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Selected Papers from the Fifteenth International Symposium and Book Fair on English Teaching Evaluation of the new Freshman English Program at Feng Chia University, Taiwan Pei-Hsuan Luo Feng Chia University [email protected] Previous results of the Freshman English program at Feng Chia University have shown an increase in overall proficiency of only four points. This unsatisfactory result has led to a profound revision of the Freshman English Program. The new program was introduced in the academic year 2005/6. Instead of the former separation of three hours of general English instruction and one hour of speaking and listening practice in the language lab, there are now two hours of in-class instruction and two hours of mostly computer-based, independent self- study through the Self-Study Center. Students with a lower English proficiency are required to do up to four hours of self-study in order to improve more. In addition, class size has been reduced to approximately 35 students. The subjects of this study were 3082 freshmen students who entered Feng Chia University during the academic year 2005/6. They took an English proficiency test just before their first semester started. This placement test follows the TOEIC format and tests listening, reading, grammar, and vocabulary. Students were assigned to four different levels depending on their results in this test. These results were compared to the results of a post-test students took at the end of their second semester, i.e. after approximately nine months of English instruction. Results and implications for the new program will be discussed in this paper. INTRODUCTION In Taiwan, students at universities and colleges have to take required English courses in their undergraduate years regardless of their major, mostly in their freshman year, as a good command of English is highly important for students’ future career search. In the freshman English course at Feng Chia University, students take an English proficiency test just before their first semester starts. This test is used to assign students to different levels according to their English ability. Luo and Tsai (2002) showed that students in the basic level benefited from this achievement grouping by better attitudes towards learning English, higher self-confidence, and increased motivation to take further English courses compared to students in the intermediate and unleveled classes. 503

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Selected Papers from the Fifteenth International Symposium and Book Fair on English Teaching

Evaluation of the new Freshman English Program at Feng

Chia University, Taiwan

Pei-Hsuan LuoFeng Chia University

[email protected]

Previous results of the Freshman English program at Feng Chia University have shown an

increase in overall proficiency of only four points. This unsatisfactory result has led to a

profound revision of the Freshman English Program. The new program was introduced in the

academic year 2005/6. Instead of the former separation of three hours of general English

instruction and one hour of speaking and listening practice in the language lab, there are now

two hours of in-class instruction and two hours of mostly computer-based, independent self-

study through the Self-Study Center. Students with a lower English proficiency are required to

do up to four hours of self-study in order to improve more. In addition, class size has been

reduced to approximately 35 students.

The subjects of this study were 3082 freshmen students who entered Feng Chia

University during the academic year 2005/6. They took an English proficiency test just before

their first semester started. This placement test follows the TOEIC format and tests listening,

reading, grammar, and vocabulary. Students were assigned to four different levels depending

on their results in this test. These results were compared to the results of a post-test students

took at the end of their second semester, i.e. after approximately nine months of English

instruction. Results and implications for the new program will be discussed in this paper.

INTRODUCTION

In Taiwan, students at universities and colleges have to take required English courses in their undergraduate years regardless of their major, mostly in their freshman year, as a good command of English is highly important for students’ future career search. In the freshman English course at Feng Chia University, students take an English proficiency test just before their first semester starts. This test is used to assign students to different levels according to their English ability. Luo and Tsai (2002) showed that students in the basic level benefited from this achievement grouping by better attitudes towards learning English, higher self-confidence, and increased motivation to take further English courses compared to students in the intermediate and unleveled classes.

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Pei-Hsuan Luo (羅珮瑄)

At the end of the second semester, i.e. after nine months of English instruction, the students retake the proficiency test in order to determine the progress they have made. An increase in their test scores of about 6 points in the basic, 4 points in the intermediate, and 1 point in the advanced level (Luo 2005 and unpublished data) in the academic years 2003/4 and 2004/5 was considered as being too low, however. Consequently, the “Freshman English Program” was restructured as follows:- Complaints of the English teachers made for years about too large classes were finally

responded to and class size reduced to approximately 35 students. Although the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages (ADFL 1998) considers 20 to be the maximum class size, having less than 40 students in a classroom is already perceived as a major step forward by our teachers compared to the usual class size of 50 to 60.

