 2020, there were more than 850,000 podcasts and 30 million episodes available around the globe, and these numbers are increasing daily (Winn, 2020).
Apart from the increasing number of podcasts and vodcasts, the themes and topics addressed in them vary far and wide. Further, podcasts and vodcasts can provide authentic, contemporary, culturally-rich, and easilyaccessible materials, which makes them a highly useful and practical language learning resource. Indeed, there are numerous digital materials that are especially designed for ESL and EFL learners on the Internet (Stanley, 2006). In line with the premises of mobile-assisted language learning (MALL) (Burston, 2015;Gonulal, 2019aGonulal, , 2019bKukulska-Hulme, 2009, L2 learners can utilize podcasts and vodcasts anywhere, anytime. First and foremost, L2 learners can listen to a variety of podcasts and vodcasts of their own choice in their own time outside the classroom. Furthermore, podcasting and vodcasting technology provides L2 learners with rich and authentic listening input which is highly needed in EFL contexts. Additionally, L2 learners, depending on their needs and levels, can obtain the utmost use out of podcast-and vodcast-based listening practice by controlling the listening input with pause, replay and slow-down options (Alm, 2013).
The potential of EL, combined with the affordances of podcasting and vodcasting technology, has motivated a number of scholars to further investigate this area of research. Although the viability of vodcasts for language learning has been under-investigated, compared to that of podcasts, there has been some scholarly attention given to the implementation of EL with podcast and vodcasts in L2 contexts to improve L2 learners' listening skills (Alm, 2013;Bakla, 2018;Chen, 2019;Faramarzi, Tabrizi & Chalak, 2019;Rodgers, 2016;Schmidt, 2016;Yeh, 2013). For instance, in a recent extensive listening study informed by Vandergrift and Goh's (2012) metacognitive approach, Alm (2013) examined the use of podcasts for EL practice in an intermediate German class. Twenty-eight students of German listened to German language podcasts as well as wrote reflective blogs on their podcast use over a semester. The results indicated that the podcast use was highly effective in helping German students become exposed to authentic German input and that the freedom of students to choose their own podcasts increased their enjoyment and engagement with the listening materials. In a similar study, Yeh (2013) conducted a podcast-based EL study with a group of 23 undergraduates in an integrated English speaking and listening course. The results showed that the students found podcast-based listening highly influential and effective in improving their language proficiency as well as knowledge of the world. Despite being mostly satisfied, the students were sometimes frustrated due to the pace of the speakers in the podcasts. In a more recent study, Faramarzi et al. (2019), working with 120 college-level learners, examined the potential of vodcasts in developing listening comprehension in a pre-test/post-test design study. They utilized 20 teacher-selected vodcasts of varying genres (from grammar vodcasts to news vodcasts) over a period of 12 weeks. The results indicated that students significantly increased their listening comprehension scores by the end of the 12-week treatment. Further, there was a positive association between the L2 listening achievement and the level of engagement with vodcasts.
Although there has been a burgeoning interest in the implementation of EL in L2 classrooms, there is still scarce research on the employment of EL with podcasts and vodcasts in different educational settings. A comprehensive investigation of the potential of podcasting and vodcasting technology in the development of language skills, more specifically the listening skill, can benefit L2 learners, teachers and researchers. Given the role of EL in developing listening skills and the upsurge of interest in podcasting and vodcasting technology, the following research questions were addressed in the present study: RQ1: What are learners' podcast and vodcast use behaviors for extensive listening practice? RQ2: To what extent does podcast-and vodcast-based extensive listening improve learners' L2 listening skills? RQ3: What are learners' experiences with podcastand vodcast-based extensive listening?

Method
The current study employs an action research design which includes a concurrent process of taking action and doing research by reflecting one's own practices (Creswell, 2012). That is, one of the primary purposes in action research is to improve and refine practice through implementation of change. This research design was the most appropriate method for the present study considering that the researcher intentionally studied his own practice by assessing where any change on the extensive listening practice was valuable, along with focusing on student outcome and perceptions.

Participants
Forty-nine (33 females and 16 males) college-level students, who were majoring in an English Language Teaching program at a state university in Turkey, took part in this study. Their ages ranged from 18 to 32 years old (M = 18.90, SD = 2.17). At the time of the study, the students were taking compulsory preparatory English courses, and the data in this study came from the integrated listening and speaking course. This class met for five hours every week, totaling 140 contact hours (28 weeks) in two semesters.
