International SAMANM Journal of Business and Social Sciences

ISSN 2308-2372 January 2014, Vol. 2, No. 1

The Effect of Audio Story Practice on Iranian EFL

Learners' Listening Comprehension Ability

Afshin Ghanimi1, Masoumeh Arjmandi & Ramin Rahimy

Abstract:
This study investigated the effects of audio story practice (task) on EFL learners' listening
comprehension ability at institute level. The research question is that whether the audio
story task enhances EFL learners' listening comprehension ability. The participants were
47 pre-intermediate level students studying at Iran language institute located in Rasht,
Iran. Two groups, the experimental and the control group, were assigned in the study. At
the first step, both groups were administered an OPT to test the homogeneity of the
groups. 24 participants were gone to Control group and 23 to experimental group. In
control group the regular method was used to teach English language. In experimental
group audio story task was applied as a supplementary material to regular classroom
activity. A pre-test on listening comprehension was run to determine the initial level of
participants' listening comprehension ability. Then, both groups received a semester
treatment sessions (6 weeks). The classes met three sessions each week, each session for
90 minutes. Experimental group received 30 minutes audio story task treatment at the end
of a couple of sessions each week (8 sessions a semester). A post-test measure was run to
see whether there is any development in each group' performance after a semester
instruction period. Analyzing the finding of the study showed that there was statistically
significant difference between the experimental and the control group. That is, the
experimental group outperformed the control group in development of the study.

Keyword: Listening, Listening Comprehension, Storytelling, Audio Story, Audio Story

Task.

1 Islamic Azad University Science and Research Branch, Gilan, Iran Department of
English Language. Email: ghanimi_afshin@yahoo.com

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1. Introduction

In modern language teaching and learning, listening has gained its active and communicative
value while, as comes in the literature, it had been neglected for years or less emphasis was laid
on this skill. Due to the technology development, these days the teachers and the researchers
benefit from various listening tools to display tasks in the classroom to hone learners' listening
comprehension ability. Yet students in each level may have problems listening to audio
programs. In order to develop this skill, teachers have sought various strategies and techniques
to teach and receive appealing result. A very demanding one would be audio story task,
designed as supplementary material to language textbooks that can remove the students'
listening problem, up to a point. Nevertheless, listening has remained a difficult skill to teach
students since setting listening task is considered time-consuming and boring if the strategy
itself is problematic to enhance students' level of proficiency. Learning a language, students
may encounter some affective factors such as motivation‚ anxiety‚ self-esteem‚ inhibition and
so forth that let them keep the pace forward or give up and quit the scene unsuccessfully. It
seems the primary step overcoming the barriers would be to understand the language spoken in
a context. If the recipient do not listen attentively, understanding may be undergone some
difficulties interacting in sides. Larsen-Freeman (2000, p. 148) states that, "being able to figure
out the speaker's or writer's intentions is part of being communicatively competent."
According to Richards (2008) earlier views of listening saw it as the mastery of discrete skills
or micro-skills such as recognizing reduced forms of words and so forth. Later views drew on
the field of cognitive psychology, which introduced the notion of bottom-up and top-down
processing and to the role of prior knowledge and schema theory in comprehension. Hence, the
role of the listener as an active participant in listening is emphasized, employing strategies to
facilitate, monitor, and evaluate his or her listening in spoken discourse. Listening stages
(sensation, interpretation, evaluation, feedback), however, precede the speaking skill.
Listening, indeed, captures most of our communication time in comparison with other skills. A
good listener says, can be a good communicator.

Vandergrift (1999) defines listening comprehension as a complex, active process in which the
listener needs to discriminate between sounds, understand vocabulary and grammatical
structures, interpret stress and intonation, retain what was gathered in previous steps, and lastly
interpret it within the immediate as well as the wider socio-cultural context. Therefore, the
listener needs a great deal of mental activity involvement coordinating the steps mentioned.
Listening comprehension is the ability to understand the discourse around. Listening to and

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understanding the input involves a number of processes, depending upon linguistic

competence, previous knowledge, and psychological variables as a link between. Rivers (1981)
believes that "listening is a critical element in the competent language performance of adult
second language learners, whether they are communicating at school, at work, or in the
community."