- Due to the still huge differences of up to 50 points in the pretest scores of students in the basic level in former years (Luo 2005 and unpublished data) students were grouped into four instead of three levels.

- Instead of a 3-hour/3-credit required course, with focus on reading and writing, and a 1-hour/0-credit course of listening and speaking practice in the language lab the new course consists of two hours in-class instruction, with focus on speaking and listening, and two hours self-study in the self-study centre. Students still receive three credits for the course. For the self-study component the four-level, general English multimedia course, “Longman English Interactive”, was used. Additional material was chosen by each teacher individually and provided to the students via “Blackboard Academic SuiteTM”. An overview of the literature on independent learning has been given by Wallis (2005). The use of Internet resources to facilitate language learning has been the focus of numerous studies (Singhal 1997, Osuna and Meskill 1998, Paulson 2001, Murray 2005, Coleman 2006, Kern 2006 – just to name a few)

- An extensive reading program was initiated in the spring semester of the academic year 2005. In such a program, students engage in silent reading of a large quantity of material. The reading materials should be at a level that enables students to understand what they are reading without too much help. The benefits of such a program have been well documented for first- as well as second-language learners (Nagy et al. 1987, Krashen 1993, Yu 1993, McQuillan 1994, Ng 1994, Coady 1997).

The purpose of this study was to determine the progress students made after this restructuring and to disclose any problems that might require additional changes in the program in order to further improve English instruction for first year students at Feng Chia University. Our experiences should as well be of interest for administrators in charge of freshman English instruction at other colleges or universities.

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METHODOLOGY

The subjects of this study were the first year students at Feng Chia University in the academic year 2005/6. The proficiency test was developed by the Language Center of Feng Chia University. The test consists of four parts: listening, vocabulary, grammar, and reading. The format of the test is comparable to the format of the Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC), except for a small part of the listening section where true/false questions were used. Students marked answers on a computer answer card. The total number of scores was 30, 20, 20, and 30 for the listening, vocabulary, grammar, and reading sections, respectively, so that the highest reachable score was 100 points. The test was administered the day before classes of the first semester started in September 2005 and again on the day after the last day of class of the second semester in June 2006. Only students who had taken both tests were considered in this study. The scores of the pre- and the posttest accounted for 10 % of the final sores of the first and the second semester, respectively. This measure was effective in preventing a high number of students to score intentionally low in order to pass an easy year of English instruction – a problem observed in the academic year 2003/4 (Luo 2005).

The College of Humanities and Social Sciences has only one class from the Department of Chinese. Thus, students from this college were assigned to the English courses of the College of Sciences. Therefore, in this paper the “College of Sciences” actually refers to the students of the College of Sciences and the students of the Department of Chinese. The English major students of the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature were excluded from this study as these students received a substantially higher amount of English instruction compared to the non-English-major students. The courses were classified into four levels: basic, intermediate, high-intermediate, and advanced. The scores of each section were recalculated to percentage in order to be able to compare the results with each other. Statistical analyses were carried out using the Statistic Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software. One-way analyses of variance (ANOVA) were calculated and the Levene test was used to test homogeneity of variances. The post-hoc procedures LSD and Tamhane were applied for homogenous and non-homogenous variances, respectively, to separate means. Results of the ANOVA and the Levene tests are given in the appendix.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Tab. 1 and fig. 1 show the results of the pretest for each level and skill tested. It can be seen that listening skills were significantly highest in each level, followed by vocabulary and reading comprehension, while the weakest skill was grammar, except for the basic level, where vocabulary, grammar and reading comprehension were all poor and did not differ

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significantly from each other. Interestingly, while the gap between the strongest skill, listening, and vocabulary and reading comprehension became less the higher students’ total proficiency was, the gap between vocabulary and reading and the weakest skill, grammar, widened with proficiency (see fig. 1).

