ABSTRACT

Background: In many universities, undergraduate engineering students are taught in English rather than their first language. This requires the crucial skill of academic listening, but many students have limited linguistic knowledge and skills, necessitating additional scaffolding by instructors.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was thus threefold: (a) to explore the needs of Engineering students for scaffolding in the academic listening, (b) to compare their needs for scaffolding strategies and their performance on the academic listening test, and (c) to investigate the performance of two listening instructors in terms of using scaffolding strategies in their classes.

Participants: The participants were 140 undergraduate students of Engineering and two PhD holders teaching academic listening at the Iran University of Science and Technology.

Design and Methods: The data for this descriptive, correlational research was collected through a sample of academic IELTS listening test, a questionnaire on scaffolding strategies followed by five open-ended questions, and five sessions of observation of the listening classes.

Results: The results showed that in one class with 96% of learners’ satisfaction, the most frequently used strategies by the instructor were ‘repeating whole or part of a task for the students if needed’ and ‘waiting for them to answer the questions’, while in another class with 30% of the learners’ satisfaction, only one strategy, ‘providing a comfortable atmosphere for the students to listen to the tasks’, received the highest percentage. The results also revealed that ‘providing clues and directions to help students find the correct answer’ and ‘correcting task or the answers of students’ were the only two statistically significant strategies required by those who obtained the lowest scores on the academic listening test.

Conclusions: The findings revealed that meeting students’ needs for scaffolding in listening classes can enhance their satisfaction.

摘要

背景：在许多大学，本科工程专业的学生用英语授课，而不是他们的母语。这需要学术听力的关键技能，但许多学生的语言知识和技能有限，需要教师提供额外的脚手架。

目的：因此，本研究的目的有三个：(a) 探索工程专业学生在学术听力中对支架的需求，(b) 比较他们对支架策略的需求和他们在学术听力测试中的表现，以及 (c) ) 调查两名听力教师在课堂上使用脚手架策略的表现。

参与者： 参与者是 140 名工程学本科生和两名在伊朗科技大学教授学术听力的博士生。

设计和方法：这项描述性相关研究的数据是通过学术雅思听力测试样本、关于脚手架策略的问卷以及五个开放式问题以及五次听力课程观察收集的。

结果：结果显示，在一个学习者满意度为 96% 的班级中，教师最常用的策略是“如果需要，为学生重复全部或部分任务”和“等待他们回答问题” ，而在另一个有 30% 学习者满意度的班级中，只有一个策略“为学生提供一个舒适的氛围来听任务”的比例最高。结果还显示，“提供线索和方向帮助学生找到正确答案”和“纠正任务或学生的答案”是学术听力测试中获得最低分的学生所要求的仅有的两种具有统计学意义的策略。

结论: 调查结果显示，满足学生在听力课中对脚手架的需求可以提高他们的满意度。