伊朗英语学习者之间的关系

The Relationship Between Iranian EFL Learners Education Essay

伊朗英语学习者之间的关系

目前研究的目的是确定学生们最经常和最不经常使用的多元智能类型和听力策略，研究多智能类型作为一个整体因素与听力策略之间的关系，，并探讨不同类型的多智能/作为一个一般因素和听力策略使用的影响。为此，共发放90项多元智能问卷和23项听力策略问卷给伊朗Sistan and Baluchestan大学，Iranshahr大学 和 Yasuj大学的男性和女性的英语学习者。描述性统计（平均值和标准偏差），描述性统计（平均值和标准偏差），和推理统计（相关和独立的t检验）被用来分析数据。数据分析表明，参与这项研究的学生中，大多数最不占主导地位的多元智能是存在与自然的智能，听力策略分别是认知和社会情感策略。研究结果显示，男性和女性学生在身体智能、人际智能、存在智力方面的差异均存在显著差异，但男性和女性学生的听力策略无明显差异。

The purpose of the current study was to identify the most and the least frequently used types of multiple intelligences (MIs) and listening strategies of the students, to examine the relationship between multiple intelligences types/as a whole factor and listening strategies, and to investigate the effect of gender on the use of different types of multiple intelligences/as a general factor and listening strategies. To this end, a 90-item multiple intelligences questionnaire and a 23-item listening strategies questionnaire were distributed among 120 Iranian male and female EFL students from three universities of Sistan and Baluchestan, Iranshahr, and Yasuj. Descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation), and inferential statistics (correlation and independent t-test) were used to analyze data. The data analysis demonstrated that the most and the least dominant types of multiple intelligences among students who participated in this study were existential and naturalistic intelligences and those of listening strategies were cognitive and socio-affective strategies respectively. The results also revealed that there was some significant positive relationship between MIs types/ the overall MIs and listening strategies. In similar vein, the findings indicated that there is only a significant difference between male and female students in bodily intelligence, interpersonal intelligence, and existential intelligence, but the analysis showed no significant difference between male and female students regarding their listening strategies.

1. INTRODUCTION简介

The idea of intelligence for the first time was proposed in 1885 by Sir Francis Galton, who used statistical tools and curves to show that there is a relationship between heredity and being genius (Chaplin and Krawiec, 1974; cited in Ahmadian & Hosseini, 2012). But the origin of psychometric measurement of general intelligence refers back to French psychologist Alfred Binet who with his colleague, Theodor Simon, In the early 1900s, were asked by the French Ministry of Education to create a method that would be able to identify which student would succeed and which one would fail in primary school. With their effort in 1905, they formed the first intelligence test which was welcomed by educationalist and in later years in 1912 developed and revised as the intelligence quotient (IQ) test to represent the ratio of one's mental age to one's chronological age (Baum, Viens, & Slatin, 2005).

Later on, Howard Gardner, professor of education atHarvardUniversity, in 1983 proposed the theory of multiple intelligences (MI) which is based on the cognitive approach (Motah, 2007).Gardnerin 1970s and 1980s began to work in neuropsychology and child development and questioned the traditional view of intelligence as a single capacity that measured only logical and mathematical thought. He instead proposes nine different intelligences which are used in a variety of ways and a variety of settings, including work and educational settings, and can be developed over time (Gardner, 1993). The mental abilities of human beings were scrutinized byGardnerin two places. The first one was at theBostonUniversityAphasiaResearchCenterto understand which types of abilities the brain-damaged victims, who suffered from impaired language and other mental and emotional disorders, are able to do. The second place was at Harvard project Zero to work with normal and gifted children to understand the development of cognitive abilities. His effort to combine these two studies resulted in developing and introducing the theory of multiple intelligences in his book in 1983 entitled Frames of Mind (Baum et al., 2005).Gardner(1983) defines intelligence as "the ability to solve problems or to create fashion products that are valued within one or more cultural settings"(p. 81). By the same token, Gardner (1999) redefines the concept of intelligence as "a biopsychological potential to process information that can be activated in a cultural setting to solve problems or create products that are of value in a culture" (pp. 33-34).

Gardner (1983) first identified seven distinct intelligences. In 1999, he added an eighth and later on he has introduced a ninth intelligence. Each intelligence type represents a set of capacities that concentrate on two major issues: the solving of problems, and the fashioning of significant cultural products (Armstrong, 2003). The nine intelligence types that need to be taken into account are explained according to (Richards & Rodgers, 2001) below:

1. Linguistic/Verbal intelligence: the way people such as lawyers, writers, editors, and interpreters use language skillfully and creatively.