Tab. 1: Results of the pretest

Skill LevelNo. of

students MeanStd.

Deviation post hoc*

p≤0.05 Min. Max.

total basic 235 29.5064 4.47631 a 13 39 intermediate 1455 44.5182 5.27961 b 22 55 high interm. 1270 60.5142 6.12962 c 47 85 advanced 122 75.8197 5.40281 d 67 96 all levels 3082 51.2041 12.16713 13 96

listening basic 235 39.5035 10.57642 a 3 70 intermediate 1455 55.2806 11.65551 b 20 90 high interm. 1270 68.9475 11.23274 c 23 100 advanced 122 82.1585 9.47591 d 60 100 all levels 3082 60.7733 14.91669 3 100

vocabulary basic 235 25.0213 9.96251 a 5 55 intermediate 1455 40.4948 13.94486 b 5 85 high interm. 1270 61.5157 14.06411 c 20 100 advanced 122 77.3361 11.28490 d 45 100 all levels 3082 49.4354 18.97288 5 100

grammar basic 235 25.8511 9.83405 a 0 55 intermediate 1455 36.6117 11.26142 b 0 70 high interm. 1270 48.6732 12.51443 c 15 90 advanced 122 61.8033 12.28225 d 25 95 all levels 3082 41.7586 14.31967 0 95

reading basic 235 24.9362 11.55659 a 0 60 intermediate 1455 41.7090 12.13982 b 6 80 high interm. 1270 59.3071 12.36613 c 20 93 advanced 122 77.8142 9.24884 d 46 93 all levels 3082 49.1110 17.08696 0 93

*: Values with different letters within a group of rows are significantly different at p≤0.05

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Fig. 1: Results of the pretestValues with different letters within a group of columns are significantly different at p≤0.05

When comparing the minimum and maximum scores of students in each level (tab.1), an overlap in the total score can be seen. Although some overlapping is inevitable due to technical problems in leveling so many students from different colleges, the high difference of almost 20 points between the maximum score in the basic and the minimum score in the intermediate level as well as between the maximum score in the high intermediate and the minimum score in the advanced level are actually due to misplacements of several students in the College of Business and the College of Information, respectively. Adjustments in the number of classes per level for these two colleges will be made in the coming academic year in order to avoid such misplacements.

The large differences in the minimum and maximum scores of each skill (tab. 1) show that students’ proficiency in each skill may vary widely. Thus, two students who scored 90 points in the listening section were still grouped into the basic level, as they only scored between 0 and 35 points in the other sections. The same holds true for the student who was placed into the advanced level although he scored only 25 points in the grammar section. His total score was still high as he scored 93, 90, and 63 points in listening, vocabulary, and reading comprehension, respectively. However, these differences were not considered for grouping the students into the different levels as it would have been technically impossible to achieve. Instead, students’ total scores were used for grouping. Differences in the English proficiency between colleges have been described elsewhere (Luo 2006) and will, therefore, not be discussed here.

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Pei-Hsuan Luo (羅珮瑄)

Tab. 2 and fig. 2 show the differences between the pre- and the posttest for each level and skill, i.e. the progress they have made in their “Freshman English” course. As in former years (Luo 2005 and unpublished data), the lower the level students were in, the more their English proficiency improved. This is understandable, as students who scored, for example, 25 points in the pretest had much more room to improve compared to students who scored 85 points in the pretest. However, students in the basic and the intermediate level improved substantially more than in previous years, where students in the basic (now basic and intermediate) level had improved by just 6 points (Luo 2005 and unpublished data). Students in the basic level improved by an average of 11 points and students in the intermediate level still scored 7 points higher this year. However, the results of the students in the advanced level are still highly unsatisfactory as the students scored lower in three of the four skills of the posttest, leading to a reduction in the mean total score of this level (tab. 2).