Listening texts should ultimately be interesting like real-life situations and so should the
technique. To this end, this study based on the research question and hypothesis, attempts to
find out whether audio story task has any effect on developing EFL learners' listening
comprehension ability. Isbell (2002) believes that listening to stories, indeed, draws attention to
the sounds of language and helps children develop sensitivity to the way language works.
Many stories that children practice with include repetitive phrases, unique words, and enticing
description (p. 27). These characteristics encourage students and push them to join in actively
in group work and class activities such as repeating, singing, or even retelling the story. Nation
(2007) also states that "the meaning-focused input strand involves learning through listening
and reading, using language receptively. Typical activities in this strand include extensive
reading, shared reading, listening to stories, watching TV or films, and being a listener in a
conversation." Moreover, Mesri (2012) in her study indicated that there is a statistically
significant effect of video cues compared with picture and tape recorder. The real problem is
that in different English classes students are mostly expected to listen to audio program to do
their listening tasks. Therefore, the researcher intends to find a way to cover this area of
difficulty.

The literature on the teaching and learning/acquisition of listening comprehension suggests

different strategies and techniques to help learners develop this skill. With this respect, the
purpose of this study is to investigate how audio story practice, as a new language or material
to class activity enhance EFL students' listening comprehension ability. Students are interested
in listening to stories, because this follows sequential processing. There is logical and
meaningful link in listening to stories. It makes students understand the learning process better
and enhances students' interest to pursue the listening program. It needs a starting point and the
students are willing to listening what is coming next. Therefore, this can be an effective
technique to enhance students' performance in current listening comprehension program and
also by applying this task they can perform better in their future academic assessments
accordingly. As most academic standard listening tests are designed and administered based on
playing audio program on the day of exam, hence, this study among these techniques,

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investigates how to introduce audio story that can be enjoyable material for the learners, into
EFL classroom practice design to maximize the students' exposure to suitable listening
program. Ellis and Brewster (1991) indicates that "listening to stories develops the child's
listening and concentrating skills" that leads to performing well in listening comprehension
tests. Therefore, the current study aimed to find the answer to the following question:
Will audio story practice as an extra task for a certain period of time affect Iranian EFL
learners' listening ability?
Accordingly, the null hypothesis of the study is as follows:

Audio story practice cannot be an effective technique to enhance students' general listening
comprehension.

2. Literature Review

2.1 Teaching and learning listening

Students' needs and interests to create communications and interactions made them go through
L2 listening along with comprehensive materials to foster inputting that can lead to effective
language learning. Planning what to learn, students need to know what materials they want to
apply whether they want to practice alone or within group. Improving of multimedia
environments for listening comprehension, along with the use of input enhancement
techniques, has brought forth a number of studies investigating ways of presenting audio/video
material to learners. Montero (2012) studies comprehensive materials as an input enhancement
in L2 listening to develop possibility to acquire vocabulary captioned audiovisual material.
Therefore, Language teachers as Chastain (1988, pp. 206-209) says may use a variety of
criteria to direct them in selecting appropriate listening comprehension materials for use in
their classes: authentic materials, difficulty level, types of situations. Hence, the theoretical
framework of the current study turns round the theories of teaching and learning listening using
helpful and catchy materials (AST).

Comparing past approach, in which listening material was frequently based on a series of post-
listening comprehension questions, in modern language teaching teachers can help students
listen more effectively if they spend more time teaching them about purpose for listening
(strategy training). As such, it helps students organize and reflect on their learning (Brown,
2006; O'Malley & Chamot, 1990). Furthermore, since listening is so challenging, teachers need

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to think carefully about making students' activities successful and the content interesting. They
can help students explore a way to lessen the difficulty of listening by training them in different
types of listening: systematic presentation of listening for main ideas, listening for details,
listening and making inferences (Brown, 2006). When students miss one word or phrase while
listening, they might be distracted, stop the task, and lose the link, which seems to be the
reason for showing fear and anxiety (Underwood, 1990). Hence, students' motivation (e.g.
listening to songs, stories) can play significant role in learning listening and soothing the
problem.