Before being enrolled in the compulsory English courses, all the students (N = 61) took an IELTS-like English test covering all four skills and grammar at the beginning of the academic year. This English test also acted as a placement test for the compulsory preparatory class, and the students with a score of 70 or above were considered successful. Forty-nine students were not successful, and these students were automatically registered for the year-long compulsory English courses. The students' average overall score on the proficiency test was 39.62 (SD = 9.52) out of 100, and the average listening score was 30.42 (SD = 16.22) out of 100 (the listening section accounted for 20% of the overall score but was converted to 100 for comparison).

Procedure
After the second week of the course, the students were introduced to the one-year long listening log project, which was an additional, extensive listening project supporting the regular, in-class listening instruction. They were first asked to subscribe to English language podcasts and vodcasts to receive weekly authentic aural input. They were free to subscribe to any podcasts and vodcasts of at least five minutes in length provided they were suitable to discuss in follow-up classroom activities. However, some students had difficulties in finding appropriate podcasts and vodcasts. Therefore, the instructor created a sample list of suitable podcasts and vodcasts and shared it with the students (see Appendix A). The students were to listen to their podcasts and vodcasts weekly and provide a summary of their listening materials. In the first semester, students were asked to write a 150-word summary. In line with the tenets of action research, the instructor reflected on this practice, and decided that oral summaries would be not only more useful but also would break the boredom of doing the same extensive listening project in the second semester, Thus, the students were asked to record a three-minute oral summary in the second semester. They had to email their summaries to the course instructor before the beginning of each class. The instructor checked whether the students were doing the summaries but did not provide any comprehensive feedback on them. However, in each class, students had to speak about their podcasts and vodcasts for about two minutes during a speaking line activity in which they lined up facing each other and talked to each other. The students completed ten listening logs in each semester, totaling 20 listening logs. They earned 1.5 points for each listening log they completed.
In order to check the students' progress, six listening progress tests (three tests in the first semester and three in the second semester) were administered. Each listening progress test consisted of approximately 30 items tapping while-listening and note-taking skills, and lasted 30 minutes on average. In addition, although the students occasionally provided brief oral feedback on their extensive listening practice at different times during the extensive listening project, they were asked to complete a questionnaire (see Appendix B) to report on their opinions of, and experiences with, the weekly listening logs using their mobile devices. The students took the questionnaire in the last class of the second semester, and reflected on several open-ended questions (e.g., How effective was the extensive listening with podcasts and podcasts in developing your listening skills? What kinds of challenges did you have while doing the extensive listening?). Finally, the students took an English proficiency test to pass the compulsory preparatory English class and enroll in the first-year courses.

Data Analysis
The data in the present study came from six listening progress tests, two proficiency tests, and a listening log questionnaire (see Appendix B). The listening test data (i.e., six listening progress tests and two proficiency tests) were quantitatively analyzed, whereas the students' responses on the questionnaire were qualitatively analyzed. Before running any statistical tests for the quantitative analyses, the data were carefully screened for normality, outliers, and missing values. The Q-Q plots and Shapiro-Wilk test showed that the data were nonnormally distributed. A missing value analysis was also performed to deal with missing data. The proportion of missing values was found to be less than 5%, and thus conventional missing data management methods (i.e., list-wise and pair-wise deletion methods) were applied when necessary (Gonulal, 2019c;Schafer & Graham, 2002). Then, frequencies, percentages, descriptive statistics, confidence intervals, and the Wilcoxon signed-rank test were calculated, and parallel coordinate plots were created. Finally, a content analysis was conducted on the qualitative data to better understand the students' experiences with, and opinions of, the extensive listening practice with podcasts and vodcasts, and to identify any latent effects of this MALL-oriented intervention. First, the written responses to the open-ended questions on the questionnaire were manually complied on a Word document, and a total of 2,268 words were obtained. Then, the compiled textual data were analyzed to classify the student responses into groups of similar meanings (Schreier, 2012).