Students in all levels improved most in their listening skills (fig 2). This may be due to the fact that in their 2 hours in-class instruction, emphasis was laid on listening and speaking practice. Students in the basic, intermediate, and high intermediate levels also improved quite substantially in their reading comprehension. As stated above, an extensive reading program had been initialized in the spring semester with the library of Feng Chia University offering a large variety of graded readers in various levels of difficulty. Some teachers used as well a substantial amount of short reading passages in their self-study component. It seems that this has had a positive impact on students’ reading comprehension. On the other hand, Chia and Ellis (2004) found that students taking part in a Self-Access Language Learning (SALL) program in Singapore also claimed to have improved most in their listening and reading skills.

As the leveling procedure has changed in this academic year’s “Freshman English” program, results cannot easily be compared with those of the previous year. As such a comparison goes beyond the scope of this study it will be the focus of a further study.

Tab 2: Average progress made in each level

Progress LevelNo. of

students MeanStd.

Deviationpost hoc*

p≤0.05 Min. Max.

total basic 235 11.8681 7.83235 a -10 30 intermediate 1455 7.3182 8.08652 b -19 30 high interm. 1270 3.0654 7.54872 c -34 26 advanced 122 -.8443 6.33242 d -17 14 all levels 3082 5.5896 8.32151 -34 30

listening basic 235 14.9645 14.18023 a -20 50 intermediate 1455 9.2302 11.68006 b -30 50 high interm. 1270 6.2756 10.57721 c -67 40

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Selected Papers from the Fifteenth International Symposium and Book Fair on English Teaching

advanced 122 2.8142 8.17643 d -23 20 all levels 3082 8.1960 11.62005 -67 50

vocabulary basic 235 8.9149 14.82062 a -45 65 intermediate 1455 7.1478 18.71864 a -45 85 high interm. 1270 1.2598 14.83782 b -45 45 advanced 122 -.6967 13.21024 b -30 25 all levels 3082 4.5457 17.02247 -45 85

grammar basic 235 4.9149 13.01680 a -30 50 intermediate 1455 1.2199 13.84503 b -40 60 high inter. 1270 -2.2047 12.93668 c -50 45 advanced 122 -3.9754 13.06276 c -45 25 all levels 3082 -.1152 13.56921 -50 60

reading basic 235 15.3759 17.98987 a -33 60 intermediate 1455 9.5853 17.19975 b -47 60 high interm. 1270 4.5722 17.23730 c -53 67 advanced 122 -2.5137 15.19576 d -47 33 all levels 3082 7.4822 17.60473

*: Values with different letters within a group of rows are significantly different at p≤0.05

Fig. 2: Average progress made in each level:Values with different letters within a group of columns are significantly different at p≤0.05

Tab. 3 shows the distribution of gains made in each level and we can see that the majority of the students in the basic level improved by 11 to 20 points, while not even 7 % of

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Pei-Hsuan Luo (羅珮瑄)

the students scored lower than in the pretest. The majority of the students in the intermediate and the high intermediate levels scored up to 10 points higher, while over 50% of the students in the advanced level scored lower than in the pretest. These substantial improvements of students in the basic and the intermediate level show the effectiveness of the new “Freshman English” program. However, further adjustments in course contents of the advanced level need to be made so that we will be able to see improvements there as well. A general English course is just what students in this level have had at high schools in an only a bit modified way and this may not be challenging enough for them to put in any effort.

Tab 3: Distribution of gains made in each level

basic intermediate high intermediate advanced all levels

-34.00 to -21 0.0 0.0 0.3 0.0 0.1

-20.00 to -11 0.0 1.5 4.1 9.0 2.8

-10 to 0 6.8 18.1 29.4 50.8 23.2

1 to 10 35.7 45.9 49.8 36.1 46.3

11 to 20 43.0 29.0 15.6 4.1 23.6

21 to 30 14.5 5.5 0.8 0.0 4.0

Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0

One problem that still needs to be discussed, and is not reflected in the results stated above, is the high rate of students dropping out of the program. As can be seen in tab. 4, 3526 students took the pretest but only 3082 took as well the posttest. This amounts to 12.59 % of all students. Although some students may have been absent from the posttest due to illness (there was no make-up test for those students), due to the fact that the test counted for 10 % of the final score of the second semester, the number of those cases should actually be negligible. Instead, it reflects the high number of students who dropped out from the course. The percentage is especially high in the intermediate level where almost 7 % of the students dropped the course.

