Introduction

Listening is a complex skill (Liubiniené, 2009) that often causes problems for language learners (Siegel, 2014). According to Dixon (2017) and Vandergrift (1997) it is the “Cinderella” skill because it has not received the attention that it deserves, in the classroom or in research, regardless its impact upon the teaching and development of language learning skills (Vandergrift, 2007) such as reading (Anderson & Lynch, 1988), writing and speaking. It can be said that listening is essential for achieving success in the language learning process (Xu, 2011).

Listening pedagogy influences the students’ ability to successfully listen to understand a text (Siegel, 2014). It especially can help English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners in countries where there is limited direct interaction with speakers of the target language (Renandya & Farrell, 2011). In English as a Second Language (ESL), as in EFL, the teaching of listening has progressed, going from investigating patterns and strategies used by effective and less effective learners to the teaching of effective strategies through process-oriented approaches that guide learners to listen so that later they can listen to learn (Vandergrift, 2004). However, cognitive approaches focused on teaching mental processes have not frequently considered the context of production and reception, and the function or purpose of the used language embedded in the oral texts used for listening practice. Ridgway (2000) suggests teaching listening from text(s) because it is a more valuable approach than explicit strategy instruction.

Instruction from texts (Genre-Based Approach-GBA), (i.e., raising awareness of the language used, the organization of the text sections, and the purpose of the language used) is necessary for the development of effective listening skills. Such an approach overlaps with Vandergrift and Goh’s (2012) argument that familiarization with texts and structure can help learners anticipate the general discourse structure and use strategies to comprehend. However, listeners are often unaware of how text types or genres are structured, how to listen to a variety of texts and how knowledge about generic structures could help in the listening process (Siegel, 2014). Anderson and Lynch (1997) argue that listening comprehension requires an understanding of the language system, organization, and context of texts. However, little research exists that focuses on how genre pedagogy can be applied for listening instruction (Chen, 2017; Thompson, 1994).

Aspects such as the structural and contextual elements of texts are important for learners’ listening comprehension (Celce-Murcia, 1995) because listening is an active process. Listeners comprehend by relating incoming information with prior information on the topic, context, and/or knowledge of the world stored in their mind. This knowledge is generally known as schema. Schema are the structures the learners have in their mind and which they rely on when interpreting genres/texts (Barta, 2009) and which can help them anticipate incoming information (Janusik, 2018). Additionally, Anderson (2010) explains that schema guides listeners “to make inferences about instances of the concepts they represent” (p. 135)”. Even so, listeners do not always comprehend because some schema may not be part of their background knowledge. These pedagogical limitations also signal the need to research listening from texts.

Research maintains that a GBA has been effective in writing (Swales, 1990), in reading (Rahayuningsih, 2013), and in speaking (Herazo & Rivera, 2012). Surprisingly, little research has been concentrated on listening (Manzouri, 2015; Yasunaga, 2014; Zhou, 2014) in which GBA can be effective as well (Cahyono, 2017; Cozma, 2014). For example, according to Manzouri (2015), genre-based pedagogy contributes to learners’ listening proficiency and is suitable for proficient and less proficient learners at the university level. Sadeghi, Hasani, and Noor et al. (2014) showed that text features lead to learners’ activation of prior knowledge which facilitates their listening comprehension, and that genre teaching can be a meaningful way to teach listening for learners with different backgrounds, listening skills, and needs. Cross (2014) investigated meta-textual skills (e.g., knowledge about text organization) in listening to news podcasts (Bull & Anstey, 2010; Cambourne, 2005; Rouet & Eme, 2002, cited in Cross, 2014) and report that with guidance and feedback, knowledge of text organization contributes to listening. However, more research is needed (Namaziandost et al., 2019).

Genre Pedagogy

Different schools of thought concerning genre include: The New Rhetoric, English for Specific Purposes (ESP), and the Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). However, this study mainly focuses on SFL because it is theoretically and pedagogically the most developed perspective in language learning and teaching (Hyland, 2003; Hyland, 2007; Johns, 2008; Zhou, 2014). SFL influences most genre theory and pedagogy as it was from educational linguistics research that the theory of language was translated into practice (i.e., SFL) (Jarunthawatcha, 2010). SFL assumes that the mastery of a second language (L2) entails different genres, the language in context, and pre-chosen and pre-sequenced grammar and function. SFL pedagogy can be adequate for novice students with varying levels of education and immigrant students (Johns, 2008).