Researchers (Bloomfield et al, 2010; Brown & Yule, 1983) stated the literature on the
characteristics argued to affect L2 listening comprehension. However, Rubin (2011) poses five
major factors: text characteristics, interlocutor characteristics, task characteristics, listener
characteristics, and process characteristics. The key concept to effective listening
comprehension lies in activating students' pre-existing knowledge (schemata). According to
Howard (1987) the most important feature of schemata is to have a deep effect on world
perception and language understanding. Then, interpreting the new schema can be achieved by
giving practice on the stages of listening in the classroom. As the relevance between initiating
context and new context is bridged (integration), understanding turns out to be the right
product. Ur (1996, p. 105) says that the objective of listening comprehension practice in the
classroom is that students should learn to function successfully in real-life listening situations
like storytelling. Setting a task is also a helpful device to teach listening.

2.2 Teaching and Developing Listening Comprehension Using Audio Story

Audio tales and stories are effective listening materials for children to develop listening
comprehension ability both in first and second language. Audio stories devised and equipped
by some pictorial and captioned materials to introduce the situation in stages of listening can
have more impacts on listeners. Stories are interesting materials from old days, born with the
nature and date back to the very beginning, narrated, practiced, and taught in real life by
parents to children, to entertain them or give them some lessons of life to know how to behave
in different situations. As such, Children have already formed their schema of what a story is
since early childhood.

Wright (1995) suggests that "surely, stories should be a central part of the world of primary
teachers whether they are teaching the mother tongue or a foreign language." However, they

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can also be used as an effective material for teenagers. Therefore, teachers can introduce
interesting stories to their lesson plan. Some concepts indicate the benefits of the good stories:
1) listening to stories gives us valuable insights into the sense making component of learning
(Engel, 2000); 2) stories are motivating materials for children to go through and experience
new places, learn about various discourses, and improve skills by listening to different sorts
such as tales and legends; 3) stories can facilitate instruction directly through verbal and
indirectly by aiding in the mental construction of a sequence of incidents (Andrews, Hull &
Donahue, 2009); 4) storytelling is a form of the intensive listening or the live listening that can
provide efficient listening material (Harmer, 2004, p. 231); 5) the story-based syllabus can
raise cultural awareness issues and a carefully selected story can give information about life in
target language (Loukia 2006); 6) stories comprise expressions and sentences used in real-life
situations. In fact, images of real-life situations are formed in students' mind listening to
stories; 7) stories display linguistic forms within a context in which it supports comprehension
of the narrative realm (Verdugo & Belmonte, 2007).

The audience has a very important role in storytelling. Baker and Greene (1985) imagine their
mind as a canvas on which the storyteller paints his tale. Oral storytelling involves much
interaction between storyteller and listener. In the audio story task, indeed, we can get benefit
from the native speaker's voice to hone language skills. A listener needs to listen attentively to
get and pick up the hints and tips of the context. In this process, learning skills can be improved
implicitly if the listener listens to different stories in various times. Moreover, a teacher as a
storyteller or as story settler for audio story task should be prepared before settling on a story.
First, he needs to study the content and discourse drawn in the story, then, transfer it orally or
technologically. Doff (1988, p. 204) says that, the recorded material gives a chance for students
to listen to a variety of voices apart from the teacher's, and it is a way of bringing native
speakers' voices into the classroom to remove the difficulty understanding other people.
Matthews-DeNatale (2008) states storytelling and learning inextricably intertwined because the
process of composing a story is also a process of meaning-making. Since the stories provide a
record of students' thinking, teachers can use them in assessing student progress toward
learning goals. Logioio (2010) believes that the inclusion of storytelling in foreign language
education to be highly recommended as a tool to raise intercultural awareness in primary
school. Costenaro (2008) considers storytelling as a psycholinguistic teaching/learning tool,
which can effectively facilitate the acquisition of English as a foreign language by presenting a
story through the main stages of acquisition of English as a first language.