Tab. 4: Number of students in each test and percentage of students who dropped the course

level pretest posttest dropped percent

basic 317 235 82 2.33 intermediate 1698 1455 243 6.89 high interm. 1371 1270 101 2.86 advanced 140 122 18 0.51

total 3526 3082 444 12.59

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Selected Papers from the Fifteenth International Symposium and Book Fair on English Teaching

Various teachers have commented that quite a lot of students were unwilling to do the self-study part and either just did not do it or cheated. When they realized that they might fail the course – even if they scored high in the midterm exam and other in-class tests - due to their poor performance in the self-study part, they dropped the course before the final exam. A lack of motivation or too much pressure from other course work might have been the reason for their unwillingness or cheating. This is in contrast to results of Kung and Chuo (2002) who found that students’ overall attitude to using ESL/EFL websites in addition to in-class instruction was positive. However, students in that study were majoring in French and English was their minor, so they might have been generally more interested in language learning. On the other hand, it has been the first time that such a self-study program has been in place at our university. Students as well as teachers have to get accustomed to this form of learning. Throughout their elementary and high-school years, students have been exposed to teacher-centered learning and encouraged to rote learn facts instead of being assisted to become more autonomous in their learning. Now that they suddenly have to take control themselves, we experience problems similar to those observed by Toogood (2005) which are related to how much freedom and how much support we give students in such a program:

“Our experience […] has shown that given total freedom and no support, learners will either sink or swim. The few who do swim, do well on their own or with minimal support. It is more common however, to see the majority sink. Where learners are exposed to too much control with the teacher making all the decisions and no support for them to develop control of their own learning, there is a tendency for learners to swim reluctantly - sometimes give up and sink. A reason for this may be that the learning is not understood by the learner or personalized in any way, and as a result, becomes meaningless and unmanageable. If exposed to too much control and too much support the result can be a scenario whereby learners simply do what they are told without caring to think for themselves because there is a lack of personalization in the learning. We may find situations where the teacher is providing too much control yet expecting learners to make decisions. This results in problems: learners may have worked out what is required of them and may be indicating that they are doing well, where in fact they are simply jumping through hoops. (Toogood 2005, p.8)

However, in order to guide students well through online self-study programs, teachers as well need to be prepared and this was an issue several teachers complained about – they did not feel that they were familiar enough with the technology and problems that arose. Instead, they would have liked more teacher training before the whole program started. Although teachers have gained quite a lot of experience during this first year of the new

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“Freshman English” program and will be better prepared for the coming academic year, some additional workshops for exchanging experiences and for training effective online course design might be helpful so that teachers won’t feel overwhelmed by the program but confident to help their students to cope with the self-study part. As Kern (2006) has pointed out, it is important to know how to make the best use out of the technology. Furthermore, we will have to foster an acceptance for online learning and for independent study in our students. The experiences students have made in this academic year will also be of help hereby, as the new first year students will learn from their peers that the self-study component is actually an important part of the program and should not be skipped thoughtlessly.

CONCLUSION

The reform of the “Freshman English” program has been successful especially in respect to students with a low proficiency of English. However, more changes are needed to make the program more attractive for students with a higher proficiency so that they will be willing to put more effort in their learning as well. Finally, fostering a higher acceptance of self-study in the students is necessary to avoid high drop out rates and to make the program even more successful.