SFL has a pedagogical cycle that can be applied for the teaching of different language learning skills including listening. The cycle emerged from genre theory and the sociocultural view of Lev Vygotsky’s (1978) Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) (Herazo Rivera, 2012). L2 learners are empowered through scaffolding on the structure of the text and functional textual elements. Learners are provided with knowledge of genres in English, offered a framework to learn grammar and discourse features, gaining experience of different types of genres. It gives generic models of English culture and initiates learners in the knowledge of how to interpret valuable nuances of communication from L2 communities. Consequently, learners acquire knowledge about the way information is structured in English to perform effectively in specific contexts and situations (Paltridge, 2001). Instruction is flexible and recursive, enabling it to start at any time and recommenced if needed.

The systematic pedagogical cycle involves (a) setting the context, (b), modelling and joint deconstruction, (c) joint construction, and (d) independent construction (Hermansson et al., 2019). (a) In “setting the context,” the learners are introduced to the topic and genre (Hermansson, et al., 2019). Learners solve a learning problem (a task), receive gradual assistance in an explicit way to raise awareness of how texts are structured and how texts work in specific contexts, and the social nature of language use (Herazo Rivera, 2012). Instructors expose learners to the larger context, so learners can analyze, practice, and acquire the linguistic and sociocultural knowledge embedded in the discourse. The goal of instruction is to unveil the contexts and communicative purposes to make learners aware of the way genres were created with variations in the purpose, audience, and messages (Hyland, 2007). (b) In “modelling and joint deconstruction” and the (c) “joint construction” the learners and teacher work together to pull apart a model text or rebuild a target text/genre (Martin & Rose, 2012, in Sagre & Herazo, 2015). In (d) “independent construction” the learners build a text independently (Hamilton, 2010; Kuyumcu, 2013b; White, 2010, in Hermansson et al, 2019).

Teaching knowledge of the genre helps learners interpret and learn skills that provide them with the ability to know how to communicate and respond effectively inside and outside of the classroom (Paltridge, 2001). This is important because, in Mexico’s EFL context, listening is often accompanied by asking and answering comprehension questions with scarce attention being paid to texts’ context, purpose, and natural communication. In other EFL contexts, listening is neglected completely (Blyth, 2012; Field, 2008). Pedagogical limitations have led L2 learners to expose themselves to L2 (English) listening opportunities on the Internet. For example, they interact with the L2 using English texts such as their favorite films available in their target language context. However, their listening is partially developed as students focus on reading subtitles and imitating speakers’ pronunciation. Listeners disregard that in face-to-face listening, we do not have access and cannot return to the written language as readers can (Neil & Chi, 2013). In these out of classroom listening practices, learners’ listening processes and experiences seem to occur subconsciously or implicitly. Learners are unaware of and lack guidance of the different texts’ features involved which affect listening (Chen, 2017).

Therefore, this study adopted a genre-based pedagogical intervention using a recorded recount of a film plot with a narrative structure to answer:

1. What kind of processes/strategies do L2 learners use when they listen to a narrative text after genre-based instruction?
2. What are the factors affecting the L2 listening ability of students after a GBA?

Methodology

Research design

O’Bryan and Hegelheimer (2009) suggest that to research a complex skill and the strategies involved, a mixed-methods approach is of value. Accordingly, a triangulation convergent design with quantitative and qualitative (quan+QUAL) methods was used before and after an intervention. In this design, the datasets are analyzed separately and the results are converged by comparing or contrasting during the interpretation (Almeida, 2018). An untreated control group (CG) and an experimental one (EG) answered a pre-and post-intervention task and recalled their listening thoughts at the two different times (see Figure 1 adapted from Shadish et al., 2002).

Figure 1: Pre- and post-intervention data collection instruments

In the study, task scores (product) were used to allow researchers to understand the listening progress, and the effect of the intervention on listening skills. Additionally, interviews and stimulated recalls were used to gain insights into the procedures followed by an individual while listening to answer a task. The use of multiple methods such as interviews and stimulated recalls would offer a comprehensive understanding of what and why students focus on certain aspects and the difficulties they encounter in the listening skill (Cross, 2015).

