CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED
LITERATURE
 CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

2.1 INTRODUCTION
2.2 PURPOSE OF LITERATURE REVIEW
2.3 SOURCES OF LITERATURE REVIEW
2.4 RESEARCH CONDUCTED IN ABROAD
2.5 RESEARCH CONDUCTED IN INDIA
2.6 RESEARCH CONDUCTED IN TAMIL NADU
2.7 CONCLUSION
 CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
2.1 INTRODUCTION
Review of related literature is a pre-requisite to the actual planning and
conducting a new study. It gives the researcher a deeper insight and understanding
of his problem and enables him to enhance his knowledge by taking new strides
and by examining what is already known about the problem. The investigator
becomes familiar with various trends and phases in research, in his area and
formulates a rationale for the development of the study to be undertaken by him.

2.2 PURPOSE OF LITERATURE REVIEW

Literature review is an integral part of entire research process and makes valuable
contribution to every operational step.
Its functions are:
a) Bring clarity and focus to the research problem.
b) Improve methodology
c) Broaden knowledge
d) Contextualize the findings

a) Bring clarity and focus to the research problem

Reviewing the literature helps the researcher in understanding the subject
better and conceptualizing the research problem precisely and clearly. It helps
the researcher in finding the relationship between his research problem and
the amount of knowledge existing in the area.
b) Improve Methodology
By reviewing the literature, a researcher is able to find out whether others have
used same procedures and methods like the one which she is proposing and
whether the procedure worked well for her or she had to face any problem. In
this way the researcher will be able to select a proper methodology which is
capable of answering all her research questions.
c) Broadens knowledge base in the research area
It encourages the researcher to read thoroughly the area in which he decides
to conduct the study. It also helps him to understand whether the finding of
his study matches with the existing body of knowledge.
d) Contextualize the findings
It is important to place the research findings in the context of what is already
known in the field of enquiry. For this researcher has to always go back to the
review of literature.
The researcher has grouped the studies under the heads of studies conducted
in India and studies conducted abroad.

2.3 SOURCES OF LITERATURE REVIEW

The various sources of literature review are

a) Primary sources: are obtained from original sources on which research is

based and not being filtered through evaluation or interpretation. Primary
sources are in physical print or electronic form. They include reporting a
discovery, sharing new information, etc. Some examples include:
· Artefacts (e.g. coins, plant specimens, fossils, furniture, tools, clothing,
all from the time under study);
· Diaries;
· Literary creation: novels, short stories, poems, etc.
· Journal articles published in peer-reviewed publications;
 · Interviews (e.g., oral histories, telephone, e-mail);
· Patents;
· Records of organizations, government agencies (e.g. annual report,
treaty, constitution, government document);
· Works of art, architecture, literature, and music (e.g., paintings,
sculptures, musical scores, buildings, novels, poems).
· Proceedings of Meetings, conferences and symposia;
· Speeches;
· Internet communications on email, listservs
· Letters;
· Video recordings (e.g. television programs);
· Audio recordings (e.g. radio programs)
· Newspaper articles written at the time;
· Original Documents (i.e. birth certificate, will, marriage license, trial
transcript);
· Photographs
· Survey Research (e.g., market surveys, public opinion polls);
b) Secondary sources: are obtained by interpretation end evaluation of the
primary sources. They do not present evidence but discussion or rather
commentary of the evidence. Few examples are;
· Histories;
· Dictionaries, Encyclopaedias (also considered tertiary);
· Monographs, other than fiction and autobiography;
· Textbooks (also considered tertiary);
· Commentaries, criticisms;
· Bibliographies (also considered tertiary);
· Literary criticism such as Journal articles;
· Web site (also considered primary).
 · Magazine and newspaper articles;
· Biographical works;
c) Tertiary sources: These are information which are distilled and collected
from primary and secondary sources. Few examples are;
· Bibliographies (also considered secondary);
· (also considered secondary);
· Textbooks (also be secondary).
· Directories;
· Fact books;
· Almanacs;
· Guidebooks;
· Indexes, abstracts, bibliographies used to locate primary and secondary
sources;
· Chronologies;
· Manuals;
· Dictionaries and Encyclopaedias

