Student Evaluations of IE Active Listening 373 students responded to an online surveymonkey survey Completion rate of 97% Administered between May 28 th and June 12 th We'll look at the quantitative data for the 362 students who completed the survey to date and the open- ended responses of a subset of students (n=206) who completed the survey by June 2nd (Tuesday).

The levels represented in the survey

General impression of the course

Self-perceptions of progress

What do you think of the IE Active Listening course? I like this class the best of all in the classes I take. I'm really motivated to do self-directed listening because Mr. X read very carefully and comment a lot. 36 students commented out of the 206 who answered the question POSITIVE Improving students' attitude and motivation:

What do you think of the IE Active Listening course? We can practice not only listening to English, but also speaking it. 36 students commented out of the 206 who answered the question POSITIVE Appreciation of the wider scope of the IE Active Listening class: Satisfaction with course requirements and content: Our homework assignment is excellent. I think that I can go through seeing many kinds of information.

What do you think of the IE Active Listening course? We can improve our listening skills every week. That is a wonderful thing. This program is well organized. So, if we do it thoroughly, we probably can improve our skills. The IE Active Listening course helps me improve my listening ability more than before. 36 students commented out of the 206 who answered the question POSITIVE Recognition that the course is helping them to improve listening skills:

What do you think of the IE Active Listening course? I think we are having one of the best teachers. I like IE class now. I think it is because members are active and eager to learn. And not afraid to show their opinions. 36 students commented out of the 206 who answered the question IDIOSYNCRATIC CONTRADICTORY or AMBIVALENT COMMENTS It is a little bit boring. vs. Very interesting! Teacher is Japanese and speaks Japanese to explain in class. I think Listening teacher should be a native speaker. vs. It is good to give us a Japanese teacher because I don't have English skills very much.

What do you think of the IE Active Listening course? 36 students commented out of the 206 who answered the question CONTRADICTORY or AMBIVALENT COMMENTS, continued It was little hard to me, but I'm sure that I will be able to improve my listening English skill. vs. It is an easy class and boring. I am not sure that my listening skill improved. Reallyenglish is a good tool for me to study, but it sometimes doesn't work. Preparation is troublesome, but listening to the other's presentation is interesting. It is not so interesting, but some materials are good.

What do you think of the IE Active Listening course? 36 students commented out of the 206 who answered the question CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISMS I would like to listen more in the class. It's good to have lessons made for listening, but because it's so new to the teachers too, it is a little confusing to get through it without mistaking. The contents of the class is OK, but the amount of homework sometimes is little bit too much. I want more and more practical lessons. Since I am not good at listening, I want to do more collections of listening problems like reallyenglish.

Percentage of Ss who’ve done “Interactions”

Ratings for “Interactions”

What do you think of the "Interactions" activity? It's a lot of fun to do Interactions. Enjoyable ! It is good for me to do interactions activity because I can have more confidence than before. 33 students commented out of the 161 who answered the question POSITIVE Improving students' attitudes, motivation, and confidence: POSITIVE

What do you think of the "Interactions" activity? Great way to improve speech in a friendly environment (as opposed to the whole class). I think it is fun to find movies and present about them. 33 students commented out of the 161 who answered the question POSITIVE Positive effect on learning environment: POSITIVE Appreciation for opportunities to share information & opinions: It’s good to share opinions each other. I like it, because I can here others' opinions. It's fun to see people's interest in funny commercials. I can know other's opinions and ways of presenting them. I am stimulated by them. This makes me understand what we know about the topics, so it is interesting.

What do you think of the "Interactions" activity? Time for this activity was very short. It's a good thing to be able to be a leader and to ask questions, people trying to think about the question. But it's new so we can't do it smoothly. We cannot interact well because there are computers. I could not understand what I have to do. I wanted to know what I should do. It was difficult to find sources on YouTube. It's difficult to present new words since I can't catch new words because they are new to me. 33 students commented out of the 161 who answered the question POSITIVE CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISMS / IDENTIFYING CONSTRAINTS

What do you think of the "Interactions" activity? Preparation is troublesome, but listening to others present their ‘Interaction’ was interesting. I believe it is good for improving our speaking skills but I doubt that it is good for improving our listening skills. It is a good activity though it is easy to do for IE3 students, I think. First, I am confused with this activity, but it is like discussion and it's a good chance to communicate with friends. 33 students commented out of the 161 who answered the question POSITIVE AMBIVALENCE

What do you think of the "Interactions" activity? It looks like an IE CORE class. I want to listen in IE listening class, maybe I will speak English in IE CORE class. It is interesting but I think it is not for listening course. It looks like IE Core's discussion. I do not know why we do that in listening class. 33 students commented out of the 161 who answered the question POSITIVE NEGATIVE COMMENTS

Percentage of Ss who’ve done Presentations

General impression of the presentations

What do you think of the "Presentations”? It was really fun because the presenters try hard to make us understand what they wanted us to know. 9 students commented out of the 65 who answered the question POSITIVE Improving students' attitudes & motivation: POSITIVE Recognition of the benefits of the activity: I thought it's a good practice to talk in front of people. We need more practice even in Japanese. It's good for practicing speaking. I think presentation skills will be necessary for all of the students in the future, especially for our job hunting.

What do you think of the "Presentations”? It is fun because each group choose a different text with each other. 9 students commented out of the 65 who answered the question POSITIVE Appreciation for opportunities to share information & opinions: POSITIVE Not everyone speaks. I think we should listen to real English, not students' Japanese English. I enjoyed it, and I think it is good for practicing our speaking not for listening. CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISMS / IDENTIFYING CONSTRAINTS IDIOSYNCRATIC I don't like speaking in front of others.