Sampling and participants

The study followed convenience sampling. Thirty-four intermediate, fourth semester students participated in the study. Two groups (CG and EG), each with seventeen students, were formed

To explore the participants’ perspective (Hernández Sampieri & Mendoza Torres, 2018) of listening to oral texts about films, two participants from each group were selected. Ray in the EG and Cele in the CG were studied. Ray and Cele were identified as having complete datasets (pre-and post-tasks and SRs) and having signed consent forms. In addition, Ray was identified as having increased the score of the pre-task from 40 to 100 in the post-task, whereas Cele’s pre-task score increased from 20 to 40 in the post-task. Ray was also identified as having obtained the highest score whereas Cele the lowest. The idea is to compare the actions performed that can help to understand the listening outcomes from a GBA.

Data collection instruments

Stimulated recall (SR) is useful to research the invisible mental processes related to listening and to recall them later on (Vandergrift, 2007; Yeldham, 2017). Participants are asked to recall their thoughts after having completed the task (Gas & Mackey, 2000). A prompt such as a recorder (See Figure 1) is used to directly recall what was happening in the mind when the task was being completed (Meier & Vogt, 2015). Students receive the instructions and the instrument to collect data. The researchers model the procedure to follow and explain the expectations. The SR should be applied within 48-hours of the task being completed to enhance accuracy (Gass & Mackey, 2000). Thus, in this study, SRs were applied within 48-hours of the task completion to investigate the mental processes linked to listening. The task and recorder at hand were used as a stimulus (See Figure 1), and printed and recorded instructions given to each participant.

The Genre-Based Approach Intervention

According to Hyland (2007), after selecting a genre and the topics (narrated films), it is necessary to design the course units, breaking down objectives into several lesson plans around a single focus. Thus, the course was shortened to avoid potential boredom with activities. The course input was planned over four separate written lesson plans relating to the four stages of the SFL teaching-learning cycle. Scaffolding began through whole class interaction by analyzing textual and contextual features, facilitating deconstruction, and moved systematically through the cycle to arrive at the independent construction stage of reconstructing film plots with the target narrative structure (i.e., orientation, problem, solution, evaluation or opinion). The oral narrations about films in the EG were: Inside Out, The Hunger Games, Titanic (3 different narrations), Rams, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, and finally The Return (used for the pre- and post-tasks).

 The CG went to its regular class (i.e., a teacher-centered class often following a textbook) from 13:00-14:30, while the EG had 30-minute instruction through listening to narrative texts about films within the last 30 minutes of its regular class. The sessions were with two different English teachers. In the EG, sessions two, three, four, and five were conducted by encouraging whole class interaction, which is one of the genre-based pedagogical advantages (Yilong, 2016). Therefore, the following section presents results from one case from the EG (Ray) and one from the CG (Cele) due to their pre- and post-complete datasets.

Pre- and post-task. According to Ellis (2003, cited in Costa, 2016), a task is a work plan that entails listeners to engage and process language to achieve an outcome or the message conveyed correctly. In this study, the task refers to the activity for which the students had to listen and process oral language to reconstruct a text that makes sense and which was delivered in jumbled-up extracts about a film narrated by a speaker of the target language. The study followed Elliot and Wilson’s (2013) listening task design. The task was designed and piloted with a text to be heard in a jumbled-up order (see Appendix 1). The jumbled-up extracts aim to activate the listening processes employed by participants, so the processes, strategies, and factors affecting the outcomes of a GBA to listening are discovered. In the post-task, different example answers with corresponding audio extracts were included to avoid inadvertent memorization of answers occurring from the pre-task. Table 1 shows in bold letters the gaps to be filled in the pre- and post-task (e.g., H-B-C were changed to G-F-E).

Table 1: Answer key

Data Analysis

Quantitative data were collected from the scores obtained in the pre-and post-task. The qualitative data were collected through the verbal recalls of the two selected cases (Ray and Cele) that had complete datasets in the EG and CG. As suggested by Gale et al. (2013), a qualitative Framework Analysis (FA) was used to transform the original verbal recalls into a new structure to find the processes/strategies second language learners used and factors affecting learners’ listening comprehension in a GBA. The FA was developed by Jane Ritchie and Liz Spencer in the 1980s (Gale et al., 2013). The analysis was iterative, going from the identification of specific related or repeated actions to the general and abstract categories. The different actions were coded accordingly and grouped into different listening strategy categories. Strategies that were related to Vandergrift’s (1997) listening strategy taxonomy and Vandergrift and Goh’s (2012) metacognitive, cognitive, and socio-affective ones. This categorization process allowed for the generation of themes and a descriptive narrative of findings (Creswell, 2013).