2. Logical/Mathematical intelligence: the ability to perform intellectual activities and to use logical structures including those done by doctors, engineers, scientists, and programmers.

3. Visual/Spatial intelligence: to organize and perceive models of the world visually is the feature of this type of intelligence. Decorators, sculptors, architects, and painters are good at this kind of intelligence.

4. Bodily/Kinesthetic intelligence: the capacity to make the body fit and to have control on body motions, something seen in craftpersons and athletes.

5. Musical/Rhythmic Intelligence: this encompasses the ability to listen to music eagerly and to perceive and express components of music. Gifted people in this kind of intelligence are singers and composers.

6. Interpersonal intelligence: the ability to have a good interaction with other people. This ability is strong in salespersons, politicians, and teachers.

7. Intrapersonal intelligence: self-identifying and the ability to use one's talent successfully in an appropriate way are attributed to this type of intelligence. People with this type of intelligence are likely to become psychotherapist, writers, creative artist (Richards & Rodgers, 2001; Chapman & Freeman, 1996).

8. Naturalistic intelligence: the ability to comprehend and recognize the world and forms of nature. People who use such an intelligence type often become farmers, botanists, conservationists, zoologist, environmentalists (Richards & Rodgers, 2001; Chapman & Freeman, 1996).

9. Existential intelligence: the ability to tackle the deep questions with respect to the human conditions such as the meaning of life, death, and love. This intelligence engages individuals in real world and allows learners to see their place in the big picture and to observe their roles in the classroom, society and the world or the universe. Philosophers, theologians, life coaches, cosmologists are among those who have high level of existential intelligence (Gardner, 1999; Chapman, 1993).

Strategies are a series of events and because of the heavy cognitive demand of the task they might not be completely observable in the listening process (Anderson, 1991). In fact, strategies are the thoughts and behaviors used by learners to comprehend, learn, or retain information (O'Malley & Chamot, 1990). All those who researched on first language acquisition maintained that listening is essential not only to language learning but also to learning in general. Listening is an important activity of initial steps to develop other learning strategies (James,1986a). It is known that listeners use a variety of mental processes to give meaning to the information they listen to. These mental processes that listeners use to comprehend spoken English can be described as listening comprehension strategies (Oxford, 1990). O'Malley and Chamot (1990) categorize these strategies into three groups: cognitive (repeating, translation, grouping, note taking, deducting, and imagery), meta-cognitive (planning for learning, thinking about the learning process as it is taking place, monitoring of one's production orcomprehension, and evaluating learning after an activity is completed) , and socioaffective (cooperation and question for clarification) strategies.

2. Review of Related Literature Review of Related Literature相关文献综述文献综述

Within this section, the current study first concentrates on some of the major studies performed inIranconcerning MI theory and listening strategies, and then those conducted in foreign countries are reviewed.

2.1 Studies on MIT and Listening Strategies in Iran伊朗的麻省理工学院及听力策略研究

A study was done by Bemani Naeini and Pandian (2010) to investigate the relationship of Multiple Intelligences with listening comprehension proficiency among Iranian TEFL university students. The participants in this study comprised a total of 60 university students (50 females and 10 males, age range 19-26 years) majoring in TEFL at Islamic Azad University-Mashhad Branch. The participants in the study were first rated for their English listening proficiency by their taking a TOEFL test at the beginning of the semester. The participants were also given the MI Inventory to identify their MI profiles and the listening section of a retired TOEFL test containing 50 questions. The study results indicated that no significant relationship was found between MIs profiles and listening comprehension.

To determine the relationship between MI and language proficiency, Razmjoo (2008) did a study in which the researcher aimed to investigate the relationship between MI and language proficiency of Iranian EFL PhD candidates, to explore whether one of the intelligence type or a combination of intelligences are predictors of language proficiency, and to examine the effect of gender on language proficiency and types of intelligences. The subjects of the study were 278 (179 males, 99 females) PhD candidates atShirazUniversity. An MI questionnaire and a 100-item language proficiency test were distributed among the candidates. The data revealed that there was no significant relationship between language proficiency and the combination of intelligences in general and the types of intelligence in particular. Likewise, no significant difference was found between male and female students and between their MI and language proficiency.

Another study was carried out by Shirani Bidabadi and Yamat (2010) at a University in south of Esfahan to examine the relationship between listening strategies employed by Iranian EFL Freshman university students and their learning style preferences. To do this, the researchers distributed a Listening Strategy questionnaire adapted from Vandergrift (1997) with 23 items and a Learning Style Questionnaire adapted from Willing (1988) with 24 items among 92 freshman university female students with the age of 18 majoring in Teaching English as a Foreign Language course. The findings showed that there was a moderate significant positive relationship between listening strategies employed by freshman university students and their learning styles, and that these Iranian EFL freshmen employed meta-cognitive listening strategies such as planning, directed attention and selective attention the most and in terms of learning style preferences they considered themselves as communicative learners.