Results
The first research question addressed the podcast and vodcast use behaviors of the students for extensive listening practice. The results indicated that 68% of the students used only podcasts for practicing L2 listening outside the classroom whereas only 32% of them practiced extensive listening with vodcasts. Further, while doing extensive L2 listening practice, 74% of the students used smartphones, followed by laptops (23%). Only 3% of the students used a tablet. Additionally, as can be seen in Table 1, the average length of the podcast and vodcast they listened to when doing each listening log was around 6 minutes. The students approximately spent one hour for per listening log assignment each week. The second research question focused on the extent to which extensively listening to podcasts and vodcasts improved students' L2 listening skills. In order to gauge students' progress, six listening tests were administered in two semesters. Table 2 and Figure 1 show the students' progress based on these tests. As presented in Table  2, the students indicated a significant improvement in the listening scores, which increased from 42. However, the students did not always show a linear pattern of progress during the listening logs project. As reflected in listening tests 4 and 5, at some points, the progress was barely noticeable in terms of scores. Figure 1 is a parallel coordinates plot in which individual changes from the first listening test to the last listening test are visualized. Each student is represented with a line and each listening test with a vertical bar. The figure indicates that although there were some fluctuations in the students' progress throughout the year, most students showed an upward progress in the end. In other words, the students succeeded in increasing their listening test scores from the beginning to the end of the year. Similarly, when looking at the students' progress in the proficiency tests, they also exhibited similar pattern of progress. As can be seen in Figure 2, except for a few students, all made substantial progress in their performance in the final proficiency listening test. More specifically, the students increased their proficiency listening test scores from 30.  When looking at the students' perceptions, a great majority (88%) of the students stated that they enjoyed the podcasts-and vodcast-based extensive listening project and they would probably continue to make use of them in the future. Regarding the students' experiences with the extensive listening with podcasts and vodcasts, a largely positive tone was prevalent in the student responses. Further, the expressions such as "I used to…but now", "I improved…", and "I learned/realized that" prevailed in the student comments. More specifically, a great majority of the students mentioned that listening logs with podcasts and vodcasts significantly contributed to their overall listening development. Examples 1-4 from student responses reflect this point. Apart from the positive aspects of listening logs, some students also reflected on the issues they had while doing the listening logs. The first and foremost difficulty that they faced was related to the speed of the speakers and the unfamiliar accents. As illustrated in Examples 8-10, the students had to get familiar with the speeches of fluent native speakers and speakers with different accents as they were listening to a variety of listening materials.
Example 8. Some speakers spoke fast, so sometimes I felt angry. Also, I sometimes did not catch some important information due to fast speakers. Example 9. Some speakers were speaking so fast but actually it was good for me and over time my progress has increased. Example 10. At first, I couldn't get used to it. I couldn't understand what the speaker said and I couldn't catch the words because of the speaker's fast speech.
Of course, a few students also mentioned that they had issues of varying degrees with the Internet connection while listening to the podcasts and vodcasts at their dorms or homes. Additionally, some students reported that doing listening logs each week during two semesters was a bit tedious, and finding podcasts and vodcasts that suited their interests and levels were challenging.

Discussion and Conclusion
The purposes of the current study were threefold: (a) to provide a snapshot of L2 learners' podcast and vodcast use behaviors for extensive listening practice, (b) to examine the effectiveness of podcast-and vodcast-based extensive listening on the development of L2 learners' listening comprehension, and (c) to probe into the pros and cons of podcast-and vodcast-based extensive listening.
First, as might be expected, smartphones were the most preferred device of the students while doing the extensive listening practice. Only a quarter of the students used their laptops, whereas tablets were preferred by only a few students. This finding is substantially different from the findings of Chan's (2014) study in which laptops were favored by almost all the participants and mobile phones by a third of the participants. Considering the increased use of mobile devices in educational contexts in recent years (e.g., Gonulal, 2019aGonulal, , 2019bKukulska-Hulme, 2009Stockwell, 2008;Stockwell & Hubbard, 2013), this finding should not be surprising. In fact, this finding also partially explains why students preferred podcasts over vodcasts although they had the freedom to subscribe to podcasts, vodcasts, or both. One plausible explanation is that it is not very convenient to watch a vodcast on a small-screened device such as a smartphone. Additionally, the relatively fewer number of available vodcasts that are suitable to use for educational purposes and the comparably large file sizes of vodcasts to download might have forced students to use more podcasts. The amount of weekly exposure to the aural input was a key point in the effectiveness of the extensive listening project. In the current study, the average length of the podcasts or vodcasts that students listened to was about seven minutes, but students reported spending almost one hour on their listening log assignment including listening to the podcasts or vodcasts and preparing the summaries. In a similar study (Yeh, 2013), students mostly listened to two or three podcasts and spent less than 30 minutes per week.
Second, the year-long extensive listening practice with podcasts and vodcasts had significantly positive influences on the development of listening skills. That is, the students managed to double their listening test scores by the end of year. Evidence supporting the potential of podcasting and vodcasting technology in developing listening skills has also been previously reported (e.g., Abdous et al., 2009;Alm 2013;Bakla, 2018;Chen, 2019;Faramarzi et al., 2019;Yeh, 2013). However, it is important to note here that the increase in students' listening scores might not be solely explained by regular and extensive exposure to authentic aural input outside the class. The overall listening development of students might be partially attributed to the formal, in-class listening instruction because it is common sense for students to have some gains in listening test scores after taking a course on listening. Yet, the typical in-class listening instruction often consists largely of textbook recordings, which are usually modified, and associated comprehension questions (Brown, 2011;Siegel, 2014;Vandergrift, 2007). Nonetheless, this type of instruction does not seem to suffice to help students improve noticeably and quickly as listeners. Therefore, it would not be wrong to claim that the extensive listening practice with podcast and vodcasts was particularly effective in developing L2 listening skills, especially considering that the magnitude of the effect (r = .87) was remarkably large. Furthermore, a great majority of the students explicitly stated in their comments that listening to podcasts and vodcasts regularly and extensively helped them to improve overall as L2 listeners. Indeed, although the students might have done a lot of things both inside and outside the class such as playing games (e.g., dictation activities), watching videos or movies, the extensive (and regular) listening using podcasting and vodcasting technology was probably the key factor in the development of their listening fluency because it enabled consistent practice with abundant exposure to spoken language (Rost, 2006).