2.4 LITERATURE SURVEY

Burhanuddin et al (2018)1, aimed at comparing the benefits of using videos instead of audios
for improving students’ listening skills. This experimental study used a pre-test and post-test
control group design. The sample, selected by cluster random sampling resulted in the selection
of 32 second year high school students for each group. The instruments used were listening
tests and observation sheets. The test results were analyzed by applying paired- samples t-test,
while the items in the observation sheets were analyzed by calculating their means. The results
of the t-tests (sig. 2-tailed) were 0.000 for both the video and the audio groups, showing that

1
Burhanuddin Yasin Et Al. (2018). How Much Videos Win Over Audios in Listening
Instruction for Efl Learners. The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology. 17 (1),
92-100.
the scores obtained by students in both groups improved significantly. However, the video
group improvement was over 2.5 times higher than the improvement in scores of their audio
counterparts. In terms of the instructional processes, the mean scores obtained by the video
group were significantly higher than those from the audio group for all observed aspects, i.e.
motivation, responses, teamwork and participation. Based on these results, it can be concluded
that using video materials is more effective in terms of both the output and the process.
Therefore, teachers are recommended to use video materials instead of their audio counterparts
for teaching listening skills.

Ufuk Ataş (2018)2, study presented an empirical study that investigates the role of vocabulary
knowledge in listening comprehension with 33 advanced Turkish learners of English as a
foreign language. The Vocabulary Levels Test (Schmitt, Schmitt & Clapham, 2001) is used to
measure the vocabulary knowledge of the participants and a standardized listening test
(Cambridge Certificate of Proficiency in English) is used to measure the listening
comprehension level. The results showed that vocabulary knowledge produces a significant
correlation with listening comprehension. The 5000-word frequency is found to be the best
predictor of the variance in the listening comprehension both of which have valuable
implications for listening comprehension in EFL contexts.

Soheil Mahmoudi (2017)3, study tried to find the possible relationship between listeners'
cultural schemata and its activation and their performance in EFL listening comprehension.
The participants of the study were two groups of 37 Muslim Iranian students. Firstly, the
students were divided into two groups of high and low proficiency. Then, they were exposed
to two audio files, one about mosques and the other about cathedrals. In one of the classes the
recording about the cathedrals was played first, but in the other the order was reversed. The
collected data were inputted into the SPSS program. The null hypothesis of the study was
whether listening to a culturally unfamiliar topic (cathedrals) can activate low-level learners’

2
Ufuk Ataş. (2018). The Role of Receptive Vocabulary Knowledge in Advanced Efl Listening
Comprehension. The Electronic Journal for English as a Second Language. 21 (4), 1-12.

3
Soheil Mahmoudi. (2017). Investigating the Effect of Cultural Schemata Activation On Efl
Learners’ Listening Comprehension. English Language, Literature & Culture. 2 (6), 99-104.
schema of the culturally familiar topic (mosques). The hypothesis of the study was accepted
implying that an unfamiliar text, even if it is conceptually similar, cannot activate a culturally
familiar schema in the low-level students. This study has pedagogical implications for teaching
listening comprehension.

Galip Kartal and Harun Simsek (2017)4, investigated the effects of audiobooks on listening
comprehension skills of EFL Students, and their attitudes towards using audiobooks in a
foreign language classroom. The participants were 66 first-year students of a state university
in Turkey. The research follows a pre-post-test control group research design using quantitative
and qualitative research methods. Quantitative data, obtained from the General Listening
Comprehension Skills Scale (GLCSS) scores of the students before and after the treatments,
were analyzed using independent samples t-tests. As for the qualitative data, participants’
opinions about the use of audiobooks were elicited via a survey and subjected to content
analysis. The outcomes of the GLCSS, developed and conducted by the researchers, revealed
similar listening comprehension scores for both groups before the treatment. Throughout a 13
week period, in the experimental group, the teacher used both printed and audio versions of the
selected books. The control group was allowed to use only printed versions while all the other
in class processes remained the same for both groups. The findings showed that using
audiobooks had a positive impact on students’ listening comprehension skills. The analysis of
the survey data showed that audiobooks had contributed to participants’ listening
comprehension, pronunciation, and motivation.