Results

Overall, the results showed that the participant Ray, in the EG, obtained the highest scores in the post-task (100) as opposed to Cele who obtained the lowest ones in the CG (20). In other words, Ray scored higher than Cele on listening in the post-tasks, which indicates a positive impact of the genre-based instruction on Ray’s (EG) listening product as opposed to Cele (CG). However, the results fail to reveal Ray’s and Cele’s mental procedures, or how and why at some points they achieved or failed the listening. Mideros (2015) and Vandergrift (2007) remark that we cannot study listening only as a mental process occurring in the brain and its product, but we also need to uncover the way learners arrive at those decisions made while listening. Therefore, Ray’s and Cele’s qualitative data were analyzed based on Anderson’s (1995; 2010) cognitive theory of comprehension, Vandergrift’s (1997) strategy taxonomy, and text features. Hence, the next section describes the perceived and parsed linguistic aspects in the text, the types of prior knowledge utilized while listening, and the diverse strategies used to manage the completion of the listening task, concerning Ray (EG), and Cele (CG).

Findings

The analysis of the qualitative data are reported to answer the two research questions. What kind of processes/strategies do L2 learners use when they listen to a narrative text after a genre-based instruction as opposed to a regular class? What are the factors affecting the L2 listening ability of students after a GBA?

In the pre-stage findings concerning processes, Ray perceived the narrator’s voice (British accent) as difficult and unfamiliar and some pauses as confusing (see Appendix 2, Extracts). Ray parsed the letters or segment tags (e.g., Audio A: the movie…) and although he tried to figure out whether to note just keywords or to write all the information heard, he annotated some characters and their actions (e.g., “mother”, “came to”, “her”, “daughter”), and then joined them to construct main ideas. He focused on the writing of connectors and related them with the characters and actions “mother”, “came”, “and”, “mother” “stayed”. It was until he organized them chronologically that sense and meaning emerged for him. Ray parsed the phrase “it is about…” which is a key phrase for the upcoming narrative of the plot. To understand the listening, Ray used a cause-consequence pattern (cause: the mother was punished by the father) to (consequence: the mother killed him), going from “a” to “b” as Martin and Rose’s (2008) genre analysis theory asserts. This “a” to “b” (e.g., cause-effect/consequence) pattern suggested that the events in the listening happened linearly. For example, the father punished the mother and as consequential vengeance, the mother killed the father. Ray’s elaboration was of cause-consequence type involving a temporal order or sequential chronology (see Appendix 2, Extracts).

Ray hypothesized that the text represented a story (Ray’s utilization processes). He used prior knowledge of social situations (elaborations) which helped him listen and confirm that it was a narrative being recounted. He said that the narrator’s performance resembled someone recounting a story, or simply responding: “it is about…” with an explanation of the story unfolding. Although Ray confirmed that it was a narration, he referred to it as a conversation, a story, and a film. This finding suggests that he identified similar elements amongst these three genres or that the features characterizing each of these genres are partially known (see Appendix 2, Extracts).

Similarly, in the pre-stage findings concerning processes, Cele centered her perception process on the British accent, which for her was difficult due to the way the letter ‘r’ is pronounced and the confusing distinction between “A” and “E” from “E” and “I” when they were uttered in the letter answers of the extracts (see Appendix 2, Extracts).

Cele parsed some lexical items heard such as “mother” and “eventually” which she considered as keywords. She parsed the word “business” and utilized prior knowledge of her time as a sales-woman in her past school days. Cele knew that “business” is a word used in “finance” because she used it when selling sweets to her classmates. However, “business” within the context of the film plot was not related to the finance topic. Another elaboration was when Cele perceived and parsed the word “ghost” thus remembering a similar story told in her family about ghosts. Her imagination was tacit in her elaborations. While elaborating, she was imagining the mother’s surprised face at being discovered in the boot of the car, the characters’ faces, gestures, voices, ages, all of which were linked to Cele’s family and relatives’ physical appearances. (see Appendix 2, Extracts). Elaboration based on Cele’s way of talking about a film in her first language (L1) (Spanish) was evident when she can begin saying “I liked it…” and then continued talking about the plot. Cele was thinking of a personalized way of recounting the story from the L2 narrator’s unfolding plot. In addition to this thought, she contradicted the narrator’s point of view because for her, the story was no longer interesting once the resolution had been revealed.