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3. Methodology

This study was designed according to the quasi-experimental approach. The type of research,
here, has been conducted quantitatively. It examined the effects that audio story task had on
early teens' listening comprehension ability, carried out at a language institute.

3.1 Participants

A group of 47 EFL students within the overall age range of 11-15 was labeled in Iran English
Institute. The age of the population of the research was not tested, nor was the gender. The
sample of the population of the study to which the findings of the study can be generalized was
gathered of 120 students in the institute located in Rasht. The participants are in the same level,
taught by the same instructor. Afterwards, they were randomly assigned into two groups based
on the results of an OPT test administered: one control (regular textbook) group and the other
one experimental (audio story) group, each containing 24 and 23 students, respectively. With
regard to the timing of the study, all students participating in the research project received
course book treatment. Both groups shared similar social and cultural characteristics and were
selected as homogeneous in pre-intermediate institute level. However, homogeneity of the
research groups is assured via administering an OPT measurement. The result is evaluated and
analyzed and the outlier data are not included in the final analysis. A pre/post test on listening
comprehension before and after the treatment sessions were administered to show the
homogeneity and heterogeneity of variances. In order to validate this hypothesis on the effect
that audio story task (AST) may have on early teens' listening comprehension ability, the
statistical analysis were carried out through SPSS. The scores achieved in each group were
examined to check that they were normally distributed.

3.2 Instruments

The material for the training or treatment period was an audio story (Stories from the Five
Towns). There are four different stories in the storybook. However, the people and characters
in the story live in the same location with similar social backgrounds. Despite the difficulties
people as working families have, each story ends in a funny notion. Therefore, the students
could be interested in listening and following the link between events in the stories. The form
and content of the language used in the story is appropriate for the learners in pre-intermediate
level (level 2). Some instruments were used in the study to collect and assess research data. An

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OPT test was used for subject selection to present homogeneity of two groups. The listening
proficiency test as pre-test was set to assure the homogeneity of the groups in terms of their L2
listening comprehension proficiency before the treatment sessions get started. Then, the
treatment sessions were conducted. At the end of the treatment period, students in both groups
were given post-test similar to the ones administered in pre-test by which assessments can be
conducted to observe whether the students in experimental group come up with any progress
analyzing the independent sample t-test. The test contains 30 questions. The participants in
both groups are required to perform the tasks according to the context displayed to listen in the
form of recording. The test format was developed using excerpts adopted from New English
File 1 student book published and validated by Oxford University Press designed for pre-
intermediate level as a source. Therefore, the reliability and validity of the listening tasks
selected for the pre/post tests are met in this sense. The questions included the basic forms as
the book itself has designated for listening tasks such as true-false items, multiple-choice items,
and gap-filling items.

3.3 Procedures

Library research was used in this study to pursue data collection procedure. The control group
class met three times a week for 90 minutes. It followed a routine prescribed curriculum, which
included course book (CB) supporting all skills and sub-skills of learning a second language.
The students have been taking the class for a few years. To go to a higher class, they have to
take achievement tests (quizzes, midterm, and final exams). They did not receive any audio
story treatment during the study.

The experimental group, audio story group (AS), meet three times a week for 90 minutes
during a semester (6 weeks treatment) using the same course book as the control group. In
addition to routine textbook, the instructor played audio story out to the students in the last 30
minutes as a treatment during 8 sessions a couple of times a week. Difficult words and phrases
would be explained (using worksheets, pictures, and meanings) if needed, after they listened
for the first time. Moreover, the students were prepared based on the format of listening
procedure during the program. The teacher used the exercises planned in the book to get
learners involved in understanding of the material and evaluate their instant grasp of the story
context. The pre-test and post test were administered based on listening comprehension test
items and the result in SPSS program was analyzed and showed the differences. Factors such
as pre-test, treatment, and post-test were more important ones that included the study and

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individual factors such as age, gender, motivation and interest were not the concern of the
research. The scoring system can be redefined as such: for the OPT test the assessment is based
on its own criteria. The total score of the pre/post tests were 30. One score was assigned for
each correct answer, zero for incorrect or left questions.

