The Efficiency of Teaching Listening Comprehension of “Sunrise Series” in Erbil Governorate

Abstract

Teaching listening comprehension (LC) is undoubtedly a challenging task for teachers. The fleeting nature of sound makes it hard for listeners to focus attention on a particular word or phrase for detailed analysis. So, it is understandable that many teachers slip into testing the learners' LC rather than teaching them effectively. (Djiwandono, 2006:32). The main aim of this study is to find out how efficient is teaching the LC in the preparatory schools in Erbil Governorate through teaching the current textbook; i.e. “Sunrise Series” and shed light on the communication techniques that should be used in teaching Sunrise Series to develop the sub-skills that should be acquired by EFL and to find out whether there is significant difference between male and female teachers in the implementation of the appropariate up-to-date techniques. In order to achieve the aims of this study, a checklist has been constructed and prepared to be used through observation to measure to what extent the appropriate techniques are used and to find out the ability of teachers who teaches Sunrise 11 at preparatory schools in Erbil Governorate use up-to-date techniques. An achievement test is constructed as an instrument of measurement to find out the students’ LC ability and teachers’ impact on students’ learning through using their current teaching techniques and methods. The checklist and the test have been submitted to the jury members of English language and applied linguistic specialists. They have been applied to the teachers and the students during the second semester of the academic year 2011-2012. The sample of the study consists of (50) teachers are chosen randomly from (50) schools; (25) of them are male and (25) are female who teach 11th grade students and (744) students are drawn from the same (50) schools, (396) of them are male and (348) are female. The analysis of the results of the checklist and the test, data indicates that the majority of the teachers neglect this skill, though it is one of the important and the main skills in “Sunrise” textbook. They have failed to manage the listening lessons using the appropriate pedagogical procedures i.e. they have not employed the Pre, While, and Post-listening stages or activities and only few listening sub-skills are practiced. Moreover the listening tasks are not designed in such a way that students can practice the various sub-skills. The statistical analysis shows that there is a statistical difference between male and female teachers to implement the stages, in fact female teachers have implemented and use more LC techniques in the classroom than male teachers. There are also, statistical difference in mean among the students at boys, girls and mixed schools, the mean of the boys’ schools score in the test result are (24,27), whereas the girls’ mean is (34.35) and in the mixed schools is (29.18), this means that the girls’ level is higher than the others. Evidently, it reflects the positive effects of their teachers’ techniques that are implemented during LC lessons. But generally, the analysis of the results of the test, indicates that the teachers’ teaching methods have a negative impact on students’ learning LC skill which is (14.38%) of the students who have passed the test. It indicates that the students’ level in LC is very low. This study recommends that teachers in service should be trained to use the up-to-date techniques. Besides, teachers should pay special attention to LC skill because it is very necessary for communication between the listener and the speaker.