Cele held that the description of characters goes at the beginning of a story, followed by the development, and then the ending (elaboration concerning text organization). She identified the beginning of the story. However, her task answers were incorrect as she wrote the wrong answer “E” twice and “A” instead of “D”. The first answer was used in the first listening and the second answer was the correction of Cele’s first answer “E”, but this correction was done during the second listening (double-check monitoring) rather than “D”, which was the right answer (see Appendix 2, Extracts).

In the pre-stage findings concerning strategies, Ray tried to figure out whether to note just keywords or to write all the information heard. He also used problem identification and selective attention on accent, pauses, and hesitations. According to Vandergrift (1997, 2003), problem identification refers to the explicit identification of the task’s main point to be resolved or an aspect which inhibits successful completion of the task. Selective attention implies focusing on specific aspects of the spoken language to understand or to complete the task. Ray tried to understand the texts, but the narrator’s pauses made it difficult to understand the idea at the beginning. Ray questioned himself “what letter is this?” because he was not familiar with that speaker’s “dialect”, which he clarified it was the narrator’s tone or “accent”.

In the pre-stage, concerning socio-affective strategies, Ray was surprised on identifying the type of oral text, saying, “Oh my God! It was a narration, she is talking about a story, not reading it, so it was interesting!” He experienced some confusion and hesitations while listening (see Appendix 2, Extracts).

In the control group, and in response to the type of strategies that she used to understand, Cele wrote some of the letter answers during the first listening. But during the second listening, she self-corrected some of the answers, which changed the order to the story. Therefore, at the end two alternatives were presented (e.g., extracts from one to eight events “GHFDBEFC” vs. “DHACBEFG”). There was a duplicated extract in the first listening as shown above by the two uses of the letter “F” and some double alternative answers. Despite her efforts to self-monitor the listening, she only had one correct answer which corresponded to Event one (1) = audio extract “G” (the movie that I want to talk about…).

In the pre-stage findings concerning strategies, Cele had less interest in the narrator’s opinion which the narrator gave at the end of the story, but the opinion was not part of the story plot extracts that she had just listened. When she heard the narrator saying that the film was “interesting” (the opinion), she lost interest in the rest of the narrator’s uttered words within the opinion extract because she had just listened to the resolution, the situation, and context of the story. According to Vandergrift (1997), “taking emotional temperature means becoming aware of, and getting in touch with one’s emotions while listening, in order to avert negative ones and make the most of positive ones (p. 395)”. But that did not happen to Cele when hearing the narrator’s opinion. In the pre-stage, Cele felt more confident during the second listening (repetition) where she could compare her answers (monitoring) (see Appendix 2, Extracts).

Post-stage findings concerning processes

Ray’s perception process centered on the narrator’s everyday discourse features (accent, pronunciation, pauses, hesitations) was not the focus as in the pre-task. Instead, Ray focused on parsing keywords, building main ideas, organizing them sequentially (see Appendix 2, Extracts), and elaborating by utilizing the communicative purposes (e.g., introduction, problem, solution, opinion) and generic structure of the story (see Appendix 2, Extracts).

Similarly, in the post-stage findings concerning processes, Cele’s perception of the narrator’s natural speech was not the focus in this occasion. Instead, she parsed or matched some ideas such as “the mother was discovered” to begin or end an extract. “Eventually”, “one day...”, “the reason” at the beginning of the extracts were also parsed. Cele planned to take notes about the extracts’ final words to match the starting words of extracts to connect them coherently later (elaboration between parts). (see Appendix 2, Extracts).

In the utilization process, Cele remembered that the audio extract answer “C” had been the event eight from the pre-stage task in English and so she placed audio extract “C” in event eight (8). However, there was uncertainty because when she talked about the film, she tended to begin by explaining what she liked before telling the story.