2.2 Studies on MIT and Listening Strategies in Other Countries其他国家的英语学习和听力策略研究

Saricaoglu and Arikan (2009) conducted a study to examine the relationship between particular intelligence types and students' success in grammar, listening and writing in English, to investigate the relationship between parental education and students' types of intelligences, and to explore the relationship between students' gender and intelligence types. The data collection was done by Multiple Intelligence Inventory for Adults. Data analysis indicated that negative but significant relationships were found between success in students' test scores in grammar and bodily/kinesthetic, spatial, and intrapersonal intelligences whereas the relationship between musical intelligence and writing was found to be significant and positive. The study further showed no significant relationship between parental education and students' intelligence types. Finally, it was revealed that no significant relationship was found between gender and the intelligence types except for linguistic intelligence which was positive.

Liu (2006) did a study to examine whether/how extensive listening and repeated listening differentially affect listeners' listening strategy use. The participants of this study were 12 females with the average age of20 intheir sophomore year majoring in English inNationalTaiwanNormalUniversityinTaipei,Taiwan. The Instruments for this study were the listening materials which were 8 stories chosen from the book In Your Own Words: Extraordinary Tales from Ordinary Life edited by Anna Murphy and the Recall Protocol, a test for listeners' listening comprehension ability and distinguish between more-skilled and less-skilled listeners, and the third one was Listening Comprehension Strategy Inventory. Each of the participants engaged in extensive listening (listening to five different stories) and repeated listening (listening to one story five times) respectively. The verbal reports of their listening strategy use were recorded, transcribed, coded, and analyzed. The findings demonstrated that the participants utilized significantly more listening strategies including meta-cognitive and cognitive listening strategies while engaging in repeated listening than in extensive listening. They also used significantly more types of listening strategies in repeated listening than in extensive listening.

3. Statement of the Problem, Purpose, and Significance of the Study问题目的和意义的陈述

Nowadays, English language teaching plays an important role in educational curriculum inIranand special attention is given to it in the society. Most Iranian English teachers are aware of learners' individual differences which are considered to be a significant issue in language learning, but not all of them apply these individual differences in their classes. As a result of this neglect, learners are not sufficiently motivated to develop positive attitudes toward learning English in general and listening in particular (Akbari & Hosseini, 2008). In recent years inIran, there have been some educators and researchers who have begun to study the roles of MIs and listening strategies in the realm of language acquisition. They began to examine the relationship of these two variables with some other factors such as English proficiency, Vocabulary Learning, self-esteem (e.g., Razmjoo, 2008, Hayati & Ostadian, 2008). Therefore, the motive for conducting this study is recognition of the most and the least frequently used MIs types and Listening Strategies of Iranian EFL learners. The study also aims at investigating the relationship between MIs and Listening Strategies of Iranian EFL learners. Finally, the study intends to examine the effect of gender on using the different types of multiple intelligences and Listening Strategies. The study contributes significantly the learners to make aware of their deficiencies and use their competences, intelligences in order to find an appropriate solution to overcome their problems in the course of language learning. The study is also likely to stimulate the students to become proficient through their potentials. Obtaining a better understanding of these factors may pave the way for the emergence of new ways of teaching and learning from which both teachers and learners can benefit.

4. The present study近期研究

To achieve the research goals, four research questions will be identified to be answered:

4.1 Research Questions研究问题

1. What are the most and the least frequently used types of intelligences and listening strategies among Iranian EFL learners?

2. Is there any significant relationship between Iranian EFL learners' types of Multiple Intelligences /as a general factor and the types of listening strategies they employ?

3. Is there any significant difference between Iranian male and female EFL learners in using different types of multiple intelligences/as a general factor?

4. Is there any significant difference between Iranian male and female EFL learners in using different types of listening strategies?

4.2 Null Hypotheses零假设

H0 (Q2): There is not any significant relationship between Iranian EFL learners' types of Multiple Intelligences /as a general factor and the types of listening strategies they employ?

H0 (Q3): There is not any significant difference between Iranian male and female EFL learners in using different types of multiple intelligences/as a general factor?

H0 (Q4): There is not any significant difference between Iranian male and female EFL learners in using different types of listening strategies?

5. Methodology方法论

This section involves participants, data collection instruments and procedure, and data analysis.

