The effects of online platforms (ELLLO and Speechling) on the listening comprehension of high school ESL students

Resumo

The research was conducted at Unidad Educativa Particular Centebad, located in Nueva Loja (Lago Agrio), Ecuador, over a 12-week period from March to May 2025. Thirty first-year secondary school students participated—sixteen female and fourteen male, with an average age of 15 years—under a quasi-experimental, single-group pre-test/post-test design. This methodological choice was both deliberate and pragmatically justified, as it allowed for a focused examination of change within the group without the ethical complications of random assignment. The results were, by any measure, compelling. Prior to the intervention, the group’s mean score on the listening comprehension assessment stood at 52.1 points. Upon completion of the twelve-week programme, that figure rose to 67.4—representing an average gain of 15.3 points. A paired-samples t-test confirmed that this improvement was statistically significant (t(29) = 19.87, p < .001). Furthermore, the effect size, calculated using Cohen’s d = 2.74, places this outcome in the ‘very large’ category—a finding that goes well beyond statistical significance and speaks to the practical meaningfulness of the intervention. Beyond the numerical gains, students also reported heightened motivation and greater confidence. Indeed, 86.7% of participants rated the platforms as ‘effective’ or ‘very effective.’ These figures demonstrate that when technology is deployed with clear pedagogical intention, the outcomes are both measurable and significant. Data were gathered through a 25-item listening comprehension test (α = .81), an eight-session observation checklist, semi-structured teacher interviews, and a 20-item Likert-scale perception survey. Findings are discussed in relation to current frameworks of metacognitive listening instruction and technology-enhanced language learning.