4. Findings/discussion

To answer the research question, first the pre/post listening tests results of the control group
after a semester course book treatment were administered. In order to examine the difference
between control group pre/post test results, the descriptive statistics were calculated. According
to the descriptive statistics, the result obtained in the post-test of the control group (mean score
= 23.12) was slightly higher than the pre-test result of the group (mean score = 22.67). In order
to see if there is statistically significant difference, a paired samples t-test was conducted. The
analysis indicated that the difference between the pre-test and post-test results of the control
group was not statistically significant at P-level (p < 0.05): mean difference = 0.46, P (T<=t)
two-tail (sig) = 0.45, P > 0.05

The difference between pre/post test results of the experimental group were calculated in terms
of the descriptive statistics and the means of experimental pre/post test were obtained.
According to the descriptive statistics, the post-test mean of experimental group was higher
than its pre-test mean. While the pre-test mean of experimental group was 22.95, the post-test
mean was 24.91. To see whether this change for better was statistically significant, paired
samples t-test analysis was run on SPSS. As ultimately studied, there was a statistically
significant development in the experimental group after the audio story treatment at p < 0.05
level: mean difference = 1.96, P (T<=t) two-tail (sig) = 0.00097, P < 0.05. Obtaining these
results, it can be concluded that teaching audio story task in the classroom was effective to
improve the listening comprehension ability of the experimental group. Therefore, the null
hypothesis is rejected.

The pre-test means in both groups were somehow the same and so were the levels. According
to the analysis obtained, both groups have performed development after a semester treatment.
The development amount of both groups was calculated and the difference between the
experimental group incretion (1.96) and the control group development (0.46) after treatment
period was confirmed. According to the independent samples t-test results, the development of
the experimental group is higher than that of control group after a semester treatment sessions:

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t (45) = 3.09, P < 0.05 level (two-tailed), P (T<=t) two-tail = 0.000000000000139. This
development undoubtedly was due to audio story task received within an interesting
methodology and space as an extra material to regular classroom instruction.

This section of the study is allocated to depict the characteristics of the scores in experimental
group and control group, respectively. To see whether there was any progress in experimental
group performance after the treatment sessions, the participants' pre-test scores would be
compared to the post-test ones. A paired samples t-test was used to compare the participants'
mean scores before and after the treatment. Table 4.1 shows the data (t-Test: Two-Sample
Assuming Equal Variances):
Table 4.1. The comparison between participants' pre/post test score in experimental group
Score Mean Variance SD t Stat df P(T<=t) two-tail t Critical two-tail
Pre-test 22.95 3.41 1.84 3.53 44 0.00097 2.015
Post-test 24.91 3.63 1.90

Results showed that in experimental group test, there was statistically significant difference
between pre and post test scores after treatment (p= 0.00097). While in control group measure,
there was not statistically significant difference between pre and post test scores (p= 0.76).
Table 4.2 shows the pre/post test results using a paired samples t-test measure (t-Test: Two-
Sample Assuming Equal Variances):

Table 4.2. The comparison between participants' pre/post test scores in control group
Score Mean Variance SD t Stat df P(T<=t) two-tail t Critical two-tail
Pre-test 22.67 4.49 2.11 0.76 46 0.45 2.012
Post-test 23.12 4.20 2.04

In addition to two above tests, using two separate t-tests, the scores of two groups before and
after treatment were compared together and the results showed that there was not meaningful
difference in pre-test scores of two groups (p= 0.62). But, post-test scores of two groups had
significant difference together (p= 0.003).

To see whether the control group and the experimental group were equal in proficiency levels
before the treatment began, the independent mean scores of both groups were compared.
Equality of variances was studied using Leven's test. The p-value turned out to be 0.62 using
independent samples t-test, which is bigger than 0.05. Therefore, the variances were assumed

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as equal and there was no significant difference between the mean scores of two groups. Table
4.3 displays the statistical analysis of equality of variances:

Table 4.3. The comparison between participants' pre-test scores in both groups
Score Mean Variance t Stat df P(T<=t) two-tail t Critical two-tail
Pre-test (Exp) 22.95 3.41 0.49 45 0.62 2.014
Pre-test (Con) 22.67 4.49

