The participants were 60 male EFL learners whose bio-data (i.e. age, gender, and their past learning experiences) were collected through a questionnaire at the beginning of the semester. Their age ranged between 16 and 22 years old; none of the participants had the experience of podcast-based vocabulary expansion. They had all practiced vocabulary using traditional methods in previous classes. Below, we will present the results in two sections: quantitative and qualitative.
The quantitative section
To ascertain the normality of distribution of the data, one-sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was run. The p values for the pretest scores of the control and experimental groups were .33 and .24, respectively. Since the p-values were above .05, a parametric test was used to analyze data (see appendix C).
The null hypothesis was that “using podcasts does not significantly affect students’ vocabulary learning”. In order to test this hypothesis, the independent samples t-test was run using SPSS 13 to see whether the experimental group outperformed the control group in the vocabulary pre-test. Table 3.1 below shows that the mean scores of the control and experimental groups (12.13 and 12.07, respectively) were not significantly different (p > 0.05) (see Table 3.2). As shown in Table 3.2., the p value of .95 is greater than .05, showing that the difference between the means is not statistically significant. In other words, the groups were homogeneous in terms of their vocabulary ability at the beginning of the study.
Table 1
The Mean Scores of Groups in the Pretest
|
Group
|
N
|
Mean
|
Std. Deviation
|
Std. Error Mean
|
Pre-test scores
|
Control
Group
|
30
|
12.1333
|
1.35782
|
.24790
|
Experimental
Group
|
30
|
12.0667
|
1.36289
|
.24883
|
Table 2
T-value for the Vocabulary Performance of the Groups in the Pretest
|
Levene’s Test for Equality of Variances
|
t-test for Equality of Means
|
F
|
Sig.
|
t
|
DF
|
Sig. (2-taied)
|
Mean Difference
|
Std. Error Difference
|
95% Confidence Interval of the Difference
|
Lower
|
Upper
|
Pre-test
scores
|
Equal variances assumed
Equal variances not assumed
|
.004
|
.953
|
.190
.190
|
58
57.999
|
.850
.850
|
.06667
.06667
|
.35124
.35124
|
-.63642
-.63642
|
.76976
.76976
|
However, in the post-test, the independent samples t-test showed that the mean score of the experimental group (16.67) was greater than that of the control group (14.10) (Table 3.3). Also, Table 3.4 indicates that the p-value of .314 is much lower than .05, implying that the difference between the obtained means is statistically significant. Therefore, the null hypothesis which stated that “using podcast does not significantly affect students’ vocabulary learning” is rejected. In other words, podcasts affected the participants’ vocabulary learning.
Table 3
The Mean Scores of Groups in the Post-test
|
Group
|
N
|
Mean
|
Std. Deviation
|
Std. Error Mean
|
Post-test scores
|
Control group
|
30
|
14.1000
|
1.29588
|
.23659
|
Experimental group
|
30
|
16.6667
|
.92227
|
.16838
|
Table 4
T-value for the Vocabulary of the Groups in the Posttest
|
Levene’s Test for Equality of Variances
|
t-test for Equality of Means
|
F
|
Sig.
|
t
|
DF
|
Sig. (2-taied)
|
Mean Difference
|
Std. Error Difference
|
95%
Confidence Interval
of the Difference
|
Lower
|
Upper
|
Post-test
scores
|
Equal variances assumed
Equal variances not assumed
|
1.033
|
.314
|
-8.839
-8.839
|
58
52.379
|
.000
.000
|
-2.56667
-2.56667
|
.29040
.29040
|
-3.14796
-3.14929
|
-1.98538
-1.98405
|
The qualitative section
The Likert-type questionnaire
The participants' attitudes towards podcast-based vocabulary expansion were elicited via a researcher-made 8-item questionnaire. When the instruction was over, 30 participants in the experimental group were given the questionnaire, and were asked to tick the Likert choices; they expressed their attitudes as follows: strongly agree, agree, no idea, disagree or strongly disagree. In addition to Likert-type statements, the questionnaire allowed some space for respondents to provide open-ended comments, if they wished to add any comments. They were also assured of the confidentiality of their views and personal information. The responses were entered into Excel for analysis and reporting the percentage. The analysis of the eight items are presented below one by one.