5.1 Participants参与者

The participants of this study were 120 male and female under-graduate students (60 males and 60 females) majoring in ELT within the age range of 19 to 24. Forty students were chosen from theuniversityofSistanand Baluchestan majoring in English Language and Literature, forty fromYasujUniversitymajoring in Teaching English as a Foreign Language, and forty fromuniversityofIranshahrmajoring in English Language Translation.

5.2 Data Collection Instruments and Procedure数据采集仪器和程序

In order to collect the data, the researchers benefited two questionnaires for this study:

The first instrument was a 90-item MIs questionnaire in the form of Likert scale checking and measuring the nine types of intelligences. The validity of the questionnaire was approved by the item-constructors committee, 8 experienced assistant professors in the Department of Foreign Languages and Linguistics atShirazUniversity. The overall internal consistency of the questionnaire was determined by the researcher using Cronbach alpha CA) and it turned out to be 0.89 which is an acceptable and high index of reliability (Razmjoo, 2008).

Then, a listening strategy questionnaire adapted from Vandergrift (Personal Communication cited in Archer 2002) and Vandergrift, Goh, Mareschal, and Tafaghodatari (2006) served as the second instrument of the study. Three more items were added to the questionnaire based on the listening strategy category developed by Vandergrift (1997). The items were modified in order to suit Iranian students' learning. The questionnaire includes three categories (Meta-cognitive, cognitive, and socioaffective strategies) with 23 items. Items one to eight deal with organization and evaluation of listening (meta-cognitive); items nine to seventeen represent the use of mental processes (cognitive); and items eighteen to twenty three relate learning with others (socioaffective strategy). A five-point Likert-Scale that ranges from one (Strongly Disagree) to five (Strongly Agree) will be used to indicate students preferences (cited in Shirani Bidabadi and Yamat, 2010).

These questionnaires were distributed among the students during their class time in one session, and they were asked to fill out the questionnaires within 30 minutes.

5.3 Data Analysis数据系统

In order to answer the research question 1, descriptive statistics including means and standard deviations of MIs and listening strategies were computed. A Pearson Correlation coefficient was conducted to find out the answer for question 2. Finally, in order to offer an appropriate response for questions 3 and 4, the researchers employed an independent-samples t-test.

6. Conclusions and Suggestions结论与建议

The current study proceeded to investigate the most and the least dominant types of MIs and listening strategies. To this end, a descriptive statistics was done and the results indicated that the most and the least dominant MIs type belonged to the existential intelligence and naturalistic intelligence respectively. This finding contradicts to Saricaoglu and Arikan (2009) who showed logical mathematical intelligence as the dominant and musical intelligence as the least dominant intelligence. The study also considered cognitive strategies as the leading strategies and socio-affective strategies as the least frequently used one. This finding stands in contrast to Shirani Bidabadi and Yamat (2010) who found meta-cognitive strategies as the most frequently used strategies among students, but the two studies showed the same results for the least dominant listening strategies. That is, they identified the socio-affective strategies as the least common listening strategies used by students.

The study further intended to explore the relationship between Iranian EFL learners' types of Multiple Intelligences and their listening strategies. It was demonstrated, by means of the Pearson Correlation coefficient, that there existed some significant positive relationship between students' MIs types/as a general factor and the listening strategies they utilize.

The last two research questions concerned the effect of gender on the types of MIs and listening strategies and also on the overall of the two. The findings for this study indicated that there is a significant relationship between gender and Bodily intelligence, Interpersonal intelligence, and Existential intelligence, and that female learners are stronger in these types of intelligences than male learners. This finding is in contradiction with finding of Saricaoglu and Arikan (2009) who found only a significant relationship between linguistic intelligence and gender in that it is stronger in females than males. The finding also contradicts with Loori (2005) who found a relationship between gender and logical/mathematical intelligence and intrapersonal intelligence, and that logical/mathematical intelligence was stronger in males while intrapersonal intelligence was higher in females. The data analysis further demonstrated a significant relationship between gender and MIs as a whole factor. It was found that MIs as a whole factor is also stronger in female learners than male learners. This stands in contrast to what Razmjoo (2008) had found. That is, there is no significant difference among the Iranian males and females in using multiple intelligences in general and each type of intelligence in particular. For the forth question, the study found no significant differences between male and female students in using different types of listening strategies and also in the overall listening strategies the students employ.

The current study examined the effect of multiple intelligences on listening strategies. Other researchers may find it interesting to get insights into the relationship of these variables with other factors including critical thinking, vocabulary learning, consciousness raising and other skills. The study can also be replicated in a different context with a larger number of students to see whether the two studies yield the same result for generalizing or not. The researchers can also examine the different types of multiple intelligences among Iranian EFL students in the classrooms.