Percentage of Ss who’ve done Self-directed Listening

General impression of Self-directed Listening

What do you think of the "Self-directed listening reports”? I found an interesting topic. I got excited by this! We can choose any source to listen to and write a report, so I enjoyed it. 24 students commented out of the 114 who answered the question POSITIVE Improving students' attitudes & motivation: Recognition of the benefits of the activity: I think my listening skills became better. I think it is good for us because I can get into the habit of listening to English more than before. The sites have various levels so I can choose the most suitable one.

What do you think of the "Self-directed listening reports”? I can learn new things that I've never known before. It's a great opportunity to find websites to improve your English. It will improve our listening skills and it has much information about politics, war, education and so on, so that I could learn many new things. POSITIVE Appreciation of opportunities to acquire new information: CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISMS / IDENTIFYING CONSTRAINTS Seems redundant with the interactions. I would prefer to do either a self-directed listening report or the interaction each week. No time to do it at home. I don't have a computer, so I have to do it in school. It is hard for me, but I think It's good.

What do you think of the "Self-directed listening reports”? I can learn new things that I've never known before. It's a great opportunity to find websites to improve your English. It will improve our listening skills and it has much information about politics, war, education and so on, so that I could learn many new things. AMBIVALENT IDIOSYNCRATIC It's really fun to listen to TED. [Videos featuring talks by fascinating people.] NEGATIVE I hate the reports because they are hard.

Percentage of Ss who’ve done reallyenglish lessons (self-access)

General impression of reallyenglish’s PE

What do you think of the reallyenglish self-access learning system? Great resource to learn technical terms we do not usually hear about. There are a lot of texts in reallyenglish, so I can enjoy many questions. I think it is a good oppotunity to listen to English in daily life. I can learn many new vocabularies!! 34 students commented out of the 185 who answered the question POSITIVE About the content of the lessons: POSITIVE STATEMENTS About the user interface: How to use this reallyenglish is easy. I could use this system easily and the content is interesting for me. I think it's excellent because the grammar is explained in English.

What do you think of the reallyenglish self-access learning system? Level 4 was not so easy not so hard so it was worthwhile for me. POSITIVE Appropriate level of difficulty POSITIVE STATEMENTS Improving students' attitudes & motivation: It is interesting for me. It is really fun. Recognition of the benefits of the system: I think the really english is good for us to improve our ability. It tells me how well I understand English and my skill right now, so I like it. We can do it whenever we want to do. I like this system because I can practice both listening skills and vocabulary.

What do you think of the reallyenglish self-access learning system? It is difficult to communicate with my teacher using this site. I studied myself using reallyenglish, but the computer said I didn't do anything. I can't believe it. It's not funny. Each lesson takes too much time to complete. Maybe 10 to 15 minutes for each lesson would be better and increase the number of lessons required. This would be better than decreasing the number of required lessons. In the grammar sections, there are some parts where we can record our own voice. I don't think that's useful. POSITIVE CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISMS / IDENTIFYING CONSTRAINTS

What do you think of the reallyenglish self-access learning system? It's good for practice but it is not really challenging. It's fun but a bit easy. But still I like it. It contains various topics. It is a good system but it is really hard to do each week constantly. This system is good, I think. However, it's a little burden to me because I have to do a lot of self-study and it takes me a long time. Good, but it sometimes doesn't work. POSITIVE AMBIVALENT STATEMENTS

What do you think of the reallyenglish self-access learning system? POSITIVE The computer is not capable of understanding our effort. I try to access reallyenglish 5 times a week, but I never got to get into the site yet. Self-learning is important, but the system of reallyenglish is complicated. I did not know the URL of reallyenglish, so I try to find the URL, but I could not using Google. I haven't done it yet. There are several mistakes in the program. I can't use reallyenglish system in my home. So I can't practice. NEGATIVE STATEMENTS

Favorite activity in the course?

Least favorite activity in the course?

Reasonable workload?

How do you think the IE Active Listening program can be improved? POSITIVE Keep doing the things we are doing right now. I really enjoy when the teacher brings in his/her own opinions into the interactions. I think it is the perfect right now. There is a lot of homework, but my English skills have improved ever since I've enrolled in this school, so I think its worth it. CONTENTMENT WITH STATUS QUO

How do you think the IE Active Listening program can be improved? POSITIVE We should make the classes smaller. Listen to unfamiliar dialects and terms. Watch more videos and movies in class. [Many students wanted movies to play a larger role in the classes.] With more interactions, we can further improve our communication skills. I reckon we should reply using English; just listening doesn’t benefit me. Instead of using sources like audios and videos from Internet sites, perhaps the students can do the talking and answering questions. This can be better for both listening and speaking skills. VARIOUS SUGGESTIONS

How do you think the IE Active Listening program can be improved? POSITIVE Reduce the problems with computers. If we make less use of computers, then we can improve and, at the same time, communicate more. Many teachers had problems with the computer, so class doesn't work well. I think it's not teachers' fault. Students should get more time in class to work on their reallyenglish activity. COMPUTER-RELATED

Teachers’ perspectives “Interactions” are chaotic in the larger classes. Class management and control (esp. noise control) has become complicated. There’s a conflict between the number of “self- directed listening” tasks that the coordinators think would benefit students and the number teachers are willing and able to mark. Students sometimes choose sites that teachers may not feel comfortable with. (e.g., animal cruelty or “pro-ana” sites masquerading as anorexia info sites).

Teachers’ perspectives (continued) Monitoring the students’ self-access work has been challenging for teachers and few have mastered the mechanism for giving feedback through the reallyenglish website. Communicating the complicated course requirements has been difficult. Using materials from YouTube, because of its familiarity to students, may deepen their discussions and encourage self-disclosure. Topics that might otherwise be difficult to discuss in class become ‘mentionable.’