Diary Probe 1: What are the important things you

First, I focused on instances of motivation and concentration, which are the two essential elements for deliberate practice to take place. Although these two themes were the main focus of analysis initially, other themes also emerged from the participants‟ replies to this diary probe. By the end of analysing all responses to this diary probe, I was able to identify six major themes. Ordered in terms of frequency of occurrence, the themes identified included: selective attention, concentration, advance organization, note-taking, the use of background knowledge and motivation (see Appendix M for summary of Probe 2 analysis). I considered selective attention and concentration as two separate themes since deciding to attend to a particular aspect of the language input, selective attention, does not necessarily entail concentrating on the whole text and task. Hence, when the word focus or concentration was used generally, I regarded it as an instance of concentration, whereas when focus was restricted to certain aspects of the text or task, I considered it an instance of selective attention.

The following parts present results in the light of these six major themes, and are supported by extracts from the students‟ responses to this diary probe. The total number of responses to this diary probe across the six DP sessions was 347. Idea units entered for analysis made up 91% of responses, whereas irrelevant responses that were excluded from analysis were 8.9 %.

a. Theme 1: Selective Attention

Selective attention was the most recurring theme, with 34% of the total responses to diary probe 1 falling under this category. Some participants decided to focus their concentration on both main ideas and examples:

focusing on the main ideas and examples

While others chose to focus only on main ideas:

listen carefully to main ideas concentrate on the main point

Other students decided to focus on key words in the texts:

concentrate on the key words of the lecture underlined the key words that are in the questions

Certain parts or aspects of the input were the focus of some students:

focus on the introduction and conclusion

focusing on main ideas on the first listening, focusing on details on the second listening

focusing in the tone of the speaker’s voice

Further, some students focused on questions in the accompanying tasks:

analyze the Qs and their possible meaning to determine where should my focus be

focus on the questions

depending on the choices we have in the questions focus on what needs to be completed

b. Theme 2: Directed Attention (Concentration)

Concentration in general was the second major theme that emerged from this part of the data, with 16% of responses to this probe falling under this category. This was expressed by participants in a number of ways, including:

focusing on their conversation I tried my best to get all information I concentrated as much as I can

listen carefully, I didn’t think about anything else listened carefully to the lecture

concentrated very well

[ راخسلااً بلاطلا نٍب تثداحولا ىلع ثزكر طقف ]

I only concentrated on the conversation between the student and tutor*

Listen good

I just focus on everything they said because most of the words are familiar and nothing new. So, I think the easy words help me to understand it

[ةرضاحولل يزٍكرح لك وجًأ جلًاح]I tried to direct all my attention to

the lecture*

c. Theme 3: Advance Organization

The third theme emerging from the data was advance organization, which means setting objectives for the task in hand and thinking of ways to handle it. 16% of the instances throughout the sessions fell under this category. Examples from the participants‟ diaries included:

prepare the main ideas of the text before I read

try to answer the questions before I listen and think about what I will listen to

read the question first

some questions and answers when I read it before conversation began

read the question before listening so that I can get some ideas about the information that I will hear

As the previous extracts illustrate, most instances of advance organization relied on reading comprehension questions before attending to the listening.

d. Theme 4: Note-taking

Taking notes while listening was the fourth theme which emerged from the data, with 12% of instances indicating that participants relied on the notes they had taken to understand the listening texts. Examples from the students‟ diaries included:

try to write details as much as possible

take notes, write main idea and important details write down the important info that I need

Writing down notes and some information to help me write the summary

e. Theme 5: Making Use of Background Knowledge

The following theme that appeared in the data was making use of background knowledge in order to understand the listening text. This made up 9% of responses to this particular diary probe. Examples included:

I made a connection between what I heard and the background information that I have

try to remember any information about the topic my general information

maybe because I had like this experience

[صنلا عٌضٌه نع يذل ًخلا تٍفلخلا ىلع داوخعلااب] by depending on the background knowledge I have on the topic of the text* remembering info that I had about the topic

using my information because it’s easy lecture and it’s experience from our life

f. Theme 6: Motivation

The final major theme emerging from diary responses to this particular probe was motivation, with 6% of responses across the sessions. Extracts from the participants‟ diaries included:

[ًسفن عجشأ جلًاح]I tried to encourage myself *

I motivate myself

I motivated myself to do the good

Actually the 2 main things are the motivation and concentration

There were other instances of strategies that some individuals mentioned using in their attempt to understand the listening texts. However, these did not occur frequently in the diary responses, hence I did not regard them as major themes. These include:

 Guessing

guessing the answers

guess something about the conversation

Before decide which answer is correct, guess the one you think it’s true

 Deduction

use the word I know to guess the meaning of unknown words Reading the question to understand new words

 Predictions

I made predictions about what I’m going to listen to

 Recall

to recall all the things I have listen

 Outline

write a simple outline to understand and organize the points I heard

by make the text that we listen as outline

 Activating schema from topic

because I read the topic of the lecture which is opportunity cost and the field of the lecture (economic) so that help me to understand the main ideas

 Visualization

Imagine the facts related to animals

[عاوخسلاا ءانثأ دذحلا رٌصح]Visualizing the event while listening*

 Translation

Tried to translate some difficult words

Some participants apparently misunderstood this diary probe; hence I had to disregard their answers. When reading through the responses, any reply that did not answer the probe was labelled not. 9% of the student responses to this dairy probe were not relevant, and hence were excluded from the analysis. Some examples included:

The great effect that video game have on children I understood it all

Student confused about her assignment There are easy details

Also, some participants mentioned listen again as one of the important things they did to understand the text. However, this response had to be disregarded since it was not in their hands whether to listen to the text again or not; it was the teacher‟s decision whether to play the CD once or twice.

4.3.3.2 Diary Probe 2: What did you do to check your listening comprehension?