Towards integrating television materials into english teaching and learning at the National University of Rwanda: an exploratory case study of the second year english course

4.1.2. Students' listening abilities in relation to TV English programmes.

Questions 7 and 8 tackle this theme.

Q7: How well do you follow TV programmes in English? The students' responses show that more than half of the informants are not able to understand both the main ideas and details of programmes they watch (i.e.16/30). Only 6/30 get main ideas without details. 8/30 are in a position to provide details about the programme. The first group of students (i.e.16/30) indicated that they could get only bits of information that were insufficient to enable them to understand the programme sufficiently.

Their reasons for their listening abilities were as follows: the fact that they miss details or get the main ideas only is related to the kind of English used in some TV stations. When they listen, for example to news, they are likely to get as much information as required. However, when the news is from an American station, problems arise, which is not always the case with BBC English. When they listen to music or sports events they rarely grasp the commentary. In this context, as far as music is concerned, a student had this to say, `Most of the time we are enable to get details from a song because of the tune^6(*) that accompanies the text of the music' The student could presumably get some details if he were involved in listening to a simple speech without musical notes. Concerning sports programmes, they stated that reporters' speech is not intelligible enough due to extralinguistic factors such as the noise from sports fans.

Q8: Which accent (s) do you find difficult? This required students to rank English accents in order of difficulty. The respondents' answers indicated that American English comes first with 22/30, Indian English the second with 16/30. 14/30 ranked British English as difficult. Other accents, such as Ugandan follow with 9/30.

The next section deals with students' attitudes towards English teaching and learning in situations where TV is used as a teaching resource.

4.1.3. Attitudes towards the role of TV in English teaching and learning.

Questions 9 to 12 discuss this theme.

Q9: a) Has your lecturer ever used a TV programme while teaching you? From the students' responses, only 8/30 replied in the affirmative and 22/30 said that they did not have such an opportunity.

b) How does your lecturer go about teaching English with the use of TV? On this question, 5/8 students gave some examples such as listening to news broadcasts and making a summary of the main points. 4/8 stated that they would listen to an extract of news broadcasts and answer comprehension questions that had already been set for that purpose. There was also time for discussion on some points after viewing. One student stated that he had occasion to listen to different stations such as BBC and CNN and the lecturer would ask the class to tell the difference between the English accents used in the two stations.

Students who did not have any opportunity of learning English by means of TV (i.e.22/30) emphasised the usefulness of using the medium as a learning tool for the following reasons: 12 out of 22 students believed that listening to TV can help them become familiar with various English accents and at the same time have exposure to the culture of the language in use. In addition to this, they believed that gestures or facial expressions can help them in getting the intended meaning as they listen to a given programme. 4/22 students pointed out that listening to TV provides them with input about new idioms, expressions and vocabulary. Other respondents (i.e.3/22) found images and sound an added advantage to comprehension. Another insight drawn from the students' answers (i.e.3/22) is that the English used on TV constitutes a model for speaking by imitating native speakers of English with regard to structures, correct pronunciation, etc. 2/22 students acknowledged that TV is a valuable tool as various programmes instruct on miscellaneous topics such as business affairs, scientific issues, rural and urban development via documentaries. The next section deals with students' views on how TV materials can help them to improve their listening capacities (see Question 10).

Q10: Do you think that TV can improve your listening capacities?

It has to be noted that some of the views below have already been touched upon in response to Question 9. The students' main ideas are presented as follows. 10/30 respondents affirmed that `practice makes perfect' they thought that the more they listen, the more they improve their current listening abilities. They also assumed that with TV they get exposure to different speakers with different accents. In addition, 5/30 students said that watching TV is better than listening to radio because of images, words and sounds; the understanding is better when you listen to someone you can see. As stressed in responses to the preceding question, they found that facial expressions help in listening, e.g. movement of lips or other parts of the body assist the listener/viewer in comprehension. 15 of my informants mentioned that TV offers an occasion for practice of pronunciation features that have already been learned theoretically.

Q11: Do you think TV can improve your speaking capacities?

On this note, the respondents' views revolved around the following aspects: exposure to a kind of stimulus (i.e. model of speech presentation, pronunciation, register, intonation, etc) pertaining to native speakers' English. 20/30 students believed that foreign language users need to imitate this or internalise it in their everyday language. 10 remaining respondents stressed that answers to Question 11 do not differ from those in Question 10 in that they are interrelated since speaking and listening skills cannot be learned in isolation or separately. The final question (i.e. Question 12) concludes the discussion on students' attitudes towards teaching and learning practices.

Q12: How do you appreciate TV materials (i.e. live programmes) compared to ready recorded teaching materials (i.e. video recordings) as far as enhancing your English acquisition is concerned?

20 students believed that TV materials provide up-to-date input or authenticity of material which is reflected in several aspects: regularity of broadcast programmes, variety or range of topics. As for video recordings, 10 students believed that these materials are mostly prepared for a target group, especially beginners or intermediate level and limited to a few topics. They, however, acknowledged that both can be used to improve the learning process. The next section aims at presenting the lecturers' responses to the questionnaire.

* ⁶ According to the Cambridge International Dictionary of English (1995: 1567) this term refers to musical notes or melody. It also refers to the degree to which the sound is high or low (pitch).