Cele used prior knowledge of the comprehended content of the pre-text to understand the post-listening text. For her, the post-listening text had more characters “the mother”, “the father”, and “the sister”. Therefore, she thought that it was a different story. Repetition was useful for her listening ability but insufficient to structure a coherent story.

Post-stage findings concerning strategies

Ray was already aware of the target genre, linguistic and task issues experienced in the pre-task. He planned what to do and what he would listen to (self-management). Self-management entails understanding the conditions that help to achieve the task and arranging for the presence of those conditions (Vandergrift, 1997, 2003). He anticipated solutions to problems as he knew that the task would be in a jumbled up order. He found it useful to draw a chart in which the extracts would be ordered and consequently focusing on the identification of communicative purposes (selective attention). Apart from problem-solving and selective attention, Ray monitored his answers during the second listening. Monitoring involves checking, verifying, or correcting listening comprehension performance while listening to a task (Vandergrift, 1997, 2003). Ray’s elaborations were more specific and of academic type because he had already introduced the type of genre and task, communicative purposes, and knowledge of the text’s organizational sections. Academic elaboration implies the use of knowledge gained in an academic situation (Vandergrift, 1997, 2003). For example, he selected words from the text to make sense of the plot at the same time as drawing on prior knowledge of the narrative organization, as well as using deductive and inductive skills. According to Vandergrift (1997, 2003), deductive/inductive skills take place when the listeners use deliberate knowledge learned or self-developed to understand the language by identifying aspects such as, parts of speech. To illustrate, he used genre knowledge (rhetorical organization or structural sections and communicative purposes) combined with his knowledge to build a plot that made sense to him.

According to Oxford (2011) and O’Malley and Chamot (1990), metacognitive strategies lead to cognitive ones or help learners manage the cognitive dimension. Ray used metacognitive strategies such as planning and identifying problems. Planning and identifying problems led into the cognitive strategies, taking notes, writing connectors, writing keywords, constructing main ideas, organizing ideas sequentially, or making sense, which facilitated the work to solve both the pre- and post-tasks.

Cele remembered the pre-stage task example answers and location therefore she did not move them. She used the two listening opportunities to monitor answers. Moreover, Cele reflections upon improving her English pronunciation led her to listen to audiobooks after class. Audiobooks enabled her to imagine what is happening in the stories. She perceived listening as invisible and tried to verify it through what she imagined by reading the written version.

Concerning socio-affective strategies, Ray seemed more confident as he stated his interest in listening increased as well as his post-task listening scores. On the other hand, Cele felt more confident despite reduced attention, due to worries, anger, distractions, assignments, and exams and therefore encouraged herself to keep focusing. Table 2 summarizes the strategies used by Ray and Cele in the pre-and post-tasks.

Table 2: Ray’s (EG) and Cele’s (CG) metacognitive (MC), cognitive (C), and socio-affective (SA) strategies

The analysis of the data answered the research question, what are the factors affecting the outcomes of a GBA to L2 learners’ listening ability? Findings suggested that various interconnected factors and processes, which are difficult to set boundaries, affected the outcomes of a GBA to L2 listening ability. The factors were concerning:

1. The text/genre: The way the language was used (accent, register), the way the text sections were organized, the communicative purpose embedded within the language used in the text’s sections (orientation, problem, solution, opinion), and the context where the language was produced and interpreted.
2. The processes and strategies: The inferred type of processes used such as bottom-up (listeners’ focus on the language in the audio) and top-down (listeners’ usage of prior knowledge). The use of metacognitive (e.g., planning, monitoring, problem identification), cognitive (e.g., elaborations, taking notes), and socio-affective strategies (e.g., managing emotions).
3. The listener: The listener’s memory, concentration, interest, and motivation.
4. The task: The unfamiliar and innovative task, and the type of answers.

