Differences: The retelling protocols of this part vary largely. Li is building on his
retelling and trying to compensate his performance in Phase 1:“it might be related
to status...I should put in social status, which sounds more appropriate. I think
status is independent of culture and person...”He’s retelling protocol shows he is
again at a loss while parsing the example with regard to“situation”, for he only
reported“informal”and“party”without the relevant information. Zhang mentioned
“situation”twice in her retelling protocol and accurately compared formal and
informal situations. Li’s retelling protocol indicates he has noticed the purpose of
the example and also intended to integrate this new information to the former
“person”and“culture”structure. But since his working memory is fully employed
to build a certain link between Phase 1 and Phase 2, he failed to retell the concrete
information of the following example. He’s Phase 1 and Phase 2 protocols are
highly consistent as he reported he did write“informal”and“party”in his notes.
Zhang’s Phase 1 and Phase 2 protocols both clearly indicate she has successful
integrated the information given in the example to the developing parallel structure
containing“person”and“culture”.
We have an interpretation to address the differences. Integration of new infor-
mation to the existent discourse structure is the key to successful discourse con-
struction. Li’s interpretation makes some sense because the example concerns social
status, but he failed to pick up a more appropriate word“situation”in the original
discourse while He’s random picking of“informal party”only shows the discon-
nection between the example and the afore-mentioned “person” and“culture”
structure. Zhang’s successful construction of the structure summarized as“prox-
imity is person-, culture- and situation-specific”strongly indicates her higher level
of academic listening competence (Table7.10).
7.4 Comparison Between a High-Achiever
and a Low-Achiever
In order to facilitate comparison between the retelling protocols of high-achievers
and low-achievers based upon their meaning representation and memory capacity
after listening to 2013 TEM 8 Mini-lecture (What do active learners do), the fol-
lowing two sets of protocols are presented. The researcher’s prompts are eliminated
for the sake of smooth reading.
7.4.1 Source: 2013 TEM 8 Mini-Lecture (See Appendix 7
for the Script)
Retelling protocol analysis is profiled as a detailed comparison between a higher
achiever’s retelling protocol and a comparatively lower achiever’s retelling
120 7 Using Retelling Protocols to Explore Listeners’...