Running head : SELF - CONTROLLED PODCASTS 1 Self - controlled Podcasts : An Effective Way to Practice L 2 Listening ?

This study investigated effectiveness of self-controlled podcast listening on ESL learners’ (n=23) overall listening skills, listening comprehension of main ideas, details, and making inferences, self-rated listening abilities, and attitudes towards podcasts. Four instruments were developed including a pretest, a posttest, a coding system for self-controlled listening group, and a questionnaire to measure the dependent variables. Interestingly, the results showed that, first, the self-controlled podcast listening group (n=12) had lower mean scores in the area of overall listening skills and listening comprehension on details and making inferences on the posttest when compared to either the pretest or the control group (n=11). Second, owing to the improvement of the control group in the posttest, the listening passages on ESL Pod (Tse & McQuillan, 2012a) could benefit intermediate ESL learners’ listening comprehension. Third, the technological function, rewinding 10 seconds, was most frequently used by the participants. Fourth, students who had the self-controlled podcast listening experience showed more positive attitudes towards podcast listening.