Danica Jerotijević Tišma (2016)5, stud aimed at investigating the application of an

instructional method specifically focused on the expansion of metacognitive awareness and its
effect on Serbian EFL students’ listening comprehension. The study likewise differed in the
sample of participants, the target language, teaching and testing material used, and the duration

4
Galip Kartal and Harun Simsek. (2017). The Effects of Audiobooks on Efl Students’
Listening Comprehension. The Reading Matrix: An International Online Journal. 17 (1), 112-
123.

5
Danica Jerotijević Tišma. (2016). Improving Listening Comprehension Skills Relying on
Metacognitive Strategies – Focus on Vocabulary and Specific L2 Instruction. International
Journal of Research Publications. 48 (2), 301–320.
of the very experiment. To answer the proposed research questions, they conducted an
experiment with 57 Serbian secondary school EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners
divided into experimental (n=27) and control group (n=30). The results of the pre- and post-
tests of the two groups showed the beneficial effects of developing metacognitive strategies
and the strong positive correlation between the level of vocabulary and listening
comprehension. The study underlines important pedagogical implications especially regarding
the enhancement of metacognitive awareness and vocabulary proficiency of students in order
to improve performance on listening comprehension tasks.

Alan Robert White et al (2016)6, Tests and in class assessments of EFL (English as a foreign
language) listening comprehension generally attempt to sample from language that reflects
what students will be expected to comprehend in the relevant contexts. Unfortunately, most
listening tests and assessments do not consider or address the issue of accented English in ESL
listening. The study examined the issues and problems EFL students face when listening to
unfamiliar accents. Three groups of Bachelor of Arts English major students enrolled at
Rajamangala University of Technology Krungthep, Bangkok, Thailand were exposed to
various accents at different frequency levels throughout the Advanced Listening and Speaking
course. Tests were conducted to establish whether accent familiarity affected students’
understanding of the English language. The results of the tests suggested that familiarity of an
accent can aid listener comprehension.

Asghar Rameshianfar et al (2015)7, study investigated the effects of two pre-listening

supports of vocabulary instruction (VI) and enhanced content related support, including input
repetition plus background knowledge (IR+BK), and vocabulary instruction plus background
knowledge (VI+BK) on EFL intermediate learners’ overall listening comprehension and its
sub-skills. A total of 100 Iranian intermediate learners were assigned to four groups of 25 based
on their scores in FCE test. Providing different forms of listening supports to the three groups,

6
Alan Robert White Et Al. (2016). The Effects of Accent Familiarity on English as a Foreign
Language Students’ Word Recognition and Comprehension of the English
Language. International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications. 10 (2), 21-30.
7
Asghar Rameshianfar Et Al. (2015). The Effects of Two Pre-Listening Vocabulary and
Enhanced Content-Related Supports on Iranian Intermediate Efl Learners’ Listening
Comprehension Sub-Skills. Journal of Applied Linguistics and Language Research. 2 (8), 284-
302.
the results showed that the most effective type of support was providing IR+BK, followed by
VI+BK. The least useful was VI support though it revealed better results than no pre-listening
support. Regarding listening sub-skills, VI was the most useful for main idea questions, while
IR+BK support had significant effects on listening for making inferences questions. There was
not any noticeable difference among different kinds of supports regarding EFL learners’ ability
of listening for specifics. This study makes a contribution to the literature by introducing the
enhanced form of pre-listening support to language teachers and test makers.

