The Effectiveness of Web-Based Instruction and Cooperative Learning on the students’ listening and speaking skills in Mandarin Language Learning

The purpose of the study was to investigate the effects of the instructional methods using web-based instruction (WBI) and cooperative learning (CL) on listening and speaking skills for Mandarin learning among non-Chinese learners at MARA University of Technology in Malaysia. The students’ performance on listening skill was tested by using a standardized listening test while the performance on speaking skill was measured by two oral tests carried out after the treatments. A quasi-experimental study with posttest-only design was applied in the study. Three types of instructional methods, namely individual learning in an unstructured use of WBI (USLG), individual learning in a structured use of WBI (SLG), and cooperative learning with WBI (COOP) were applied. The dependent variables were the scores of a listening test and two oral tests. The sample consisted of 195 students who were taking Mandarin Level 1 at UiTM Terengganu branch campus. The “Learning Motivation for Mandarin” questionnaire was used to investigate any differences among the participants prior to the treatment. The treatment lasted for five weeks. The results of the analyses showed that there were no significant differences in terms of listening skills and speaking skills among the COOP, the SLG as well as the USLG groups. However the descriptive statistics reveals that the COOP group performed slightly better than the SLG group, and the SLG group performed slightly higher than the USLG group for both listening and speaking skills.