Discussion

The findings revealed that Ray (EG) identified listening text issues, analyzed the narrator’s speaking features, took notes, and tried to organize the notes logically. In the post-stage, Ray effectively capitalized on the knowledge of the task, text, genre structural sections, and communicative purposes. In line with Cozma (2014), Ray activated genre knowledge and strategies according to the type of genre to maximize understanding. He used different metacognitive strategies such as problem identification, double-checks monitoring, selective attention, and charting communicative purposes. According to Vandergrift (1997), metacognitive skills are a distinctive characteristic of successful versus less successful listeners. The use of the different metacognitive strategies infer that the implementation of a GBA had a positive effect on Ray’s listening strategic behavior. The findings showed evidence that with guidance (Cross, 2014) and familiarity with texts and its organization, helped the listener preview the organization of the unfolding discourse and use diverse comprehension strategies (Vandergrift & Goh, 2012). Results also showed that Ray made a contextual exploration of the text, constructed contextual knowledge, and compared (Hyland, 2007). This was supported by the text features with genres stored in his mind, which illustrated some of the systematic stages of the genre pedagogical cycle. The findings also indicated that learning listening from texts is in line with the genre approach aims. For example, learners discovered the context, the purpose of the language used, and became aware of genre variations and of how the genres were created (Hyland, 2007). Moreover, in both stages, Ray’s motivation and affective factors were positive.

On the other hand, Table 3 also shows that in the pre-stage, Cele (CG) had various listening issues, was unfamiliar with the task and text, did not identify communicative purposes, over-elaborated based on the mixture of personal experiences and genres, and experienced distraction and confusion. In the post-stage, she tried to manage the task by planning, monitoring, reflecting, and redirecting attention and concentration. Although she was familiarized with the task and text, and identified some communicative purposes (e.g., opinion), she over-elaborated. These findings illustrate that Cele’s comprehension and interpretation of the text/genre highly relied on schemata stored in her mind (Barta, 2009). Cele also relied on her imagination and memory, which might have caused a cognitive overload. Furthermore, Cele’s affective dimension showed negative states that inhibited her listening. Regarding this last point, the findings are in line with Kılıç and Uçkun’s (2013) argument, that listeners may be challenged by the type of listening text. Different text types require diverse interpreting schemes which some learners might not have. This produces anxiety and learners’ listening comprehension is affected. Learners’ anxiety increases with authentic listening texts when they are not prepared.

Ray’s (EG) data revealed that listening from genre-based instruction allowed his metacognitive strategies to refocus target genre features, and to capitalize his knowledge of genre features (social dimension) in listening while attempting to build meaning. Although Cele (CG) revealed partial knowledge of genres, she often built meaning based on prior experiential knowledge. This indicates that Cele possibly did not know how to take advantage of the structure of the text to achieve the listening task. Thus, the findings suggest that although genre knowledge existed in both participants, the introduction of genre features and systematic guidance contributed to Ray’s listening.

The GBA in teaching listening was supported by the language used in the text, organization of the text, communicative purpose, and context where the language was produced and heard. Such factors contributed to the meaning building process. These findings converge with Sadeghi et al. (2014) who showed that the features of the texts led to the activation of prior knowledge which consequently facilitated the listener’s comprehension. It must be noted that listening cannot be regarded exclusively as a cognitive process separate from external factors, but rather as a cognitive skill interconnected to social ones. This confirms what Celce-Murcia (1995) pointed out: Succeeding or failing in listening depends on a great variety of factors not limited to the speech features of the narrators (e.g., accents), the genres (e.g., oral narrations about films), listener’s background knowledge (e.g., topic, content schemata), listener’s memory, listener’s ability to anticipate incoming information in the discourse heard, nor listener’s interest in the topic. All these factors make listening a complex, dynamic, and challenging skill complex due to the transient and abstract nature of the oral speech. However, knowledge of genres can be a powerful strategy for L2 learner’s listening. It would provide some direction in terms of the features of the language heard, the genre’s rhetorical organization, communicative purposes, and ability to anticipate incoming information which links the texts, tasks, listeners, and contexts.

Findings should be considered with caution due to the small sample size and further research should be conducted using different sampling techniques. Nevertheless, the study can be a useful source of information for further inquiry to investigate the development of listening comprehension skills by using texts in different L2 contexts at different language proficiency levels, the use of other text types, and the impact of a longer period of intervention on the development of L2 learner’s listening skill.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACYT) in Mexico for awarding me a full scholarship that enabled me to do this research during my Ph.D. at the University of Southampton (UoS) in the United Kingdom. I also appreciate the Faculty of Humanities at the UoS for providing funds for the data collection expenses overseas.

I appreciate all the staff at the Faculty of Languages at the Universidad Autonoma del Estado de México (UAEMex), study participants, and English speaking narrators who are a central part of this project

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