ZHAI Lili (2015)8, conducted a study to investigate on students’ anxiety in English listening
comprehension by using quantitative and qualitative methods. The subjects were 82 freshmen
of English majors in a normal university. A modified foreign language listening questionnaire
was administered to examine the subjects’ listening anxiety level, and a series of interviews
were done for exploring the sources of anxiety deeply. A modified foreign language listening
questionnaire was administered to examine the subjects’ listening anxiety level, and a series of
interviews were done for exploring the sources of anxiety deeply. Through thorough analyses,
the study arrived at the following conclusion: (a) the freshmen of English majors did experience
a little higher listening anxiety; (b) there existed a significantly negative correlation between
anxiety and listening comprehension; (c) the main sources were lack of confidence and
listening strategies, characteristics of listening comprehension and materials as well as fear of
negative evaluation. Based on the above conclusion, some useful suggestions were put forward
to enhance the students’ listening proficiency and improve the current situations of listening
classes.

Belilew Molla Gebre and Girma Gezahegn Tadesse (2015)9, investigated the effects of
listening strategy instruction on students’ listening achievement and strategy use. The
participants of the study were 50 English major freshman students of Dilla University. These

8
Zhai Lili. (2015). Influence of Anxiety on English Listening Comprehension: An
Investigation Based on the Freshmen of English Majors. Studies in Literature and Language.
11 (6), 40-47.

9
Belilew Molla Gebre and Girma Gezahegn Tadesse. (2015). The Role of Listening Strategy
Instruction in Advancing Students’ Listening Achievement and Strategy Use. International
Journal of Foreign Language Teaching & Research. 3 (11), 13-24.
Students were placed in experimental and control conditions for the purpose of comparing the
mean difference between the two groups. The control group was taught listening skills by the
conventional approach while experimental group was given explicit listening strategy
instruction. The study followed pretest-posttest control group experimental design. The main
instruments used to collect data were IELTS listening tests and Strategy Inventory for
Language Learners (SILL) which was adapted to listening skills strategy inventory. The study
employed statistical techniques to analyze the data obtained from listening tests and Listening
Strategy Inventory for Listening. To this effect, independent-samples t test and repeated
measures t test were used to examine whether the listening tests/inventory mean differences
between and within groups were statistically significant. The findings revealed that listening
strategy instruction was more effective and had a positive impact on students’ academic
achievement in listening than the conventional approach. Moreover, it was found that the
instruction improved the participants’ strategy use.

Elham Mohammadi Foomani (2015)10, Lexical inferencing as an efficient strategy to deal

with unfamiliar words is suggested to be the most commonly used strategy among students,
thus it has attracted much attention in the comprehension literature. The study sought to
investigate the role of depth of vocabulary knowledge (DVK) in lexical inferencing success
and determine the relationship between students' DVK and listening proficiency. To this end,
56 upper-intermediate TOEFL applicants from 2 language institutes in Iran participated in this
study. The participants were assigned to three levels of High- Mid- and Low-proficiency and
in a consequent session were required to take the 40-item DVKT (Depth of Vocabulary
Knowledge Test). In the final step the students sat for the lexical inferencing task and were
required to identify the meaning of 17 unfamiliar words in 8 listening excerpts. The results
indicated that DVK was a determining factor in lexical inferencing success, and that there was
a positive relationship between students' DVK and their listening proficiency.

10
Elham Mohammadi Foomani. (2015). Lexical Inferencing in Listening: Depth of Vocabulary
Knowledge and Listening Proficiency. International Journal of English Language Education.
3 (2), 105-117.
Afsar Rouhi et al(2014)11, examined the effects of previewing questions, repetition of input,
and topic preparation on listening comprehension of Iranian learners of English. The study was
conducted with 104 high school students in 3 experimental and one control groups. The
participants in the previewing questions group read the comprehension questions before
hearing the text and answering the questions. The topic preparation group took advantage of
topic-related texts in Persian followed by previewing questions; then they listened to the texts
and answered the questions. The repetition of input group had two hearings with previewing
before each hearing that preceded answering the comprehension questions. The control group,
however, only had one hearing before answering the questions. The results obtained from data
analysis showed that the topic preparation group performed better than the other participating
groups. The repetition group, in turn, did better than the previewing group. There was,
however, no statistically significant difference between the previewing and repetition groups.
Based on the results obtained, it can be argued that providing and/or activating background
knowledge and repeating a listening task might facilitate listening comprehension in EFL
classroom settings.