REFERENCES

ADLF (1998). “ADFL guidelines and policy statements” retrieved July 15, 2006 from http://www.adfl.org/ resources/

Chia, C.S.C. & Ellis, M. (2004). “PRC students’ experience with independent learning at the National Institute of Education, Singapore.” In Proceedings of the Independent Learning Conference 2003. Melbourne, Australia, September 13-14, 2003, retrieved July 15, 2006 from http://www.independentlearning.org/ila03/ila03_chia_and_ellis.pdf

Coady, J. (1997). “L2 vocabulary acquisition through extensive reading.” In J. Coady & T. Huckin (Eds.), Second language vocabulary acquisition (pp. 225-237). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Coleman, J. (2006 May). “The past, present and future of research into technology-enhanced language learning.” Paper presented at Learning Technologies in the Language Classroom: A step closer to the future. Cyprus, Nicosia, University of Cyprus

Kern, R. (2006). “Perspectives on technology in learning and teaching languages.” TESOL Quarterly 40(1), 183-210

Krashen, S. (1993). The power of reading. Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited. Kung, S.-C. & Chuo, T.-W. (2002). “Students’ perceptions of English learning through

ESL/EFL websites.” Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language- Electronic

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Journal, 6(1): A-2, retrieved July 15, 2006 from http://www-writing.berkeley. edu/TESl-EJ/ej21/a2.html

Murray, D.E. (2005). “Technologies for second language literacy.” Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 25, 188-201

McQuillan, J. (1994). “Reading versus grammar: What students think is pleasurable for language acquisition.” Applied Language Learning, 5(2), 95-100.

Nagy, W.E., Anderson, R.C., & Herman P.A. (1987): “Learning word meanings from context during normal reading.” American Educational Research Journal, 24, 237-270.

Ng, S.M. (1994). “Changing the English language curriculum in Brunei Darussalam.” International Journal of Educational Development, 14(4), 361-370.

Luo, B. & Tsai M. (2002 November). Understanding EFL learners in leveled and mixed classes. Paper presented at The Eleventh International Symposium on English Teaching/Fourth Pan-Asian Conference, Taipei, Taiwan

Luo, B. (2005). “Achievement grouping and students’ progress in freshman English classes at Feng Chia University.” Feng Chia Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, No. 11: 253-279

Luo, B. (2006 April). “A three year comparison of the English proficiency of high school graduates entering a university in central Taiwan.” Proceedings of 2006 International Conference on English Instruction and Assessment, National Chung Cheng University, Chia-Yi, Taiwan, (C32) pp.1-10

Osuna, M. M. & Meskill C. (1998). “Using the World Wide Web to integrate Spanish language and culture: A pilot study.” Language Learning & Technology. 1 (2), 71-92

Paulsen, J.B. (2001). “New Era Trends and Technologies in Foreign Language Learning: An Annotated Bibliography.” Interactive Multimedia Electronic Journal of Computer-Enhanced Learning. retrieved July 15, 2006 from http://imej.wfu.edu/ articles/2001/1/05/index. asp

Singhal, M. (1997). “The Internet and Foreign Language Education: Benefits and Challenges.” The Internet TESL Journal, 3 (6).” retrieved July 15, 2006 from http://iteslj.org/Articles/Singhal-Internet.html

Toogood, S. (2005 September). “Taking control or jumping through hoops: Issues with SALL in mainstream courses.” In Anderson, H., Hobbs, M., Jones-Parry, J., Logan, S., & Lotovale, S. (eds.), Supporting independent learning in the 21st century. Proceedings of the Second Conference of the Independent Learning Association, Auckland NZ. Auckland: Independent Learning Association Oceania, retrieved July 15, 2006 from: http://www.independentlearning.org/ila05/ila05_toogood.pdf

Wallis, R. (2005 September). “Independent Learning: What do Students at our Centre do and why do they do it?” In Anderson, H., Hobbs, M., Jones-Parry, J., Logan, S., and Lotovale, S. (eds.): Supporting independent learning in the 21st century. Proceedings

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of the Second Conference of the Independent Learning Association, Auckland NZ. Auckland: Independent Learning Association Oceania, retrieved July 15, 2006 from http://www.independentlearning.org/

Yu, V.W.S. (1993): “Extensive reading programs -- How can they best benefit the teaching and learning of English?” TESL Reporter, 26(1), 1-9.