Item 1
Statement
|
Strongly Agree and Agree
|
No idea
|
Strongly Disagree and Disagree
|
I often feel bored when listening to podcasts.
|
6.67%
|
26.67%
|
66.67%
|
Comments: Three students commented that at first, listening to podcasts seemed to be tiresome but, gradually, they really enjoyed listening to them, especially when they discovered new spoken idioms and expressions in the content of podcasts. One of them commented, "I sometimes came up with expressions I was long looking for, it was just what I wanted in these years”. Another participant commented, “Podcasts are interesting, because it discusses the most important subjects and gives information about different cultures”. A student, however, commented that he felt bored because he could not focus on the content.
Item 2
Statement
|
Strongly Agree and Agree
|
No idea
|
Strongly Disagree and Disagree
|
I like to learn English listening comprehension mainly through podcasts because listening is very important.
|
60.00%
|
16.67%
|
23.33%
|
Comments: There were two comments with regard to this question. One learner said that “Vocabulary is an important ability, but podcasting is only one way, I found other ways for improving my vocabulary.” The other participant said, “My vocabulary isn’t good. I like to be better, so I will listen to everything which helps me. And listening to podcasts is so cool.”
Item 3
Statement
|
Strongly Agree and Agree
|
No idea
|
Strongly Disagree and Disagree
|
I feel that I can learn through podcasts.
|
86.67%
|
6.67%
|
6.67%
|
Comments: There was only one comment on this question. One participant said, “Speakers of this podcast file were so great. They were like classroom teachers. I sometimes feel they are in classroom teaching me. But I could not just ask them questions.”
Item 4
Statement
|
Strongly Agree and Agree
|
No idea
|
Strongly Disagree and Disagree
|
I would like teachers to use podcasts in my classes.
|
70.00%
|
16.67%
|
13.33%
|
Comments: One student commented, “Podcasts are so funny and they teach me interesting and useful things. I thank you my teacher to use them in the classroom.” Two other students believed that “podcasts are new and different from what they had already learned in previous classes”.
Item 5
Statement
|
Strongly Agree and Agree
|
No idea
|
Strongly Disagree and Disagree
|
I like listening to podcasts.
|
70.00%
|
16.67%
|
13.33%
|
Comments: To this item, three students put their written comments. Two of them agreed with the idea that podcasts had motivated them to listen more. However, one student did not like the idea of listening to podcasts. He stated: “They are so boring, so I don’t like listening to them. They are so easy, too. Honestly speaking, it was a waste of time for me.”
Item 6
Statement
|
Strongly Agree and Agree
|
No idea
|
Strongly Disagree and Disagree
|
In order to improve my English vocabulary comprehension, I will spend much of my studying time listening to podcasts.
|
36.67%
|
16.67%
|
46.67%
|
Comments: Some students noted that there were other aspects of language which they needed to spend more time on. One student said he had little problem with vocabulary; therefore, he needed to spend most of his time practicing other skills. One student commented that the course was useful in integrating podcasts, and from then on, he had started listening more to podcasts to practice vocabulary in future.
Item 7
Statement
|
Strongly Agree and Agree
|
No idea
|
Strongly Disagree and Disagree
|
I often feel nervous and uncomfortable when listening to podcasts.
|
16.67%
|
20.00%
|
63.33%
|
Comments: Six students commented on this statement. While, one of them wrote: “I started well first, but after just two minutes I couldn’t focus on the content. It’s so hard to understand everything”, some others believed that they had no or few problems when listening to podcasts.
Item 8
Statement
|
Strongly Agree and Agree
|
No idea
|
Strongly Disagree and Disagree
|
I am sometimes unable to focus on and understand the content of the materials when listening to podcasts.
|
50.00%
|
26.67%
|
23.33%
|
Comments: There were six short comments on this statement. All of them implied that they sometimes had problems understanding the content of the materials.
The verbal interview analysis
To explore the participants’ real perceptions of the impact of podcasting on Iranian EFL learners, four students with low vocabulary scores and four with high vocabulary scores were interviewed. The length of the interviews varied between five and ten minutes depending on the interviewees' willingness and eagerness to talk. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed thematically, by which the following themes emerged from the data: (1) vocabulary achievement, (2) learning by listening, (3) learner choice and flexibility, and (4) podcast as a useful instructional tool, which will be explained below.