Thus, the two groups were considered homogenous in terms of their language proficiency level. The next
step was to compare the mean scores of the two groups after the treatment sessions and to see if there was
any change in the experimental group performance than control group performance administering
listening comprehension post-test items. An independent samples t-test was run to compare the mean
scores in both groups based on post-test results. Since the p-value turned out to be 0.003, which is smaller
than 0.05, therefore, the hypothesis concerning the equality of variances was rejected. Thus, it says, there
was a statistically significant difference between experimental group and control group performance.
Table 4.4 shows the results:

Table 4.4. The comparison between participants' post-test scores in both groups
Score Mean Variance t Stat df P(T<=t) two-tail t Critical two-tail
Post-test (Exp) 24.91 3.63 3.09 45 0.003 2.014
Post-test (Con) 23.12 4.20

Score development index obtained from the difference between pre/post test scores of two
groups showed that experimental group developed participants' scores up to 2 points. While in
control group, the difference between participants' pre/post test scores was only 0.46 that
means two means had strong difference together. Table 4.5 presents the details:

Table 4.5. The comparison between score development index (pre/post test score difference) in
two groups
Score Mean Variance t Stat df P(T<=t) two-tail t Critical two-
tail
Experimental 1.96 0.23 10.42 45 0.0000000000001 2.014
group 0.46 0.26 39
Control group

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In sum, the experimental group had statistically significant development in listening

comprehension performance than control group performance, using audio story task.

5. Recommendation and Suggestion

It is clear that, nowadays, most of the methods applied in the English language teaching
classroom are equipped with audio stories. However, even these days, listening to audio stories
that is a mandatory task to increase pronunciation and listening comprehension skill and doing
the activities designed in the storybooks are likely to be neglected. Therefore, it is implicated
that the teachers are supposed to be trained to supply learners with the multi-dimensional
aspect of audio story task in EFL classroom. As the findings of the present study implies, after
6-week treatment sessions, the experimental group had a statistically significant development
using audio story task as a supplementary material over the control croup performance that the
usual textbook designed for the course was the only material to teach. While the control group
developed listening comprehension ability based on the instruction the participants received
during the period, the experimental group's development was more significant. Therefore, it
can be more demanding for the subsequent classroom activities. A limited period of teaching
methodology is not enough for a language skill to be enhanced. Therefore, to achieve better
results, the training period needs to be extended and then applied for the next steps in different
levels of ELT. For further research, a wide scope of samples can be hired and expanded and
also different proficiency levels can be tested according to research questions to generalize
findings. Moreover, the modern strategies and techniques are required to teach and enhance
language proficiency level, mainly listening skill.

6. Conclusion

With regard to the finding of the study, the hypothesis of the study which targeted the effect of
using audio story task on Iranian EFL learners' listening comprehension ability was rejected.
The results of the t-test confirmed this analysis. The observed t value calculated by the SPSS
was 3.09 while the critical value on the basis of two-tailed significance p-value (0.05) was
determined 2.014 (see table 4.4). According to the research question and hypothesis, the
results of the study can be discussed, here, to clarify the difference between experimental
group and control group performance after a semester (6-week) training sessions. The results
of the study say that there was a significant development in experimental group's listening
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comprehension ability using audio story task after the treatment sessions. This development
can be defined because of the audio story task as a complementary material to classroom
activities. Designing stories to the educational space, as discussed earlier, are considered
helpful. However, audio story is strange a bit at initial step. That is, affecting factors can build
obstacle and barriers to improving language learning and teaching procedure, especially
listening skill. Yet benefiting from the native speakers' performance (stress, intonation, pitch,
and rhythm) is something. Therefore, the teacher actually tried to somehow consider subjects'
feelings and prepared them for the task. On the other hand, the control group using the regular
English class also developed at the end of the project. The development in control group is
undeniable because the learners are expected to improve listening comprehension along with
the other skills after they receive one semester instruction. However, comparing two groups,
the development of the experimental group is statistically more significant than the control
group. Therefore, teaching listening can be integrated with audio story task as an effective
input to improve learners' listening comprehension ability.

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