Esther Oduolowu and Akintemi, Eileen Oluwakemi (2014)12, Listening is the first language
skill that children develop and it is the most dominant communication skill in the classroom
and everyday life. One way by which the skills of listening can be developed is through
storytelling. Studies have shown however that listening skill is not given adequate attention in
primary schools especially, through the use of storytelling. The study therefore investigated the
effect of storytelling on the listening skills of primary one pupils. The study adopted pretest-
posttest control group quasi experimental design. Two public primary schools were
purposively selected and randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. The
experimental group was exposed to storytelling with illustrations while the control group was
exposed to storytelling without illustrations. The study concluded that there was a significant
main effect of treatment on the listening skills of primary one pupils. Among recommendations

11
Afsar Rouhi Et Al. (2014). The Effects of Previewing Questions, Repetition of Input, and
Topic Preparation on Listening Comprehension of Iranian Efl Learners. Iranian Journal of
Language Teaching Research. 2 (2), 73-85.
12
Esther Oduolowu Et Al. (2014). Effect of Storytelling on Listening Skills of Primary One
Pupil in Ibadan North Local Government Area of Oyo State, Nigeria. International Journal of
Humanities and Social Science. 4 (9), 100-107.
made was that storytelling in indigenous languages with illustrations should be adopted by
teachers in primary schools to teach listening skills.

Arafat Hamouda (2013)13, indicated that though listening ability is one of the important skills
in foreign language learning, there has been relatively little research in this specific area. The
present study attempted to investigate the listening problems encountered by a group of first
year English major students of Qassim University. 60 students who took the listening course
in 2012/13 were selected for the study. Data was gathered by means of questionnaires and
interviews. The results of the study showed that accent, pronunciation, speed of speech,
insufficient vocabulary, different accent of speakers, lack of concentration, anxiety, and bad
quality of recording were the major listening comprehension problems encountered by EFL
Saudi learners. Understanding students’ learning difficulties may enable EFL teachers to help
students develop effective learning strategies and ultimately improve their English listening
abilities. Suggestions are made for addressing problems regarding how teachers can help their
students overcome listening comprehension problems.

Fatemeh Hosseini (2013)14, Developments in broadcast and multimedia technology have

generated a readily available and vast supply of videos for use in second and foreign language
learning contexts. However, without pedagogical direction learners are unlikely to be able to
deal with the complexities of this authentic listening resource, and strategy instruction may be
one route to augmenting comprehension. The essence of this experimental study was to
investigate the impact of teaching listening strategy on comprehension of documentary videos.
For the purpose of this study, 54 advanced EFL students, 27 in experimental group and 27 in
control group, participated in this study procedure. In 10-week-period, the experimental group
went through a well-scheduled instruction in listening strategy. On the other hand, the control
group wasn’t received any instruction in listening strategy. The finding of this study has
revealed that teaching listening comprehension strategies has significant influence on
comprehension of authentic documentary videos.

13
Arafat Hamouda. (2013). An Investigation of Listening Comprehension Problems
Encountered by Saudi Students in the El Listening Classroom. International Journal of
Academic Research in Progressive Education and Development. 2 (2), 113-155.
14
Hosseini and Fatemeh. (2013). Teach How to Listen: The Effect of Listening Strategy
Instruction on Documentary Video Comprehension. International Letters of Social and
Humanistic Sciences. 1 (9), 11-21.
Aušra STePANOVIeNĖ (2012)15, study explored perceived difficulties related to the legal
English listening comprehension of the respondents. The study investigated the differences
related to listening com- prehension between high-ability and low-ability listeners. The
subjects in this study were 118 undergraduate law and police activity students learning in the
Faculty of Public security. The findings of the study indicated that the most difficult obstacle
to listening comprehension was the lack of knowledge of legal English vocabulary. The least
difficult factor was sequencing of information in a legal text. Some solutions are proposed to
the problems. The significance of the study lies in its contribution to curriculum building.