Theme one: Vocabulary achievement
In the interviews, the students expressed their ideas about their improvement in vocabulary expansion. Unanimously, they reported higher gains in vocabulary scores. They also believed that they had been empowered in learning new vocabulary items more effectively and had developed sharp ears for spoken language; one said, “I am sure from now on I would have no problem listening to different listening materials if they are not much above my level, knowing the vocabulary and expressions.”
Some of them stressed that they had gained more confidence in listening to longer stretches of speech such as stories or lectures. One student said, “The podcasting program helped me to willingly listen more by giving me more confidence and motivation in comprehending and by forcing me to do a lot of listening practice to improve my vocabulary.” Although almost all participants felt that the podcasting experience helped them improve their vocabulary comprehension, they believed that they still needed more practice to achieve real proficiency.
Theme two: Learning by listening
Some interviewees believed that the process of ‘learning by listening’ was an advantage compared to reading textbooks. In this regard, one of them said, “To sit down and to read is very challenging; you have to be stuck in one place for a long time. But audio materials are not like that. It is easier to learn when we listen, especially when you understand everything.” Another participant said, “I think it is the best way to improve our pronunciation. We can listen to words and we can check the pronunciation of all words, in this way, I can check or learn pronunciations of a lot of words because everything is so fast and I don’t need to check them in my dictionary.”
Another participant focused on the fact that listening to podcasts gives them an effortless and relaxed option to access ample information in general – all they had to do was to listen; he further added, “It was so great that how easy it was for me to access information on various topics, just listen to it and learn a lot of cultural notes and different hints on English usage. Actually no pain, all the gain!” As previously mentioned in section 3.1, none of participants had experience of using podcasts for learning. But they agreed that podcasting was such a new phenomenon for them. One of the interviewees pointed out that learning with podcasts represented a new and attractive experience, “That is a very fresh experience. In fact, I’d never heard of podcast before this class, I didn’t even know what podcast was.”
Theme three: Learner choice and flexibility
Many interviewees expressed that podcasts were flexible and convenient because the learners could listen to them at a convenient place, time and at a pace of their choice. The following comment reflects the potentiality of podcasts on different occasions, “It looked for me as if listening to music. Listening to music is my favorite hobby. I have a lot of small free times which I can’t do anything else, so I used to listen to music. But now I can also like to listen to podcasts.” A similar idea came from another participant, “I sometimes listened to podcasts when working with my computer.” Similarly, a participant added, “I can listen to podcasts every time I like or I am free such as when I am on the bus or in the car and I can’t do anything else. So, it is very good to learn English in such times. Because I have to learn English very soon.”
Theme four: Podcasts as useful instructional tools
The last major theme emerging from the data was the participants’ opinion about the auxiliary contribution of podcasts as instructional tools for extra-curricular learning. One of them said, “Podcasting provides me an additional exposure to learn English. I think I need to practice more and more.” Another learner added, "There is a lot to vocabulary and I should do a lot of listening to become better in vocabulary comprehension. With using podcasts I can practice vocabulary at home.” Having experienced the podcasting project, the learners were aware of its advantages and disadvantages. As for the advantages of the program, one of the students commented that podcasts had made him somehow independent in terms of listening and vocabulary learning. Some of them found podcasting useful for speaking ability too, because they were able to pause after each sentence and repeat the same as a model. Interestingly, they preferred using new technology to traditional methods of vocabulary, since in this type of learning they can feel the presence of an amazing educational technology; one said, "I am tired of using my cell phone for just messaging and listening to music. Now, I have another application for it. I am happy to use it for my English learning”.
However, some participants preferred to point to disadvantages too. Almost half of the interviewees said that some podcasts were lengthy and not interesting enough. Even one participant regarded ‘making students listen to podcasts more than once’ as a useless activity. One of the participants said, "they [podcasts] were so easy, so it was very boring job to listen to them more than once. I think they are useless when they are very easy". Another disadvantage they highlighted was the lack of pictures and videos to accompany the audio files. One learner rightly criticized that podcasts are just one-way learning objects with no interactional possibilities, and added, “we cannot interact with files, we must just listen to them, and when we have questions, we cannot ask them. But, when we listened to them in class that was no problem.”