3Th article that pertains to my reserach proposal Assignment

3Th article that pertains to my reserach proposal - Assignment Example 100). The use of humor in this context provides a way to bring student interest to lessons and to motivate students. All students began by filling out a questionnaire about their background and they were given a standardized listening test (TOEFL Test, version 2009) to determine a baseline for their â€Å"listening proficiency level† (Rafiee, Kassaian and Dastjerdi, 2010, p. 102). Once students received instruction through the use of humorous songs, they were given the TOEFL listening test a second time. Participants had not previously participated in listening tests. Students were told that they would listen to a passage for several minutes and then they would be instructed to immediately do coursework. Teachers did not ask questions after the listening task in order to make sure that they were relaxed while listening. Students listened to 17, 90 minute sessions. After the first task, students were asked to listen to the passages again and repeat the task in order to have a pre- and post-test sample. After a three week interval, students were asked to take the TOEFL test again to measure t heir immediate ability to recall the information. There were 30 female participants in this study and they were all studying English at the Iranian Institutes of English language. The age group of participants was between 15 and 25. The participants were given a number between one and 30 and they were randomly chosen for two groups. The first group was comprised of those students who had odd numbers and these were seen as the control group. The second group was comprised of those students who had even numbers were used as the experimental group. The researchers found that students in the experimental group were able to retain more information than those in the control group. The researchers pointed out that humorous songs did have a â€Å"moderately large effect† (Rafiee, Kassaian and