1.4　Research Methodology

Though discourse markers and listening had been respectively focused in previous studies，however，few of theMhad linked the two and no study had demonstrated an empirical study on the relationship between discourse markers and news listening.In chapter 1 and chapter 2，some theoretical and empirical studies on news listening and discourse markers have been discussed.In the following chapter，an experimental study will be carried out to clarify the effects of discourse markers on English news listening.

1.4.1　Hypotheses and Research Questions

This thesis aims to report the effect of discourse markers on news listening understanding based on an empirical investigation.The following research questions are expected to be addressed by means of the research.

Research Question I:What’s the general level of students’awareness of discourse markers？

Hypo thesis I:The general level of students’awareness of discourse markers is low.

Research Question II:What kind of relationship exists between discourse markers and English news listening？

Hypo thesis II:There exists a close relationship between discourse markers and English news listening.

Research Question III:Can discourse markers’instruction in English news listening course help improve and facilitate students’news listening comprehension？If so，to what extent will discourse markers affect English news listening comprehension？

Hypo thesis III:Discourse marker’s instruction in news listening course can help improve and facilitate students’news listening comprehension and discourse markers can affect English news listening comprehension to a large extent.

Research Question IV:Is there any difference in the performance between the high－proficiency and low－proficiency listeners after the training of discourse markers？And which group performs better or which group can make the greater progress？

Hypothesis IV:There is a difference in the performance between the high－proficiency and low－proficiency listeners after the training of discourse markers and the high－proficiency listeners may make the greater progress.

1.4.2　Participants

112 students，non English majors in Shandong Economic University are selected as participants in this research.They are sophomores froMtwo different colleges，58majoring in Economic Management and 54 majoring in Accounting.All the subjects are on the average age of 20 years old and they use the same English text－book.The reason for selecting students froMthe two colleges as the subjects is that the participants who aremajoring in Economic Management received a training course concerning the use of discourse markers in their news listening comprehension for three months，while the ones whose major are Accounting did not.The participants who received discourse markers’training were considered as the experimental group，while the other one as the controlled group.1.4.3 Research Instruments

The instruments employed in this thesis are a questionnaire，a test on discourse markers and two listening tests.

1.4.3　Questionnaire

Since there is no ready－made questionnaire to be adopted，the questionnaire(see appendix 1)is designed by the author in reference to Sun Mingyu’s，Zhang Zhiyong’s and Shao Jie’s questionnaires used in their master’s theses.The questionnaire used in the present study was designed to have a general knowledge of the subjects’news listening status and the level of their awareness of discourse markers.Itmainly consists of two parts:Part one is designed to obtain some background information of the subjects so that the author can have a general idea of the participants and thus can interpret the results in a more explicit way.It includes the names，sex and English learning experience of the subjects，and also their attitudes towards listening and news listening.Part two consists of ten questions mainly about the difficulty they usually encounter in their news listening and their awareness of applying discourse markers in news listening comprehension.The participants are required to choose one of the statements among the five－point scale from“the statement is never true forme”to“the statement is always true forme”.In addition，before the questionnaire the author had explained in a brief way about the general conception of discourse markers so that they can have an understanding of them.

1.4.4　Tests on Discourse Markers and Listening

This part consists of tenmultiple choices intending to gain more information on students’understanding and awareness of discourse markers.All the ten multiple choices are selected froMnews discourse and are based on the use of discourse markers，such as but，however，including，besides and so on.

The two listening tests consist of pretest and posttest.All the listening materials of the two tests are selected froMVOA special English.What’smore，all the materials are examined by the author’s supervisor and two college English teachers，who all considered the materials selected available and all the words contained in the materials are within the students’mastery.The two tests respectively contain three parts:the first part includes two news reports and there are five multiple choices after each report which lasts for about 7 minutes and the participants were given 15 seconds for one question to choose the correct answer after listening.The second part also is a news report involveing seven blanks which need to be filled in by the listeners after listening.In this part the passage will read twice，for the first time the passage is read at a normal speed so that the listeners can have a general idea of the whole passage，while the speed of the second reading is a little slower than the first reading.During the second listening，the participants are allowed five seconds to fill in each blank.In addition，all the blanks expected to be completed are associated with discourse markers.

The last part is a news report as well，following which there are eight true or false questions.This part is also allowed to listen twice，and both are read at the normal speed.The participants are required to write down true or false in the bracketafter each question for which theywere given 10 seconds.What’smore，there are twenty－five questions in each test，so the author defines each question four points.The highest score of the test is one hundred points.In addition，all the questions in the tests are designed to be concerning discourse markers.

1.4.5　Procedure

The experiment lasted for one semester froMSeptember of 2010 to December of 2010.Each class had four listening classes every week.At the beginning of the experiment，a news listening comprehension test was given to both the experimental group and the controlled group.Then during the process of the experiment，the experimental group students were not only exposed to the traditional vocabulary knowledge and background knowledge teaching，the teaching of relevance theory and discourse markers was also involved in the listening course.The English teacher of the experimental group tried to let the students know the nature of listening comprehension froMrelevance－theoretical perspective，and make the students aware of the functions of discourse markers in the process of listening.The aiMwas to develop their listening abilities like inference，prediction and analysis.However，in the controlled group the teacher only conducted the listening course in the traditional way，focusing on the teaching of linguistic knowledge and background knowledge，without integrating the teaching of employing discourse markers into the students’news listening comprehension.