When looking more closely at students' experiences with, and opinions of, the extensive listening practice with podcasts and vodcasts, students voiced similar ideas regarding the effectiveness of podcast-and vodcast-based extensive listening on L2 listening skill development. That is, students largely believed that they significantly augmented their overall listening skills by the end of the year thanks to the extensive listening assignments. Similarly, the students in Yeh's (2013) study reported that podcast-based extensive listening projects helped them improve their English listening ability. Furthermore, almost a quarter of the students in the current study also pointed out that their pronunciation improved reasonably as a result of listening to authentic aural input constantly and regularly. On the other hand, there were several issues raised by several students regarding the implementation of extensive listening with podcasts and vodcasts. On a large scale, students stated that they had initially experienced some serious issues with the pace of native speakers but as they continued to listen to podcasts and vodcasts each and every week they found such fast speech more manageable and beneficial for preparing them for real-life situations. Similar findings are also reported in other studies on extensive listening and podcast/vodcast-based listening practices (Alm, 2013;Chen, 2019;Renandya & Farrell, 2011;Siegel, 2012;Yeh, 2013). Apart from the fast speech rate of native speakers, the unfamiliar words, in particularly idiomatic expressions, uttered in podcasts or vodcasts caused students some difficulty with understanding the listening texts. This drawback of podcasts and vodcasts has been pointed out in other studies as well (Alm, 2013;Chen, 2019). Using the pause, slow-down and replay functions of podcasts and vodcasts or resorting to dictionaries were the strategies that students commonly used. A non-negligible number of students also stated that they had some technological mishaps such as poor Internet connection when downloading the podcasts or vodcasts to their devices.
Although the current study shed light on the potential of podcasting and vodcasting technology in the improvement of L2 listening skills, the findings should be treated with care due to several limitations. First and foremost, this was a small-scale study in that the number of participants was relatively small. Furthermore, due to the nature of action research study, there was no control group in the present study, so we are not completely sure whether the extensive listening with podcasts and vodcasts produced more favorable results than the traditional L2 listening instruction. Future studies might expand on this research area by including a control group to obtain a better understanding of the impact of podcasts and vodcasts on L2 listening skill development.
Additionally, this study did not focus on the distinct affordances of podcasts and vodcasts. Future studies might address this point by comparing the podcast-based listening with vodcast-based listening given the slightly different features and advantages each offers.
In line with the pervasiveness of digital devices and the recent scholarly work in the area of MALL (Burston, 2015;Gonulal, 2019a, 2019bKukulska-Hulme, 2009, and others), many new digital avenues for L2 listening such podcasts and vodcasts are now available for language learners and educators. The findings in this study can help language teachers and learners recognize the educational power of podcasting and vodcasting technology in developing L2 listening skills. As a pedagogical suggestion for language teachers and learners who wish to utilize podcasts and vodcasts, it is important for them to become familiar with the digital resources available such as podcasts and vodcasts suitable for language use purposes (see Appendix A). There are numerous available podcasts and vodcasts that suit to the needs and levels of ESL and EFL learners (Stanley, 2006). Additionally, podcasting and vodcasting technology is highly suitable for effective EL practice since they can make the three elements of EL possible: variety, frequency, and repetition (Vandergrift & Goh, 2012). Language teachers who decide to make use of podcasts and vodcasts are highly likely to be rewarded with classrooms of engaged and motivated language learners who are satisfied with their substantial progress in listening skills. For most EFL learners, it is necessary to receive large amounts of aural input to fully develop as component L2 listeners. Considering that, podcasting and vodcasting technology not only bring freedom to obtain exposure to the target language anywhere, anytime, but they also provide examples of real-life English use on various topics. By hearing the authentic language use in podcasts and vodcasts, learners can improve their overall listening comprehension and pronunciation skills. The promising results of the current study regarding the effectiveness of podcasts and vodcasts in developing L2 listening skills would be an encouraging starting point for language teachers and learners to further explore these digital tools.