Attitude toward Enhancing Extensive Listening through Podcasts Supplementary Pack

Abstract

<p>To promote independent extensive listening, the aim of this study is to investigate Saudi preparatory level students’ and their teachers’ perception about podcasts’ criteria and contents to include in an extensive supplementary listening pack. An exploratory sequential design was adopted to collect data. The results of the focus group thematic analysis helped designing an online close-ended survey. The participants were 120 students and teachers sampled from the four proficiency levels of the English Language Institute (ELI) at King Abdulaziz University (KAU) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). The findings of the study revealed that teachers were more familiar with the podcasts than students. Furthermore, all participants had a positive attitude toward using a listening instructional supplementary pack that can include few short authentic podcasts. They recommended using various challenging topics that are related to students’ interests and proficiency levels. This study contributes to the literature of integrating podcasts to enhance extensive listening. It recommends designing an extensive listening supplementary pack based on Vandergrift and Goh’s (2012) metacognitive approach and testing its suitability for application.</p>