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APPENDIX

ANOVA pretest (between levels) Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.

total Between Groups 359679.343 3 119893.114 3826.960 .000

Within Groups 96429.285 3078 31.329

Total 456108.628 3081

listening Between Groups 290863.029 3 96954.343 756.115 .000

Within Groups 394682.811 3078 128.227

Total 685545.840 3081

vocabulary Between Groups 536682.640 3 178894.213 962.004 .000

Within Groups 572385.011 3078 185.960

Total 1109067.651 3081

grammar Between Groups 207750.340 3 69250.113 502.695 .000

Within Groups 424018.057 3078 137.758

Total 631768.397 3081

reading Between Groups 449599.151 3 149866.384 1025.217 .000

Within Groups 449942.676 3078 146.180

Total 899541.827 3081

skill Levene Statistic df1 df2 Sig. post hoc used

total 21.006 3 3078 .000 Tamhane

listening 3.135 3 3078 .025 Tamhane

vocabulary 16.635 3 3078 .000 Tamhane

grammar 8.512 3 3078 .000 Tamhane

reading 3.296 3 3078 .020 Tamhane

ANOVA pretest (between skills) Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.

basic Between Groups 35916.240 4 8979.060 97.300 .000

Within Groups 107970.655 1170 92.283

Total 143886.895 1174

intermediate Between Groups 289922.190 4 72480.548 573.078 .000

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Within Groups 919479.149 7270 126.476

Total 1209401.339 7274

high Between Groups 268196.523 4 67049.131 499.563 .000

intermediate Within Groups 851598.112 6345 134.216

Total 1119794.635 6349

advanced Between Groups 29212.295 4 7303.074 75.644 .000

Within Groups 58409.924 605 96.545

Total 87622.219 609

level Levene Statistic df1 df2 Sig. post hoc used

basic 34.311 4 1170 .000 Tamhane

intermediate 203.886 4 7270 .000 Tamhane

high intermediate 155.699 4 6345 .000 Tamhane

advanced 16.609 4 605 .000 Tamhane

ANOVA progress (between levels) Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.

total Between Groups 26753.589 3 8917.863 147.103 .000

Within Groups 186598.195 3078 60.623

Total 213351.784 3081

listening Between Groups 20539.724 3 6846.575 53.287 .000

Within Groups 395474.350 3078 128.484

Total 416014.075 3081

vocabulary Between Groups 31402.491 3 10467.497 37.405 .000

Within Groups 861361.559 3078 279.845

Total 892764.049 3081

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Pei-Hsuan Luo (羅珮瑄)

grammar Between Groups 15902.492 3 5300.831 29.591 .000

Within Groups 551381.618 3078 179.136

Total 567284.109 3081

reading Between Groups 44023.207 3 14674.402 49.588 .000

Within Groups 910860.534 3078 295.926

Total 954883.741 3081

skill Levene Statistic df1 df2 Sig. post hoc used

total 6.774 3 3078 .000 Tamhane

listening 20.067 3 3078 .000 Tamhane

vocabulary 22.491 3 3078 .000 Tamhane

grammar 1.805 3 3078 .144 LSD

reading 1.624 3 3078 .182 LSD

ANOVA progress (between skills) Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.

basic Between Groups 18043.323 4 4510.831 23.129 .000

Within Groups 228184.674 1170 195.030

Total 246227.998 1174

intermediate Between Groups 65679.473 4 16419.868 78.963 .000

Within Groups 1511751.321 7270 207.944

Total 1577430.794 7274

high Between Groups 53971.451 4 13492.863 79.044 .000

intermediate Within Groups 1083095.915 6345 170.701

Total 1137067.366 6349

advanced Between Groups 3147.518 4 786.880 5.760 .000

Within Groups 82644.345 605 136.602

Total 85791.863 609

level Levene Statistic df1 df2 Sig. post hoc used

basic 30.756 4 1170 .000 Tamhane

intermediate 205.766 4 7270 .000 Tamhane

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high intermediate 179.679 4 6345 .000 Tamhane

advanced 23.066 4 605 .000 Tamhane

515