Abbas Pourhossein Gilakjani and Seyedeh Masoumeh Ahmadi (2011) 16, investigated the
effect of text familiarity on listening comprehension of Iranian EFL learners. Linguistic
knowledge relates to knowledge of phonology, lexis, syntax, semantics, discourse structure,
pragmatics and sociolinguistics, whereas non- linguistic refers to knowledge of the topic, the
context and general knowledge about the world and how it works. The participants of this study
were sixty students of English majoring in English Translation. They were students between
17 and 22 years of age. The findings showed that text familiarity has a considerable impact on
listening comprehension of Iranian EFL learners. The study would be beneficial for teachers,
curriculum planners, testers, and text book writers to plan their materials and classroom
activities based on a more effective approach to the teaching and learning of Iranian EFL
learners' listening comprehension.

Samad Salahshuri (2011)17, the role of background knowledge and topic familiarity in second
language reading comprehension has been the subject of much research. Although it is assumed
that learners will react similarly to listening, it should be remembered that, they are not entirely
parallel skills, and most importantly, relevant researches provided conflicting results in

Aušra Stepanovienė. (2012). Barriers to Academic Listening: Research Perspectives. Hong

15

Kong Journal of Applied Linguistics. 1 (1), 1-8.

16
Abbas Pourhossein Gilakjani and Seyedeh Masoumeh Ahmadi. (2011). The Effect of Text
Familiarity on Iranian Efl Learners' Listening Comprehension. Journal of Language Teaching
and Research. 2 (4), 783-789.
17
Samad Salahshuri. (2011). The Role of Background Knowledge in Foreign Language
Listening Comprehension. Theory and Practice in Language Studies. 1 (10), 1446-1451.
different contexts. Besides, there is no report of such a study with Iranian learners of a foreign
language. Thus, the study reported research that describes the effects of topic familiarity on the
foreign language listening comprehension, and makes an attempt to find out whether
proficiency level affects recall measures of listening comprehension. To this end, an
experiment was conducted with 56 students studying English at one of Iranian universities. The
results of the between-within analysis of variance clearly indicated that topic familiarity
affected the scores of recall measures and the course-level groups revealed a consistent increase
in comprehension scores. There was also no interaction effect: subjects regardless of their level
scored higher on the familiar passage.

Afsar Rouhi and Fatemeh Asghari (2011)18, investigated the effect of topic familiarity and
pre-reading activities on reading comprehension and lexical inferencing. Sixty four Azari
learners of English, with comparable English proficiency, were assigned to four groups: (1)
plus familiar topic, plus pre-reading group (+F+P); (2) plus familiar topic, minus pre-reading
group (+F–P); (3) minus familiar topic, plus pre-reading group (–F+P); (4) minus familiar
topic, minus pre-reading group (–F–P). The participating groups were provided with reading
materials which met the experimental conditions to which they had already been assigned, and
were tested on reading comprehension and lexical inferencing. Results of MANOVA tests and
pairwise comparisons run on the data obtained from two comprehension tests and one lexical
inferencing test revealed a significantly positive effect of topic familiarity on both EFL readers’
comprehension and lexical inferencing. Pre-reading activities, however, improved neither
reading comprehension nor lexical inferencing. The statistically significant superiority of +F–
P group over the –F+P group in terms of both reading comprehension and lexical inferencing
tests further implied that providing readers with pre-reading activities on an unfamiliar topic
could barely make up for the lack of topic familiarity in either reading comprehension or lexical
inferencing.

18
Afsar Rouhi and Fatemeh Asghari. (2011). The Effect of Topic Familiarity and Pre-Reading
Activities on Reading Comprehension and Lexical Inferencing. Hong Kong Journal of Applied
Linguistics. 13 (1), 27−40.